Harold's Story

[widowmaker]

Took me a few days to get this story started.  Finally erased everything and started all over from the beginning and it turned out to be a much better start this way.  This is a sequel to Sarina and it takes place about 13000 years after she became a goddess.  I introduce a new race in this story as well and I hope you folks like it.

 

HAROLD'S STORY

The day was a normal day for me as I listened in on the healers teaching the new elves that had tested for healing skill. The one who was I charge of this class would not let me attend as he did not like Catari. The only thing I wanted from them was to learn how to heal. I saw nothing so wrong with wanting to heal. I suppose I should tell you some important things about myself.

 

I am a Catari. I am a mix of human and cat. I have a human head but my ears are like those of a cat and stick up above my hair prominently. Most of my body is covered in white fur except my face and most of the fronto of my body until you get down into the groin where there is complete fur coverage. Both arms, both legs, and my feet are covered in fur as well. I have long silver hair that reaches to about halfway down my back.

 

I do have a tail and it is about four feet long and covered in white fur as well. My hands are just like a human's hands are and do not have any claws in them. My legs are like those of a cat and my feet are more like those of a big cat. I have sharp claws in my feet that make it easier for me to climb things and to defend myself in a fight. Another thing I have in common with a cat is a heightened sense of smell and hearing as well as low light sight. Like a cat, I am very agile and can do things no human could ever hope to do.

 

I am not an animal and do wear clothes. I have feelings like anyone does and would like to think I am as intelligent as the next person. My fur does provide camouflage in the snow. My home was high up in the mountains where the snow rarely melts. I came out of the mountains in search of a boy who has been haunting my dreams more and more lately, The elves found me and were nice to me. When I healed one of them who had slipped and fallen they introduced me to some healers who helped teach me everything they could about healing.

 

Unfortunately a new healer took over training the healers and refused to teach a filthy animal as he called me. I am an outsider here so I politely apologized for bothering him and walked off. No sense making a scene and interrupting others who would be far better healers than I ever would be, After three full moons the man had used his influence to make things difficult for me by denying a place to live and denying me the right to have any food that I did not grow or find growing wild.

 

I was listening intently to the man talk about healing when he spotted me hiding in the trees and had me chased off. After this there were guards to make sure I was unable to get to anything in the way of shelter or food. Why he disliked me I do not know. By the time the fourth full moon came around I was on my way out of the glades when I almost ran into him. He saw me and kicked at me. His kick missed me but his words hurt. “Filthy damned animal! Your kind are nothing more than large vermin!”

 

“What did I do to you that was so wrong honored sir? All I wanted was to learn how to heal with my limited magic. I do not want to hurt anyone.” “You are stupid filthy animal no better than a rodent! You think the ability to speak makes you intelligent, but it does not! You are not wanted here! Go back to the mountains before I have you hunted and your hide turned into a new robe for me to wear.” I hung my head and turned to walk away when he snarled at me and blasted me with a spell that knocked me down and left me unable to breathe for a second because of the pain.

 

I was dying and did not bother to try to heal myself. I had been stupid and chased a dream that took me from my home forever. I could not go back as I had been exiled for telling our shaman of my dreams of seeing a human boy and how he made me feel. I was banished the next day. I could have fought to earn a place in my tribe again but they would never accept me as one of them so I left.

 

I had helped an elf and thought that perhaps I could learn healing but that too was not allowed. I lay in the dirt bleeding and my last thoughts were of how I wished I could have become a healer and then met the boy of my dreams and healed him. He was always so sad and always hurting. Another foolish dream. I closed my eyes and waited for death to claim me. I was a mistake. My whole race was a mistake and that is why we hide from the world.

 

A cool and healing energy flowed through my body, repairing the damage done by the spell of the healer that hated me for existing. A strong pair of hands lifted me me up out of the dirt and made sure I was able to stand. The lady looked familiar for some reason. “My thanks honorable lady for healing me.” “It is my pleasure to help those who need help. You have the healing gift so why did you not try to heal yourself?”

 

It would have been better to let me die. One less mistake left for the Great Healer and Great Mother to have to get rid of. I am a mistake. My whole race is a mistake and for that reason we are hated and shunned. It would be better if I had stayed silent and in the mountains where no one sees us and is disgusted by our existence.” “Did you mean it when you said you just wanted to be a healer in order to help others?” “It was a foolish dream honored one. I did not know it was impossible. I know now. Who would want someone like me healing them? It is not even possible for me to learn the skills needed as I am nothing more than a type of vermin according to most and unwanted at best by the rest.”

 

“I see. And what of the human boy you have seen and want so much to heal and help. You see him and feel his pain so much that it hurts you to the center of your existence. What would you give to help him if you could?” Everything, honored one, but it not possible to reach someone that does not exist. I can not even learn how to heal the simplest of hurts so it is best that I leave before I befoul these lovely glades and lovely forests. The old healer is right so I will leave and I promise to never again pollute your lovely realm with my filthy self.”

 

“You are not filthy or a vermin. Making your race was the best error ever made. Every one of you that has ever left the mountains has gone on to help a great many others. As for not being a healer, that is not true. The gift is within you and you need only be shown how to use it. The boy you see all the time and have come out of the mountains looking for can be found and healed by you if you only know how to find him. There is a way to find him if you are willing. Would you give your life to find and heal him? Would you give your very soul to join with him to end his pain?”

 

“Such a thing is not possible. I have no soul. I am nothing but a soulless mistake. A type of unwanted vermin. The healer has proven it to me and thus I leave to where my existence can be easily seen by the gods and erased as it should be. May your days be filled with joy and may your offspring be strong and healthy honorable lady.” I walked out of the forest and onto the plains with destination in mind.

 

Perhaps a half a day of walking the honorable lady walked up next to me. “The old healer is a very bitter man and will be punished for his crimes, as will those who followed him. You are going to do great things dear child. You are not hated and hunted by me or the Great lady. There is a way to meet with the young man and help heal him and possibly even a world. All you need is a guide to help you reach there.

 

I give you these two gifts to help remember that you are far more honorable and than that arrogant fool says. You are a healer so take this second gift as well with you on your journey. The lady gave me a rare gift! A staff made of living silver wood and a seed of a silver wood tree. In front of me the portal opened up to allow me to reach the one whose name I had heard in my dreams since I was a kitten. The lady shimmered and changed appearance as she smiled at me. “Go now little one and heal a pain that is not purely physical and in so doing, heal your own pain.” I had been talking to the Great Healer herself! “Thank you so very much Great Healer!” I heard the boy crying and could not stop myself from walking through the portal to reach him.

 

The old healer was walking back to his place in the glades and trying to decide who to get rid of next so that his rise to more power and control could continue unchallenged. He had a plan to eliminate all those who stood in his way to becoming a king and then once he was king he would lead armies to wipe out the Catari, then the dwarves, and finally, all the dragons and humans on this world. He was startled when he was approached by the most attractive female elf he had ever seen.

 

“I heard and saw what you said and did to Alari. Long have I watched you alongside the Great Mother in the hopes you would give up your lust for power but even now you scheme for ultimate control by murdering any who stand up to you or even question you. You desire to destroy all others who are not like you! You are not an elf! You are a varda and as such I send you to where you may scheme and void plot forever and not hurt another!”

 

“Great Healer! I only meant to do what your bidding! The others are mistakes!” “They are not mistakes! You have listened to the darkness and believed in your own lies until you are no longer an elf. The darkness in you is hungry for more and will never be satisfied! You have forsaken everything it means to be a healer!” The elf screamed in pain as every last bit of his minor healing talent was stripped from him and his ability to send thoughts across the void of space and into dark planes of existence was burned out of his brain. The darkness opened up all around him and swallowed him as he screamed and fell into it.”

 

The darkness had been removed and now the healing of those he had twisted and used against their desires could be healed. Sarina smiled as she walked along the pathways and healed all those who had been hurt by the power greedy healer turned Varda. His healing talent she held onto while his thought sending was destroyed to prevent it from ever harming another. Within minutes all had been healed and she simply faded from the glades again to continue her watching and subtle guiding from outside.

 

The great Mother smiled as she returned to her side. “A most terrible place to send that Varda. It is sad to think he succumbed to the darkness when he had so much he could have offered to others. I think that he may yet have left a last gift to offer someone. There she is! This gift of healing will be put to good use by her. Now we sit and let things play out for now. We can only hope that what comes to be helps all.”

 

It is never fun getting up and going to school when you know that the bullies are just waiting to pick on you some more. As much as I have tried to stay quiet and not upset anyone I am still a target for their idea of fun. They shove me into walls, steal things from me, call out insults to me, and even beat on me. They do this and laugh at me thinking it makes them superior to them. Go ahead and try fighting back. Eight, nine, or even ten against one makes for a very one sided fight.

 

They have their reasons for picking on me. I am short for my age and always have been. I have no family anymore as my mother has decided that she no longer wants me around. My father left before I was born and mother refused to tell me who he was. Most of the people in this village do not like me because my ears are slightly pointed. The final thing that makes me an unwanted thing is the fact that I am incontinent thanks to my mother.

 

I was beaten almost to death one night when she was unable to find her bottle of whiskey. She accused me of hiding it from her and did not believe me when I told her I did not know where it was. The beating for lying to her caused severe damage to my body and I lost control of when my body clears itself of waste, thus putting me into diapers for life.

 

Since the elves are widely held as responsible for the great storm that swept across the world leveling cities and throwing us back into the stone ages for thousands of years my slightly pointed ears point out that at some point in time my family had mated with elves. I did not ask to be born with these ears or to have a mother who wanted nothing more than to stay intoxicated all the time.

 

With no place to call home I stay at the one place that no one cares about. There is an old temple on a small hill just outside town that no one remembers much about and this is where I spend my time. It is only a couple of rooms and not very warm in the cold weather. The gardens I planted give me some food and I hunt for the rest.

 

My diapers are provided by the village in order to pacify whichever god the temple serves. They are superstitious fools and believe that giving me diapers, clothing and school supplies will appease the gods and prevent their wrath. I have such a wonderful existence. I am almost 16 now and even the girls pick on me and bully me.

 

Most of the girls think it's funny, but there are a few who treat me nice enough. I have a crush on one but it is forbidden by village law for then to do much with me beyond walking me to the temple and dropping off supplies for me to in order to appease the gods. The one girl I want is not allowed to be near me outside of what is required in school. Her father has tried several times to have me banished but since I have broken no laws they will not do so.

 

I have one small talent and I use it to keep the old temple from falling down. I can shape stone. With this talent I have repaired the main building itself and created a place underneath it to stay when the weather is cold or it is raining. The fire pit in the center of the room gives me light and heat. A chimney of sorts vents smoke to outside. What little I own is in this place where it will not be damaged by the elements. I even have a small stone sculpture of the one I have seen in my dreams for several years now.

 

Making the sculpture was not easy as I made it to show her fully clothed. I see her in my dreams and she is always so sad that it makes me want to reach out and try to help her. If only she was real then I would have someone to ease my loneliness and perhaps help ease the ache I feel every day. I shake my head and set the statuette down. She is very beautiful so I know she is not real. Anyone that pretty could never be real and if they were, they would not want a thing to do with me.

 

The light coming in through the opening told me it was time to get up and change then go to school for another day of being bullied for existing. The small stone pool out behind the temple may have had some use long ago but now it serves as a place for me to wash myself once a day until it freezes over in the winter. Perhaps I should make a hidden place for the water to collect and not freeze over when it is

not winter outside.

 

The water was cold today and winter is not far off. It was time to start thinking of getting more meat and harvesting the food plants so that I do not starve in the winter. I washed up, changed, and then got dressed. My school work was collected and I then went to school. Before leaving the shrine I sent a small prayer of thanks to whichever god was listening for allowing me to stay here and to live yet another day.

 

It had rained during the night so the streets were muddy and difficult to walk in without getting filthy. I stood on the bottom step and caught sight of Tammy Barnes as she walked past. As is normal, I did not try to catch up to her or speak with her. Once everyone was past I walked on to the school with my head bowed down low so as to not look at anyone and risk angering them.

 

I have never said a word to anyone outside of school since I was thrown out at the age of nine to fend for myself. Speaking to anyone will draw unwanted attention to me and then the bullies will decide it is time to teach me a lesson so I never forget my place. I carry my books and spare diapers in a leather bag I made from left over hides I tanned myself. It is good enough to keep the water and dirt off of them as it has a flap that covers the top and a strap that allows it to be hung over a shoulder and carried.

 

Mr Payne is my history teacher and he does not like me because of my ears. He hates anyone who is different. No one knows of my ability to shape stone and it is better that they do not as it would give him yet another reason to hate me. Several times during the morning class he makes it clear the all other races are inferior to humans and that they are to blame for the wild magic storm that almost destroyed us all.

 

“The elves died on the great storm they conjured against us. Their unholy and filthy allies were dragged into hell when the magic they used to try to destroy us angered the gods. The dwarves, dragons, and filthy elves were wiped out by the gods and we were punished with the storm for not having the courage to stand up and wipe them out! The storm has left it's mark on the world to remind us that we must be ever vigilant and not ever let the foul abominations grow so numerous ever again.

 

The gods took our knowledge of many great things from us as a punishment for and we have worked hard to recover what we lost and to stay pure. We do not let those who are impure consort with the rest of us who are pure and superior in mind and body to those who are not.” Mr. Payne lectures us like this every day for nearly an hour and on several occasions has used me as a scapegoat for anything he can think of.

 

I sit at the back of the classroom and stay silent. It would do no good to anger him further against me. Just my existence alone is enough to cause him to hate me. Every day he gives me extra school work to do while letting everyone else do next to nothing in the way of schoolwork. Last week he made me change my diaper in front of everyone and went out of his way to tell the class that my impure thoughts so angered the gods that they had my control removed to make me even more closely resemble an animal that I would one day become.

 

Tammy was the only girl who chose not to tease me. When the others tease me about being different she never does. I like her. She is pretty and nice to me. Still, I never try to speak to her outside school and when in school I only speak to her as much as required. This keeps most the bullies from getting the wrong idea about me trying to flirt with her.

 

During lunch I eat a few pieces of dried venison and wash it down with water from a water skin I made. As usual the bullies found me sitting at the far end of the school grounds under a tree where it was hard to see me due to tall grass being high enough to block me almost completely from view. Liked this place for the numerous rocks of varying color and size. Some would come home with me and be turned into small statuettes or into other decorative items.

 

I had a bowl, knife, fork and spoon made entirely from smooth stone I had shaped. There was even a comb back at the shrine that had been made this way. It allowed me to comb my hair. All the things they try hard to teach the others in afternoon classes I already do on a daily basis. My afternoon teacher is Mr. Marks. He does not seem to hate me and has told the others several time to leave me be. It is the one course that gives me high marks. The rest give me low marks regardless of how well I do.

 

“Next week we will be testing all of you on your skills and then after that we go on to talents and how to use them. So far only three of you will get high marks this year from me in survival. Tammy, Tony, and Harold all receive high marks for survival skills. The rest of you need to work harder to bring your marks up. If all of you were forced to survive on your own then most of you would not live through a single season let alone several years of being on your own with no outside help.”

 

Once afternoon classes were over everyone left to go home. I made a stop for the second time today to change before going back to my hole in the ground. Today was another normal day. The bullies caught up with me and started pushing me around like normal. It did no good to try to fight them. Nine of them this time and a fight would result in broken bones again and a long and painful trek to the healing pools at the far end of the shrine's huge courtyard.

 

The biggest of the bunch was Brad Johnson. His father was the village chief so he was above the rules. “I think those ears need to be shaved down! Whadaya think guys? Should we cut the elf lovers ears off to help remind him of his place?” Brad laughed as the others held me so that he could could maim me. He held the knife against my throat and laughed. “Maybe we should get rid of the freak instead! Cut it's throat and throw it's filthy remains in the big garbage pit!”

 

Brad laughed as he cut my left ear and I screamed in pain. A fire seemed flash through me and he only laughed about it. No one tried to help me or save me or even tell them to leave me alone as Brad cut off the tops of both of my ears then carved the word freak deep into my forehead. When he was done his friends laughed at me and then let me go after he punched me in the stomach.

 

I was a bloody mess as I staggered to the shrine and up the stairs while bleeding badly. I had a difficult time staying awake and on my feet. I barley made it to the healing pool before passing out. I woke up later with my head screaming at me. Both me ears hurt horribly and I was so weak I could barely stay awake

 

My clothes were a mess but I hurt too much to care. It took me three more tries to reach the healing pool. I kept passing out after only a few feet. On the fourth try I crawled into the healing pool. The pool took nearly a week to heal me and keep me from bleeding to death. When I crawled out of the pool I was starving and weak from blood loss as well as not having eaten in a few days.

 

Crawling to my hole in the ground shelter took a while but I did finally make it. I ate slowly and drank water a few sips at a time. This helped to keep me from getting sick. I still had barely any strength and changing myself wore me out. I ate through most of my stores of food in a week but finally felt my strength slowly returning. I was missing a lot of classes but they would not care since they did not want me there to begin with. No one wanted me anywhere. My own mother even hated me and had thrown me out seven years ago to figure out how to survive on my own.

 

All of this hatred towards me for something that I had no control over. I had not asked to be born with ears that were slightly pointed. When the last of my food was gone I went out hunting and by the end of the day I had killed a good sized buck. The meat would feed me for a while and make it so I would not starve. As for the village, they could all go jump off a cliff for all I cared.

 

When all of their old stone work started falling apart due to a lack of repairs they would have to figure out themselves how to work without me fixing things in the night for them. I reshaped the stone stairs and now instead of being smooth steps up the hill they were now covered with sharp points sticking up except for the last two stairs where people dropped off things to appease the gods. Anyone but me would have a difficult time getting up the stairs.

 

The rocky soil all around the hill now sported thousands of spikes sticking up from the ground No one was going to be able to sneak up on me and hurt me ever again. To help me stay clean I expanded my hole in the ground as I called it. I now had a large pool big enough to swim in if I desired. Increasing the size of my smoker allowed me to get all the meat smoked in about three days.

 

Without having any desire to ever see anyone ever again I spent my time perfecting my stone shaping skills. The shrine was carved from stone and with that being the case I worked hard on repairing it and making it look new. At night I would clear a pathway for me and go to collect whatever they left behind to appease the gods and prevent me from polluting their perfectly pure village. They left diapers, clothes, food, and a box that made me suspicious.

 

I took everything up and put it into my hole in the ground then went back and carried the box up. With everything up the stairs I turned the stairs into spikes once more. The box was set in the middle of a flat stone area where nothing could be harmed if it exploded. Standing a ways back I made the stone on two sides slowly raise the lid up off the box. A venomous snake made its' way out of the box and then slithered off into the woods a short was off. The rest of the box was empty.

 

They had tried to kill me so fine. They wanted me dead then they would learn what it meant to try to kill me. I diverted the water in the stream outside town by shaping a bunch of stone into a trough that sent the water off into a swamp a short distance away. With maybe two hours before the first of them woke up I fixed the bridge for them. Both sides of it were now solid stone walls and did not bridge the small canyon that ran through the center of the town.

 

Dawn came and found me watching them find all the presents I had left for them. They wanted me dead then they would pay the price for it. They found the bridge first as it was obvious. The next thing they found was that their stream was now nothing but mud without any water flowing through it. To give them a clue as to who left them this present I left a picture in stone on the walls that were the bridge.

 

They showed a box with a snake leaping out of it to strike a person opening it. With no water and no way out of their little village they could figure out how to survive. They had tried to kill me so I returned the favor. The only people not harmed by my work were those who chose to live a ways outside the village and farm the land. Those folks had never said one unkind word to me and had even given me fruit when I passed by on rare occasion.

 

I watched them run around in fear and confusion for a while then walked back the shrine for a change and some much needed sleep. They could figure out on their own how to live for a week with no bridge and a stream bed full of mud. I will not be a victim again. It surprised me to find Tammy waiting for me at the base of the stairs to the shrine where I lived.

 

“You know, a lot of people are not too happy right now with what you did. They'll live if you give them back everything in a few days. Do them good to realize that the world doesn't revolve around them. I saw you working hard on all of it last night. I take it someone tried to kill you with a poisonous snake in a box?” “I will not give them back their bridge or their water. They let me get mutilated and almost bleed to death then send me a poisonous snake in a box hoping it will kill me! They can all die for all I care!”

 

She sighed and then looked at me again. “I'll die a lot sooner if you don't at least let me have a large pool to swim in. I have not gone swimming in nearly a month. Starting to hurt and if I don't get wet soon it will be too late for me. Please, I had no idea they did all this to you.” I've always had a soft spot for Tammy. I opened up a pathway up the stairs and let her follow me up before I turned it to sharp spikes again.

 

“Why do you need to swim so badly? I have let you come this far so I would like an honest answer.” “Because, like you, I am different.” She relaxed and her face changed a bit. She held up a hand and it had webbing in between the fingers. Her eyes were now almost completely black with a small circle of silver in the center of them. She lifted up the side of her shirt to reveal gills along her rib cage.

 

“I have a place just keep it quiet about what you see here. I do not want those fools knowing anything about what is up here.” She followed me into one of the smaller shrine structures then down a set of stairs to the large chamber I had created as my home. I stirred up the coals and put some wood into the four big elevated stone pots for fire. She saw the large pool and began stripping her clothes off as she ran for the pool of water. She was nude by the time she reached the pool and dived in.

 

she swam for some time then went silent which worried me. I thought she had gotten hurt somehow. I looked into the pool and she was on the bottom of the pool yawning and half asleep. She saw me and came up. “I like this pool! You set it up to filter out all the junk that could make anyone ill and trust me, that helps a lot! Can I stay here tonight? In the pool? I'm exhausted and need to sleep. I wont drown. I can breathe underwater just as well as I do above water.” I thought a moment. Will it help you if you sleep here?”

 

“Normally I sleep in the he hidden pool in the basement of my home but there is no water in it now so this is what I need. It will help save me a lot of problems.” “You can stay as long as you like. You have always been nice to me and stood up for me.” She grabbed me and kissed me deeply then went under the surface ans promptly settled down. A few moments later she was asleep. I like her but she confuses me.

 

I yawned and went to my supply of diapers and then changed before laying down and going to sleep myself. I had the same dream as always. The same cat like girl that I found so attractive was there and it seemed like she was looking for something as she walked through a tunnel of some kind with a staff that seemed to glow a little as she walked in the darkness. It is frustrating to dream of someone and not ever be able to meet them. Somehow I knew her name and called out to her as she walked. “Alari.” Her head shot up real fast and she looked around as if she had somehow heard me. “You are as lovely as ever and I wish you were real and here with me.”

 

She held up the staff and it glowed brightly. It seemed to be doing something but I woke up about that time because the room was suddenly brighter than it had ever been before. Out of the brightness something white and furry tackled me to the floor and began kissing me. “I found you! I finally found you! After all my searching I have finally found you!” She stopped kissing me and when I got a look into her deep blue eyes it was like something exploded inside of my head.

 

A single name echoed in my head begging to be spoken aloud. “ Eerlerias” She smiled and kissed me then spoke aloud as well. “ Taleria” Something took us over for the moment and we spoke the exact same thing at the exact same time. “You are mine. I am yours. We are one.” Nothing more needed to be said as we collapsed to the furs and within a few minutes we were making love.

 

How long we spent making love I do not know or care. She was here! She was real! She had done what I had never thought to be possible to happen to me. We had bonded the moment we looked into each others eyes. It took all my energy to get a clean diaper on before falling asleep in her embrace. I had a million questions, but they could wait until I was awake and could think straight. I snuggled into her embrace and let being near her give me comfort.

 

“Harold, I hate to wake you but I can't get down the stairs without hurting myself unless you fix them for me.” I woke up and stretched then set up to reveal a very beautiful beautiful cat girl from my dreams laying naked in the furs next to me. Tammy saw her and was surprised to say the least. Oh Harold! She's lovely! I can see why you stay here now! I was worried you would never find someone special and here you not only find someone special but someone so very pretty as well!”

 

Alari stretched and yawned. She sat up and saw Tammy. “I'm sorry if we woke you last night. I'm Alari.” Tammy laughed. I was too tired to care about anything last night. I got into the pool and after that I was out cold at the bottom sleeping. Harold was nice enough to let me use his pool to let me swim and then sleep last night.” Alari and Tammy hit it off instantly while I got my clothes on after changing real fast.

 

“So you have to swim at least once a month or you get sick and then die?” “Yes. We moved here from the ocean when disease took our village. We meant to move on but ended up staying here. My father carved out a stone pool beneath our house and when it fills with water it is enough room for me to rest in and stay strong. Until this morning I have been so busy that there has been no chance to swim for some time.”

 

We walked out of my underground home into the mid day sun and blinked until our eyes adjusted to the light. Alari saw my poorly healed ears and gasped. “How did this happen?” It does not matter. It is done and can not be undone. It was a lesson hard learned and will not be forgotten.” I cleared a path for Tammy to safely reach the bottom of the stairs. “If you need to use that again let me know. I will gladly let you use it to stay healthy.” Tammy hugged me and kissed me on the cheek. “Alari, Take care of him for me! Don't lead him on and hurt him for fun. If you ever do that I will come and take him from you in a heartbeat and then half kill you!”

 

“You have a good and kind friend, Harold. Perhaps she will tell me what happened to your ears since you will not.” “He was attacked and mutilated by Brad and some of his friends who thought it funny to teach him a lesson for simply existing and looking a little different than everyone else! Tell her or I will!” I told Alari every detail of the attack and then how they had later sent a poisonous snake to me in a box to try to kill me.

 

She looked around at the people in the village then turned to me and spoke up. “They're frightened. They don't have water and they can't easily get across the small canyon without a bridge. How many of these people have infants? How many of them have children?” I thought about it a moment and sighed. I was so angry I did not think about how it could hurt even those who were innocent. I'll fix it back but if they attack me again it will be the last time I ever help them out with anything.”

 

I waited with Alari until nightfall before going out and restoring the water then rebuilding the bridge. As a way of apologizing for frightening them I made the bridge even stronger and much fancier looking. The rock wall was made to flow into the supports of the bridge and thus make it strong enough to support anything they could roll over it. I changed things around on the water flowing through the stream by making the water flow through numerous rocks and sand that filtered out a lot of junk out of the water.

 

Alari stayed by my side the entire time I shaped all the stone. The well in the center of the town had always been troublesome for them so I dumped a bunch of rocks into it and then began using the rocks to reshape the inside of the well. Once done it would not collapse on them again. Water from the stream flowed into the well now through a small tunnel made entirely of stone. Alari helped me climb back out of the well and make it back to my hole in the ground home.

 

Once back in my underground home she changed me and then held me as I slept. I woke up with her holding me gently and it made me reluctant to get up again. With her holding me I almost fell asleep again. I forced myself to wake up so I could change myself. Alari woke up and watched me as I changed into a dry diaper. The day was half way gone but I could go out and find out their thoughts on my work.

 

I had no intention of telling them that all the stone work was done by me. I was not looking for attention. If they stopped the bullies and were nice to me I would continue to help them discreetly. I was not trying to act superior to anyone and did not want to be considered as superior to anyone. Alari did not bother to hide how she looked as she walked with me to go gather some more berries from out in the woods.

 

Alari is very beautiful and every guy stared at her as we walked past them quietly. Brad and three of his friends spotted me as I was walking towards the bridge. “Hey there pretty lady! Why you hanging out with this freak? Ditch the freak and I'll show you a good time!” We ignored Brad when every part of me wanted to hurt him.

 

“I do believe I told you to never come back again freak! Guess you need to be taught a lesson about being where you are not wanted freak! Alari stepped in front of me and growled a feline type growl at Brad and his friends. “You don't want to defend this freak pretty lady! We'll take care of him and then you can join me for a while and I'll show you a good time!” “You will not hurt my life mate! I will hurt you if you try to hurt Harold! Do not try it!”

END PART ONE

That's it for part one of this story.  I have an idea where this one will go eventually and we will see how far off the rails it jumps and where it goes from my original idea for the story.  Thank you for reading this.  All comments and questions are welcomed.

[kerry]

Hmmm...
Honestly, this one feels far too similar to the other one. Maybe it's heading in a new direction, but I feel I've already been here...

[Jayme]

It seems the Varda never stop.

[widowmaker]

this story runs along similar lines for a little bit to get things set up and will soon begin to change course and go off in another direction.  I have two ideas to am thinking of and will decide which one to use as a direction to send this story towards.  I plan on changing gears somewhere in chapter three and heading towards my eventual story end.  The first two set up the background a bit and explain a few minor things.  In chapter three I plan to make some major changes.  Just have to figure out which story idea to go with.  Leaning heavily towards one idea in particular as the other one would be too close to the first story in a lot of ways.

 

I have an idea!  I'll let you guys decide which idea to go for.  Idea 1.  a reunification of the races with the elves, dwarves and dragons returning.  Or idea number 2.  Alari and Harold help to form a new city where all sorts of others with unusual talents are welcomed.

Either idea will have difficulties for both of them along the way.  So which would you good folks like to see?"

[Jayme]

I'm not sure if this is an option but how about both, where the races get along in a new city. If that doesn't work how about option 1?

[Clr224]

Given that the other races are currently living in paradise (at least that’s what can be presumed from the ending of the previous story), why would they return to what is either purgatory or hell?  With the current state of affairs, it would seem that the racial intolerance is worse that ever in this world.  Their return would only aggravate that situation.  With nudges from possible missionaries from the other world, this world might develop into a more tolerant civilization. So, option 2 seems to be the more plausible story line.

[docein]

By the way,  I love the world building in your writing,  keep writing.  In asking your question on which way you 'should go.   A possibility that going with idea 2 and flushing that out, would then possibly lead to idea 1 as natural end outcome. Especially with a bit of "guidance counseling " from the Great Healer and the Great Mother.  Love the interaction with the "Greats".   Just my thoughts

[widowmaker]

Okay folks, here is chapter two.  Thank you for the replies to how you think the story should end.  I hope you like this chapter.

PART TWO

Brad started laughing. “The gods must really hate you if they bonded you to that diaper wearing freak! You gonna go and wear baby diapers with him too? Too bad the gods hate you! Hold her while I deal with the freak. We can take her and have some fun when we finish with the freak!” Three of his friends tried to grab her and found themselves on the ground in a hurry. Brad reached out for me and for once I fought back. Alari kept his three friends knocked down while I proceeded to beat the hell out Brad.

 

Brad had it easy and had not been forced to live off the land since he was nine. Brad found out the hard way that in a fair fight against me that he was not as tough as he wanted to believe. By the time I was done with Brad he was unable to even stand and was coughing up blood. I picked up a big rock and shaped it into a dagger in front of him.

 

“I could slam this into you right now and kill you! No one would blame me! Maybe I could slide this across your throat and watch you drown and choke on your own blood! You are a coward and will not fight me one on one! Now I see why you don't fight one on one! You are not worth killing! I never had any desire to hurt you or anyone! I only wanted to do what I could to fit in and work hard to help everyone!

 

So what if one of my ancestors was bonded to an elf! It only means that one of my ancestors and an elf loved each other very much! If loving a person who is different is bad then so be it! I wont stoop to your level and kill you! I will let you live and hope one day you grow up.” I took the stone dagger and changed it's shape to look like a bust of Alari then presented it to her as a present. She took it smiled and then kissed me.

 

“Can you heal him? I don't want to deny his elderly grandfather his only helper.” Alari let the other three up and they took off running. “Lay still while I heal you.” Brad flinched when he got a close look at her face. It took her a few minutes to heal him from the beating I had given him. Once he was healed up completely he got up and ran away from us in fear.

 

“It was very tempting for a moment to kill him. I looked at him laying there on the ground like he had done to me so many times. I saw the fear in his eyes when I made that dagger. I refuse to be like him! I will not do that to anyone! I don't care if that makes me weak!”

 

Alari held me as I cried for a few minutes. “It makes you stronger, not weaker. Anyone can hurt a defenseless person. You showed him what he was and showed him that there is another way. Asking me to heal him and then telling him to go home and grow up is not weakness! You proved to him and to yourself that you are a not a bully. You also proved to him that he is not as strong as he likes to think he is. It will be a long time before he tries to fight you one on one again.”

 

Alari's ears and her feet were in full view of everyone, along with her long white tail. There was no doubting that she was not human. We drew stares from everyone as we walked over the bridge and then towards the forest. No one stopped us as we walked into the forest and gathered numerous berries that I would use in small pies with other edible plants. I would boil the fruit and then add what little sugar I had to them and once mixed together I would create a number of small pies that could be baked in my small stone oven then taken with me when I would go hunting.

 

It was nearly sunset when we returned to the village to find the bridge blocked. Brad and all of his friends stood with knives in their hands blocking the bridge. “You got real lucky that she saved you! She's not gonna save you this time freak! We're gonna cut you up into pieces and feed them to the fish! Then we're going to have us some real fun with that pretty little freak girlfriend of yours! Get him!”

 

Alari blasted them each and sent them flying backwards a good six feet. “I warned you before that I will not allow you to hurt him! Consider this a friendly warning! Next time I will hurt you.” They got up and were reluctant to leave until the bridge under them started to open a hole in front of them. The hole started moving towards them and they ran off in fear of falling through the bridge and to their deaths.

 

Once we were almost to the stairs going up the hill to the shrine a group of angry people called out for us to stop. “Both of you stop! You have some serious explaining to do!” Brad's father was leading the group of six others and they all looked like they wanted to see me dead. “You have been consorting with foul demons and using dark magic! There are witnesses to this! What have you to say?” “That you are fools? I have not consorted with any demons! I have not used any dark magic as such a thing does not exist!”

 

“The proof of your crimes stands right next to you! Do you deny that it is not human?” “You just now figured that out? You people really are slow!” They did not look happy to hear me making them look like a bunch of old fools. “The penalty for consorting with demons and for using dark magic is to be burned alive in a cage over a fire! Perhaps this demon has clouded your mind! Say it is so and we will burn the thing and free you from it's evil intentions!”

 

I shook my head sadly. “You are all of you a bunch of paranoid and delusional idiots! You have not changed in all the time I have been forced to live alone and outside of your society! Anything you don't understand you are quick to call demonic and evil! Alari is not evil or a demon! You have forced me to live in a run down shrine by myself all because one of my distant ancestors dared to love an elf and have children by that individual! You let my own drunken and delusional mother throw me out and disown me all because of the shape of my ears!

 

I have been denied the right to attend the life mate seeking ceremony and the right to talk to much of anyone about anything! I have been beaten and almost killed by your own son! One of you put a poisonous snake in a fancy box and left it as an offering, knowing full well what would happen when the lid was opened! You let Brad and his friends cut my ears half off and did nothing to stop them! I nearly died from that!

 

You are all a bunch of idiots with no thought of anyone but yourselves! Anything different is bad simply because you don't understand it! The one time I finally stand up for myself after years of abuse and you want to burn me alive! You are too afraid of someone being able to do something you can't control and bend to your own selfish desires! I have fixed your well, returned your water to you and improved the bridge without asking for any reward! Several times I have dropped off a fresh killed and field cleaned deer to those of you in need of food when the hunters were unlucky!

 

I finally find someone I love and stand up for myself and you want to kill her and punish me! You are all of you fools! Magic is not dark or light! It is how you use it that is dark or light! Alari is from another place and she is not a demon you idiots! You only came running here to accuse me of stupidity because his son and the other bullies tried and failed to kill me and rape Alari! I have traded my talent fairly for things I need! I have stayed out of sight and stayed quiet! I have even stopped attending the school since Brad and his friends tried to kill me and almost succeeded!

 

You are all of you fools if you let your own fears rule you! Think on what this place would be like if I chose to turn my talent against you! None of you could stop me! I don't want to hurt anyone! I don't even hate Brad and his friends! I don't think highly of their bullying but I don't hate them, or anyone!” I went on to tell them of every deer they found hanging from a tree and field cleaned when they had poor hunts. They learned of every house that was found repaired overnight. Every time the well was found repaired and every time the bridge was repaired after it had been almost wiped out by wild magic storms.

 

“I have traded fairly with you and would like to continue to do so! If you insist on hurting Alari then I will find another way to trade for the few things I do need! Instead of jumping to conclusions and foolishly accusing me of wrongdoing why not simply listen to my side of things for once? Just because someone is different does not make them evil!

 

I am tired and need some sleep. I have an idea that may settle some of these issues and maybe calm things down a bit. We can all meet tomorrow at the base of the steps to the shrine. Alari and I can explain things to you and answer your questions. The sun is almost gone for today and I think a bit of sleep would do us all some good. I give you my word of honor that I have no harmful intentions planned unless you count sleeping as being harmful. I think that tomorrow around high sun we should all of us meet and talk. Invite everyone who wants to know the truth.”

 

They were too surprised to even say anything as Alari and I made our way back to the the shrine. “Great Mother give me strength!” Alari laughed. “It is never easy dealing with people afraid of their own shadows. Those men also have power they are afraid of losing as well so they fear anything different that might take that power away from them. They keep others in line through the use of fear.”

 

“Tomorrow I hope we can ease some of those fears with some truth. Perhaps if they learn that just because something is different does not make it bad. If we work together and use those differences then who knows what we can achieve. I hope I can make those old fools see this. They are so damned stubborn about changing it is stupid. This village is going to have to learn to adapt or they will be wiped out by the first unexpected thing that comes their way.”

 

Alari hugged me. “My own people are almost as bad. It is only within the last 100 years that we learned that the elves could be trusted not to hunt us down and kill us. Although there was one man who wanted all other races dead and he was an elf. All it seems to take is one manipulative and greedy individual to make a mess of things for everyone. Perhaps if we throw some light into the dark corners and show them they have nothing to fear they will stop jumping at their own shadows.

 

For now there is one more important task for the night. I need you, and I need you now.” We made love for quite some time after that. When we were finished I changed and we fell asleep holding each other. I held her close to me and she held my arm in place as we slept together. It has only been a few days since we met but she has changed my life for the better. I would never want to go back to the life I had before she came to me. Losing her would just about kill me. She completes me.

 

When the morning light finally woke us I got up and rinsed off before putting a clean diaper on. Alari washed off as well by simply jumping onto the pool then climbing back out and shaking the water off of her fur. “How do you keep from freezing when you do that?” She laughed and grabbed a robe she had brought with her when she came. “My people come from high up in the mountains where there is always snow on the ground. This water is nicer than the snow baths we take to stay clean in the mountains. Most of us wear barely any clothing as our fur keeps us warm enough.”

 

“How far away are the mountains you lived in?” “Farther than we could ever walk. The elves, dwarves, and the dragons are 10.129 billion light years from here. If we moved as fast as light does it would take 10.129 billion years to reach the world I come from. I came through a portal created by the great Healer herself in search of you. I have been seeing you since I was a kitten. You were always so sad and and so full of pain. You called out to me and I followed your call straight to you!

 

I know it sounds like a fever dream but it is the truth. I have been in love with you from the first time you appeared in my dreams! Only a strong soul bond could have guided me to you! We are meant for each other and I would not change that for anything!” Alari sat with me out in the sunlight as prepared the berries for cooking. She explained everything about her home and her journey to find me.

 

I in turn told her everything about my life and how I had been abandoned by my own mother simply because of my ears. As she heard me tell of all the bullying that had been done to me she frowned. “You traded fairly with them for the few things they have supplied for you. All the repairs and all the hunting for them and this is how they thank you. By trying to kill you. These people are insane!”

 

At least now we know how Tammy always manages to have fresh fish to trade. Does she too live alone?” As far as I know of she lives with her father. He is very protective of her and I can understand why. Her talent would frighten them more than mine does so she keeps it hidden real well.” Alari was silent a moment. “I wonder how many others are out there in this world that are different from everyone? Just think what a single village full of those types pf people working together could create!”

 

I smiled. I would love to see a place like that! A place where differences are accepted and respected! Everyone using their unique talents to help ensure that no one gets hurt and that knowledge never gets lost. A village for all the outcasts like us.” Alari kissed me. “Maybe one day we can make a place like that. A place for everyone willing to work hard and contribute for the good of all.”

 

We spent the rest of the morning cooking up various fruits and getting them ready to be put into pies that could be taken with a person and serve as snacks to help keep you going when you did not have time for a full meal. Alari was fascinated by the entire process. “I never knew you could make something like this! Back home we usually ate our kills raw as fire was hard to create and gave away your location.”

 

Most of the work done by mid day so I took the cooked fruit and created a lid to keep bugs out of it while it cooled. With the mix cooling Alari picked up her staff and followed me as I walked to the stairs leading out of the shrine complex and down to the main city at the bottom of the hill. The area was full of people wanting to see what was happening and who this demon was that had clouded my mind.

 

People close enough to see the stairs were surprised when the spikes melted back into the stairs as if they had never been there. I came down the stairs with Alari right by my side. I was nervous and expected someone to try something stupid. The town council was waiting for me and stepped back a bit when the spikes in the stairs melted back into the stairs. Brad's father was the first to speak up. Harold! You stand accused of consorting with demons and using dark magic! Renounce your evil magic and give us the demon!”

 

“I will not hand over Alari! She is not a demon! Alari is my life mate! She crossed the void between worlds to find me! There is no such thing as Dark magic!” Another one of the elders spoke up. “So you admit to consorting with this demon! You will be burned alive in a cage for this!” “Oh shut up, Darius! You have always been a paranoid fool! Alari is not a demon you fool! I tried to explain this to you last night and you refused to listen! How do you hope to learn anything if you refuse to listen?”

 

“It is true that I am not a human. I am not a demon either! I am a Catari. My race was created by the Great Healer long ago on another world far from here. It is true that I crossed the void between worlds to come here. I gave up everything and came here to be with Harold! We are bonded life mates! I am capable of using magic, but I do not seek to control or hurt anyone! I am a healer!

 

You are not able to do magic very well and as such, you fear it. Harold has magic and uses it to shape stone! He has fixed your bridge, repaired your well, and fixed numerous houses that were in bad shape! When has he ever done harm to you directly? You let your sons attack him in large groups and try to kill him because his ears were different than yours! You have no right to judge us! One of you sent a poisonous snake to him in a box in effort to hurt or even kill him!

 

You banish him to live on his own without aid from you and congratulate yourselves for it! You let his fool of a drunken mother throw him out to survive on his own when he was only nine! None of you tried to help him! The only thing you fools have ever done is to treat him like a diseased creature! Who are you to judge us? What makes you better than anyone else? I love Harold with all my soul! I will not stand by and let you attack him and try to hurt him because you are afraid of what you do not understand!

 

You let your own fear of the unknown dictate your actions and refuse to listen to anyone who offers to explain things to you! When was the last time you listened to what he has to tell you? When has he ever done any harm to you? The only time you ever confront him is in large groups! Where is the honor in that? It is clear to me that no one standing here is innocent except for one person who has always been kind to him and always been willing to help him!

 

You say you want answers but refuse to listen! How many times have you found a field dressed deer hanging up for you in the meeting square when your hunts have not been very good? Have you ever asked yourselves who did all those repairs and who kept you supplied with food when you were having bad luck with hunting? Harold is not evil! He is not consorting with demons! His magic is shaping stone! He has used it to help everyone! How is that evil?”

 

You let brad and his friends mutilate him by cutting his ears off and carving an insult into his forehead! Anytime something goes wrong that could have been prevented by thinking straight, you instead blamed Harold because he has ears that are shaped differently than others! Where is the bravery in attacking one person in groups of eight or more of you at a time? In all the time he has been living on his own at the shrine he has never fought back until you finally forced him to!”

 

“You have no right to say anything you foul abomination! You are clearly not a human and therefore are an inferior abomination sent by the devils to steal our souls! The books of the wise ones before us tell us the truth in this! The Elves, Dwarves, and Dragons were inferior and summoned up a great magic that they lost control of. The wild magic raged across the surface as a great storm! It destroyed the very filthy things that created it! The storm purged all traces of them from the world and punished us for our weakness when we should have destroyed them long ago!”

 

“You are all fools! I suppose you think the sun is hauled across the sky on a rope or something!” “The sun is hauled across the sky by a great god in a flaming chariot as he chases the evil darkness beings away!” “What a bunch of stupid ideas! The sun is a giant fusion reaction not some flaming chariot hauled around by a god or anything! The elves are not dead! Neither are the dwarves or the dragons! They have all been living peacefully on a world far away from here! My birth world is roughly 10.129 billion light years away from here! This world is not the center of the universe with the sun being carried by some fool! You people have been kept in the dark for far too long!

 

You elders have refused to let you know the truth and have lied to you so that they can control you! They are afraid of losing that control over others! You say that we practice dark magic but that is stupid! Magic is not dark or light! It is how you use it that is dark or light! If I used a fire to cook a meal and to bring heat and light that would not be evil! If I used that same fire to burn your homes and hurt people then that would be evil! The fire would just be a tool used to do evil or good things. It is the same with magic!

 

Being different is not bad! Instead of listening to the all the old lies from those in the past who were misled by a dark and evil race, learn the truth instead! I have learned a great many things about the past and what happened to make the other races leave here! The great magic storm was created by one man listening to those who lied to him and sought only to kill everyone in the world so that he and his kind could rule the world!

 

Think on what you could accomplish if you let those who are different help you! Just one man by himself has helped keep many buildings safe and has kept the bridge from falling apart! He has kept the well repaired and helped keep you fed! Think how much more you could do with more people like Harold! You fish the lake tot he east of here and are so proud of how many fish you catch each time! There is one who helps with that! Every time a real bad storm is coming someone warns you in time so you can seek shelter! When your food plants seem to grow real fast and give you a lot more than you had hoped for that is another person using magic to help you!”

 

Brad decided to break the peace and started hurling rocks at us! “Lies! She is trying to mislead all of you! His demon is trying to poison our minds! Kill the demon and the freak!” I took a step forward and looked straight at Brad. “Feel free to try! One on one this time instead of nine or more on one! You want me and my life mate that bad then go for it by yourself, or are you too much of a coward without all your buddies helping you!”

 

He came at me and swung. “Not even close!” He swung and missed me again as I moved out of his way. After three more tries I grabbed his arm and threw him into the dirt face first. I had simply used his own momentum against him. He got up and came at me with a knife this time. “Fucking Freak!” I broke his wrist and then his arm and finally his left leg before he stopped trying to kill me. “If your grandfather did not need your help I would let you heal on your own!”

 

Alari reached down held his broken wrist gently as she poured healing magic into his body. Everyone stared as she healed him and blocked all the pain he was feeling. Within a few minutes he was completely healed. “I have not lied when I said I am a healer. I am also more than capable of defending myself as well. Where I lived you learned at an early age how to fight to survive! I always preferred to heal instead of fight so I learned what I could about using magic to heal.”

 

I left Alari to answer questions a few minutes while I changed myself real fast. After a quick change I came back and listened as Brad once more tried to make me out to be a monster. “Brad, you are still a fool! Twice you have tried to fight me and twice you have been hurt! Why not just listen for a change and maybe learn something?”

 

The elders did not look happy as several people began to ask us both questions. Alari talked with everyone and let several of the youngsters feel her tail as long as they were gentle. One elderly lady was walking past quietly and doing her best to get to where she was going without disturbing anyone. Alari walked over to her and smiled at her.

 

“The left knee hurts you more than normal these days. May I heal it?” She looked in shock at Alari. “I suppose you will want my soul as payment. I would rather live in pain than give away my soul!” “I do not want your soul dear lady. I am not a demon or anything like that at all. I am from a place far from here and high up in the mountains where the snow never melts. I came down to learn how to use magic to heal. I follow the path of the Great Healer. I promise you on my own honor that I have no evil intentions towards you or anyone.”

 

The lady reluctantly agreed and alari merely smiled held her hands on the sore knee and let her healing magic flow into it and the rest of the lady's body. “I hope this helps you dear lady.” It surprised the lady that all of aching and swelling joints were no longer sore and swollen. “I feel 20 years younger! Thank you! How can I pay you for this?” “By simply being kind and helping where you are able you will have paid me for healing you.” The lady hugged Alari. “I have a grandson that would find you most attractive!”

 

Alari laughed. “I am honored dear lady, but I have a life mate already. I crossed the void between the worlds to find him and I am happy beyond words to be bonded with Harold.” She looked surprised. You mean that rock shaper boy finally got smart and let someone special into his life? You take good care of him! He is nice young man and has fixed my old house several times for me when he thought no one was watching!”

 

I was surprised. This was proof that not everyone hated me for being different. “If those old fools give you any trouble just threaten to throw them in the canyon. Nothing wrong with being different!” The elders were furious but they could not do anything with everyone watching. Alari looked at them and spoke again. “That dear lady is right! There is nothing wrong with being different! I am different than you but it does not make me evil! Harold has been helping quietly for years and has asked nothing for his help he has given!

 

We are not evil or demons! Yes, we are different, but that does not make us evil!” The council of elders and the chief looked at us with daggers in their eyes. I knew that look all too well. They would try something when they thought no one was looking. We were a direct threat to their power and they would do anything to hold onto that power. The sun was setting by the time we finished talking and answering questions. A lot of fears had been put to rest and most of the people no longer saw us as freaks.

 

I left the stairs smooth until you reached halfway up the stairs and found them changed into a smooth ramp that was super slick and very hard to climb. Things were a lot calmer after that. I created a bell that could be rung in the night if anyone needed healing and put it at the foot of the stairs. If anyone rang it in the night we would hear it and show up. Twice someone rang the bell for healing. The first was a young man who had been attacked by a wild boar. It was a nasty gash he had on his left leg. He had distracted the boar when his friend's horse had panicked and dumped him.

 

He distracted the boar so his friend could escape. He had not counted on the boar having a mate that charged him from another direction. They killed both boars but he got hurt doing it. The second one was one we did not expect and it was bad. Tammy's father rang the bell and came running up the stairs with her in his arms. She went to swim and found water snakes in the pool! One of them bit her!” Alari and I wasted no time in getting her up to the flat surface on top of the hill. Once there Alari spent nearly an hour healing her.

 

Tammy looked at me and Alari and tried to speak. “We are taking you to the pool. You need to rest and heal more! No one can get to you there!” Her father followed us and looked around a little bit as we led him to the hidden entrance to my home I shared with Alari. Alari put Tammy in the pool and sighed in relief as Tammy swam slowly around the pool then settled into the bottom to sleep.

 

I put some wood on the fires to give us some light. Her father was worried about her as he looked at her sleeping in the pool. “Will she be alright?” “She will live. Right now she is tired from having stayed dry for too long and the poison of the snake bite. Let her sleep as long as she needs to finish healing and regaining her strength. Alari is good healer and I have let Tammy come here one other time to swim when her own pool was dried up.”

 

“Thank you for this! Now I see why my daughter has a crush on you! You are nice to here and to a lot of others as well! I hope when she goes through the mating ceremony she finds someone as nice as you.” “Thank you, sir.” “How long will she sleep?” “Probably the rest of the night and part of tomorrow. She needs to swim more often. If her pool is not safe then she can come here and swim as she needs. Had I not found Alari I would have tried to start a relationship with your daughter.”

 

He stayed by the pool all night watching his daughter sleep. Sometime about daybreak he fell asleep. I created a small couch for him to sleep on and covered him with enough furs to keep him warm. Alari and I slept quietly the rest of the night and woke up just past daybreak. Alari kissed me and changed me real fast before letting me escape to get some things done. I baked nearly three dozen of the small pies while Alari put all the smoked meat away in stone containers.

Some time later and

The meat was being stockpiled to help me make it through the winter along with numerous plants that would keep well and could be eaten bit by bit over the winter. Tammy finally woke up was surprised to find herself in the pool that she had borrowed once before. “Harold! She's awake!” Hearing her dad call out was a relief.

 

Alari loaned her some clothes to wear as hers had to be burned since something had been spilled on them to attract poisonous snakes to her. I waited at my outdoor ovens while she got dressed. I had just pulled a batch of small pies out of one of my ovens when Tammy hugged me from behind. “Thank you for helping me again! Those smell good! I'm starving! I could kill for some fresh fish about now!” I gave her a couple of the pies and she all but inhaled them and then licked her fingers. “Those are delicious!”

 

Her father shook my hand and smiled at me. “I ever find who tried to kill my little girl and they are going to see just how long it takes to reach the bottom of the canyon from the bridge! Thank you again for saving her!” Tammy ate several more pies and then found some frozen fish I had thawing out for dinner tonight. She couldn't stop herself and grabbed the fish as fast as she could and ate each one raw.

 

It surprised me but after the third one I laughed. I take it there is something in the fish that you need to have in your diet?” “Sorry about that. I was starving for fish! Usually when I go to the lake at night I eat a few fish and that satisfies me.” “That's okay. I'll make sure to keep some more fish on hand so if you have to come here again you have some to eat.” “I still wish you were not bonded! I'd give myself to you in a heartbeat! Can I just create a duplicate of you?” “That wouldn't work and it would only confuse all of us even more. I don't think Alari would like the idea either! The ceremony is not far off though. In just a few more months there is the ceremony to help you find your life mate. I think that someone as nice as you will have no trouble finding a great life mate!”

 

After she cleaned up and I changed one more time we all sat down to talk. I dived into the pool like normal and found several water snakes coming after me! I killed three and was almost out of the water when one of them got me on the leg. A bunch more were crawling over my spare clothes so I got out of the basement fast! I got to the top of the stairs and woke up here! Someone tried to kill me!”

 

“That is not good. They tried that with me too. Someone put a poisonous snake in a box and left it at the foot of the stairs where all the offerings are left. I was careful about opening the box and the snake had nothing to hit when it came out of the box very upset at having been stuck in a box for some time. I let it go off into the woods and have not been given another such gift since then.”

 

Someone knows you need to swim and wants you dead for being different. If you know of anyone else that is different it would be a good idea to discretely warn them to be careful. As for your clothes, wash them heavily before you wear them and when you dry them do not let anyone else near them other than your father. They put something on your clothing to attract other poisonous snakes. I suspect that if they could reach up here they would leave some for me too.”

 

It would be a good idea to not trust too many people for a while. Keep an eye on your home so not one can sneak in to drop off more snakes or maybe something worse. I'll come by tomorrow and look over your house if you want me to. I don't know how they got those snakes into your pool so be very careful. If they dropped them into there they can put a few others in other places as well.”

 

Tammy and her father went home and we thought that would be it but we were wrong. Tammy showed up in the morning limping and bleeding badly from a wound in her right side. Her father was not with her this time and she was crying. She was reaching for the bell when someone shot her with an arrow to prevent her from reaching it.

 

A quick stone barrier surrounded her just barely in time to save her from two more arrows aimed at her. More arrows bounced off the stone shield as I ran down to retrieve her. Alari started down the stairs and was almost hit by two arrows that missed her when she dodged them at the last moment. I let down the barrier around Tammy and grabbed her. It cost me to do so though. An arrow grazed my left leg and almost dropped me to the ground when it took a chunk out of my lower leg.

 

Alari screamed in rage and whoever it was firing the arrows screamed in pain a moment later. The arrows stopped and she helped me carry Tammy up the stairs. I turned the stairs into sharp spikes once more since someone had just tried to kill Tammy, then Alari, and then me. Alari worked on Tammy while I wrapped my bleeding leg in a bandage and applied some healing herbs to prevent infection and leech out any poisons.

 

Tammy was laying completely submerged in the largest of the healing pools as Alari worked on healing her. Tammy was finally healed by the time the sun reached it's high point in the sky. My leg had stopped bleeding and would heal in a few weeks time. I have gotten hurt before and had learned the hard way how to take care of cuts and deep gashes. Experience is a good teacher.

 

While Alari watched over Tammy I went to work all around the shrine and created a barrier of sharp spikes all around the shrine. All the rocks I had dropped all over the area out past the flat stone plaza of the shrine were now well hidden spikes that would easily slice onto any foot and stick since they were barbed. In a span of half the afternoon there were now thousands of those spikes everywhere around my home. No one was going to sneak into here without getting hurt.

 

I changed again then created a ladder in the side of the tallest shrine building. Once up to the top I was able to see all around the village and their was no sign of anyone with a bow. Whoever had attacked had vanished again when they could not easily stop me or Alari. I was betting they would return for another attempt soon.

 

Walking along the edge of the stone area the shrine buildings sat on revealed that my work had already saved us some trouble. A few of the spikes had fresh blood on them from where someone had found them the hard way. It was plain to me that someone wanted us dead but the real questions was who. I had my suspicions but no proof. For now we just had to wait for Tammy to wake up and give us some more information.

 

The bell never rang in the entire time we waited for Tammy to wake up. She was almost dead when we got her up here so it was no surprise she was taking so long to decide If she wanted to come back to life or cross over. The people in the village went about their activities like normal. It bothered me that Tammy's father did not come looking for her. This was not normal as he loved his daughter very much. I had a horrible suspicion he was dead.

 

Tammy finally woke on the fourth day. To keep her out of reach of any arrows I simply put her in the pool in my large underground home. While I had made it originally for myself to bathe in when it was too cold to do so outside, she needed it far more than I did. Alari crept like a shadow the second night and went outside with her fur dyed black. When she came back she was crying. I restored the spikes on the stairs and helped her wash her fur off.

 

I found her father. Someone slit his throat and left him floating in her hidden pool that is now full of water snakes. Whoever did it knows how to hide their scent. This is troubling. Hopefully she can tell us what happened when she wakes up. For now we can only wait and hope she decides to live and not cross over.”

 

when she woke up she was an emotional mess. It took us a while to calm her down. She had found her father face down in the pool with his throat cut. The pool was filled with a lot more deadly water snakes as well. She came running out of her house and someone shot at her. By the time she reached here they had hit her twice and the one last time when she tried to ring the bell. “I never saw who it was. They stayed hidden and used their bow to fire arrows at me.”

 

Without even consulting Alari I made up my mind. “You are staying here! I can create a place for you easily enough so that you have privacy as well as a place to swim. It is a little time consuming but I think I can create an large underwater passage to the lake for you if you give me enough time. I have more than enough furs here to give to you so you have a bed if you like.” “What about Alari? Surely she will object to another woman living here.”

 

Alari answered that one for me. “You have been honest with us both and admitted you have feelings for my life mate, but you have never tried to be intimate with him. When you first saw me with him you were happy for him having finally found someone to share his life with. It took a lot of courage to admit how you feel. You have behaved honorably around Harold and I have no worries about you trying anything foolish. Harold is right! You are staying here! No one can reach you here very easily. We can make this place very difficult to reach if we need to do so.”

 

END TWO

That's it for this chapter folks.  Already this story has jumped off the plot I had laid out for it and gone in a different direction.  Once more a new evil has reared it's ugly head and struck.  As for who it is, I can tell you it's not big bird.  He has an alibi.  Only two people so far have said which ending they would like so I will go for the ending where Jar Jar Binks marries miss piggy and Elmo comes out as an evil sith lord.  We all suspected Elmo was evil, but now we know.  lol.

 

Thank you for reading this story so far.  I have a few more twists in mind for the next chapter.  All comments and questions are welcomed.

[junyour]

A great story and worthy sequel. I look forward to reading much more of this tale to see where it goes.

[widowmaker]

Sorry about the delay in getting this chapter done.  Had to deal with a migraine for three days straight.  Thankfully my prescription for imitrex came in and that helped.  Here is the next chapter for this story for those of you still reading this.  Things get real dark at the end of this chapter.  Enough yammering from me now.  On with the story.

THREE

Tammy was patient and helped as much as she could with various projects. After almost ten days we had an underground place for her. The biggest part of her room was the pool she needed to stay healthy. When not helping us out she could be found in her pool and trying not let us see her crying. She missed her father quite a bit. We had no clue who had murdered him and why they tried to murder her as well.

 

Something about the whole mess bothered me and Alari. She was changing me after we had made love and spoke up about it. This whole mess reminds me of the Varda and how they manipulated everyone into almost destroying the world. The Varda are gone, but this almost the exact same way it started out with them. This feels like the calm before the storm as it were.

 

I don't know who it is that attacked her or how they hid their scent. Hiding a scent is not an easy thing to do. You can try to mask it but that will leave odors behind that can be tracked. They left no scent or traces of any kind of odor. I'm going out tonight again and do some looking around a bit. There has to be a trace of some kind for me to find.”

 

“I take it you found no other scent on her father's body?” “Nothing. I found only his scent and nothing else. I checked the poo Tammy had there and is difficult to find unless you know where to go to find the hidden passage leading to it. It is a good sized pool fed by an underground spring. It was a good place for her until someone put a bunch of water snakes in it somehow. No other scent there. Only scent was Tammy herself.”

 

“I know there is at least one other unusual person in the village and it is a young man. He has wings and I've caught glimpses of him flying late a t night a few times. Whoever he is He's very careful and never stays low enough to be seen and recognized. He takes off and flies up as high as he can as fast as he can. That alone makes it hard to see who he is. I doubt that anyone will be able to get him anytime soon.”

 

The next day we tried to warn the elders about someone hunting anyone with a magical talent but they did not care. They wanted me gone along with Alari, but healers are too hard to find to just banish because they are not human. The elders had lost a great deal of their influence over the people when we confronted them and proven that they were wrong about a great many things and outright lying about many others.

 

Tammy's father had been buried in a hastily dug grave and not a single item was placed at his burial site to tell of who he was. It took me three days to create a headstone for her father's burial site. The chief of the village confronted me about it. “Just why are you making a marker for such a filthy criminal? He's lucky we did not just throw him in the canyon to let the scavengers pick his rotting remains!”

 

It is a good thing Tammy was out on the lake helping to catch fish. She would have killed the man for his mouth. I'm not sure I would even have tried to stop her. “He was not a filthy criminal, sir. Should you throw his body into the canyon, then yours will follow it while you are still awake to enjoy the view on your way down! He was murdered by someone. This same someone tried to kill Tammy as well! When we try to warn you don't care! All you can think about is yourself it seems!”

 

“If I had known those many years ago just how much of a freak you would turn out to be I would have destroyed you myself! I am still half tempted to have you and that filthy cat thing put into the cage and burned in order to purify our village! As for Tammy, I can think of only a few uses she would be good for! I want all three of you out of my village by sunset! You have polluted this place long enough with your filthy existence!”

 

It was so tempting to hit him and continue to hit him until there was nothing left of him but a broken pile of flesh not even recognizable as a human. “What the help have I ever done to make you hate me? I use my talent to help without asking for reward and still you hate me! Alari uses her talent to heal any who ask for her help and never asks for a reward! As for Tammy, she is a very nice young lady but all you can think of doing is taking her to your bed chamber as your own personal whore!

 

I begin to suspect that it was you and the others on the so called council who tried to have Tammy killed! I notice that everyone who has ever stood up to any of you has always been found dead each time! Her father stood up to you about having Alari and I put into the cage and burned alive! Strange that not even three days later he is killed by someone in his own house! The Johnsons stood up to to James and they were found dad a week later from someone having poisoned their well!

 

I went on to point out out how everyone standing up to question or argue against him or any member of the, so called, council of elders always ended up murdered or met with a fatal accident within a few days. There had been at least 15 people who died that way in the last four years. “You wanted to get rid of Tammy because she stood up to you like her father did! You want to get rid of Alari and I because we point out to the people that you are all of you lying, power hungry, thieves!”

 

A crowd had gathered and listened to what I had said. It was all of it true so the chief had nothing he could accuse me of lying about. “You filthy fucking freak!” He grabbed my shirt in both hands and lifted me off my feet in an attempt to intimidate me. “Give me on good reason not to throw your filthy bodies into the canyon!” “How about the fact that if you don't let go of me I will kill you. For the past seven years you have gone out of your way to try to get rid of me simply because I had an ancestor who was an elf! Well now I am telling you that I am not going to leave simply because you feel I am a threat to your control over everyone!

 

The headstone stays! Now let go of me or you will find yourself being slowly and painfully skewered from one end to the other while still awake to enjoy it fully! He looked down when he felt a sharp stone point press hard against his groin. His eyes went wide with fear as he realized he could not stop me from killing him slowly and painfully. His feet were encased in solid stone so he had no chance to escape.

 

“Release my feet or I'll snap you in half like a twig! I'll show you just how fast I can slit your throat!” He screamed and dropped me when Alari touched his back with a finger. “You try to kill my life mate and you will wish he had killed you compared to how you will hurt before your life is ended! You crimes are finally being revealed to all and it is my belief they will not be happy with you. All we have done is help others and to reveal the truth. The truth frightens you because you have manipulated others and bullied others into doing what you want. Now they know the truth and they will decide what to do about you! Heed my warning well for it is the only one you will get from me!”

 

Three weeks later all of the old council members had been replaced by other people in the village who immediately started making changes for the better. No more would the council have first pick of what food and resources they wanted. No more would bullying be permitted. Everyone had a voice in the changes to how things were done and the new council members held meetings every two days. Everyone was invited to come and ask questions and make suggestions as well as voice out grievances they had.

 

Clearing up the mess left behind by the old council took almost a full year. Controlling poisonous snakes and another could make anything smell like nothing or like something it was not. Brad and his father had a huge amount of food in their house and had been living like the kings of legend. When the houses of the other former council members were investigated it was the same way. They had been getting the best of everything while the rest of the village all but starved.

 

With the new council being open and asking for ideas from everyone it helped to make it so that no one starved anymore or gave over almost everything they worked hard to get.. Twice the council asked me to help teach new hunters and to show them how to track animals. It looked like things were finally turned around for the better. Brad was mad as hell because he now had to do his fair share of work and could not get away with bullying others to get what he wanted.

 

Tammy had gone for a swim in the lake when Brad and five of his friends caught up to her. They took turns violating her before wrapping her a weighted down fish net and throwing her into the lake to drown. They came back from the lake with a small load of fish and added their meager haul to the rest of the food brought in for the day. “We did our part so you can all shut the hell up!” He was still a jerk and had refused to grow up.

 

An hour later he screamed in fear and pain as Tammy tackled him to the ground and started to beat the hell out of him. His friends were shocked to see her back and not looking entirely human any longer. Jeff tried to grab her and she bit him hard enough to almost rip his thumb off. It took Alari and I almost two hours to calm her down and heal Brad. “Let me go and I'll kill him and his friends!” Mark laughed. “The little freak mad because we did not pay her for her services?”

 

I accidentally let go of her. Mark ended up screaming in pain as she changed shape to something with long and sharp claws. We pulled her off of him and had the rest of those who had raped her brought before the council. Mark arrived last as Alari had to heal him first. Tammy had almost killed him.

 

All of the boys were pronounced guilty of rape and attempted murder. The members of the council were furious with them for their actions. “For your actions today you are no longer welcomed in this village. You have one day to say goodbye and pack to leave here for good! Should you try to return, you will be punished more severely! Does anyone object to this sentence or have any other ideas for a sentence to give to these individuals?”

 

The people talked for a while then agreed with the council. Losing them would help and get rid of a problem that was long overdue in dealing with. Alari healed Tammy of the abuse she had suffered and spent several days talking with her carefully in private to help her deal with what had been done to her. Of all those who had been banished only one tried to come back and then only close enough to warn that a strange storm was coming in out of the East. To deliver his warning he talked to a farmer and had the message relayed. He had refused to violate Tammy but had gone into exile with the others in hopes of slowly getting them to change for the better.

 

Strangely enough, Tammy had asked him if he was sure he wanted to do that. “I have no family and was only passing through anyways when I made friends with Brad. I have been trying to get him to stop and think but it is a long and difficult process. His father had too much influence on him for too long. I wont give up though. I am ever so sorry for what they did to you. There was no way for me to stop them but I did the only thing I could and refused to hurt you! Perhaps one day they will change for the better and I can send word to you of this change.”

 

A few hours later the storm arrived. Thanks to Jason's timely warning everyone was safely inside their homes. Even Tammy had had chosen to ride out the storm inside her place at the shrine plaza. The shrines glowed with power they absorbed as the storm raged on and blasted the ground with blue and green lightning bolts. Knowing Tammy had never ridden out one of these storms up here I joined both the pools with a tunnel she could easily swim through.

 

She came through the tunnel a little while after the storm had started. I heard her as she surfaced and jumped out of the pool as if she had been catapulted out of it. “My place is being over run by silver colored tree roots! They're glowing like mad!” Alari dug through her clothes looking for something and then laughed when she looked into the pool. “You're safe Tammy. I forgot all about the gift from the Great Healer. Somehow the seed of a silver wood tree fell into the pool. They grow real well in high magic areas.”

 

By the time the storm ended the tree roots had grown to line the two pools, the tunnel and all of the wall in Tammy's underground home. Growing up above the entrance to her home was a silver wood tree. Alari had to explain to Tammy and to me what a silver wood tree was. That storm had a great deal of magic in it. The tree fed off the magic and grew quickly.

 

An unusual but beneficial side effect was that the roots in the pools glowed lightly and gave Tammy light to see when swimming. It also helped her feel relaxed when she slept in the pool. Alari tried to explain to me that the silver wood trees were intelligent but I was not certain. I've seen lots of trees before and never had one prove to me it was intelligent.

 

Alari always teased me about making me wear the same diaper all day when I joked about throwing her in one of the pools. She doesn't play fair! Tammy even volunteered to help her throw me in the pool as well. “I notice you have started getting a bit heavier lately. Maybe you need to slow down on the food, honey.” Alari turned on me and pushed me into one of the small pools for teasing her. Tammy laughed about it and threatened to hide all my clean diapers for teasing Alari.

 

“Alari helped me out of the pool and kissed me. She pulled my right hand to over her belly and smiled at me as she looked me in the eyes. “You did this for me. I love you.” It stunned me for a second as she waited for it to sink into my thick head. “I'm going to have puppies!” Tammy shoved me into the small healing pool that time. She laughed at me. “You deserved that one!” “Thanks to you two I have to change again.” They just laughed at me as I went to change into a fresh diaper.

 

Over the next few weeks things started to get more difficult for us again, Brad's father and some of the old council were doing everything they could to make things difficult for us. Three times One of them accused me of using my talent to steal food from them. Brad's father tried to have Alari and Tammy burned alive in a c age since they were not human and the original laws of the town stated that any non human was a threat and must be burned alive in the cage to prevent contamination to the pure humans of the village.

 

The council got mad and idiots that if they wanted to see a burning so badly that they could burn themselves instead. Twice someone ruined the fishing nets and tried to blame Tammy for it. To prove her innocence she let everyone think she was going to the lake for a swim but instead changed shape and doubled back. She stayed with the council the entire afternoon and then made it look like she had just come back from the lake at the end of the day.

 

Brad's father was only too happy to report that he and a couple of others had seen her shredding the nets and punching holes in the fishing boats. “I would like to have all your other witnesses come forward as well, sir. I want to hear what they all saw before I make a decision on this.” Brad's father left and returned a few minutes later with his friends and had a smug look on his face.

 

“We are all witness to her destroying the boats and the nets before finally leaving the lake and coming back.” It took her some time as she kept going into the lake to scare off the fish as well. She should be burned for her actions!” The old chief looked at the men and listened as they all told the same story. “A most distressing incident. I however know that she could not have done this. She has been here the entire day talking with us. Harold, would you please tell the gentlemen to come in.”

 

Three people walked in and stood behind the group trying to have Tammy burned alive for something she did not do. “As you instructed, we watched these men here spend the after noon at the lake ruining the fishing nets and the boats. It would seem that they planned this in order to try to have her burned alive.” “It would seem that your attempt at having someone executed for a crime they did not commit has backfired. This is not the first time you have tried to have these three executed by fire for things they did not do.

 

You will stay here while we decide what to do with you.” The council came back some time later and sat quietly. The head of the council looked at the men and then passed the council's judgment on them. We could have you put in the cage and burned for your actions not just today but over the past several days. That practice is barbaric and we will no longer use it. Since you have proven that the only time you think things through is when you are trying to hurt someone it the decision of the council that you leave this village forever. Should you return without being summoned by the council you will be executed.”

 

All six of them were escorted to well outside the village and then left to fend for themselves. The three of us helped in making the new boats and weaving more nets so that the fishing could resume sooner. During the winter we relied heavily on or stores of food to get us through the coldest days when it was too cold for any of us to go out. I myself usually stayed inside my hole in the ground when the weather was snowing and the wind made it impossible to see more than an arm's length at a time.

 

One thing I was given permission to do was to create a large underground chamber of solid stone that could be easily accessed from multiple locations for those times when wild magic storms made it dangerous to even be above ground in a house. The shelter started as on giant room but soon expanded into multiple rooms with with a few areas that went deep enough to reach underground water sources.

 

I created one very large and deep pool for Tammy or anyone else needing to swim while a storm raged on above us. Over each entrance was a stone structure that was shaped in such a way as to provide a buffer against wind and to keep the entrances from being buried in snow or debris. Since the area would be lit by torches I created an opening near the center of the roof that would allow smoke to vent out. The entire ceiling in all directions peaked a little higher than the outer edges so that smoke would rise and go out the chimney that vented it out through a central structure above ground.

 

The side rooms could be used for almost anything and a large fire pit in the center of each one with a chimney system meeting the main chimney to vent smoke out. The elders loved it and agreed it was a good idea. I had thought of creating a tunnel from every house but was not sure it was a good idea. It would make it easier for people to reach the shelter, but they could also be used for mischief. In the end the tunnels were not created.

 

The elders agreed with this too as they were well aware it was a temptation for some to get into mischief and that such temptation might be too hard for some to resist. The boats and new nets were finally finished at about the same time I finished the last of the underground shelter. Tammy spent the first day with the new boats out on the water. She dived in and somehow herded fish straight into the nets for them. The next day she found areas where there were more fish easily caught in the nets.

 

Two weeks after the shelter was finished I went to the lake and created high round rock pillars that the boats could be anchored to so a storm would not wash them out into the lake. This lake was huge and we could not see the other side of it even after sailing half a day from the shore. Even Tammy admitted that she once swan for nearly two days and never saw the far shore before coming back.

 

The weather was just starting to turn cold when Greg Long came back to the village looking sad and defeated. He had gone with Brad and a few others in hopes of getting them to change for the better. They had beaten him badly when he refused to join them in a raid on the village to get revenge with a few individuals. They had felt that if they all struck fast quickly in the night that the current council could all be killed and the old council would than take over and rule how they saw fit.

 

The council was not happy to hear this news from him as Alari healed him. His warning allowed the 23 idiots to walk straight into a trap the next night. The only one who refused to surrender was Brad. He threw a spear at Tammy and almost hit her, Greg knocked her out of the way and took the spear in his chest to save her. Alari healed Greg as Tammy held him and could not seem to quit looking into his eyes. Brad found himself held in place by three men as he struggled and cursed us all.

 

All 23 of them were not going to exiled this time as they would simply continue to come back and attack us until they died or they took over. Each one was taken out onto the lake and then held as they were tied and weighted heavily before being tossed out of the boats to drown for their crimes. It was a horrible way to die and it made me ill to think about it. Brad was forced to watch as all of them were sent to their deaths. He struggled to escape and as his face showed fear for the first time since I had known him.

 

In the end he was shoved out of the boat struggling to escape as he sank. All 23 of them drowned that day. All they had to do was just leave the village alone and they could have lived much longer, but they had to have their revenge. All it got them was executed. Greg and Tammy were sickened by the whole ordeal as were most of the people in town. The council of elders then asked the people if they wanted a new council that was not guilty of sending 23 men to their deaths. It was the belief of everyone in the village that they had no other choice but to execute the men or be forced to deal with numerous attacks and likely more deaths from them. The council was kept.

 

Tammy and Greg bonded and stayed in her place for nearly three days before emerging again in the pool in the place Alari and I lived. Greg had gills as well but they were less easy to see unless he was wet. Once wet he grew webbing in his hands and feet until dry again. I never suspected him of being a water breather. I was happy that the two of them had found each other at last.

 

The cold season came on us with a vengeance that year. It was a good thing that Alari had sense enough to make sure I had a large supply of diapers since we were snowed in at one point for nearly 10 days. I was the one snowed in actually. Alari loved it. She went out in the middle of the storm and came back some time later with a huge buck she had hunted and then field cleaned before carrying it back here.

 

I was about to fuss at her for risking herself but remembered where she came from. This was easy weather for her to get around in. I sighed, pulled her close and apologized for panicking and almost saying something stupid. She simply laughed and then kissed me. “You stopped to think before saying anything and that is what counts! You were worried but refused to let yourself panic! I am not mad at you, honey. I forgot that you were not aware of how easy this weather is for me to get through. I too am sorry!”

 

We cut the huge buck up and threw the bones outside for the snow wolves to come and grab. By morning, the storm was over. I changed myself and then with help cleared a path out of the shrine plaza to down the stairs leading to the edge of the village. The Johnsons were the furthest outlying farm and they had not had a very good year for hunting so Alari wrapped all the meat form the huge buck and took it to them.

 

It surprised them to see her out in the cold snow, bu they were very grateful for the meat. Like me, they had forgotten that this was nothing where she came from. She spent every day out in the snow and even took a snow bath like it was nothing. Clearing out from the storm took us all a while. It was worse in the village where nothing had absorbed the wild magic of it. Several of the houses were destroyed by the storm. The wild magic had simply twisted and warped them until they unsafe to be in.

 

A week later another bad wild magic storm came in. This time we all saw it building up out over the lake. Everyone grabbed what they could in the way of food and took shelter underground from the storm that lashed the village. The multicolored lighting was pretty to see from a distance but when the storm hit, the lightning was deadly. Entire houses made from solid stone exploded. The ground shook violently and frightened everyone. The underground shelter had worked perfectly though. The village suffered through six more wild magic storms before the winter finally ended.

 

Alari had gone out after each one and played in the snow as well as hunted to help with the over taxed food supplies. There was no disguising the fact by this time that Alari was very pregnant. As was custom for her people she gave birth alone and out in the cold snow. Something about the snow made birthing easier for her. She came back in several hours after having given birth to lovely girl. Our little cub was fascinated by the sight of the moon and the silver wood tree. We named her Silver Moon. She had teeth and eyes like her mother as well as tears and a tail, but she lacked fur or claws and looked completely human in all other ways.

 

Everyone thought she looked cute and congratulated me and Alari on the birth of our daughter. We found a problem almost three moths later with keeping her in a crib. She had the ability to float on air and get to wherever she wanted to get to. Twice last week she got bored and was found sleeping next to the silver wood tree. It had seemed to welcome her since it made a small cradle of very low hanging branches for her to sleep in.

 

Alari found it amusing that our daughter loved to scare me half to death by vanishing in the night, only to be found the next morning sound asleep in the cradle made by the silver wood tree. She had trouble sleeping at night and on numerous nights she would go out and spend the night staring up at the moon from the upper heights of the silver wood tree.

 

A number of people in the village found it amusing but admitted that in our place it would spook them and make them worry as well. Tammy and Greg had their first born a year later during one of the most powerful wild magic storms we had ever seen hit this area. All the houses above ground had been destroyed by repeated blasts of magical lightning. Greg and Tammy were ecstatic to have a healthy baby boy and named him Taylor. Like his parents he was born with gills and the ability to breathe water.

 

We soon found out that he could not be kept apart from our daughter and would be found sleeping in the same cradle with her under the protective branches of the silver wood tree. The two of them seemed destined to be together it seems. Rather than fight it we just accepted and worried like any parent would when they disappeared.

 

By the time our daughter was seven and Taylor was six they were climbing everything in sight and giving us all heart failure for doing so, I think my diaper usage doubled thanks to the two of them frightening me and Alari badly when he would slip and almost hit the ground before being caught By Silver Moon. They thought it was funny to frighten us this way. I think the job of young children is to try to make their parents lose their sanity from worrying and trying to keep them safe.

 

Our little village prospered nicely from everyone working hard to make sure everyone always had food and shelter. Silver Moon announced at 15 that her and Taylor were in love and wanted to go through the bonding ceremony. It was no surprise to us when the two of them looked into the giant crystal in the temple of life as we called it that they only saw each other. From an early age they had known each other's soul names and were inseparable so it came as no surprise to anyone in the village when they came out of the temple and vanished to somewhere private to complete their bond.

 

Things were going smoothly and we all thought that the worst of the troubles were behind us since we had not had any serious trouble since the council had been forced execute 23 men for their crimes against all of us. Another bad wild magic storm descended on us three days after Silver Moon and Taylor were bonded. We got lucky that our daughter felt something was off with the weather and flew up high to see what had been bothering her all morning.

 

She came flying back down looking pale and frightened. “Wild Magic Storm! That was all the more warning we needed to get everyone underground and into the giant shelter. Everyone was in the shelter and waiting out the storm by the time it hit. It was bad. The sky turned black and the number of lightning bolts striking the ground were too many to count. I was kept busy making constant repairs tot he shelter as the lightning seemed to continuously pound it in an effort to reach us. A scream caught everyone's attention as a figure tumbled down the stairs with his wings on fire.

 

Alari Was on him in a heartbeat. He had been too close to a lightning blast and it had burned him horribly as well as slamming him to the ground. His poor wings were smashed badly and even without the burns it would have been bad. Alari did everything she could to save him as more lightning smashed onto the ground above the shelter repeatedly for the next 16 days before the storm blew itself out.

 

Alari had healed most of our mysterious winged visitor by the time the storms finally let up. To heal the last of the damage we had to put him in one of the healing pools at the shrine. Alari was exhausted from having channeled so much magic during a wild magic storm. The wild magic storms do a real number on magic and make it almost impossible to safely channel magic for any non destructive purposes.

 

While Alari tended to our winged visitor I assessed the damage to our village. Nothing beyond the shrine stood above ground. The boats had been blown to small pieces by repeated lightning strikes. Even the stone anchoring points I had created were just piles of blasted rubble now. The worst strikes had been over the area of the shelter. Huge craters were everywhere above the shelter. In some places the craters were deeper than a man was tall. It looked like someone had somehow guided the lightning to strike the area repeatedly in an attempt to reach those hiding underground from the wrath of the storm.

 

This worried me as nowhere else had been hit as badly. The shrine glowed brightly in the aftermath of the storm that seemed to have dissipated after failing to reach the villagers with it's lightning. In all my years of life I had never seen a wild magic storm this bad. What could have caused the storm to be so bad and only at the village. We would have our answers soon enough it would scare all of us.

 

Our winged visitor woke up and stared in shock at seeing Alari. He jumped out of the pool and back several feet in fear as if he thought she was going to eat him. Alari made no move to stop him and simply smiled at him while holding up a collar that had been around his neck. He stayed away from her and was even further shocked when I came out of our underground home a short distance off and set about repairing some minor damage done by the storm.

 

Tammy frightened him half to death when she came up out of the large above ground pool behind him where her and Greg had been sleeping after having been unable to sleep comfortably during the storm. The poor man took to the air and circled around for quite some time before he finally had to land as he was still exhausted despite his healing. Silver Moon eased his fears a bit by floating over to him slowly.

 

“You are in no danger here. My mother has healed you. I am Silver Moon, This is Alari. She is our healer and my mother. There is my father. He is Harold and can shape stone. This is Tammy, she can breathe water as easily as we breathe air.” Her life mate is still sleeping and will likely come up out of the pool later when he wakes up. Can you tell us your name?” “I am Avari. I'm free? No master?” “Here we are all free. We all work together to make sure everyone has food, shelter and as good a life as they can. No one person is better than any other person. We have a council of elders who help to keep the peace.”

 

My daughter took some time to carefully explain things to him. The poor man was exhausted and was having troubles staying awake long enough to hear what she was telling him. “Where do you live at?” “Across the great water my master keeps all of us for his pleasure. I ran away. I have to warn you that he is mad. You resist his storms and that makes him mad. He has found out you are here and wants to destroy you! Those who can do magic and are different he keeps as his pets and servants. The rest he destroys. He wants you because you are different. He wishes to add you to his collection.

 

He will send more storms until he has you weak enough that he can come and collect those he wants and destroy the rest.”

 

We listened as Avari told us about his master who had a very strong talent of weather contro that was made even stronger by some big machine of some kind that he took with him everywhere he went. The man would hear about places where someone was different like me or Alari and then set out to destroy that place. Once the locals of the area were too weak to fight back he would take the survivors and keep only those who he wanted. The rest he would kill slowly and painfully over several long days while laughing about the pain he inflicted on them. He is mad. He enjoys hurting others. The last storm has made him tired and he will have to rest for a some time before he has the strength to send another one. When he has rested he will spend some time creating another storm even more powerful than the last one and then send it at you. He will not stop until you are in his possession or he is dead.”

 

The man had to rest for several more days after that to finish healing and regain his strength. Flying over the water had taken him nearly two full days and the storm made landing safely almost impossible. A blast of lightning laced with wild magic had almost killed him when he was barely missed by it. He had risked death to escape and then warn us.

 

The council was given every scrap of information we had from him. They welcomed him and assured him that he was free to stay or leave as he wished. “We do not enslave others here. Here everyone is free and we all work together to help one another. For now, we want you to eat and rest. You look like you are half starved and about to fall over from exhaustion.” The kindness everyone showed him surprised him. Not a single person thought of him as a freak or a slave. A couple of the younger girls thought he was cute and flirted with him.

 

The information worried all of us and the council let everyone in the village know what they knew. The freedom of information here was another thing that surprised him. He was used to not being told anything except what to do. His past was ugly. His people had been killed off except for him. He had been spared because of his wings and ability to fly. The mad man he had been forced to call master had found out about him from some source of information and blasted his people's homes with magic storms for weeks on end before they were too injured to resist him.

 

He came in and rounded everyone up. A few of the younger girls were used as his pleasure toys for a while until he grew tired of them and tortured them to death. Avari was forced to watch as everyone he knew and cared about was tortured to death while the mad man laughed about their screams and pleas for mercy. To his master, it was fun to make everyone suffer in pain and scream out in agony until they died. The man was truly insane and stopping him would be difficult if not impossible.

 

From what Avari had said, he had nearly 150 slaves that he kept to entertain him. He would buy people from slave traders and torture them to death just because he found it enjoyable to do so. In his mind, he had power so it was his right to do as he pleased. That man's ways of doing things frightened and sickened me. He was truly mad and dangerous. Too make things worse, he knew about us and had been trying to kill us off with the storms. We angered him by staying strong and continuing to survive despite his efforts to kill us all off.

 

Once again, evil has reared it's ugly head and stopping it would be tough.

 

END THREE

That's it for this chapter.  should prove interesting to see how the folks deal with this latest threat and the knowledge that there are people in the world selling other people as slaves.  How will this all all be dealt with?

 

Thank you all for reading this story to this point.  All comments and questions welcomed.

[ABAlex]

I'll admit I only read the first part so far, but intriguing opening. Definitely not the normal AB story set up you see on this site. Liking it so far

[widowmaker]

This story is the sequel to Sarina.

It is light on the fetish content and will be light weight fetish content through the entire story.  Thought I would try something a bit different with these two stories and just go light on the fetish content.  Hope to have the next chapter done in about a week providing I don't get sick again.  Migraines suck.  lol.

[ABAlex]

3 hours ago, widowmaker said:

This story is the sequel to Sarina.

It is light on the fetish content and will be light weight fetish content through the entire story.  Thought I would try something a bit different with these two stories and just go light on the fetish content.  Hope to have the next chapter done in about a week providing I don't get sick again.  Migraines suck.  lol.

Fair enough, and they do lol

 

[widowmaker]

Just finished this chapter of the story.  Decided to end it with a bit of a surprise that I do not believe anyone would be expecting.  I hope you folks like it.  And now, on with the story!

 

FOUR

With a little extra work we rigged up a couple of boats that could carry us across the lake in about a day. I wanted to find some of those slave traders and see what could be done to stop them from sending anyone else to their death. Tammy and Greg wanted to swim on ahead of us and go straight for the madman himself but Alari and I made them stop and think a few minutes. The council agreed with making her stay with the group instead of going off and getting hurt, killed or worse, captured.

 

Her and Greg could both swim along and when we got closer to the shore then they could scout ahead to find us a secure landing place. Avari was afraid to return and risk getting captured so we let him stay behind. From what he has told me, I do not blame him for being afraid. The trip was not supposed to be more than a look and see so I only brought along ten diapers. Alari had brought along some knives and five spears as well as the silver wood staff. She was ready for a fight.

 

It worried me to see her ready for a fight. She loves being a healer and hates having to hurt anyone. “I do not want to fight, but if I have to, I will fight to keep us all free. We kissed and held each other for a bit. She sat down and went into a trance to prepare her body for the upcoming possibility that she might have to fight. The toughest one of the bunch I did not know had joined us until we made it to the shore and she came out of hiding. My daughter is stubborn.

 

“I am not letting you do this alone. I am not as good at fighting as mom is, but I can still scout just as well as her. Besides, the tree sent me. Mom smiled. “Why am I not surprised. Did it give you any instructions on what it wanted you to do? “Yes. It wanted me to plant a seed not far from where we land. I do believe this is going to be a very interesting scouting party.”

 

We made it a short distance and saw a few others walking around with collars on and looking like they had given up all hope. They were harvesting crops and fishing with absolutely no conversation at all. A small bolt of purple lightning hit a girl that looked like she was used to hard work. Anyone else would have been fried by that blast but she just hung her head and started to remove her clothes as she walked out of sight with tears flowing down her face. It made my blood boil to see that happen.

 

A moment later I heard her screaming in pain and if Alari had not grabbed me I would have gone after her and tried to kill that sick bastard who was torturing her. “I want to kill him too but we can't get to him just yet. He feeds off the pain he inflicts on others. We will stop him, but not today. We need more information before we can stop him. We rush in their blindly and we are dead for sure.

 

SilverMoon came back a few minutes later smiling. I planted the seed in the middle of his garden. He will have a real nice view of it as it grows. Don't worry, no one saw me. coming up the road a little ways off is a wagon with a couple of people in it looking terrified. I smiled and so did Alari. The plan took us about five minutes and if everything went well there would be one less slave trader and a few more free people in the world.

 

We hit the slave trader as he passed close to the lake. He crossed over a bridge and Tammy struck first. She came leaping out of the water so fast she was a blur. The man looked up at the last instant but it was too late for him to even cry out. Greg and Tammy drug the man out to the lake far enough no one would hear him if he screamed. They were gone for a few minutes but that was fine as we freed the people he had been bringing to the asshole to be tortured to death.

 

He had four people in his wagon and one of them was barely alive. She was covered completely in silver scales with webbed hands and feet. She could barely even move and there was no way she was going to be able to walk. Alari picked her up but Tammy stopped her. “She needs water, badly. Let me take her swimming.” One other one in the wagon dead as he had died on the trip from wherever he had been snatched from.

 

The others needed no prompting to run for it and hide from the slavers. “Where is the man that was driving this thing?” “I found out just long he could hold his breath before trying to breathe water. Don't worry, he wont come floating up to shore. We weighted his body down so it wont float up and wash up on shore. Let them think he vanished without a trace. Tammy and Greg took the woman and went out onto the lake with her. She came back a few minutes later by herself. “She's doing better but she is very weak.”

 

Tammy let me know everything she had found out from the slaver before she ended his life. They were bringing in another wagon load of prisoners for the madman and one of them could make any plant grow just by touching it. I smiled and planned on going after one more wagon. The large woman came staggering out of the thick underbrush and trees looking like someone had just beat the poor girl half to death.

 

When she removed her clothes she was covered in burns and cuts everywhere. She leaned over the lake to wash herself off and passed out. My daughter flew down and caught her before she could fall into the water and drown. Alari handed our daughter the staff and took the tall girl to our boat to heal her. Alari made it perhaps ten steps before the collar came off of the girl and was dropped to the ground.

 

SilverMoon smiled and took the staff. She stiffened up a moment then smiled. “It talked to me and I was not expecting that is all.” I'll be back in a minute or two. I have to get something from the madman before he tries to destroy it again. She floated off the ground a little bit and moved silently over the ground. A few minutes later she came back and was smiling. We ready to free that other wagon load of people?”

 

The wagon had guards and they were alert for trouble as they marched next to the wagon. Three people in the wagon huddled in fear as the man making the horses pull the wagon used a whip on them to make them continue when it was clear they were exhausted. Six guards and a driver would make this ambush trickier. The moment they started crossing the old stone bridge I struck. The bridge suddenly grew spikes of stone that stopped the guards and the wagon immediately.

 

The man driving the wagon saw me and aimed a crossbow at me until Alari blasted it out of his hands with a spell of some kind. The guards stared as Alari moved too fast for them to be able to hit with their swords. The driver was reaching fro something when my daughter hit him with a spear and knocked him out. Within seconds the guards and the driver were out cold. The driver and his guards refused to answer any questions so Tammy and Greg took them swimming one by one.

 

She came back and was angry. “They will never harm another person! They enjoyed catching these people! They stay and watch them get tortured to death then have their way with any females they want before getting paid and going to look for more people to bring here. The people in the wagon were afraid of staying so we let them join us. We took everyone back across the lake with us and arrived back home just about daybreak with Tammy and Greg taking turns helping the fish lady.

 

I changed into my last clean diaper just about halfway back and across the lake so it was a good thing I had packed a few more than I thought I would need. The plant grower and the fish lady were taken up to the healing pools at the shrine. The fish lady was able to walk but not very well as she was still very weak. The council listened as we told them everything and then they smiled at us. You did the right thing freeing those poor people. They are all welcome to stay here if they like.

 

I returned to my underground home at the shrine to find Alari, Tammy, and Greg talking with the strange fish lady. It was no surprise when Tammy and Alari brought her down and helped her over to the pool where she quickly settled in and fell asleep. “She's been out of water for almost 35 days now and that's why she is so weak. That crazy tree is changing the water to salt water for her. She comes from a race of people that live in the ocean. I didn't get much more than that from her. She barely understands our language and there is no way at all for me or any of us to come close to understanding hers. Let her sleep a few days and she should recover.

 

The next day another of those wild magic storms hit us again. It was nowhere near as bad as the last one, but it was still bad enough. There must have been nearly 200 magic bolts of lightning that hit the shrine and the tree before the storm ended. This time the worst of the storm had been centered on the shrine. I don't know what type of stone they made the shrine out of, but it is highly resistant to magic.

 

I had just finished changing myself when Alari came in and joined me. “That poor girl. They caught her in a net by accident and then sold her to the slavers. They lied and told the slavers that she had attacked their fishing boats so they wanted her gone for good. That village was wiped out three days later by the slave traders raiding it and taking everyone captive. They sold each one of those people to that madman. He tortured all of them to death and raped several of the younger girls. We need to stop him somehow.”

 

I shuddered and wanted to know how someone could become so sick and depraved as to get enjoyment out of torturing and raping others. “I agree with you. First, we stop the slavers then when his supply of victims is gone it should make him sloppy and careless as he will have to find other victims by himself. I'm thinking that those collars they wear make them obey him no matter how suicidal of a command he gives them. Anyone we free should have the collar removed immediately. It will prevent them from turning on us if he orders them to attack us.”

 

We waited two weeks and scouted all along the lake shore to make sure no unpleasant surprises were coming for us. Avari was our look out for anything coming from a long distance as he could see quite a ways even when he was flying so high that he was not visible to us. Our daughter scouted carefully as well and looked closer to the ground for signs of anyone attempting to sneak in on us. Two of our outlying farms had been raided in the night but the whoever did it was damned good and not even Alari could track them down.

 

In the middle of a huge wild magic storm Taylor, Greg, and Tammy went scouting. They could swim the entire way and no one would ever see them. Three days later they came back with a smile on their faces. “He's mad as hell now. That tree your daughter planted has been siphoning off his magic every time he makes a bad storm. I takes him a lot more energy and time now to make the storms. Every time someone tries to harm the tree they are turned away somehow and find themselves unable to approach it.

 

He's going to have trouble getting his favorite lake fish for a while now. We destroyed all of his nets and put holes in the fishing boats. They can be easily repaired but it will take a few days. The nets will take about the same amount of time to replace as well. Not sure why he does not move out of that location and away from the tree. I know if I had that kind of power and some tree was doing that to me I'd move.”

 

“Did you tell the council yet?” “They know. Everyone is heading for the shelters right now. Another bad storm is moving slowly across the lake and getting worse as it gets closer. We felt you'd want to know. I think we made the weather worker mad.” Taylor and SilverMoon stopped in a short while later. “Hey, grandfather!” “What are you teasing me about this time?” She simply smiled more and lowered her hand to her belly.

 

Alari and I jumped up and ran to the two of them for a family hug. When did you find out?” “You're going to love this one! The tree told me! I always told you I could talk to it and this time it confirmed what we suspected!” “When this storm is over we are going to tell everyone! We have not had any new children in a few years now!”

 

The storm raged on for almost a full month before it finally died out. Everywhere we looked there were huge craters. The entire underground shelter had been hit and almost blasted through in several places. The shrine was glowing white hot in several places and the normal background levels of magical energy glowed brightly as the shrine released magic they had stored up back into what we called the weave at a slow and steady rate.

 

Alari was kept busy healing almost everyone. A few people had been badly burned when a bolt of lightning blasted them as they ran for the shelter from one of the outlying farms. It took Alari almost half a day to heal them as they had been so close to not making it. SilverMoon flew up high to get a look at the damage everywhere. It was beyond bad. Not even the outlying farms had been spared. The buildings had been blasted to pieces and all the crops destroyed.

 

The fields where the crops had grown were nothing more than countless craters. Every farm animal had been blasted numerous times and some of them were unrecognizable as animals anymore. This was retaliation for planting the tree and denying him captives to torture to death for his amusement. He had just let us know that he intended to kill us if he could. He had hit us where he could to try and hurt and kill us off but the shelter had survived his attack.

 

The bridge I had helped shape had been blasted to pieces and it would not be possible to make another for a while. There simply was not enough solid stone to work with. All of the stone of the cliff walls had been fractured badly by magical lightning blasts. I changed my diaper as needed and continued to work on making the emergency structure even stronger and harder to damage.

 

With help from everyone bringing in stones from everywhere I made the roof of the place nearly five times thicker than before. Inside were supports everywhere making it even harder to collapse. This shelter was huge and easily seen as was my idea. After half a day of work I would change and rest until the middle of the night and then continue making the real shelter under cover of the night.

 

This one was one was further down in the ground than the first one. Tunnels led from several small shelters above ground to the new shelter under the same hill the shrine sat on. It took me nearly 65 days to finish the shelter as everyone hunted and scrounged what they could to stock it up for the next storm we felt was sure to come soon. We had a few small storms but nothing that was not normal.

 

We learned from Avari that his former master could only do a sustained storm that strong if he was real close to the place he wanted to hit with it. This meant he had either hiked here or came in over the water with the fog that always seemed to build up over the lake before a bad storm hit us. He was fat and lazy but had a short temper. When something went wrong he would get mad and lash out. Night raiders struck out in the dark and we freed nearly 50 more people and one new talent from the slavers.

 

The girl was gorgeous and to our surprise she was also an elf. Her eyes went wide when she Alari. “A Catari!” Alari smiled at the girl. “Rest easy. You have been hurt badly and if you move much more you could open those wounds again. Alari healed her in just a few minutes time and then helped her up to her feet. “You're a healer!”

 

“Mom, dad needs some help with his bad knee again. He messed it up again. Someone left a nasty trap for us and he found it the hard way. He's been trying to hide how bad it's smashed up but he can't even stand.” Greg came walking up with Harold in his arms. An arrow was sticking out of Greg's left leg made walking painful. “When I picked him up I found an arrow trap the hard way. Fix his knee first. I can hold my wound shut a while yet.”

 

I woke up and Alari was holding me in her arms. “You idiot! Never ever scare me like that again!” She leaned over and kissed me deeply while holding me in her arms. “The woods are loaded with traps now. Every road leading out of the village is nothing but huge craters in the ground. That bastard is trying to keep us here so he can torture us all to death at his leisure. We've made him mad by stopping him from getting anyone else for his sadistic idea of fun.”

 

I looked up and saw an elf girl looking at me in surprise. “You bonded with a Catari? How?” Greg and my daughter laughed. I told her how we had started dreaming of each other since we were both real young and then one day she managed to cross through a passageway of some sort to reach me. “SilverMoon is our daughter. She herself is bonded with Greg and they are expecting their first little one in a few months. So what do you wish to be called?”

 

“I am Talara. Long descended from Sarina the great Healer.” Alari was surprised to hear that. “I met Sarina once! She guided me here after talking to me a while. I have her to thank for my beloved and our daughter! How did you come to here?” I was on a talent search to find my talent outside of the glades. I sought shelter from a bad storm and when it ended I was caught by those men you freed me from.

 

They..they..hurt me.” Alari cut to the chase. “They repeatedly raped her. I have healed you of the physical damage they inflicted upon you. There is a problem as you have surely noticed by now. You were damaged badly down there by their rough treatment of you. You were also poisoned a few times to make it harder for you to fight them off. Like my beloved, you have no control of when your body relieves itself of waste.

 

She broke down crying and left it up to Alari to explain to her how to put a diaper on herself and what things to be careful of. “You need not be ashamed of it. A number of others in this village must also use them. Had it not taken so long for us to reach you, I could have healed you enough to make sure this never happened. The body will not allow it now. The pattern is set. I'm sorry.”

 

Talara spent several days getting used to wearing protection again and trying to find her talent. With careful scouting from Alari and our daughter, almost 200 traps were found and destroyed. We have no clue who had set the traps, but they had been free to do so while the storm kept us all out of the way. The traps were not lethal but would disable you and leave you in pain as you died slowly.

 

The madman wanted to use our suffering to increase his power. This was his idea of fun. He enjoyed hurting others. All of us were thinking that the madman had sent some of his slaves to set up the traps and then escape under cover of the storm. I wanted to get my hands on him now more than ever.

 

Talara kept to herself and stayed out of the way of everyone and rarely spoke to anyone. Her favorite place to sit and think was the lake. A number of times I myself spotted her sitting by herself the cold weather was coming and she still had not chosen a place for me to create a home for her. Everyone else had a home somewhere that the storms would not reach them, but not her.

 

I sat down next to her as she gazed out into nowhere. Any thoughts as to where you want me to create a place for you?” Everyone else has already gotten settled in to their new homes.” “I don't need one. Not sure where I'm going, but this place is not for me. I'm leaving in the morning. I feel something pulling on me and I have to go find it. Who knows, maybe I'll find a way to fix this.” She pointed to her diaper under her clothes with a sigh.

 

“Everyone here is nice but it's not a place for an outcast like me. A lot of you have talents that you can use to help everyone, but I have nothing to offer. I couldn't even stop them from using me like some kind of toy. I can't hunt. I have no talent. I have no useful skills to offer.” “I don't know about that. I think I have someone who would like to talk to you at least once before you leave.”

 

She stood up, brushed herself off and then looked at me. “There's a storm coming. It's building up on the other side of the lake. Someone is feeding blood magic into it to make it more powerful. You should get into shelter before it hits in a few hours.” “You can feel that?” “Yes. I can control the weather but it's a worthless talent. I was on a talent quest to find a more useful talent or some place that I could belong.

 

I found another place and paid for my stupidity. They used me and when they were tired of me they were going to sell me off to that man in the awful purple robes over there. I would rather die than to have to pleasure him. He is so damned fat it's a wonder he can even stand let alone walk. I better get going if I plan to beat the storm.”

 

She turned to leave and as I was about to try to stop her a bolt of lightning barely missed us both. When my sight returned she was gone as if she had never been. How she vanished so fast I have no clue, but she did. There was no sign of her but it did not surprise me. She has a very useful talent but somewhere in her past she was hurt badly by someone and now they had hurt her again. This time she did not want to live and was looking for a place to vanish and never be found again.

 

There was nothing I could do except help get everyone into shelter before the storm hit. By the time the storm hit everyone was in their underground homes safely hidden from the storm and it's magic lightning bolts fueled by wild magic and blood magic as well is Talara was right. The storm was not as bad as we had thought it would be but it was still bad enough that it was not safe to be outside in it.

 

A few hours later the storm was over and had not managed to do very much to the village this time. It had struck mainly off to the north where no one lived. The few lightning bolts that hit had hit the old emergency shelter I had left as a target and a distraction from the real shelters scattered around the outskirts of the village. None of them had been hit at all. Maybe my plan had worked or something messed up the storm somehow.

 

Alari and SilverMoon went looking for any sign of Talara but found nothing. I was tinkering with the remains of the old bridge a few days later when I spotted something in the canyon. It was too far down for me to try to climb and the rock was to fractured to create some stairs in the rock wall. Avari was busy helping to ruin the plans of the slave traders on the other side of the lake so I could not ask him to go look. Likely just dead deer washed onto the shore by the water.

 

Avari came back that night and smiled. Got two wagon loads of people set free this time! There are also a few less traders of people.” “That is good news. Any sign of Talara?” “Who?” It then occurred to me that he had never met her. Too late now. “She is an elf that stayed with us for a while. She kept to herself and is likely far away by now. She had her own personal demons driving her away from life here or anywhere. If you have time can you scout the canyon real fast and make sure it's just another dead deer down there?” He smiled. “I can do that. Where did you see the thing at?” “Near the bridge.”

 

He did not return until sometime later and when he did he had tears in his eyes. In his arms was the battered and blasted body of Talara. She had fought back against the madman's storm and lost from the looks of it. Alari came staggering over to me with a look of pain on her face. “Give her to me!” IT startled me to hear Alari snarl out like that but I felt something through our bond that she was trying to block me from feeling. It hurt.

 

Alari laid the elf girl down and then went into a healing trance as she pulled in so much magic and channeled it into healing it made her glow a little bit. The silver wood staff soon began to grow branches with leaves from near her hands as the bottom of the staff grew roots that sought the soil under it. Alari ignored everything and refused to let go even when it seemed she was not making any progress.

 

It surprised me when the staff became a small silver wood tree that grew as magic flowed though it. I looked back at Alari and for just a few seconds I saw the form of an elf lady with a hand on Alari's shoulder. Alari started to fall over and without thinking about it I grabbed her and refused to let go of her. It felt like a thousand fires burning in me as I held her. My poor diaper paid the price as well as it reached it's limit and began leaking.

 

Some time later I woke up next to Alari who was barely breathing. It took my daughter and her life mate to finally help us get to our feet. Talara was being held by Avari gently. She's alive! Thank you!” Avari had evidently found another reason not to fly off as he had been thinking of doing to find someone he said he had been seeing in his dreams for some time now. I looked at him. “Life mate?” He shook his head yes and walked off with her to his home in the silver wood tree. The big silver wood tree had created a home for him in it's upper branches and he loved it.

 

The staff had become a new silver wood tree. I don't how much magic Alari had channeled but it was a huge amount to save Talara from being so near to death. Alari and I slept for three days straight before finally waking up. Alari had beautiful black stripes forming a pattern around her face. To me they enhanced her already spectacular figure. I noticed that the room that was our home was no longer dark. All around the walls were silver wood tree roots that glowed enough to make it possible to see where you were going without bumping into anything in the dark.

 

It was not long after that when Alari woke up and without saying anything tore off my diaper and began making love to me. We finally finished and laid on the furs holding each other. “She was in so much pain. She drew in the blood magic of the storm and was trying to clean it when he spotted her and hit her with numerous lightning bolts. She was knocked into the canyon just outside of the village. She pulled the storm to her to try to spare us.”

 

We slept for sometime after that and finally came out into the clear night air after making love again. “Looks like someone marked you honey” She laughed and looked into the water of one of the pools and gasped in surprise. She rubbed her face and the markings stayed. “We've been marked by the great healer and the new silver wood tree!” In all the history of the elves only one other has ever been honored this way! She became the Great Healer!” My own face had silver lines along the sides of my face as well and they were not coming off when rubbed or gently scrubbed.

 

Talara took nearly a week to regain her strength. Her and Avari had bonded and it was a good thing too. She also had the same type of markings on her face that Alari and I had. When she saw us she tried to kneel. “You have been chosen! Great Protector! Great life giver!” “So that's what these mean! What do yours mean?” She looked in a pool of water and about fainted from shock when she saw her own face. “Great Healer of Land and Skies!”

 

END FOUR

That's it for this chapter.  Next chapter will up in about a week.  I hope you all have enjoyed this odd little story so far.  I thank you reading it to this point.  All comments and questions welcomed.

[junyour]

I believe the madman might have met his match in this village.  Perhaps not as soon as the next chapter but soon. 

Thank you for another wonderful tale set in such a beautiful place.

[Sarah Penguin]

wheee

[widowmaker]

Sorry about the delay on posting this.  Had computer problems and got sick for a few days.  Here is the last chapter for this story.

FOUR

With a little extra work we rigged up a couple of boats that could carry us across the lake in about a day. I wanted to find some of those slave traders and see what could be done to stop them from sending anyone else to their death. Tammy and Greg wanted to swim on ahead of us and go straight for the madman himself but Alari and I made them stop and think a few minutes. The council agreed with making her stay with the group instead of going off and getting hurt, killed or worse, captured.

 

Her and Greg could both swim along and when we got closer to the shore then they could scout ahead to find us a secure landing place. Avari was afraid to return and risk getting captured so we let him stay behind. From what he has told me, I do not blame him for being afraid. The trip was not supposed to be more than a look and see so I only brought along ten diapers. Alari had brought along some knives and five spears as well as the silver wood staff. She was ready for a fight.

 

It worried me to see her ready for a fight. She loves being a healer and hates having to hurt anyone. “I do not want to fight, but if I have to, I will fight to keep us all free. We kissed and held each other for a bit. She sat down and went into a trance to prepare her body for the upcoming possibility that she might have to fight. The toughest one of the bunch I did not know had joined us until we made it to the shore and she came out of hiding. My daughter is stubborn.

 

“I am not letting you do this alone. I am not as good at fighting as mom is, but I can still scout just as well as her. Besides, the tree sent me. Mom smiled. “Why am I not surprised. Did it give you any instructions on what it wanted you to do? “Yes. It wanted me to plant a seed not far from where we land. I do believe this is going to be a very interesting scouting party.”

 

We made it a short distance and saw a few others walking around with collars on and looking like they had given up all hope. They were harvesting crops and fishing with absolutely no conversation at all. A small bolt of purple lightning hit a girl that looked like she was used to hard work. Anyone else would have been fried by that blast but she just hung her head and started to remove her clothes as she walked out of sight with tears flowing down her face. It made my blood boil to see that happen.

 

A moment later I heard her screaming in pain and if Alari had not grabbed me I would have gone after her and tried to kill that sick bastard who was torturing her. “I want to kill him too but we can't get to him just yet. He feeds off the pain he inflicts on others. We will stop him, but not today. We need more information before we can stop him. We rush in their blindly and we are dead for sure.

 

SilverMoon came back a few minutes later smiling. I planted the seed in the middle of his garden. He will have a real nice view of it as it grows. Don't worry, no one saw me. coming up the road a little ways off is a wagon with a couple of people in it looking terrified. I smiled and so did Alari. The plan took us about five minutes and if everything went well there would be one less slave trader and a few more free people in the world.

 

We hit the slave trader as he passed close to the lake. He crossed over a bridge and Tammy struck first. She came leaping out of the water so fast she was a blur. The man looked up at the last instant but it was too late for him to even cry out. Greg and Tammy drug the man out to the lake far enough no one would hear him if he screamed. They were gone for a few minutes but that was fine as we freed the people he had been bringing to the asshole to be tortured to death.

 

He had four people in his wagon and one of them was barely alive. She was covered completely in silver scales with webbed hands and feet. She could barely even move and there was no way she was going to be able to walk. Alari picked her up but Tammy stopped her. “She needs water, badly. Let me take her swimming.” One other one in the wagon dead as he had died on the trip from wherever he had been snatched from.

 

The others needed no prompting to run for it and hide from the slavers. “Where is the man that was driving this thing?” “I found out just long he could hold his breath before trying to breathe water. Don't worry, he wont come floating up to shore. We weighted his body down so it wont float up and wash up on shore. Let them think he vanished without a trace. Tammy and Greg took the woman and went out onto the lake with her. She came back a few minutes later by herself. “She's doing better but she is very weak.”

 

Tammy let me know everything she had found out from the slaver before she ended his life. They were bringing in another wagon load of prisoners for the madman and one of them could make any plant grow just by touching it. I smiled and planned on going after one more wagon. The large woman came staggering out of the thick underbrush and trees looking like someone had just beat the poor girl half to death.

 

When she removed her clothes she was covered in burns and cuts everywhere. She leaned over the lake to wash herself off and passed out. My daughter flew down and caught her before she could fall into the water and drown. Alari handed our daughter the staff and took the tall girl to our boat to heal her. Alari made it perhaps ten steps before the collar came off of the girl and was dropped to the ground.

 

SilverMoon smiled and took the staff. She stiffened up a moment then smiled. “It talked to me and I was not expecting that is all.” I'll be back in a minute or two. I have to get something from the madman before he tries to destroy it again. She floated off the ground a little bit and moved silently over the ground. A few minutes later she came back and was smiling. We ready to free that other wagon load of people?”

 

The wagon had guards and they were alert for trouble as they marched next to the wagon. Three people in the wagon huddled in fear as the man making the horses pull the wagon used a whip on them to make them continue when it was clear they were exhausted. Six guards and a driver would make this ambush trickier. The moment they started crossing the old stone bridge I struck. The bridge suddenly grew spikes of stone that stopped the guards and the wagon immediately.

 

The man driving the wagon saw me and aimed a crossbow at me until Alari blasted it out of his hands with a spell of some kind. The guards stared as Alari moved too fast for them to be able to hit with their swords. The driver was reaching fro something when my daughter hit him with a spear and knocked him out. Within seconds the guards and the driver were out cold. The driver and his guards refused to answer any questions so Tammy and Greg took them swimming one by one.

 

She came back and was angry. “They will never harm another person! They enjoyed catching these people! They stay and watch them get tortured to death then have their way with any females they want before getting paid and going to look for more people to bring here. The people in the wagon were afraid of staying so we let them join us. We took everyone back across the lake with us and arrived back home just about daybreak with Tammy and Greg taking turns helping the fish lady.

 

I changed into my last clean diaper just about halfway back and across the lake so it was a good thing I had packed a few more than I thought I would need. The plant grower and the fish lady were taken up to the healing pools at the shrine. The fish lady was able to walk but not very well as she was still very weak. The council listened as we told them everything and then they smiled at us. You did the right thing freeing those poor people. They are all welcome to stay here if they like.

 

I returned to my underground home at the shrine to find Alari, Tammy, and Greg talking with the strange fish lady. It was no surprise when Tammy and Alari brought her down and helped her over to the pool where she quickly settled in and fell asleep. “She's been out of water for almost 35 days now and that's why she is so weak. That crazy tree is changing the water to salt water for her. She comes from a race of people that live in the ocean. I didn't get much more than that from her. She barely understands our language and there is no way at all for me or any of us to come close to understanding hers. Let her sleep a few days and she should recover.

 

The next day another of those wild magic storms hit us again. It was nowhere near as bad as the last one, but it was still bad enough. There must have been nearly 200 magic bolts of lightning that hit the shrine and the tree before the storm ended. This time the worst of the storm had been centered on the shrine. I don't know what type of stone they made the shrine out of, but it is highly resistant to magic.

 

I had just finished changing myself when Alari came in and joined me. “That poor girl. They caught her in a net by accident and then sold her to the slavers. They lied and told the slavers that she had attacked their fishing boats so they wanted her gone for good. That village was wiped out three days later by the slave traders raiding it and taking everyone captive. They sold each one of those people to that madman. He tortured all of them to death and raped several of the younger girls. We need to stop him somehow.”

 

I shuddered and wanted to know how someone could become so sick and depraved as to get enjoyment out of torturing and raping others. “I agree with you. First, we stop the slavers then when his supply of victims is gone it should make him sloppy and careless as he will have to find other victims by himself. I'm thinking that those collars they wear make them obey him no matter how suicidal of a command he gives them. Anyone we free should have the collar removed immediately. It will prevent them from turning on us if he orders them to attack us.”

 

We waited two weeks and scouted all along the lake shore to make sure no unpleasant surprises were coming for us. Avari was our look out for anything coming from a long distance as he could see quite a ways even when he was flying so high that he was not visible to us. Our daughter scouted carefully as well and looked closer to the ground for signs of anyone attempting to sneak in on us. Two of our outlying farms had been raided in the night but the whoever did it was damned good and not even Alari could track them down.

 

In the middle of a huge wild magic storm Taylor, Greg, and Tammy went scouting. They could swim the entire way and no one would ever see them. Three days later they came back with a smile on their faces. “He's mad as hell now. That tree your daughter planted has been siphoning off his magic every time he makes a bad storm. I takes him a lot more energy and time now to make the storms. Every time someone tries to harm the tree they are turned away somehow and find themselves unable to approach it.

 

He's going to have trouble getting his favorite lake fish for a while now. We destroyed all of his nets and put holes in the fishing boats. They can be easily repaired but it will take a few days. The nets will take about the same amount of time to replace as well. Not sure why he does not move out of that location and away from the tree. I know if I had that kind of power and some tree was doing that to me I'd move.”

 

“Did you tell the council yet?” “They know. Everyone is heading for the shelters right now. Another bad storm is moving slowly across the lake and getting worse as it gets closer. We felt you'd want to know. I think we made the weather worker mad.” Taylor and SilverMoon stopped in a short while later. “Hey, grandfather!” “What are you teasing me about this time?” She simply smiled more and lowered her hand to her belly.

 

Alari and I jumped up and ran to the two of them for a family hug. When did you find out?” “You're going to love this one! The tree told me! I always told you I could talk to it and this time it confirmed what we suspected!” “When this storm is over we are going to tell everyone! We have not had any new children in a few years now!”

 

The storm raged on for almost a full month before it finally died out. Everywhere we looked there were huge craters. The entire underground shelter had been hit and almost blasted through in several places. The shrine was glowing white hot in several places and the normal background levels of magical energy glowed brightly as the shrine released magic they had stored up back into what we called the weave at a slow and steady rate.

 

Alari was kept busy healing almost everyone. A few people had been badly burned when a bolt of lightning blasted them as they ran for the shelter from one of the outlying farms. It took Alari almost half a day to heal them as they had been so close to not making it. SilverMoon flew up high to get a look at the damage everywhere. It was beyond bad. Not even the outlying farms had been spared. The buildings had been blasted to pieces and all the crops destroyed.

 

The fields where the crops had grown were nothing more than countless craters. Every farm animal had been blasted numerous times and some of them were unrecognizable as animals anymore. This was retaliation for planting the tree and denying him captives to torture to death for his amusement. He had just let us know that he intended to kill us if he could. He had hit us where he could to try and hurt and kill us off but the shelter had survived his attack.

 

The bridge I had helped shape had been blasted to pieces and it would not be possible to make another for a while. There simply was not enough solid stone to work with. All of the stone of the cliff walls had been fractured badly by magical lightning blasts. I changed my diaper as needed and continued to work on making the emergency structure even stronger and harder to damage.

 

With help from everyone bringing in stones from everywhere I made the roof of the place nearly five times thicker than before. Inside were supports everywhere making it even harder to collapse. This shelter was huge and easily seen as was my idea. After half a day of work I would change and rest until the middle of the night and then continue making the real shelter under cover of the night.

 

This one was one was further down in the ground than the first one. Tunnels led from several small shelters above ground to the new shelter under the same hill the shrine sat on. It took me nearly 65 days to finish the shelter as everyone hunted and scrounged what they could to stock it up for the next storm we felt was sure to come soon. We had a few small storms but nothing that was not normal.

 

We learned from Avari that his former master could only do a sustained storm that strong if he was real close to the place he wanted to hit with it. This meant he had either hiked here or came in over the water with the fog that always seemed to build up over the lake before a bad storm hit us. He was fat and lazy but had a short temper. When something went wrong he would get mad and lash out. Night raiders struck out in the dark and we freed nearly 50 more people and one new talent from the slavers.

 

The girl was gorgeous and to our surprise she was also an elf. Her eyes went wide when she Alari. “A Catari!” Alari smiled at the girl. “Rest easy. You have been hurt badly and if you move much more you could open those wounds again. Alari healed her in just a few minutes time and then helped her up to her feet. “You're a healer!”

 

“Mom, dad needs some help with his bad knee again. He messed it up again. Someone left a nasty trap for us and he found it the hard way. He's been trying to hide how bad it's smashed up but he can't even stand.” Greg came walking up with Harold in his arms. An arrow was sticking out of Greg's left leg made walking painful. “When I picked him up I found an arrow trap the hard way. Fix his knee first. I can hold my wound shut a while yet.”

 

I woke up and Alari was holding me in her arms. “You idiot! Never ever scare me like that again!” She leaned over and kissed me deeply while holding me in her arms. “The woods are loaded with traps now. Every road leading out of the village is nothing but huge craters in the ground. That bastard is trying to keep us here so he can torture us all to death at his leisure. We've made him mad by stopping him from getting anyone else for his sadistic idea of fun.”

 

I looked up and saw an elf girl looking at me in surprise. “You bonded with a Catari? How?” Greg and my daughter laughed. I told her how we had started dreaming of each other since we were both real young and then one day she managed to cross through a passageway of some sort to reach me. “SilverMoon is our daughter. She herself is bonded with Greg and they are expecting their first little one in a few months. So what do you wish to be called?”

 

“I am Talara. Long descended from Sarina the great Healer.” Alari was surprised to hear that. “I met Sarina once! She guided me here after talking to me a while. I have her to thank for my beloved and our daughter! How did you come to here?” I was on a talent search to find my talent outside of the glades. I sought shelter from a bad storm and when it ended I was caught by those men you freed me from.

 

They..they..hurt me.” Alari cut to the chase. “They repeatedly raped her. I have healed you of the physical damage they inflicted upon you. There is a problem as you have surely noticed by now. You were damaged badly down there by their rough treatment of you. You were also poisoned a few times to make it harder for you to fight them off. Like my beloved, you have no control of when your body relieves itself of waste.

 

She broke down crying and left it up to Alari to explain to her how to put a diaper on herself and what things to be careful of. “You need not be ashamed of it. A number of others in this village must also use them. Had it not taken so long for us to reach you, I could have healed you enough to make sure this never happened. The body will not allow it now. The pattern is set. I'm sorry.”

 

Talara spent several days getting used to wearing protection again and trying to find her talent. With careful scouting from Alari and our daughter, almost 200 traps were found and destroyed. We have no clue who had set the traps, but they had been free to do so while the storm kept us all out of the way. The traps were not lethal but would disable you and leave you in pain as you died slowly.

 

The madman wanted to use our suffering to increase his power. This was his idea of fun. He enjoyed hurting others. All of us were thinking that the madman had sent some of his slaves to set up the traps and then escape under cover of the storm. I wanted to get my hands on him now more than ever.

 

Talara kept to herself and stayed out of the way of everyone and rarely spoke to anyone. Her favorite place to sit and think was the lake. A number of times I myself spotted her sitting by herself the cold weather was coming and she still had not chosen a place for me to create a home for her. Everyone else had a home somewhere that the storms would not reach them, but not her.

 

I sat down next to her as she gazed out into nowhere. Any thoughts as to where you want me to create a place for you?” Everyone else has already gotten settled in to their new homes.” “I don't need one. Not sure where I'm going, but this place is not for me. I'm leaving in the morning. I feel something pulling on me and I have to go find it. Who knows, maybe I'll find a way to fix this.” She pointed to her diaper under her clothes with a sigh.

 

“Everyone here is nice but it's not a place for an outcast like me. A lot of you have talents that you can use to help everyone, but I have nothing to offer. I couldn't even stop them from using me like some kind of toy. I can't hunt. I have no talent. I have no useful skills to offer.” “I don't know about that. I think I have someone who would like to talk to you at least once before you leave.”

 

She stood up, brushed herself off and then looked at me. “There's a storm coming. It's building up on the other side of the lake. Someone is feeding blood magic into it to make it more powerful. You should get into shelter before it hits in a few hours.” “You can feel that?” “Yes. I can control the weather but it's a worthless talent. I was on a talent quest to find a more useful talent or some place that I could belong.

 

I found another place and paid for my stupidity. They used me and when they were tired of me they were going to sell me off to that man in the awful purple robes over there. I would rather die than to have to pleasure him. He is so damned fat it's a wonder he can even stand let alone walk. I better get going if I plan to beat the storm.”

 

She turned to leave and as I was about to try to stop her a bolt of lightning barely missed us both. When my sight returned she was gone as if she had never been. How she vanished so fast I have no clue, but she did. There was no sign of her but it did not surprise me. She has a very useful talent but somewhere in her past she was hurt badly by someone and now they had hurt her again. This time she did not want to live and was looking for a place to vanish and never be found again.

 

There was nothing I could do except help get everyone into shelter before the storm hit. By the time the storm hit everyone was in their underground homes safely hidden from the storm and it's magic lightning bolts fueled by wild magic and blood magic as well is Talara was right. The storm was not as bad as we had thought it would be but it was still bad enough that it was not safe to be outside in it.

 

A few hours later the storm was over and had not managed to do very much to the village this time. It had struck mainly off to the north where no one lived. The few lightning bolts that hit had hit the old emergency shelter I had left as a target and a distraction from the real shelters scattered around the outskirts of the village. None of them had been hit at all. Maybe my plan had worked or something messed up the storm somehow.

 

Alari and SilverMoon went looking for any sign of Talara but found nothing. I was tinkering with the remains of the old bridge a few days later when I spotted something in the canyon. It was too far down for me to try to climb and the rock was to fractured to create some stairs in the rock wall. Avari was busy helping to ruin the plans of the slave traders on the other side of the lake so I could not ask him to go look. Likely just dead deer washed onto the shore by the water.

 

Avari came back that night and smiled. Got two wagon loads of people set free this time! There are also a few less traders of people.” “That is good news. Any sign of Talara?” “Who?” It then occurred to me that he had never met her. Too late now. “She is an elf that stayed with us for a while. She kept to herself and is likely far away by now. She had her own personal demons driving her away from life here or anywhere. If you have time can you scout the canyon real fast and make sure it's just another dead deer down there?” He smiled. “I can do that. Where did you see the thing at?” “Near the bridge.”

 

He did not return until sometime later and when he did he had tears in his eyes. In his arms was the battered and blasted body of Talara. She had fought back against the madman's storm and lost from the looks of it. Alari came staggering over to me with a look of pain on her face. “Give her to me!” IT startled me to hear Alari snarl out like that but I felt something through our bond that she was trying to block me from feeling. It hurt.

 

Alari laid the elf girl down and then went into a healing trance as she pulled in so much magic and channeled it into healing it made her glow a little bit. The silver wood staff soon began to grow branches with leaves from near her hands as the bottom of the staff grew roots that sought the soil under it. Alari ignored everything and refused to let go even when it seemed she was not making any progress.

 

It surprised me when the staff became a small silver wood tree that grew as magic flowed though it. I looked back at Alari and for just a few seconds I saw the form of an elf lady with a hand on Alari's shoulder. Alari started to fall over and without thinking about it I grabbed her and refused to let go of her. It felt like a thousand fires burning in me as I held her. My poor diaper paid the price as well as it reached it's limit and began leaking.

 

Some time later I woke up next to Alari who was barely breathing. It took my daughter and her life mate to finally help us get to our feet. Talara was being held by Avari gently. She's alive! Thank you!” Avari had evidently found another reason not to fly off as he had been thinking of doing to find someone he said he had been seeing in his dreams for some time now. I looked at him. “Life mate?” He shook his head yes and walked off with her to his home in the silver wood tree. The big silver wood tree had created a home for him in it's upper branches and he loved it.

 

The staff had become a new silver wood tree. I don't how much magic Alari had channeled but it was a huge amount to save Talara from being so near to death. Alari and I slept for three days straight before finally waking up. Alari had beautiful black stripes forming a pattern around her face. To me they enhanced her already spectacular figure. I noticed that the room that was our home was no longer dark. All around the walls were silver wood tree roots that glowed enough to make it possible to see where you were going without bumping into anything in the dark.

 

It was not long after that when Alari woke up and without saying anything tore off my diaper and began making love to me. We finally finished and laid on the furs holding each other. “She was in so much pain. She drew in the blood magic of the storm and was trying to clean it when he spotted her and hit her with numerous lightning bolts. She was knocked into the canyon just outside of the village. She pulled the storm to her to try to spare us.”

 

We slept for sometime after that and finally came out into the clear night air after making love again. “Looks like someone marked you honey” She laughed and looked into the water of one of the pools and gasped in surprise. She rubbed her face and the markings stayed. “We've been marked by the great healer and the new silver wood tree!” In all the history of the elves only one other has ever been honored this way! She became the Great Healer!” My own face had silver lines along the sides of my face as well and they were not coming off when rubbed or gently scrubbed.

 

Talara took nearly a week to regain her strength. Her and Avari had bonded and it was a good thing too. She also had the same type of markings on her face that Alari and I had. When she saw us she tried to kneel. “You have been chosen! Great Protector! Great life giver!” “So that's what these mean! What do yours mean?” She looked in a pool of water and about fainted from shock when she saw her own face. “Great Healer of Land and Skies!”

 

END FOUR

 

FIVE

“I guess this means we're supposed to keep doing what we have been doing. I have no quarrels with the idea.” Alari smiled and wrapped her arms around me before kissing me. Talara was still a little surprised that I had fallen in love and bonded with a Catari. Avari simply smiled as he gently held Talara.

 

“Differences can bring about surprisingly good results. They love each other and in my mind that is all that matters. You don't have wings, but that does not matter to me. I still love you and still want to raise a family with you. So, who's ready to help me figure out the next thing we can do to make the big jerk on the other side of the lake mad at us again?”

 

We all smiled and started to brainstorm ideas. The slavers had a schedule that they kept and we had been stopping them and freeing their victims. That was how we met Talara. She had been a victim of the slavers and paid a price for trying to resist them. They raped and beat her repeatedly until they caused permanent damage to her body that Alari could not heal completely as the damage had been left untreated for too long.

 

“What we need to do is find out where these jerks are coming from. Once we find that out we can do something about them, permanently. They have already hurt too many others and do not deserve to be treated nicely. They have no honor and prey on those who can not fight back! They need to be taught that there are those who will stand up to them and make them pay for their crimes!”

 

After half a day of planning we had an idea in mind and would start the next day. The rest of the day was spent reinforcing all the shelters. Alari made sure everyone was in good health and healed a few minor injuries. Poor Fred had gotten hurt badly when a wild boar charged him and left a nasty gash in his left leg when his horse panicked and dumped him.

 

Alari healed him while our daughter went out and found his horse. The poor horse had been caught in a nasty trap and would be better off dead with a broken leg. Alari refused to put the poor horse down and healed it completely. The horse would be good for plowing but not riding as it was too prone to jumping at the least little unexplained noise or sight.

 

The new shelter for the livestock was heavily reinforced and there were buffers to block a lot of the sound so the horses did not panic and hurt themselves. Food and water was stocked heavily in their shelter so they would be in no danger of starving if it took a few days to reach them.

 

The next morning I changed myself, packed spare diapers, and made sure everything was ready for me to leave for most of the day. The madman was not going to be happy with our next idea if it worked. It was risky but that was not going to stop us from doing what was right. After a last look around I left my home with Alari and went straight for the boat.

 

We discussed the plan as we went across the lake to a sneaky little landing spot that had been scouted out by Tammy and Greg. We pulled in carefully and made sure the boat was not going to float away. Tammy and Greg swam back and over the course of four more hours they returned with three more boats. Hopefully this would be enough to haul back a most precious cargo.

 

Tammy and Greg rested for a short bit and then joined us at the location we had chosen to meet at. With a little work we got in close to the fields where the slaves were working hard at watering crops and harvesting ripe fruit from the numerous trees growing in neat and orderly rows. The silver wood tree had grown to nearly nine feet tall and had a fence erected around it to prevent anyone from getting too close to it.

 

This did not surprise me. The madman was afraid of the tree and did want to get anywhere near it. Talara used one of her talents to make the water being poured on the crops to flow away from the plants and into the lake every time a slave attempted to water the crops. Two slaves followed the water to the lake and were quickly grabbed by Tammy and Greg. They fought to get free until their collars were removed and thrown into the lake.

 

The pair of them passed out at that point. This was not something we expected. They were being worked to death by the madman and were exhausted. We revised our plans and when the next four were freed we sent Tammy and Greg back across the lake with them. It took us all day and almost all night to get several slaves freed from the madman. There must have been almost a hundred slaves wearing collars that forced them to follow any order he gave them regardless of how harmful it might be to them.

 

Tammy returned after the last of the freed slaves had been sent to our village. She brought us food and spare diapers for me. This was taking longer than we had planned. There were no more slaves working the fields or taking anything into the madman. So I spent time turning every rock in every field into a stone spike that would make getting into the fields next to impossible as every one of them would have to be dug out and thrown somewhere they could not be used against anyone trying to farm the field.

 

Talara felt it first and motioned to the sky. Another magical storm was growing. “Time to leave before he gets this one strong enough to throw at us.” I agreed with her but left the madman a little present. All of his boats were ruined with large stone spikes sticking up through the middle of each one. He would not be using any of the boats again. His fields had been made nearly impossible to get to safely and the fence around the silver wood tree had been destroyed.

 

I touched the tree and the crazy symbols on my face glowed for a moment. “We are not done yet my friend. We will get rid of this madman and those who help him.” After that I ran and got in the boat and smiled as we had made things more difficult for the madman. The improvised sail in each boat helped us to get across the huge lake in short time compared to first time when we had been forced to row and paddle across the lake.

 

A look back showed the storm growing larger and darker by the minute and it made me worry that he might actually have enough power to destroy the village this time. How was that madman getting so much magical power to be able to do this? I channeled magic to shape stone and there was not this much magic in the area. It seemed a bit low on magical energy.

 

We were just arriving on the other side as the answer came to me. He had some kind of device that pulled in magical energy and stored it for him to use! That was how he was making these deadly storms! Avari kissed Talara and then helped get the boats out of the water and stored in one of the underground shelters. All the outlying farms had been warned in time and their people had gone into shelter

 

Alari and I had just gotten into our own shelter underground when the storm hit with a vengeance. Lightning slammed into the ground everywhere. Hailstones bigger than my head rained down from above as the wind picked up even more than it had before. Never before had I experienced a storm like this one. The lightning was charged with magical energy and left craters where it hit. The hailstones pounded down as well while the wind got louder and louder all the time. At times it almost seemed to me as if we were going to be sucked out of our underground home.

 

A bright flash of blue from a magical lightning bolt hit the entrance to our underground home several times in a row. Finally the wind let up and the storm ended. We emerged to see what the damage was and it was bad. Talara was standing like a rigid statue with the staff of the silver wood tree in her hands. The storm had been pushed away from the village but it still raged on as it went back across the lake.

 

A large oddly shaped part of the clouds was spinning madly over the lake as the storm slowly moved back and forth over the water trying to return to here like a wild animal caught in a rope and being dragged to it's death. The storm reached the other side of the lake and abruptly dissipated. Talara fell to the ground near death again. She had fought against the madman and pushed the storm away from the village.

 

Avari grabbed her and helped her to her feet. “So much hate! So much anger! So much pain! It powers the thing and drives the storms! He feeds on the pain and suffering of others!” Alari was already working hard on healing her as she had been hit at least twice by lightning from the storm and yet she somehow managed to channel it through her and use it to help push the storm back.

 

It took three days for Talara to recover this time. We had lost four people to the storm when the wind from the spinning cloud that stretched from the clouds to the ground pulled them from their shelters then smashed them to death with debris or threw them way up in the air and let them fall to their deaths. It took Alari and our daughter to calm me down and prevent me from going across the lake to kill the madman by myself. He had killed four of us with his storm all because he he could not force us to bend and submit to his will.

 

“He will be stopped! We will destroy that thing of his that is polluting his mind! Once he is freed from the thing we can heal his mind! You go after him now while he has so much energy to use and he will kill you!” “Dad, please don't go! I want you to see my little one when the time comes! I want this baby to know the ones who raised me! Please wait until you can at least greet the little one in a few weeks!”

 

Taylor looked at me and spoke as well. “I want that madman stopped too, but killing him is not the answer! First we break and smash whatever is polluting his mind then we try to heal the damage done!” He was right. I hated losing anyone and had worked so hard to protect them all. Alari led me to to the silver wood tree and made me sit down and rest as the tree worked it's magic on me. It hurt losing those I swore to myself to protect.

 

Talara had managed to save the village from the worst of the storm but it still almost killed her. It took a good amount of time to heal her again and keep her from having a months long recovery. Several others in the village had been hurt as well when the storm had almost pulled them from their underground shelters and forced them to hang on to anything they could to avoid being pulled out.

 

With a little work I managed to create some sliding doors that could be slid over the openings to prevent them from being pulled out if another of these storms was thrown at us again. Thankfully our crops had been harvested and stored a little early or they would have been destroyed by the storm. Everything above ground had been smashed by the huge hailstones and lightning strikes. Not a single normal tree stood unharmed.

 

“H has to be stopped! The longer we wait the more chances he will have of finding a way to kill us all off. The energy to drive these storms is derived from the pain and suffering of others but where are his victims? We freed his slaves and the slavers surely have not had a chance to return with more victims. We have to stop him and the ones bringing him more victims! I can't figure out where he is getting his power from!”

 

Avari came up to me slowly. “I know where he is getting his power from. The suffering of others gives him the energy he needs to power whatever it is that helps him make these storms. He has an underground place where he keeps those he is hurting until they die in pain. He makes their suffering last as long as he can by hurting them in ways to do no lasting damage. He likes to inflict pain both physical and emotionally.

 

I saw the place just once and escaped a half a day later. It is not a place I would ever want to see again. I have nightmares from what I was forced to watch him do to a young child. He forced himself on her as her mother watched and listened to her screaming in fear and pain then when he finished his foul deed her tortured her to death. Her death took hours and she cried out for her mother constantly before she finally died in agonizing pain.

 

I would see him dead for this!” He broke down in tears and it took Talara a while to get him calmed down again. “The little girl was his little sister. She was four years old. The mother was his own mother and that is why he was forced to watch the entire event. I agree, he must be stopped before he can hurt anyone else this way ever again. The people are brought to him from all over every four days. With all of his slaves freed and his deliveries of victims being cut off he will be very angry now and will likely find a way to get up enough energy to power a storm so strong that no one will live through it.

 

I think I have an idea of how to stop him but it is going to have to be done while he is still recovering from his storm being sent back to him. He has no healers. A healer would kill him before ever healing him. Tonight we need to go after him. He will not expect a night attack as we have never hit him at night. He has no clue who we are. He only knows that there are a few of us here with talents he would like to enslave while the rest are tortured to death slowly.”

 

We listened as Talara outlined a brief idea of how to get at him. I changed my diaper and then joined them on a night trip across the lake. This was risky as none of us were familiar with the madman's home. He would have defenses most likely designed to hold and torture a person until he decided what he wanted to do with them. Up until now we had only been stinging him and stealing his slaves from him. It made him mad. This raid was going to hurt and hopefully kill him.

 

Talara used her skill to move water to make our trip across the lake faster than we had ever gone before. The only downside was her having to stop and change a full diaper. It made her almost cry to have to change herself into a fresh diaper. The men that had captured her had hurt so badly that they left damage not even my beloved Alari could heal.

 

She finished changing and I hugged her. “I say we finish him off then go after all those who bring more people to him to be tortured to death. No one should ever have to endure what they did to you. We will finish him and destroy whatever it is he uses to help make the storms more powerful. I promise on my honor that I want to destroy him and stop his madness!” She hugged me and then we were moving quickly across the lake again.

 

The moon was high in the sky when we arrived on the far shore of the lake. Talara shuddered as she got out of the boat. “The land cries out from what he has done! Even the plants are crying out! The silver wood tree glowed heavily in the still night air. Our path led us by it so we all stopped and let it touch us each with it's branches for a few moments. The tree was angry with the madman and saddened at the loss of all those he had killed in such ugly ways.

 

Carefully picking our way through the area was painstakingly slow but it was loaded with all sorts of nasty traps to hold and cause pain. We wrecked each trap we found and it was nice to know there were fewer traps to hold and torture a victim. At just about daybreak we arrived at a cliff wall that Avari had told us about. We all needed rest so I used my talent create a place in the solid stone for us to rest at and hide. It was dark inside but there was enough room for us to sleep. I left numerous small air holes in the rock so we would not die from a lack of air.

 

During the time in hiding Alari changed me twice. Talara changed herself once as well. The used diapers were dropped into a hole and covered in solid stone so the smell of them did not make us ill or give away that we were hiding near the mad man and his place. We all of us stayed well away from the air holes and spoke in only the softest whispers so as to not let any sound give away we were even here. Several times I heard screams coming from outside our hiding place and it made me cry. I wanted nothing more than to lash out and kill the madman but he stayed hidden. He was busy hurting others and getting huge amounts of energy from their pain.

 

When the night finally came the screaming finally stopped. Waiting until full dark before finally opening our hiding spot to the outside sickened me when I looked out. A little girl not more than maybe six was crawling on the ground in pain as she tried to escape. She looked back as she heard foot steps and cried out in despair as she tried to crawl even faster. Something that was not human and looked like a warped and distorted version of an elf grabbed her by one leg and slowly began to pull her backwards while laughing about her feeble attempts at escape.

 

The thing got near the rock wall and I acted instantly. Two great big slabs of stone immediately slammed his body between them and crushed him before he could even cry out. It was a mess but I had no regrets for killing the thing. The little girl was grabbed by Alari as Talara pried the dead thing's hand off of her leg to free her. Within seconds the little girl was asleep. Alari was mad now. The little girl had been sexually assaulted then slowly and painfully tortured before being allowed to think she could escape.

 

Her fear when she was captured again fed the madman and it was my guess that he did this frequently with his victims so as to create even greater amounts of fear and despair when he had them drug them back to die slowly and painfully. Talara spit on the blood covered hand with a disgusted look. “Varda!” Talari spun to face her with the little girl in her arms. “What?!” “That was a Varda! A vile and deadly race thought long dead. If ever you see one, kill it quickly and make sure it is not ever going to come back again!” I had no clue what they were but if they sided with the madman and helped him by torturing others, then they too should be destroyed.

 

We found the cleverly hidden entrance to the lair of the madman and carefully made our way deeper into the tunnel. Several times it branched out into other rooms that contained the long dead remains of those who had died at his hands. Channels cut in the floor were stained rusty brown with dried blood that once flowed through these channels and to somewhere deeper into the place. Twice more we encountered some form of creature minding the place and were forced to destroy it to prevent it calling out an alarm.

 

Three more rooms full of long dead victims made me sick to think of the hell they had been forced to go through before finally being allowed to die. I wanted to give in to my anger and hatred and just collapse the entire place but there were others in need of saving so I forced myself to calm down and let go of the negative feelings. The last turn brought us to a large room full of victims being held in cages that healed them before they were dragged out to be subjected to more torture.

 

All of them wore blank expressions and had clearly given up on life. They waited for death to release them from their suffering. Each of them were freed and sent to the outside to wait safely at the silver wood tree. There were nearly 120 of them and it took time to free them. Three more times we freed victims being held in cages. It saddened me to find that one entire chamber held the dead remains of people who had been horribly mutilated and forced to die in agonizing pain. What kind of cruel and evil being could do this?

 

We stopped once more so Talara and I could change real fast and I could get sick. So many victims! Why would he do this? No amount of power was worth this kind of suffering! So many people had breathed their last here as they died screaming that the echoes of their deaths seemed to be still crying out from the very stone itself.

 

The sound of running feet coming towards us caught our attention. We braced for a fight but it was only a young boy. He made it almost to us before a black ooze of some kind dropped down on him and began to inflict pain on him as it peeled his skin away and began on the tissue underneath. Alari brought he silver Wood staff down into the middle of the stiff and it let go of the boy who was now dead with his entire bottom half missing.

 

The thing writhed and bubbled as a silver fire flared up and incinerated it. A laughter from ahead of us echoed through the passageway. “My pet has fed well! Which one of you would like to be it's desert? Which one would like to be my play toy for tonight? We came into the room that was well lit with some type of glowing tubes in the roof connected to cables of some kind that ran off into the darkness. “My pet has been fed all those you knew! Would you like to see what it does? Yes. I think you will come to enjoy seeing it feed! It strips the flesh from your bones layer by layer! The pain is so lovely! If it is not very hungry the pain can last for days before it finally eats you!”

 

He never stood a chance. I stepped into the room and made sure he saw me. “Well met butcher!” spikes of stone shot through him form the floor and ceiling as he screamed in pain for a moment before the last one slammed through his skull. Unlike the first thing we had killed he was taller and and looked more like an elf except for the razor sharp, teeth blue skin, and long fingers ending in sharp claws.

 

It should have been over but his body flowed around the spikes and reformed as we watched in horror. “New things to play with!” Alari screamed and jumped at him. He laughed at her until the staff hit him and burned him. Talara used her abilities to prevent him from flowing away as Alari kept hitting it over and over with the staff until it was too hurt to move again. It was encased in a bowl of stone and there it finally died screaming an inhuman scream as the staff burned it to ash and then kept burning it until nothing was left.

 

The group of us spent the next four days freeing every captive he had and destroying anything that had blood stains on it. We wanted nothing left behind. The next group of victims were brought in by smiling men and were met by a mob of angry victims. The men had guards but still ended up torn apart. The last one we left alive so we could get information.

 

There was an entire clan of these men and they had been making good money, whatever that was, by capturing random people and bringing them here to be tortured to death. “If it were up to me I would see you all destroyed like the madman you served! One day there will be a reckoning. We will show up or others like us will show up and you will find out what it means to be hunted! Go and tell your clan that they are no longer welcomed here! Tell them we will visit them very soon!” We let him go and he ran as fast as he could for a horse.

 

Getting everyone across the lake took us days. Silvermoon talked with the silver wood tree as I worked at readying everything here for a cleansing. With the last victim sent safely back across the lake to finish healing and have a chance at starting over I closed the last entrance to the passages. We never found the thing that fed on the pain and suffering but it could not keep working with my next idea.

 

I leaning against the silver wood tree it surprised me to find it giving me extra strength to do what I planned. The ground rumbled and vibrated a little as a hole was formed going down so deep that liquid rock would flow out through it to the surface. Talara guided the super heated stone as it was like a fluid at the temperatures it had. The passage filled completely with the rock as it flowed into them. Nothing could stay intact with that happening.

 

The explosion caused a huge portion of the cliff to blow out and then the ground to collapse under it. Whatever had been fed the all the pain and suffering had exploded. Liquid rock filled the area in and more small explosions shook the ground until finally the passages were full and the giant hole was filled with liquid rock. With this down I reached out and slowly closed the hole from the bottom to the top. Nothing more would flow out to the surface from it.

 

It took days for the stone to cool and harden. The cliff wall was hot for several turns of the seasons but eventually it too cooled off. Tammy had helped to shuttle people back to the village where several people worked to help them to start healing. It surprised me one day on a trip across the lake to begin searching for the ones who brought innocents to die horribly when a blast of cold air and snow hit me.

 

A figure led a number of Catari through the tunnel that had formed in the middle of the air in front of me. The lady stepped out of the tunnel with the group of several dozen Catari. I recognized her somehow. The silver wood trees had shown me her image several times. “She walked over to me and smiled. “Hello Harold. The silver wood trees named you most correctly. Great protector. I have watched all of this unfold. Now is time for some more help and I brought some friends who are eager to meet those who would sell their very souls for a few coins.”

 

“Great healer! You are the one my Life Mate says guided her here!” She laughed. “Indeed I did! She could not live without you and you could not live without her. Your bond and love of life is very powerful. I name you all three as friends. Now I think it is time for some more friends here to learn of what you have helped to accomplish. They are most eager to to help and some of them are healers as well!”

 

That was nearly ten years ago now. We found the slavers and dealt with them most harshly. The Catari that came were the first and they loved the area on the other side of the lake. Every victim has been healed and helped to start over again. Broken families were brought back together and new families were started. I learned that the Varda we destroyed was thankfully the last of them on this world. There is another population of Varda but they splintered off in long forgotten time when the rest began to turn evil.

 

They have become a race of healers and artists who to this day I am told hate what the others they left behind chose to become. I think one day I would like to meet them. When we cleared out the slavers we found several more people with various talents. The humble village has grown over the years and with everyone helping to make it a wondrous place it is exactly that now. We have had some problems with a group of hunters going after anyone with a talent but they found our village to be too much for them.

 

We caught them and gave them a choice of making amends for their actions or being imprisoned underground for life where they would never see the surface or see daylight ever again. They turned their lives around and last year three of them bonded with a trio of Catari. It should not shock me now but it still does surprise me when a portal opens and someone or several someones come through. Last week nearly 500 elves and 250 dwarves showed up along with three huge dragons!

 

I would like to tel you what happened next but my diaper is already threatening to leak and my services are being requested again. It seems the Dwarves and a few of the Catari are still wanting giant statues of the three of us. Myself, Alari, and Talara have constantly rejected the idea. Talara has been slowly and steadily cleansing the land of the wild magic and returning the weave to a balance once more. Alari has been teaching everyone healing skills and has attended every birthing. She is often the first face newborn children see coming into this world.

 

I keep pushing my abilities to the limit and have figured out how to make more of the shrine type of structures that help slowly balance out the weave of magic in the world. My mother never did apologize for throwing me out all those years ago and has since left the village for someplace that does not have me or anyone else with talents. I hope one day she sees the truth and returns. If not, I shall mourn her passing despite how she treated me.

 

END

That's it for this story.  Had intended to make it longer but every time I went to work on it I ended up having to go back and fix 90% of the words that the damned auto correct screwed up.  Had to run a an anti spyware scan four times to find all the damned spyware and get rid of it then fix open office so it would quit messing everything up.  Lost about four pages of the story and had to rewrite.  finished it a bit faster than intended but it's done.  Hope to have my new system up and running by next week.  Getting sick of arguing with windows and look forward to going back to linux.  Thank you all for your patience.  All comments and questions welcomed.

[Jayme]

5 hours ago, widowmaker said:

Had to run a an anti spyware scan four times to find all the damned spyware

Next time you think you have malware on your computer go to file hippo dot com(all one word) and download spybot search and destroy, and Malwarebytes. Both are free to download and will find every bit of malware on your computer for easy removal.

This story is beautiful and I'm sorry you had so many problems posting it. I cannot wait to see the next story in the saga if there is one! Thank you so much for posting this epic story.

[widowmaker]

I had to run spybot four times to get rid of the spyware.  Ended up editing the registry to stop it from coming back every darned time.  It snuck in with an update from microsoft.  The yaho that owned this laptop before me had downloaded child porn so the system is tagged .  I turned the individual in right away.  The crap was on my laptop when I bought it from a pawnshop.  Took police three days to get the machine back to me.  Every now and again I get hit with some nasty spyware that screws everything up.  Waiting on thermal paste to show up on Monday then I hope to have my new system up and running by Wednesday.

 

As for stories, Working on one diaper dimension story right now and a non fetish story as well.  Not sure when I'll have enough of the diaper dimension to post as I'm going slow and not typing much.  Trying to do many things right now so writing time is a bit limited.

[Sarah Penguin]

Spyware infestations suck *nods* Enjoyed your tale.