+++ The Urchin Leader (21st Day of Disorder Month)

Training. Facing the walls of the Arena Team Rooms once again, and the annoying sand under foot. The sand worked your muscles cruelly, each booted foot lifted and then sunk when placed back, frustrating.

A sheen of perspiration painted her brow. Sweat beaded upon her chest to trickle down between her tiny peaked breasts to be soaked up within the layers of cloth binding them. Her loin cloth similarly damp. Panting, Jocasta chose to roll away this time, the swish of the wooden dagger and air movement chasing after her, light sand adhering to her as the tumble completed and she regained her feet.

Jocasta feinted left and then pushed right. The slap of the wooden sword across her back, stinging and yet not unexpected after three weeks of training; Zosime’s favourite counter move. She didn’t stumble this time though, her body strength improving. Jocasta allowed a smile to escape to celebrate this small victory.

“Enjoying punishment isn’t what I would expect of my student,” chortled Zosime, as her leg whipped out.

Jocasta’s left leg smacked into her right leg and eyes wide, mouth open she crashed into the sand. Instantly raising her head, spitting out the coarse grit, several times. Then slap, a sting on her skinny buttocks.

“Up!” commanded Charis.

“Mistress?” yelped Jocasta, spitting sand and struggling to her feet.

“Are you here to check up on the student or the teacher Mistress?” asked Zosime.

“The elder passed a message to me, apparently Jocasta has some news?”

Continuing to brush sand from herself and spitting out the last of the sand from her mouth Jocasta straightened and captured Charis’ clear blue eyes with her own.

“I thought I needed to tell you that I am no longer leader of the urchins, I cannot lead them through the underfloor entrance. I am too fat, my titties grown too large to fit through now.”

Charis raised an eyebrow. “I have noticed you have filled out and firmed up.” The truth being, Jocasta appeared fit and healthy, not fat and not skinny or underweight.

“Yes Mistress, I hope Zosime is satisfied with my progress.” Jocasta glanced nervously at Zosime. No smile, no emotion. “Wormy is the name of the boy who now leads the urchins. He is a smart boy and loyal to me, but I am sad … a little.” Her eyes darting to the hated sand while moistening.

Charis gently grabbed Jocasta by the shoulders, resisted the urge to hug her, instead holding her at arm’s length. Jocasta lifted her head in response.

“Don’t be sad, you are growing up and things always change when you grow up. It is just one of the signs, it isn’t good or bad, it just is. I thank you for your service as leader of the urchins and now it is the time of Wormy, to lead and prove himself.”

Jocasta draped her arms around Charis’ neck, keeping her distance her hands playing in her Mistress’ short black hair. Her Mistress; her constant and her security.

“Yes, I know but I did like going about unnoticed and listening. Now that I am moving on it hasn’t escaped others that I have changed. No one is asking questions yet, but I do get looks.”

“It will work out. Your sisters will notice everything as there is not much else to do while we are all hiding from Death Season, eating, sleeping and training.” Charis gently lifted Jocasta’s arms from around her neck, somewhat surprised and perhaps an indication the loss of one thing was being replaced by another.

Charis drew twin daggers and took a step back. Jocasta’s eyes lit up growing as wide as twin plates, swiftly grasping her daggers, slightly bent at the knees her body posture to match, ready.

+++ The Favour (5th Day of Shadow Month)

“Raisa, lean upon me, take a step, just one.” The pleading unheard by Raisa, the possible exception being the last two words, which Rhea screamed. Tears welling in her eyes when there wasn’t any recognition from the sickly sister wrapped within her arms trying to coax the bloated husk of her body forward. This degeneration shouldn’t be happening, they should be celebrating within the Seer Circle; instead, a river of tears.

Raisa’s feet curled up and pointed inwards, refusing to move at her command regardless of her sister’s encouragement. In the previous days her body deteriorated rapidly, a tipping point reached, one she couldn’t conceal any longer from her sister. In her heart of hearts, she knew. The body refused her, rejected the foreign soul presence as a gradual build-up of resistance. The exercises of weeks a slow spiral of physical decline, now an avalanche. False smiles and assurance denying the inevitable. As her physical body rejected her, so did sensations, initially touch and smell and yesterday taste and hearing. Her mind suffering final isolation as her sight blurred overnight.

“Kill … me …” Raisa drew from her remaining strength, certain of Rhea’s contact by her yelled desperate invitation to take a step and the fact she stood, no longer in bed. Raisa’s sense of touch diminished to the point of uncertainty, alive although no senses remaining to confirm her own existence.

Her sister’s skin shrivelled and dry, a coarse parchment under her grasp. Rhea able to man handle her sister’s body about the Inn’s Main Room. At first of course she convinced herself it was because the body required feeding and being short, naturally lighter. Now she knew the truth, her sister would die again and neither knew if her soul would return to Rhea’s body or return to the Goddess.

Rhea craned her head back and sniffed. Tears continued to the floor, escaping from the edges of her clamped shut eyes, mocking her efforts. The excuses, to Charis, to the Seer Circle futile, time to face the truth.

---

“Mistress, I need a blessing if I could,” sent Rhea.

“Always Sister, how is Raisa progressing?”

Silence. Charis expected a response detailing progress and success.

“Raisa’s body Mistress … and this morning her speech blurred, and I fear tomorrow it will be lost.”

Panic, distress and helplessness echoed through her mind speech, Seer discipline discarded.

“Could you channel healing through me and at least restore her physical body, her muscles are wasted, her skin dry and she has excess weight from eating … which she no longer can. If I can get her moving and keep her moving that will be a good start but her body is not accepting her.”

Charis summoned the Seer Circle to attention, including Rhea, although last. What ailed Raisa would be beyond Charis’ healing ability she believed if Raisa’s body rejected her presence and while this effort would probably be futile a Sister requested help and they would answer.

“I have only healed from violence, although I will try of course. Circle help me channel, Rhea place your hands upon her, and I am sorry if some of my healing … spills.” Charis remembered relieving pain from a red bottom once, so perhaps and then dismissed the false hope, guarding her thoughts and doubts from the Seer Circle.

“I understand and accept the risk, I am wrapping my body around her.” Rhea drew Raisa upon her, not chancing the opposite position in case she crushed her sister’s frail frame.

Charis could sense the sweet pain and slow decay inside Raisa. She used the fat around Raisa’s muscles to accelerate their repair, she then moved the fat within her body and placed it on her breasts and bottom. At a loss, Charis decided to cleanse and heal Raisa’s blood in the hope the suffering body would know best where to utilise it. Unknown to Charis two bells sounded while she concentrated on healing her Seer Sister before leaving. The Seer Circle exhausted all their items without complaint, after all they could be Raisa one day and appreciated the extreme Charis decided upon.

Charis relaxed from the effort, not from the shock, Raisa’s body approached death and Charis resigned herself to the fact she may have only delayed the inevitable. Could Raisa be their first loss? What if items were the key?

“I have done what I think is right to do. Once she works her body more, perhaps some more healing could be tried, but this is new to me, the damage is subtle, unlike a cut or near destroyed organ, which is obvious to repair.”

“She looks better already, at least I can help her to bed tonight instead of carrying her. Tomorrow we start in earnest. Thank you, Mistress, from my sister and I.”

“You are very welcome sister, although I am not sure it is enough.”

Charis relinquished the Seer Circle, her thoughts returning to the subject of items. Raisa and Rhea didn’t attune any items, neither did Elpis and Agatha. Would items have protected Raisa? Have I placed one of my sisters in grievous peril needlessly? Have I been selfish, overly worried about allowing them to be processed by those Sisters outside the House?

+++ A Guest at the Inn (7th Day of Shadow Month)

“Warrior-sister companion of Charis the Young, awake and be at peace.”

Rhea, half-awake for another reason became enraptured and lured towards the peaceful musical voice, directionless, yet encompassing her, speaking to another? Cold and needing warmth as much as sleep she rolled closer to her sister, who seemed to move away. Her sister’s body moving? A miracle? No, her body length slid away from her side, oddly wrong, how could this happen? Wake up, she told herself, your sister is being taken.

She propped herself up in time to witness her sister in the arms of another, both highlighted by a weak glow from the fireplace. She swung her legs over the side of their makeshift bed and urged herself awake.

“Wait!” she half yelled, half pleaded.

The stranger halted swinging his armful towards her.

“Why are you taking my sister?”

“She is dying, and I know how she can be saved.”

Rhea blinked, his soothing words, their absolute truth stunning her and removing any last vestige of her false hope and wishful thinking. He waited patiently.

Rhea knew the truth of it, regardless of the walking and talking and pretending to be happy, her sister could not be one with her body. They were only just linking as twins, but even this was difficult, and her mind speech was for some reason only slightly better than her real speech. All of this after Charis’ healing!

“Can I come with you?” A desperate request from a sister in distress. “I will just need some time to dress in warm clothes,” she pleaded.

“Walk beside me and I will shield you from the cold.”

Rhea took a robe nevertheless to at least cover her nakedness and another for her sister for modesty if for no other reason. In moments she stood ready alongside him staring up at his majestic face. He rewarded her with a serene smile, answering her concern; there is plenty of time.

The stranger, with Raisa resting effortlessly in his arms and Rhea boldly wrapping her arm around his waist step out through the Inn’s main door into the night, snow underfoot and darkness shrouding them. Rhea, unable to see into the dark, clutches her chaperon, he seems to know exactly where to lead. They journey from the eastern side of the Keep, where the village rests, to the western side of the Keep, the forest a solid inky darkness off in the distance and then finally labouring up a small mound.

Rhea recognised it more by smell, burnt ground, so long ago, a pyre where unfaithful Judge Knights were burnt, their souls to return to Judge to face justice. Rhea releasing her grip on the Elf Lord, peering into the night trying to locate the mound.

“Why here?” she asked.

“You cannot see sister of the sister, but she can. She has been elf touched by healing, so much healing, which I have only seen when the Priestess’ of Ure where at their strength. None of their healing elf touched though.”

“The Mistress healed her at my request, but it hasn’t helped as you have recognised.”

“The body is restored, but Charis the Young doesn’t have skill to renew the mind. Because of her healing though, I thought your sister elf kind and entered your house to rescue her from captivity, but once I saw her, I realised my mistake. That didn’t stop me from helping though, so here we are.”

Her companion, under the cover of darkness places Raisa upon the mound and then straightens.

“Where has she gone?”

“I have placed her on the pyre. What you smell is a burnt dead piece of ground. What is really there is an eternal Growing Season, three fruit trees with abundant fruit and gentle sunlight and pleasant green grass to lie upon. She will be protected by the illusion you see and be sustained by the faerie blessing that holds this piece of tranquillity in contrast to the reality around it. I have added some “items” I think Charis calls them because all my efforts to reproduce what is here has failed. So perhaps they can assist your sister.”

“I thank you stranger, I still don’t recognise what you are, but I am grateful for your help.”

“Stay near to me and I will escort you back to your house. Don’t worry about your sister she will either be healed and return to you or she will stay there forever to be embraced by the land.”

Rhea agonised over her sister’s possible fates, hopeful her sister would return to her and not lost forever. Snow fell chasing them along the return trek to the Inn. Rhea entered the Main Room and instinctively added wood to the fireplace to encourage it to shed light and heat. She then felt a touch on her neck, tracing her burnt skin, still present although diminished.

“Your Mistress could heal this, given what I have seen done to your sister.”

“Yes, and I refused. My scars are mine. I would not be me if they were healed.”

“What is wrong with being different to what everyone knows or expects. Your past doesn’t have to be your future also. Forgive yourself, those scars can’t be your fault.”

The Elf Lord embraced her and after a few heartbeats Rhea fell sound asleep in his arms. He allowed her to fall to the side slightly to ease her into a carry and hefting her once, laid her gently on her bed in front of a warming fireplace. After scanning the Main Room and listening intently he departed as silently and unseen as he arrived at the Inn.