Note: This story was dynamically reformatted for online reading convenience.
 
 Play Book
   by Nysidra
   Occult Fantasy (magic, netherworld)
   Summary: Little Kamela found a book of 'plays' that were anything but.
One such 'play' was an initiation rite, to be trained as a powerful
sorceress called the Layali Pruess.
   <->
   -_ Prologue: The Instructor _The Instructor beats and scars the flesh,
bone, and spirit.  The Instructor destroys these items in order to reshape
them into a unified, loyal, disciplined, refined creature.  What once was
weak, soft, and inefficient develops an iron will, a fortified body, and a
lethal education.
   The students do this or die in the attempt.
   Death happens.  The Instructor would rather the flesh of a poor student
expire than to send a weak warrior into the netherworld.  The Instructor
finds each defect, distills it, burns it, and builds new strength upon the
ashes.
   This Instructor adjusts his tie as he approaches the powder blue
two-story home.  He checks the address on his orders, the address of his
new student.
   The cycle will begin anew.
   -_ Story of My Youth _I was playing with my ponies, the plastic ones
with bright colored skin, nylon mane, and flank tattoos.  At the sound of a
polite knock upon the door, I hopped up from my play area and rushed
downstairs with a smile.
   Mom is home early!  I turned the locks and pushed open the front door.
   "Good day." The man had a quiet, soft voice, the kind of tone that
should be followed by, 'would you like some candy.' He was tall, so tall
that he seemed to reach the top of the door, and he was thin.  It made his
coal black suit look like a charred sapling in the doorway.  "May I please
speak with a Miss Kamela Damaton?"
   Miss.  That was new.  I flashed a flattered smile.  "My name is Kamela
Damaton."
   The man's thin brows wrinkled in confusion.  He had a great many
wrinkles, pale skin, dark eyes.  He lifted a paper in his hand and appeared
to read it over.  "Miss Damaton," he spoke hesitantly.  "I need to ask you
a few questions.  May we?" He gestured to the chairs on the front porch.
   Mom will be home soon, I thought as I joined him.  I couldn't let him
in, and I couldn't leave the porch, but there was nothing wrong with
sitting with him on the porch.  It was day time.  Mom would be home soon.
It was only a few questions, and he came looking for me by name.
   On the porch I got a better look at his suit, the straight lines, silky
tie, bright white shirt, the gleam of his dark black hat.  He looked like a
professional, acted business like.
   I sat in the other chair, swung my legs back and forth, waiting for his
question.  My toes were painted sea foam green with little powder blue
dots. I had a pair of jellies in the house to match, but I had not put them
on.  I couldn't leave the porch anyway.
   "Miss Damaton, what do you know about an initiation rite request?"
   I blinked.  I'd read the term.
   "You would have read this in a book, perhaps someone set it up for you?"
   My legs kept swinging, but slower, with less carefree vigor.  I was
beginning to wonder whether I was in trouble.
   "You would have needed to draw some symbols, say some words..."
   "Oh!" I sang in exclamation.  "The play book!" I giggled and nodded. 
"Do you want to see it?"
   He shook his head slowly, looked back down at the paper in his hand. 
"Play book?"
   "I do the plays in there some times, when I have the stuff.  I don't
always have the right things, but the Princess one?  I had everything for
that one."
   "Plays," he echoed.  "Do you recall your most recent performance?  The
princess one?"
   I did.  I told him all about it.  "Pruess.  I like the way princess
sounded so I called it that." Mom never took interest in my plays.  I was
only to happy to share the story.  In fact, I was more excited because it
was the best one yet.  I had all the items and I even memorized my lines.
   My description seemed to please the man.  He smiled softly and nodded,
encouraging me to give him greater detail.  When I was finished he folded
the paper in his hand.  "Miss Kamela Damaton, I am here regarding your
application."
   My hands fell to my lap.  My legs hung limp from the chair.  Why hadn't
I wondered how he knew about my plays in the first place?  Suspicion was
not one of my better qualities, but at that age, it had no reason to be.
   I began to sweat as he continued in his cool, professional tone.  "Each
application is given a thorough review.  Yours was accepted.  I am your
instructor." He extended his hand.  "Many would take issue with your age,
but I think it will work in your favor.  Other instructors would reject you
despite your application's approval.  I will not."
   I stared at his pale boney hand for a long time.
   Did I think to say, 'but I didn't mean it?' Of course I did!  However, I
remembered my own words from the play.  They echoed in mind.
   'I, Kamela Damaton, declare these words as truth under penalty of
disease, deformity, insanity, and death.'
   I was just playing?  Yes, but though I was young, I had been reading my
play book for a very long time.  I remembered how I wished the plays to be
true, for their hair raising stories to be real.
   I had it coming.  This was my fault.
   "I should get my play book." My eyes watered and my organs felt like
they were trembling.  I feared what would happen next, but not as much as I
feared what 'disease, deformity, and insanity' would mean.
   "Yes, Miss Damaton, I agree."
   We went inside.
   I locked the front door after letting him in the house.  That was habit,
always lock the door.  We walked upstairs to my bedroom.  I knocked my
ponies under the table with my foot.  The play book rest on a shelf,
wrapped in a shiny gold scarf from my mom's closet.  The book had a thick,
stiff cover.  I'd found it while playing in the Atheneum.  No one stopped
me from leaving with it, and no one ever asked for it back.
   The man regarded my play book with a broad grin.  "Reading straight from
the source, I see.  No wonder you got our attention." He extended his hand
once more.  "It is an honor, Miss Kamela Damaton."
   I took his hand that time.  I had no suspicion and plenty of curiosity.
I also thought I would be back, perhaps before my mother got home.  He
didn't ask me to pack, after all.  The instructor took my hand and the room
around me, my bedroom, my whole world, disappeared.
   The bright green, blue, and yellow of my bedroom became a large metal
dungeon with a single, long, dark window.  I felt the chill of the place
immediately.  The smell of it irritated my noise.  In the far back corner
was a large floor cushion, a chair, and toilet surrounded by the thick gray
bars of a open cage.  Outside the cage was a metal table, a metal bench,
and a long rectangular trunk.
   "Your training begins in eight hours.  Take this time to freshen up on
the things you read in your 'play book'." He walked toward one of the walls
and a panel slid back.  He walked into the darkness beyond and, with a
mechanized whirring sound, the panel closed again.
   A light shone from a single long, dark, window.  He was there.  I
recognized his suit, but not his face.  The skin was bluish gray, and I
could make out his skull, even his teeth, through his skin.
   Eight hours.
   At first I flipped through the book, reading some of the pages with a
new eye.  Silent tears warmed my cold cheeks, but otherwise, I kept quiet.
The words, 'I want to go home' echoed in my mind over and over, begging me
to try.
   I wanted to go, but not yet.  I wanted to know what happened next.  I'd
wanted so badly for the plays to be real.  I would go home afterward; I was
sure of that.  If I was good and studied very quickly, I'd be in my room
before my mother got home.
   -_ Training _-
   I woke to the tinkle of a tiny bell.  His voice filled the ice cold gray
room through an intercom.  "You have ten minutes."
   "Until what?" I rubbed my eyes and searched the room for my instructor.
   I found him at the window.  He wasn't looking at me, but at a series of
screens.
   "Until what?"
   I rolled off the hard floor cushion.  I had water and bread outside the
open cage on the table by the bench.  I went to it with a smile.
   Behind me, the door to the cage swung closed and the sound of the lock
echoed off the bare walls.
   I sipped from my water as I tried to figure out why the cage locked.
   "Kamela?"
   I was halfway through my bread and water when I heard her voice.
   "Mom!"
   Why shouldn't I have thought so?  The woman looked like my mother,
sounded like my mother, smelled like my mother.  I ran into her open arms,
my heart soared.  "Mommy!" I squealed.  The tears were already flowing as I
wrapped my arms around her waist.
   She leaned down and bit me on my shoulder.
   I screamed and scrambled away from her.  "Ow!" I rubbed the sore spot
and scowled at her.  Was that my punishment for leaving the house?
   "I'm sorry.  Come here, darling."
   "Why did you do that?" I rubbed my shoulder to my cheek.
   "Kamela.  Come here."
   This woman was like my mother in every way.  I never got an explanation,
but I was a good girl.  I went back to her.  I let her wrap her arms around
me.
   She bit me again.
   And again.
   She went from nice to mean without provocation, calling me each time to
her open arms, arms I really wanted to feel around my body.  I really
needed her to be real, to take me home, to forgive me.
   "Mom!  Stop it!  Stop being mean to me!" I wailed when she pinched me on
my side.  She'd pinched me so hard that it burned.  I began to back away
when she tried to approach me.  I had to be sad and confused on my feet. 
She moved slowly, but when she got to me, when she got within reach, she
hurt me.
   I don't know what hurt more, when she hurt me, or when I had to run away
from her.  Slow moving people ...  can look like anyone from your mind.
   That was how they trapped you, the mud ghosts!  That was my name for
them at the time.  Mud ghosts.  The play book explained how to banish them.
   A song ...  song of ...
   I dashed another few feet away from my mother, still not wanting this to
be true, waiting for a sign.
   "Concentrate." My instructor's voice through the speaker.  "Call upon
your memory.  Do not let emotions rule you."
   His words only made me cry harder.  He did this, sent that thing in here
with me.  Why?  I didn't understand at first.  I was bleeding, scared,
miserable.  I'd been bitten, scratched, pinched, and kicked by a thing that
looked and sounded like my mother.
   I was eleven years old when I sang my first song of breaking and
banished the Mud Ghost.  The song of breaking was a way to dispel an
illusion.  Mudivau, or Mud Ghost, did not like to be seen as their true
selves.
   "Use this time to reflect on your missteps."
   Opening the door to a strange man?  Stealing from the Atheneum? 
Indulging my childhood curiosity?
   No.  He wasn't speaking of those kinds of errors.  It was too late for
me to reflect on that.  He always meant my trials.  The trials were near
constant whether I was awake or sleep.  Creatures seen and unseen tested me
until mental and physical exhaustion.
   When I wasn't fighting for my life, I was reading.  When I wasn't
reading, I slept.  When I slept, I had nightmares about my trials.  I woke
crying.  I hurt all the time.  I was lonely, tired, beaten, aching and
there was always his voice filling the room, in my head.  Call upon my
memory.  Do not let emotions rule me.  Reflect upon my errors.  Review that
stupid book.
   Reading was the only the opportunity to have a conversation.  I would
ask about new words or definitions and he would give me the answer. 
Eventually, my instructor gave me a dictionary and cultural reference book.
   Requests to go home, questions about how long I would stay, or tear
filled rants about my state were all met with silence.
   I studied.
   As I got older, stronger, he provided me with new books, new
instructions, new challenges, new trials.  The instructor kept my training
at a level where I felt forever stuck at 'just barely good enough.' I
learned to ignore pain, temptation.  I didn't think about home, my room, my
family, my friends.
   I began to look forward to learning, to be thankful for new books.  I
grew apprehensive when comfortable.  I abandoned all fantasies of going
home.
   In return I gained hyper awareness: a keen sense of time, place, and my
environment.  I had my books memorized and cross referenced in my head. 
There was an undeniable strength and power developing in my body.  I could
do things I had not read about.  The bond between impulse and action had
become so seamless that I acted without conscious thought.
   Given my new skills, I earned recreation time beyond the metal walls of
my cell.  I experienced the world where I was trained: the netherworld.  I
came to know of its seasons, weather, and landscapes.  You may have seen
places like it in your nightmares.
   I spent the entire day of my fifth anniversary walking through the spiky
dark green grasses under a grayish red sky.  It felt good to walk in a
long, straight line.  I always had my anniversary completely to myself, no
tricks, no trials.  I was taught things about the world I'd left behind,
given food praised more for its taste than nutrition.  It was the only
peaceful day I got the whole year.
   The day after was always the most stressful.  It felt like a make up
day. Those were the days I remembered more than summaries of a life I would
never know or food that provided less strength than flavor.
   The day after my fifth anniversary, I woke and saw the food placed out
for me.  Shadow rats swarmed the floor just beyond my cage.  They would eat
my food and me.
   I vaulted from my cage to my food and slammed my hand to the ground.
   Quiet.  Calm.  I am yolk surrounded by shell.  The shell is strong as my
mind is strong.  The shell will defend my body.  My mind will fortify the
shell.  I am safe.  I am protected.
   The first time that actually worked, my jubilation shattered my shield.
I spent a week injured and sick from the puke leeches that I allowed to get
to me.  Yes, puke leeches.  They are fat, lumpy and reddish brown.  The
suck your blood and put something in you that makes you puke.  Kaibucek, if
you must know the proper term.
   And no, my injury and sickness did not merit a break.  Nothing stopped
my trials.  My condition only made them harder.  Night terrors came for me
when I was bed ridden, dream eaters, soul tormentors.  There is another
kind of protection for sleep, another class of weapons in the nightmare
lands, an endless list of ways the mind can be injured and the soul ripped
to shreds.
   This time, my shell held fast.  My success was rewarded by a second and
third wave of shadow rats.  I remained calm and vigilant.  I ate my food
under the protection of my shell.  I ate with care, checking each morsel,
slowly chewing, tasting for impurities.  The little groove on the upper
left of my mouth reminds me that food should be approached with caution.
   Around me, shadow rats scrambled upon each others backs.  I could reach
out and touch one if I wanted to break the shield to do so.  They were that
close.  I smelled their acrid stench, felt the heat of their breath on my
legs.
   I viewed the angry black and pink circle of squealing infestations as
calmly as one might watch clouds roll by.
   How would I rid myself of these vermin?  Did I need them?
   I learned through reading, experimentation, and pure accident that some
of these beasts were useful to make medicines, poisons, weapons,
protections.  My tendency to examine the creatures and study them made
creativity my greatest weapon.
   I finished my meal and decided that the best use of these shadow rats
was as practice for setting black fire.  Black fire burned all shadows
things, but it hurt me as well.  It singed me on the inside, like something
itching under my skin, made all my muscles ached.  I sipped the last of my
drink, thick with nutrients, and focused on the surrounding rats.
   Black fire must be ignited and it needed fuel.  It spread and fed on
fear.
   Ignition.  I pulled my spear from my side pouch.  I'd made the spear
from the tooth of a nightmare wolf.  My ribs ached in a echo of pain each
time I grabbed the fang.  Well, my ribs hurt every time I even thought of
the fang.  I'll share what happened with that later.
   Letting one of the shadow rats attack me would have helped to set the
fire, but there were too many and I would be overrun by them in a second.
   As I thought on my options, my hand tightened around the tooth.  I
didn't have to let them attack me.  There was another way.
   I pierced my arm with the three inch long tooth.  There were no words to
speak, no internal thoughts.  I could be as quiet as the dark.  Once I
called the fire, I looked at my target and let the fire feast on its
emotions.  I pierced my arm because the hand is a terrible place to cut,
not even the fingers can be spared.  I may need them later.  No blood
welled from the wound on my arm.  A violet-black oil danced and flicked and
shimmered like the heat of flame.  I let the shadow fire rise, stared at
the wall of rats, and dropped my shell.
   All the rats had to do was calm down, stand still.  If none of the swarm
felt fear, anger, or rage then I would fail.  I knew the pain of failure. I
had been burned many times.  The burn does not compare to anything you have
ever known, unless maybe you've had the spit of a tri-tail wiggler in your
eye.  That was close.  It's like that except deep inside your whole body
and centering on your heart.
   The rats tumbled toward me as my muscles burned.  I sat still, holding
my arm high, allowing the fire to pour out of me.  I did not close my eyes.
Closed eyes are defenses lowered, and my instructor loved to exploit such
openings.
   Not a single rat touched me; none of them escaped back to the shadow
realm.  Their screams of hunger were already loud, but of pain and fear? 
It hurt my ears to hear, but it warmed my heart to watch.
   The slaughter lasted a few seconds.  Their bodies were reduced to a
weightless, light gray ash.  I sat in my spot, unfazed and serene, until
the shadow fire burned out.
   As I stood, gray ash floated and twisted around my feet like fog.  I
went to a small bowl on my desk and rubbed a bit of the banded worm fat on
my finger and applied it to the wound on my arm.
   "Cherub?"
   I don't know why my instructor took to calling me that, but he had for
several anniversaries.
   I only ever called him Sir.  "Yes, Sir?"
   "Why do you cast your barriers so small?"
   "I guard the least amount of space I need.  I reserve my strength." I
spoke loud and clear when he asked me a question.
   "Very well, Cherub."
   I spun around and cast my shell again.  My barrier was up before my
brain registered the shriek that announced the incoming of a long-taloned
witch bird.  Witch bird because it had these green fuzzy things that looked
like warts that witches have on their face.  I had one of those talons in
my face now, caught in my barrier.  I needed three more talons to finish my
glove, but first, I would have to drop the barrier to kill it.
   With a sigh, I lamented the last bit of worm fat stored near my bed.
   The day after my anniversary always left a fair share of injury.
   -_ Summoning _-
   It's hard to tell you what stood out the most.  Every day was the same
in that every day was harder.  I was pushed until I bled, until I broke,
until I fell ill.  I could never get ahead.  I was never allowed a moment
to feel like I had improved.  It was this kind of dispair that led me to
perform the summoning.  I don't know if this was what my instructor
expected of me, but I am sure that in doing it, I set upon the road to my
graduation.
   It was some time after my 6th anniversary.  I had been quietly planning
this summoning for a while, collecting the materials as I found them,
studying what I could, speaking to creatures of the shadow world when they
were not trying to kill me.
   I was allowed to request time to perform my own experiments, summonings,
and rituals.  It was still work, still learning, so he did not interfere if
he granted my request, but he watched, questioned, lectured me afterward if
needed.
   I did not summon often.  This was only my third since my training began.
However, I did not learn this summoning from any of my play books.  I still
called them that, but I read and referred to them less and less.  I was
already creating my own.  My play book was written on my own blank journal
along with my own ink - made from the gal sac of a kooka squirrel and the
feather of a seelix.
   I wore my nightmare wolf tooth around my neck.  It was one of the few
things I wore, along with the tools and pouches around my waist in a skirt
woven from threads I made, a work blade strapped to my thigh.  As puberty
took hold, I had nothing to fit into.  I stopped trying to make clothing.
It got torn and dirty anyway, never mind the constant expansion of my body.
It's hard to defend yourself when you keep losing track of where your body
begins and ends from one day to the next.
   Puberty was not difficult for me.  Difficult, yes.  I suppose that's one
large gray area.  I was given something to read regarding the blood, the
widening of my hips and the swelling of my chest.  It wasn't much of a
nuisance, thankfully.  I was too busy to care, but the flow of blood did
help toward the keeping of time.
   Unfortunately, I can't set shadow fire by menstrual blood, so, in all,
menstruation was a useless addendum to the spreading and swelling and
stretching of my body.
   My instructor watched, but during my personal break, I could say nothing
to him and he would say nothing to me.  Discussion only took place after
the allotted time.
   I sat inside my summoning ring and went to silence.  I do not favor
words for affecting change.  I used words only when communicating with my
instructor.  I preferred images in my mind.  Those were pure, like the
nightmares themselves, more visceral and specific than reality or the
language used to describe it.  I put myself into a state halfway between
wakefulness and sleep and sent my thoughts deep into the netherworld.
   Come here.  I took your tooth.  I call only to you.  Come to me.
   The summoning circle was the only way my eyes would close outside my
cage.  I closed them and waiting for the nightmare wolf to answer my call.
   Okay, now I will tell you about the nightmare wolf, its tooth, and the
scar on my ribs.
   ***
   Shortly after my 3rd anniversary, my instructor called the nightmare
wolf to attack me.  We fought, running around the room, bouncing over the
walls, vaulting over the sparse fixtures.  For the first half of the fight,
I was so scared I did more running than fighting.  I tried hiding.  I
failed at both.
   The creature's teeth were merciless on my body.  It growled and gnashed.
The thing was tenacious in its attack on me.  Two of me could fit neatly in
its belly.
   If I'd had any concept of death, I think that was as near to it as I'd
ever come.  There were so many injuries, so much blood.  The slash along my
midsection, just over my ribs, was the only wound that did not heal.
   When it was done, I was covered head to toe in blood.  My whole body
throbbed with each beat of my heart.  My opponent and I had painted the
room in splotches of black and burgundy.
   I crawled over to the mewling, panting creature and pried open its
mouth. I pulled out the shaved claw I was using for a knife and loosened
the tooth from its mouth while it keened and squealed helplessly.  I
thought about killing it, but it would have been so easy at that point.  It
was just as injured as me.
   I figured I'd try my new banishing charm.  If it failed, I'd kill the
beast.
   The banishment worked.
   ***
   I don't know why I assumed it had survived our fight, but I lived, so
why not?  I called him nightmare wolf because, for a year after, my
nightmares were ruled by memories of the wolf-like creature.  When I
screamed out in the night, it was because I felt those teeth in my side
anew.
   I opened my eyes.
   The nightmare wolf's lips were peeled back in a silent snarl.  The left
fang was slightly smaller than the right, but he was so much larger than
he'd been only three anniversaries ago.
   Far.  Bigger.  Three of me, at my current size, could get in his belly,
with room for an anniversary meal.
   I thought of him as a wolf because of the tuffs of fur, his dog like
snout, but now he had the purple black mane of a lion, shimmering like the
shadowy black fire I used his tooth to create.  His eyes glowed an angry
dark red, like two smoldering coals.  He had a magnificent tail, it swished
low to the ground behind him, kicking up little wisps of shadow.  The tail
was full and shimmering with a faint violet blue color.  The teeth were
coal black and his tongue dark pink.
   If this was what he looked like now, then I'd taken ...  his baby tooth?
How many of the things I'd killed, sent back howling and injured, had been
no more than children, no older than myself?  I stood before the nightmare
wolf, both of us past puberty, taller, stronger, deadlier.
   Of all the injuries I've had, his claw mark remained.  The tear at my
side would forever have those smooth shiny slashes on my ribs just under my
arms.  Incapacitating him and taking his tooth was only fair.  I could have
killed him.
   I projected images at him, letting him see what I saw when I looked at
him.  I thanked him for my most potent weapon, showed him how I had used
it. I held my hands up to show him I carried it as a weapon.
   None of that mattered.  He was furious.  A soundless snarl sent his
shadow plumes higher.  He warned me with that show: "Back away."
   I eased forward.  I reached out and felt the fur along his muzzle.  I
was not afraid.  His shadow fire would not burn me.  It already had.  I
showed him that as well.  I projected my experience with setting it,
recalled the times I'd been burned.
   Whatever he was, I knew his species ate flesh seasoned by fear, roasted
by shadow fire.  I knew this well.  I admired his bravery.  I complimented
his growing tooth.
   "What do you want?" The creature smothered me in thoughts of hatred and
anger, fury and hunger, violence and disdain.
   I countered his rage with thoughts from my training, my life in this
metal box, this halfway realm.  This one-girl prison where I slept in a
cage instead of a bedroom full of toys.
   For pity?  No.  I would not know, even to this day, how that worked, how
it felt, to have pity, to inspire sympathy.  I wanted the beast to
understand how much power his tooth gave me, how taxing my trials were, how
much blood, fear, pain, violence, and virulence I faced each day.
   "I see all manner of things.  Fight them with me.  If this is what you
enjoy, you will have it at my side.  We are a good team.  Feed on fear and
flesh.  You will grow strong with me.  Fight together instead of fighting
each other."
   That was why I showed him my life.  Day after day of trials, drowning
under a constant weight of increasing difficultly.  I respected him.  I
liked what he could do.  I appreciated that I nearly met my death at his
jaws.  I enjoyed what he had grown into even more.  I would have taken him
as I remembered him, but this was far more than I expected.
   I had a growing foreboding about my time in the cage.  In the seconds
before sleep born from exhaustion, I had a fear, a fear I needed to kill. I
feared I would die if I didn't have help.  I would die if I didn't have his
help.
   How did the beast react to my earnest plea?
   He roared, a loud booming roar that made my bones vibrate.  He stomped
his paws, sending tendrils of shadow up, shaking the very floor we stood
on. His jaws snapped, hot wet breath blasted my face.  He could take my
head off with a single snap.
   He stopped being a nightmare wolf in my mind as I watched this display.
I named him a dragon beast.  His shadow fire leapt from his body, not from
his mouth (as a dragon would), but it was a gush of hungry, thick flames
rushing forward from his mane, thicker and more dense than anything I'd
ever called forth.  It washed over my body like a soft breeze.  I lifted my
arms higher, jut my chin out in calm defiance.  He could have tossed Urvil
petals at my feet for all the good it did for making me anxious.
   Unfortunately, he did not seem affected if his shadow fire failed.  He
did not suffer the burn.  He could toss the fire all he wanted at no cost
to his health.
   When his fire failed he lunged for me.  I ducked and dashed under his
legs, standing at the last moment and throwing his rear end up.  I didn't
run to him as he rolled over the floor.  I waited.
   To the death, then.  It would be a fitting end.
   I'd broken the summoning circle.  The ritual had come to an end with no
agreement reached.  He could kill me now if he wanted.  I wasn't suicidal,
but there wasn't a much more rational conclusion in the face of a larger,
stronger, and far different creature than I remembered.  I was also
different, stronger, but I wasn't overconfident as to my chances.
   I had no fear, only finality.  I would fight as I always did.
   I palmed his tooth, formed a fist around it so that the tip poked
through my fingers.  On my other hand I wore my completed witch talon
glove. The curved talons would not do much damage, but they protected my
off hand.  We danced about the room, bounding from wall to wall, advancing
and evading, each of us a bit more cautious.  We fought without mercy,
carrying on until my muscles began to scream.
   I dodged his lunge and punched him in the ribs.  He stumbled and I
pulled back my hand and the tooth.
   While I was ready to strike again I noticed his peculiar behavior. 
Instead of leaping back and attacking again, as was his style, he stood
still.  He did not crouch nor did he look to prepared for another attack.
   I looked at my hand, covered in something dark, shiny.  It oozed from
his wound.  Keeping my eyes on his dark red ones, I reached for the strange
opening in his body, keeping the tooth at the ready.
   This wasn't quite blood or black fire.  It was heavier, dense,
containing properties of both.  I pulled back a palm full of the stuff.  It
created a gelatinous glob in the center of my palm.
   I couldn't ask my instructor about the blood.  The dragon beast merely
watched me poke at the blob in my hand.  I realized that I had done
something important, stabbing him there, his allowing me to collect the
fluid.  But what?
   The dragon beast lay on the ground, his head on his paws, his massive
chest expanding and contracting as those red eyes followed my every move.
   Was the fight over so suddenly?  All I had to do was bleed him?  I'd
done that before, several times over, before our first fight finished.
   As time passed the sounds of our ragged breathing faded.  My body took
on the familiar post-fight ache that would stay with me the rest of the
day.
   I did the first thing that come to mind.  I guided the pool of black
liquid to my mouth and tasted the substance.  Oh, it was so sweet.  It was
like a confection I only got to taste once a year, but richer, more savory.
   Patience.  I did not let emotion rule me.  I did not allow myself to
react to the pleasing taste of his fluids.  I counted out a few breaths
between each sip of the substance.  After five separate tastes, I finally
drank it all.  I even licked the faint residue from my palm and the tooth.
That was insane when I think back, but the delicacy was too good to pass
up.
   It was ...  what do you call it?  Addictive.  Thinking back, I can
recall how my heart was already beginning to speed up as I licked the last
bit of it from the tooth.
   The entire time the beast kept to his prone position, watching me.
   When my skin began to warm, that's when I noticed the pace of my heart.
Heat turned my face flush and swelled the flesh between my legs.  A kind of
trembling anxiety overtook my usual calm.  I cried out then in a way that I
never had before, not pain but not joy.  Sensation overwhelmed me.  I
collapsed to my knees in front of that hulking beast.  My body tightened
and trembled like in those moments just before being sick, but I was not
nauseous.  I seized and found myself incapable of producing even a scream
for several long seconds.  The moment I could, I screamed, but that was all
I had time to do before another wave hit.  I was completely incapacitated,
but the dragon beast did not move to end me.
   By the third wave of seizing, I had better composure.  I was able to
pick myself up from the floor and get on my hands and knees.  Shuddering,
dripping sweat, spasming, but I kept quiet.  I concentrated on breathing,
keeping aware of my surroundings as much as possible.  The beast rose to
his feet and shuffled over to me.  His eyes did not look angry.  His
posture did not exude a threat, but it didn't matter.  I was too weak to
move, much less defend myself.  I felt dizzy, light headed, and so
incredibly peculiar.  I had no frame of reference for what I know now: I
was in the grip of a volley of successive orgasms.
   Another wave, I groaned and breathed through the electrical storm in my
brain and body.  At the time I thought it was the worse poison ever -
completely immobilizing me.  I felt as if I was going to die each time,
that my heart would simply cease to function.  My body felt as if it were
lurching with every beat of my heart.  All the energy and vitality was
being squeezed from me.  Every limb and organ felt full of a tingling
numbness rooted between my legs and in my head.
   I sat back on my heels after the fifth wave.  A thick liquid covered my
thighs.  I touched it with my hand.  It was slimy and mostly clear, thick,
with strands of black mixed through it.  My attempts to stand brought on
another wave and I promptly collapsed back onto my rear.  The liquid
seeping down my thighs became progressively more black than clear.
   He drew near me, licked the sweat from my face.  His tongue was cool,
rough, but gentle.  He was so close, so tall.  I couldn't see around him,
couldn't see that omnipresence pane of glass for the first time in years,
and that meant my instructor could not see me.
   The dragon beast had tried to kill me.  We'd tried to kill each other,
both in our youth and a few moments ago, but as he licked my face, I felt
safe.  Perhaps I was too exhausted to have much of a choice.  The spasms
grew further apart and I began to appreciate the more subtle sensations,
the way my spine, from my hips to my skull, felt tingly.  My free hand
curled into the fur on his neck.  I could feel his pulse in my body.  There
was another sound, a bit like a low growl, but comforting as he continued
to lick my body and my wounds.
   I moaned as another orgasm rolled through.  It rocked me like all the
others before it, caused my sore muscles to ache, my breath to catch, my
vision to swim.  It wasn't until I came to that I focused on the cool
tongue at my thighs.  I tried to back away from him but a heavy paw landed
on my shoulder and I was too weak to stop him.  He cleaned my thighs right
to my center, but did not linger.  He brought his head to rest on my belly.
   "What happened to me?" I posed the question to the only person I could,
the dragon beast.  If he wanted to kill me, the opportunity had passed. 
Maybe he was watching me die?  I waited for his response.
   He spoke to me that first time as I had spoke to him - in images, the
visual mental language of the netherworld.  His kind fought each other
often.  Fight was play.  Fight was training.  Fight was social evaluation.
Blood tasting did bring about the fire, but it was rare.  Males did it to
express dominion over his opponent.  A female took the blood as a mating
proposal.  Blood tasting poisoned creatures not suitable as mating
partners.
   Poison.  I was right.  Not even the certainty of death caused a rise in
me.  I lay under him exhausted, but my mind continued to work.  "Is there
some way for me to counter the poison?"
   His large head lifted and tilted to the side.  The black flame of his
mane shimmered a deep purple.  "There is nothing to counter.  You are not
poisoned.  You have experienced the mating fire."
   I must have built an immunity of some sort, being burned so many times
when I cut myself with his tooth.  Pouring the fire from my own blood,
taking it back in failure so many times.  I was not poisoned.  I was not
going to die.  "Does this mean you will work with me?"
   "Yes."
   I had reached my objective.  That was the only thing I had considered
through our conversation.  None of the other details mattered for the
moment.  I would live.  I had my weapon.
   "Now I finish?" He lowered his snout between my thighs.
   I assumed he wanted to clean my thighs, so I let him.  Cleaning sounded
clinical enough.  I could still feel that black oil slick seeping out of
me.
   Cleaning was not what he had in mind.  I concentrated on breathing
through the next orgasm.
   I looked to the glass pane as he backed away from my sensitive labia. 
If there was any reaction or emotion, my instructor did not show it.
   Though the dragon beast agreed to stay with me, we remained cautious of
each other.  After all, I was not of his species and he was not of mine.  I
slept when he slept, both of us in the cage.  My guard was never down.  I
had twelve hours left free from trial or instruction, and I spent them
ready to defend myself.  I did not trust my instructor.  I did not trust
the dragon beast.
   He never questioned me about the summoning, about what happened, and
that made me even more wary.
   My trials continued the next day.  We fought together and, after a time,
we became 100% simpatico.  I could feel him and he could feel me.  We would
read and anticipate each other's movements.  I came to know satisfaction in
those days - happiness, pride, confidence.  The days I spent with him were
the first time I felt ahead of my instructor: in charge, in control.
   ***
   The bell sounded, and I woke.
   "Miss Kamela Damaton." He was standing there, suit the same as I
remembered, but his face just as gaunt, skeletal.  His eye sockets were
swirling pools of gray.  He bowed to me as I sat up.
   "Yes?" I tilted my head.  This was the first time in seven anniversaries
that I'd seen him without the glass between us.
   "With the backing of my superiors, it is with great pride that I bestow
upon you the title of Layali Pruess."
   See me for what I am and make of me a Layali Pruess, dangerous and
fearsome, a warrior of mind and body, able to fight in all manner of
creatures, such that I may rid the land of the sun of all dangers of the
netherworld.
   He held up a glowing iron.  "Where will you receive your mark?"
   I chose my lower back.  I turned onto my stomach and lay my head in the
softness of the dragon beast's fur.  Though the object he held glowed white
with heat it felt ice cold on my skin and burned all the way to the bone.
   And that is the story of my youth.
   -_ Land of the Sun _Across from me, behind a large black desk, a woman
read the same words as above.
   I thought about the parts of my story that I did not include in my
summary letter.  I didn't reveal the other lessons I learned with my dragon
beast.  I only mentioned as much as I had to.
   Varax, the dragon beast, a Delrew, enjoyed fighting with me, causing me
to be covered head to toe in sweat from the exertion.  Both of us smelling
strongly of our bodily odors.  Afterward he took great interest in cleaning
me, making me wet and fragrant again in different ways.  I lost the sense
of needing to protect myself from him and began to see him as my own
protector, my own cage.  I trusted him the way I trusted my own mind.
   I proved that trust by sleeping with him outside the cage.  We were on
the floor beside the bench after a series of trials and I was getting
tired. I tried to get up but he tensed, pushed me back down to the floor
with his jaw.  He put me between his paws under his head.  Varax swallowed
me with the size of his body.
   I glanced to the glass pane.  The moment my eyes closed, my instructor
would to punish me for this, but Varax needed to learn why we used the
cage. I let my eyes drift close.  I was sure that in a moment we would
begin to fight and then we could retire to the cage.
   That was the first night we shared our dreams.  The cage had been
blocking his ability to take me to the shadow realm of the netherworld.
   "What about our bodies?" I protested.
   "You do not know how to create a sleeping barrier?"
   I'd read about it, but it was never necessary in the cage.  I'd let that
cage become a crutch and the sudden knowledge soured my mood.
   Varax rubbed his snout to my cheek.
   But if I never did it...  "You go to sleep around me unprotected?"
   "The bars take away your powers as well?"
   Interesting that he thought I had powers.  Maybe I did?  I don't know. I
didn't know what untrained people were like.  "Will you teach me?"
   "Of course."
   In the dreamscapes I learned how to use my powers in my sleep, how to
interact and negotiate with the nightmares.
   We never slept in the cage again.
   ***
   The first time he penetrated me was in just such a dream state.  He
lunged for me like he was going to attack me, but the look in his eyes
disarmed me.  He pinned me against a large boulder.  I was slightly
standing, slightly bent over, and he rose behind me, spreading my legs.
   I told myself it was just a dream, but I knew that was wishful thinking.
The shadow realm of the netherworld is dream like, but it had real affects.
My inner thoughts were doubtful, but I dared not show anxiety or fear with
a Delrew, no matter how much time we had spent together.  I calmed down,
stilled my mind, braced myself for whatever would come next.
   Varax made a low whining growl.  "Let me in.  You are my mate.  I need
you."
   "How much further in do you need?  You're in my head, in my prison." I
gasped as I felt him stiff against my wet folds.
   That was my answer.  I let him enter me.  Even though it was the shadow
realm, I could barely breathe.  I felt the pain.
   "Both." He corrected my inner thoughts.  That certainly explained the
pain.  He'd stopped moving.  "Stay asleep.  Stay here in the beauty of the
netherworld.  I want you.  Have you changed your mind?"
   The shadow world was indeed a terrifying beauty.  Sharp craggy mountains
housing volcanic lagoons rising in a distance ringed by thick rolling gray
clouds tinged by the glow of red.  The ground itself was barren, boulders
stood out along with tiny pebbles.  We often came here and played hide and
seek games with each other.  All the dreamscapes were like breathtaking
vistas compared to the drab existence of the metal prison I lived in.
   I relaxed my body, arched my hips and and spread my legs in answer.  It
did not hurt my body to let him have me that way.  I knew pain intimately.
I felt profound discomfort, but did not stop him.  I breathed through his
penetration and spreading of my vaginal walls.  As he pressed to the very
depths of me I moaned.  I could not hide my weakness.
   He stilled and his chest vibrated with the heaviness of his breath.  He
eased out slightly and back in.  I adjusted and forgot the pain and
discomfort.  Though I won't say I enjoyed it.
   I woke, not to the sound of a warning bell, but to his heavy tongue on
the back of my neck.  I felt the lingering discomfort between my legs. 
Both worlds.  I was truly his mate.
   My instructor was livid.  He said as much over the speakers.  His tirade
is why I tell no one about the times I let Varax 'make a beast out of me.'
My instructor accused me of giving all my training, all my power over to a
creature I would spend the rest of my days killing.
   He was concerned about me, worried.  It unnerved him that a Delrew lived
in my cage with me, that he could put me to sleep and keep me there.  My
instructor had lost control of me.  I never took the tirade personally. 
While he lectured, I stretched in my ally's arms and smiled into his fur. I
had many enemies, but Varax was not one of them.
   It was okay to have an ally from the netherworld, but an abomination to
have one as a mate.  I would tell no one the details or of the things we
learned to do together.
   I would never reveal that I came to enjoy his penetration of my body,
even crave it.
   ***
   She finished my letter and looked across the desk to me.  "Even with a
vivid imagination.  Parts of this can't be made up."
   Imagination?  Parts?  I offered no response.
   "Kamela," she clicked her tongue.  She looked so soft, so fragile,
unscarred.  "I take in some of the brightest, strongest, and I have never
met one of your tender age."
   "No age can be considered tender after the things I have done."
   "No." She smiled.  "No indeed.  My name is Isis.  I will provide you
with work, housing, and assistance in socializing.  No matter your letter,
I trust the seal of your instructor above all.  He is quite the legend. 
However, given your age, I know I will have some unique challenges
regarding your reentry into the world." She grabbed a key from a board
behind her and stood.  "Come on then."
   Isis took me in, naked save for the robe my instructor put around my
arms.  I lifted my bag, the collection of my weapons and the clothing I'd
made for myself from his fur.  My instructor insisted that I could not wear
it, but I did not have to leave it behind.
   -_ Adjustment _Kamela's first normal job was in a library much like the
Atheneum, the place that got her in trouble the first time.  Her first
skilled assignment however was cursed land of imps.  She took both jobs
seriously.  Due to her age, Kamela was assigned a handler, someone who did
the heavy communication and booked assignments for her.  For the first few
weeks, Kamela could think of nothing more than adjusting to such a slow
paced life, where danger no longer lurked around each corner.
   She approached her new life with the coldness and calm that helped her
see age 18.  Only in her dreams, where she could rejoin with him a few
hours each night, did she approach anything near contentment.
   ***
   Kamela's footsteps echoed off the gray cavern walls in the shadow
wasteland.  Something about this dream felt different.  It did not have the
feel of an assignment.
   She stopped walking, put her hand to the weapon at her side.  Varax's
tooth had been set into a dark wood hilt.  In the land of the sun, it
looked like a hilt without a blade, but in her dreams, in the netherworld,
it gained form.
   A cave appeared in the distance, off the path.
   Kamela felt for creatures in the area.  One, in the cave.  She
approached the entrance.
   "Just me here," a male voice called.  "Come inside."
   Kamela felt the presence of the summoning inscription.  She'd never had
someone from the shadow realm summon her, but she knew it was possible. 
Inside the summoning circle, she would have to adhere to protocol.  Listen
to his proposal before trying to kill him.
   She walked inside, her hand steady on the hilt.
   A man sat perched on a stool.  Even sitting, Kamela could tell he was
huge.  His skin was several shades darker than her own, a rich chocolate
color.  He offered her the other stool.
   She took it.  "Why did you summon me?"
   "What do you think?"
   "About?"
   "My form?  I could not wait.  I want your opinion."
   Kamela paused a breath before she made the connection.  His long curly
black hair, blood red eyes - any shadow creature could have these features,
but it was the look in his eyes.  She rose from the stool and went to
inspect him further.  She felt heat at her finger tips when she touched his
skin.  This was her nightmare wolf, her dragon beast, Varax.
   "Summon me to you, or I can use the portal I found."
   "Why would you want to go there?  I hate it there.  It's so boring,
bright, loud." Kamela lifted his lip to inspect his teeth.  They were dark,
but not shadow black.  He was missing the top incisor.  "You do this to
mock me." She put her finger to the gap.
   He lifted his hand to caress the scar on her left side.  It sent a warm
tingle through her body.  "You could make that go away.  You have that
power.  Do you also do this to mock me?"
   In her dreams, she was always with him, his warmth, protection, his
strength, his battle roar, the black flame.  The only companionship she'd
ever known, the only lover she'd ever taken.  His nearness to her now
warmed her insides.
   "No," Kamela admitted with a smile.  "I earned my scar."
   "I want to be reminded where my tooth resides." 
   "I wouldn't know what to do with you in this form," Kamela teased.
   "Oh?  I do," he put two fingers inside her and began to lick her lips.
   She licked his lips back and chuckled softly.  They pressed their lips
together, rubbed their faces together.  "Okay, yeah, but I prefer you the
way you are."
   "I want to be with you.  I need you."
   "You are the only nightmare I have."
   "It's not the same.  You know it.  I miss both."
   He was right.  Dreams only were a pale imitation, empty.  A shell of
what they used to share together.  "The nightmares your kind induce when
they cross over are infectious.  Someone, if not me, would be called to
dispatch you." Kamela straddled in his lap, put him inside her.  "You would
not go without notice in my realm."
   His hand caressed her lower back, rounded her ass.
   "Yours are the only dreams I haunt." He moaned.
   "Don't lie," she teased.  Kamela lamented his lack of fur, the great
expanse of darkness to bury in.
   "I'm willing to believe no other nightmares visit you."
   "None that live."
   "Take the portal I found and come to me."
   "Do you know how many things here hate me?" Kamela moaned and bit his
neck.  "Did you predict I would say that too?"
   "Yes," he wrapped his arms around her.  He groaned, as much as he could
with the shape he'd taken.  "My mate will not come to my realm and she will
kill me if I go to hers."
   "I'd dispatch you.  I would not kill you."
   "How quickly?" He whispered.
   Kamela didn't answer, she rocked in his lap.  She'd never lay with her
own kind before and welcomed the chance for discovery.  She enjoyed kissing
him, wrapping her arms around him, but no, she preferred him as he was, not
this illusion, but she could enjoy it.
   He taught her more about the shadow world than had been written in any
book.  He was her weakness as well as her greatest strength.  She pushed
against his shoulders, denying herself the orgasm that neared.
   "I'm protecting you, calm down.  Burn for me, Kamela."
   "Who is protecting me from you?"
   He kissed her, their kiss.  He took her in his mouth and held her
between his teeth, pressed his teeth tighter until she relaxed.  It wasn't
nearly as threatening in this changed form, but she got the point.
   "I don't like the way this feels," she seethed, but her body betrayed
her and she bit back the moan as she came in his lap.
   He didn't mock the contrast, just held her.  "My summoning.  My terms."
   She sat back and looked at him.
   "Remain in this circle with me for the next 12 hours and grant me the
pleasure of being with my mate.  In return," They stood and he removed
something from his wrist and she saw her dragon beast, felt her breath
catch as she looked upon him, the real him.  "I will give you the item that
cloaks your true form from anyone, in either world."
   "How did you get that?"
   His head dipped.  "Told you, I found a portal, but I traded it."
   Kamela bit her lip.  He really did expect that she'd want nothing to do
with it.  "This place isn't the shadow realm?"
   He tossed his head to and fro.  "It is a twilight realm, like the
training grounds."
   "To create a room like this requires items from both worlds.  You used
that portal before you traded it."
   "I had to make sure it worked, Kamela.  I did no harm there." He kicked
the braided trinket to her feet.  "My terms?"
   She sighed heavily.  "I accept your terms.  Though I don't understand
why you even bother with me.  I can't bear your young."
   "Your species considers you mature enough to carry young, does it not?"
   Kamela grinned.  "My species is not your species.  We are predators of
each other."
   "Greatly respected opponents." He towered over her, covered her with his
body.  Her skin tightened and the hair on her body stood on end.  "If my
blood can not kill you, a gestation surely will not."
   "Let's suppose I did.  My womb would become a portal for other shadow
creatures."
   "Unprotected, of course it would."
   "Find another mate." Kamela stated coldly.
   Varax snarled and leveled his eyes with hers.  "You chose me!"
   "And I don't even get to fight with you anymore!"
   "You could," he stepped back from her, rolled onto his back.
   Kamela did not hesitate.  She took the opening, lunged for him.  Elbowed
him.  They tussled around the room for half an hour before she subdued him,
pinned him to the ground.
   "I would starve myself to be with you, to fight with you." 
   "Desire leads to betrayal." Kamela sighed and turned away from him,
stared at the cracks in the walls.
   "The things I am willing to do, the things I have done, to be with you,
if my kind knew, they would kill me.  I have already committed betrayal.  I
am shunned because I allowed myself to be captured by you." He licked her
face, rolled his head back.  "If you are done with me, Kamela, then kill
me, be rid of me, of your error.  I will not stop you."
   "Yes, exactly!  This." She punched his exposed neck.  "This is why you
need me to remind you.  What is wrong with you?!  This is no way for you to
act."
   "Bind me to you, summon me, and I will have no dreams to torment."
   Kamela sighed heavily and shook her head.  "The fire doesn't work in my
world, and I like you fluffy." She waved her hand through the oily darkness
of his shadow fire.
   He grabbed her and rolled on top of her.  "Would you meet me here again,
learn my summons?" Kamela shuddered an he entered her.  Oh, it had been too
long.  "What?  I don't know.  What was the question?"
   "Twelve hours.  I have that."
   "Yes.  I will be yours."
   "And you'll come back when I call you."
   She buried her face in his fur.  Yes, she didn't even have to project
the thought.  Being together, the communication was instant, the knowledge
of each others mind.  He missed her.  She missed him.  Something deeper,
something felt for which Kamela did not have the words.
   Several hours later, Kamela reentered her world, left her circle.  The
place she left her body when crossing worlds.  She was cold from her own
sweat, her clothing soaked.  Kamela had wanted Varax with her every day,
but the danger he presented was too great.  The cold hollow in her chest
would not be appeased.  A Layali Pruess did not bow to her emotions.
   ***
   Lily's body undulated as she sauntered down the walkway and twirled
around the dance pole.  All she had on were her clear platform heels and a
shiny black g-string.  There was no one watching her but Kamela.  The doors
to the exotic club had not officially opened.
   "You should try it," Lily winked at Kamela.
   "No.  All of that is foreign to me."
   Lily hung from the pole by her ankles, stretched her hands out by her
side.  "It's just dancing."
   Kamela never danced.
   Lily laughed softly as she brought herself down.  The gorgeous woman
danced for a living, for play, she drained others of their life force
through sexual arousal.  Lily was a Karja, or wraith born, created in the
only way her kind can be, the product of two realms.  Kamela took great
interest in getting to know the woman for that reason. 
   "Fighting is a type of dance," she said.  "Try matching each movement to
music."
   "No." Kamela watched her drop into a slow split.  "How did your parents
live?"
   "I was raised on this side."
   "No one was sent to kill them?"
   "We were good citizens.  My father was a good protector." Lily practiced
another walk then looked at her curiously.  "Did someone kill your
parents?"
   "No." Kamela looked confused.  "I am not a Karja."
   "Must be the night blood," Lily stepped off stage and took a swig of
water.  "Funny," her smile this time was broad.  "I thought you would deny
it."
   Kamela's face remained impassive.  How many others saw the poison
running in her veins?
   "If you're wondering how I know, it's because we can sense each other.
If you weren't born to it, then you've been--"
   "Infected."
   "Influenced." Lily chuckled.  "Fancy that, a night blood assassin."
   Kamela turned her eyes to the opening doors.  "This discussion ends
now."
   "My lady," Lily bowed with a soft bat of her eyes.
   Lily was an effective seductress.  The bar was full when Kamela finally
worked up the nerve to try 'dancing.' Like fighting, she thought.  She was
a superb fighter.
   She felt awkward, uncoordinated, but none of the patrons laughed or
ridiculed her attempt.  She had no illusions it was due to the dragon
tattoo on her back.  It disguised her Layali Pruess brand, but revealed
enough that marked her as an assassin.  Either that, or the pale claw marks
covering her sides.
   Varax.  She thought of fighting with him and suddenly her motions felt
more fluid, graceful.  Just as she was finding her footing with the music,
Lily took Kamela's hand and ushered her off the stage.
   Kamela went quietly.  If she was that horrible, fine.  She didn't want
to dance to begin with.  Lily stared wide eyed at Kamela in the dressing
room.  "Do you have any idea what you nearly did up there?"
   "Made a fool of myself?  Drive away your customers?" Kamela offered.  "I
told you."
   "Try calling up night fire!  I saw it.  I know that stuff, and it's been
years since I was on the other side.  One scared person and this whole
building would have burned to the foundation."
   "You can't call that up here."
   "No shit," Lily whispered through clenched teeth.  "That's the kind of
shit someone would hire you to get rid of."
   Kamela nodded.  "That settles it.  I should not dance, nor pretend to
fight."
   "Wrong and double wrong.  There's too much pent up," Lily waved her
hands erratically, "energy in there.  You're getting on in years, Kam.  Get
something between those legs.  Something big enough and powerful enough to
drain you dry."
   Kamela dressed.  Energy was meant to be stored, not siphoned.
   Lily pointed to the scar lines at her side.  "Whatever it takes."
   Anger is energy, Kamela intoned.  Save it; channel it.  Do not waste it
in words or petty squabbles.  To vent is to lower your own defense.  "Thank
you for telling me your story.  See you around."
   "Damn it, Kam!  They must really beat the joy out of you people.  Here,
take this," Lily pulled a pouch from her bag and a gem from the pouch.
   Kamela inspected the dark stone.
   "I give you this to you, and I will keep the secrets you've entrusted me
with.  In return, you'll keep mine?"
   Kamela nodded.
   "Then you take that and try it.  Return it to me if you decide you have
no use for it, but you must try it first." Lily escorted Kamela to her car.
"Here's something they don't teach you in that prison camp.  Emotions are
energy, and they can never be depleted.  Love is the most powerful emotion.
It is the force no weapon can shatter.  Love is to be harnessed," Lily
mocked in Kamela's style of speaking.  "No matter how weak the body or
drained the soul, love is never empty."
   Kamela narrowed her eyes and clenched her jaw to keep from grinning at
Lily's imitation.  "Thank you," Kamela put the stone into her pouch.
   Kamela discovered that with a Larsa stone, the one Lily gave her, she
could create a portal to the under world, designed in such a way that one
unique being could pass through it.  It was a secure portal useable only by
one person.  It was a way, a secure way to see Varax without the veil of
dreams.
   ***
   When Kamela dreamed of Varax that night, she told him about dancing, and
the shadow fire she nearly called into existence.
   "How could something like that happen?" She was lying between his front
paws, her body curled under his massive warmth.  The rhythmic sound of his
lungs provided a familiar source of comfort, more relaxing than any mating
act.
   "We can release our fire when there's a sharp rise in mood.  What were
you thinking of?"
   "Fighting with you, but I've never seen you do it."
   "How can you see what's going on when I have you screaming into my
neck?"
   Kamela fell silent and buried her grin in his paw.  She enjoyed that
too, but enjoying something was no excuse.  If that happened to him, and he
crossed over to her side.  "Can I come over to the netherworld, your realm?
Is there some place I would be safe?"
   "You could," Varax answered cautiously.  "I have my own den.  Why do you
ask this now?" He licked her face, neck, and chest when she did not answer.
He knew better than to press, but it encouraged him that she asked.  She
was thinking about being with him, and though she never answered his
question, that was hope enough.
   ***
   Kamela woke gently, the stone still in her fist under the pillow.  She'd
been holding it constantly for the past 24 hours, the time it took to lock
to her.  She eased out of bed and grabbed her nether paste.  She had found
a space in the basement of the library she worked in.
   It was down past archives, long abandoned.  She had been cleaning it out
and charging it.  She remained in the library after hours, drew the symbols
and erected the foundation of the portal.  Isis had been pleased to hear
that she was finally taking some of the leave she'd earned.  Kamela settled
into her meditative pose.  This, too, would be her own design, tailored for
her and Varax's use.  The air in the room stilled.  To an outside observer,
it would appear that the room darkened.  Kamela spent several hours in
silence, her mind going over and settling upon each of her drawings,
solidifying the place in her mind as firmly as it was in reality.  This
gave her dream body access to the room and locked it in the realm of
nightmares as well.
   Several hours stretched into a full day before she felt the pressure in
the room change, better than any of the earlier visual or audible clues.
   She opened her eyes and let go of the stone, setting it on the floor. 
She moved to her provisions, light food and drink, used the waste bucket,
then she crossed worlds into a cave.  She heard footsteps along the stone,
bare feet, heavy creature.  Kamela watched Varax approach in all of his
glory.  He walked with the aura of nightmares deep around him.  In the
shadow world, it was a sign of strength, and he was only getting better
with age.  He came to a stop in front of her, sat on his haunches.  He
looked her over, gave her the same close inspection.
   Years had passed since they were truly together, flesh to flesh, no
shadow realms, no dreamscapes, no twilight visits.  He leaned forward, put
his nose in her hair and inhaled deeply.  He picked a charm from his body
and put it in her hand.  "Wear it on your ankle."
   She kneeled to tie the jeweled anklet on and faltered.  She was
exhausted and drained from her work.  Varax gathered her in his arms and
held her.  She felt surrounded by his vigor and protective barrier.
   "Mine," he accented with a rolling growl as his heat healed and
strengthened her. 
   ***
   He felt warm next to her, truly warm.  She woke in his arms, real,
substantial, physically solid.  Now that she was here, able to smell him,
feel him.  She realized how much different it was from their meeting place
in the dream world, how deeply visceral.  She missed the smell of him, the
feel of him.  She soaked in all the data, hoping to bring it back with her
to her dreams.
   "Did you still want to see my realm?" She asked softly.
   He showed her the form he could take to cloak his presence.
   "You'll be good?"
   "On my word as your mate." Varax lifted his head.
   She slipped from his grasp and approached the portal.  She arranged the
shelves to obscure the opening from anyone at the entrance.  She gathered
her materials into her bag.  Kamela and Varax left the library during peak
hours.
   Sharp.  That was the first thing, Kamela noticed about the woman
approaching her.  She had on a tailored business suit, her straight, dark
brown hair was pulled back.  Her make up, subtle.  She smiled, creating
wrinkles around her light brown eyes.  Kamela did not flinch.  Someone else
was with her.
   "Move slowly," the mature woman warned.
   A gaunt man with sunken eyes, pale skin walked in, but did not come much
closer.  His dirty blond hair was thin, short, scattered.
   "Is there some place we can speak freely?" She asked.  "I pledge that I
mean you and the wraith no harm."
   Kamela looked to the man behind her.  She recognized the type, an
assassin, only vaguely like herself.  He was unique in that he was able to
sense a person without seeing their mark.  The down side was that his type
were notorious for operating outside the laws and falling prey to their own
selfish whims.
   "I am here of my own will, Lady.  I also mean you and the wraith no
harm."
   Kamela stood straight, eased back on her defenses.  She led them down
the hallway to her room.
   The woman spoke the moment her door closed.  "My name--"
   Kamela's hand went to the air.  She walked to the center of the room,
reached into her bag and produced a half-orb of a cinnamon red gem.  She
placed it on the table upon a stand that seemed made to accept it.  She
placed one finger on the stone.  "Touch." She instructed.  They moved in
and placed a single finger on the stone.
   The feel of the room changed immediately, as if the pressure dropped. 
Kamela removed her finger and everyone took a seat.
   "I have seen you before," Kamela said.  "You worked at the Atheneum.  I
stole the book from you."
   "Yes," she grinned.  "I am Yuzuki.  You didn't steal anything.  I wanted
you to take the book.  I knew you would do great things with it."
   Kamela turned to the man.
   "Deko," he answered, but offered nothing more.
   "What do you want from me?"
   "To protect you, defend you."
   Deko's brows arched.  He turned to glance at Yuzuki.
   "Why?"
   "Have you heard about the marrow stone?"
   Kamela nodded.  "You can't use it."
   "Oh, I know," Yuzuki smiled.  "That will not stop others from using
you."
   "Marrow stone?  What is this?  A meeting to discuss a fairy tale?" Deko
interrupted irritably.
   "You know of the marrow stone, then?" She said to Deko.
   "You have to get an egg, hatch it in the underworld, then supposedly
this egg..." Deko frowned, blinked, looked at Kamela.
   Yuzuki's grin broadened as Deko began to understand.  "In this case a
child, prior to puberty, brought to maturity in the hell that is the Layali
Pruess training grounds.  She must construct and cross a bridge to the
netherworld, but live long enough to master the stone.  In understanding
the legend, and your duties, Miss Damaton, you should have slit your own
throat.  Why haven't you?"
   "Most Layali Pruess only live long enough to provide 4 years of service,
if that long.  I have served beyond that, and I no longer have to uphold
those duties.  The only things worth having are those which I deem
important.  As far as the stone, if it's true I may come to find it and use
it, then my hands are the most experienced."
   Yuzuki grinned once more.  "I only seek to the be the ally of a power I
helped foster."
   "Say nothing of all the failures that came before me." Kamela hissed. 
She looked to Deko.  "Since I have not slit my throat, as she says, it is
not your job to do it for me?"
   "I," he wrung his hands and wiped them on his pants.  "am not in the
position to do anything about that." He dropped his eyes to the floor. 
"Especially not with the company you keep."
   Yuzuki sighed.  "Yes, why do you keep the company of a wraith, Layali
Pruess?"
   Deko nodded pointed to a space behind Kamela.  "A wraith standing behind
an LP.  Quite the irony."
   Kamela revised her opinion of the shrunken man.  She let the inaccurate
description pass.  "I have made several choices prior to knowing their
consequence.  Stealing your book was my decision.  I chose to ask to become
an LP.  Claiming a ...  a wraith as my mate is one of many actions I have
taken and dealt with."
   "The bridge?" Deko asked.
   "Done with intent, and mitigating most of the risks." She turned to
Yuzuki.  "If I accept your defense, you will be bound by it."
   "Surely." Yuzuki said guardedly.
   "Before I even consider it, I need to call in someone one else.  I am
not in favor of help I did not request."
   ***
   Yuzuki straightened in her seat as she watched the young woman escort
the buxom Karja into the shield.  They all stood and reset the boundary.
   "Lily, this woman, Yuzuki, says she is a Tamka."
   "Really?" Lily whispered.  "That's what you're going to lead with?"
   Kamela gave a single nod.
   "Girl," Lily sighed.  "Tamkas are cold zealots.  They latch onto a
belief like a terrier.  Excellent help if you can afford one.  They
typically infect the judicial system like a cancer.  Their class is highly
attracted to laws and rules.  What is she here for?  Your kind can't be
arrested."
   "She wants to be my 'council'."
   "For?"
   "She thinks I will be able to find a marrow stone."
   "Fancy." Lily cast her fiftieth glance to the slight darkness beside
Kamela.  "Is that him?"
   "Yes." Kamela answered.  "You can see him?"
   Lily flushed.  "Not like you think.  I get impressions." She looked to
Deko.  "What about the zombie?"
   Kamela sighed and shook her head.
   Lily nodded solemnly.  "Good thing you called me." Lily and Yuzuki
looked at each other for a long while.  "I am her counsellor," she said
with a dangerous smile.
   "State your terms." Yuzuki pulled an envelop from her jacket and held it
out to her.
   Lily unfolded the single piece of paper.  "Zealots," Lily muttered. 
"She's crazy, but legit.  She will act as your counsellor for return of
amplification of her own innate abilities.  She is willing to be bind her
honesty and fealty to you." Lily looked to Yuzuki.  "You know, she's a
Pruess, not a Princess."
   "I am a well studied scholar.  I know exactly who she is and what she
will become.  She is a star on the verge of birth."
   Lily shrugged and looked to Kamela.  "I know it's your instinct to run a
person through rather than accept a gift, but as your counsellor, I advise
you take her.  Tamkas are a walking wealth of knowledge."
   They all looked to Deko.  He rubbed his nose and frowned at Kamela.  "I
don't see how you're any different than any other LP.  You're young,
foolish enough to have a wraith with you.  Give yourself a year or two and
you'll encounter a wraith you can't play house with and you'll die just as
quick as any other."
   "A wraith I can't play with?" Kamela leaned back in her chair.  "What
sort?"
   "Take the Erenu, or the Shiyers, even a Cercos or two while you sleep.
Those wraiths can all have LPs of their own."
   Kamela nodded.  "I have met many of these as a child," her voice was
soft.  "Do the Delrews have an LP class?"
   Deko snorted.  "Ask your wraith pet.  Those things are rabid.  Their
power is uncontrolled, volatile.  Anyone that has one haunt their dreams
either don't live to write about them or are too mad to be trusted to give
an accurate account.  You have lived to see a second decade, but your
arrogance will see you back in a steel cage.  Look at you, speaking their
name, even under this shield, even in this realm, is an invitation to
death."
   She smiled for the first time, her hand reached out, lifted high over
her head, and smoothed back the hairs of something unseen.  "I only speak
of things I know about.  I caution you against calling him my pet again. 
You have no reason to refer to him at all."
   Yuzuki's hair stood on end.  She nearly drew her legs to her chest and
her eyes began to search for a way out of the boundary.
   "Calm her down." Kamela looked to Lily.
   Lily moved to Yuzuki and kissed the woman, stroked her shoulder, and
whispered softly to her.
   Deko's face hardened.  "What?"
   Kamela ignored his question.  "I demand your answer."
   "No.  They do not have an LP class.  They do not have a need for one.  I
can identify creatures, most creatures," he corrected, "To the species,
even those by their class.  I can speak with things of the underworld, as
you see," he swept a hand over his face and body, "it comes with a heavy
price."
   "Some prices are more visible than others." Kamela said dismissively. 
She looked to Yuzuki.  "Better?"
   "Yes.  My apologies." Yuzuki glanced to Deko and swallowed.
   "Does it change your mind?"
   "No." Yuzuki said with finality.  "My faith is only strengthened."
   Kamela looked to Deko.  "I don't want anything to do with you."
   Deko looked around as if confused.
   "You are no benefit to me.  You don't recognize this wraith or its
class, and you won't.
   "Only because I have not encountered the creature that would take such a
form."
   "The encounter would leave you dead or crazy, as you so tactfully put
it." Kamela stood and left the meeting with Varax in tow.
   ***
   Kamela walked through the portal into a stone room very similar to the
one they shared in their dreams.  "This is your den?"
   Varax nodded as he padded to his sleeping pad.
   "Not only was it dangerous for you to bring me into this village; it's
dangerous to create a dream location so close to a real one."
   "I am able to wake and still have you here with me.  Nothing here is a
danger to me.  We need to rest.  The netherworld is no place for the sleep
deprived."
   Kamela walked through the room.  It had grown over the years.  Varax had
become a feared hunter.  The greater a Delrew's skill, the better
accommodations, but he had a room large enough to start a family.  She
looked at the pile of bones and back to him.
   "For you."
   She stooped at the pile, looked through the pieces.  These were fine
specimens, rare creatures.  She stood and crawled into his fur, placed
herself between his paws.
   Just beyond the walls she heard snarls, howls, and snaps.
   "I can't tell if that's mating or fighting," Kamela commented.
   "Both."
   Kamela turned toward him, pushed her face into his muzzle, suffocated
herself in his rich musk.  "Are they like all the time?"
   "Yes."
   She nuzzled along his neck until she felt the pulse of darkness just
under his skin and bit him, hard, a bit more pressure and she could break
his skin. 
   Varax's growl rumbled deep in his chest, sending a vibration through her
whole body.  Kamela wrestled away from him and jumped to her feet, took a
defensive position, her face stern and a challenge in her eyes.
   He rose to his feet and after a brief crouch, pounced in her direction.
They fought, wrestled, tussled until Kamela collapsed on him, covered in
sweat and panting.  He changed his form under her.  Varax was always trying
to take some human guise that would please her.  This time it was
different. He kept his hind quarters, but they were longer, thinner, with
soft black fur waving with the shadows.  His tail swished from side to
side. His thighs were still as muscular, but the fur much shorter.  His
belly was soft, thin.  His fore quarters became hands.  He had a human like
face, but his eyes were the same nightmare red and his teeth as black and
sharp as they ever were.  Varax's tail kept wagging behind her as he waited
for her reaction.
   Kamela looked over him slowly.  She caught her breath, stood, and
stepped away from him.  "We don't have much time.  I'm not tired, and I
don't need to sleep.  Neither do you.  I need to find this marrow stone and
get out of here."
   Varax walked over to her and took her in his arms.  He brought his lips
to hers, kissed her.  When Kamela tried to push him away Varax said, "We
have time."
   Those three words, the first from his voice instead of his mind, made
Kamela feel like she'd been pushed from a cliff and was in a freefall down
a dark, cavernous hole.  The feeling lingered, twisted in her belly even
after he stopped speaking.
   She had thrown one arm around him and pressed her other hand to his
mouth.  Kamela held her breath during the falling sensation, her eyes
closed, body still.  When it faded, finally, she relaxed.  Dragon beasts,
the Delrew, subsisted on fear and terror.  Though they preferred to hunt
other nightmares and wraiths, they particularly enjoyed an LP, if they
found one 'foolish' enough to travel to the underworld.  And here her mate
was, making her feel things she wasn't sure she could even identify in a
den of them.  Studying them, merely knowing for sure that they existed, was
trying, because surviving the experience - physically or mentally - was
rare.
   Varax lifted her and walked her back to his bed.
   They didn't have time for this.  Kamela opened her eyes and the dark red
glow stared back at her.  She breathed deep as if for the first time.  Had
she forgotten to inhale?  His fingers stroked her side, gently grazing the
scar that he could make tingle, down to her hips.  He cradled her in his
lap.
   Varax had been the only touch she'd ever known.  Alien, ridiculed,
forbidden, but so familiar.
   "I didn't know," Varax thought to her in apology.
   Kamela took another quick, deep breath.
   "But now that I do..." He switched to speaking out loud again.  "I will
not let this be your weakness."
   Kamela's heart pounded violently in her chest.  She began sweating
again, cold and profuse, but she breathed and remained still, gritting her
teeth against the flood of confusing signals from her body.  She steeled
herself against the insistence that she run, escape.  Kamela opened her
mouth, but it had gone dry and she couldn't find the words to say.
   Varax flicked his tongue along her lips, licked her cheeks.
   Kamela eyes looked at the dense shadow plumes rising from him.  Fear
before flesh.
   Grow strong with me, he thought at her.  It was Kamela's own bargain.
   Fear before flesh.  Terror destroys the ability to think.  Think.  I am
not in danger.  I am a Layali Pruess.  I am mated to a Delrew.  I trust him
with my life.  I trust him.
   You can trust nothing, least of all, any thing that can and will kill
you.
   "It's not me you fear, Kamela." He sang the words.  Her name on his lips
caused an explosion of pure dread.  It spread in her veins like poison,
choking her.  "You fear loving me."
   I can't contain this, Kamela thought with a whimper.  She pushed him
away from her, onto his back.  She pinned him down, but she felt his
arousal between her legs.  Kamela grabbed two fistfuls of his hair in each
hand.  "I do not fear anything.  Not anything!" She was shuddering, her
voice trembled and Kamela roared full and loud in frustration, incognizant
of her neighbors.  "Not anything!" She bellowed slamming her fist into his
chest with each word.
   "Because you know how to kill me or because you love me?"
   It was different this time, the terror seeped into her bones.  She felt
cold from head to toe, her heart threatened to give out, but she could
breathe, still.  "No, Varax." She shook her head slowly.  "No, because I
trust you." She was going to pass out soon, Kamela felt herself running
low. She closed her eyes and leaned forward to kiss him.  "Keep talking to
me."
   "They heard you.  You raised your voice and the emotion contained in
your words carried."
   Kamela breathed, controlled, heavy, through her nose.
   "We can hear very well.  We can smell fear, even the smallest hint of
it, like the first spill of hot blood.  It fills the air." Varax licked the
sweat from her face and neck.  "They smell it and they will know what you
are.  They will know where you are."
   Kamela kept her eyes closed.  It had been years since she had to do
this, find the strength.  It was there inside her, somewhere, waiting to be
tapped.
   "If they take you from my den, there is nothing even I can do to stop
them, but I will certainly lose my life in the attempt."
   "You don't have to worry about that." Kamela knew this calm.  Cool,
composed, iced over.  She pulled herself up and brushed her hand over her
body, slicking the cold sweat from her arms and legs.
   The snarls and barks of an untold number of Delrew gathered at the
entrance.  Kamela stood in the center of the den, in view of the doorway,
dressed only in the woven Delrew fur skirt wrapped around her hip and the
pouch she wore.
   They hurled images at her, waking terrors of torture, pain,
disfigurement, degradation, helplessness, madness.  It coiled inside her,
burned cold, and tingled her skin.
   She crouched down as if she, herself, were merely another Delrew, she
imagined herself surrounded by her own flickering shadows, and thought back
to them.  "Do not make promises you cannot keep.  Come inside, should you
dare."
   Two of them did indeed dare, they were huge, easily twice Varax's size.
They looked to Varax.
   "You challenged me.  You speak to me." Kamela felt herself grow colder,
quieter.  She felt a ripple along her back, as if something were prickling
it.  "You will leave me and my mate alone, or..." She noticed the room grow
brighter.  In the netherworld, that's saying a lot.  The light was a dark
bluish lavender.  It danced on the walls, shimmering.
   Kamela turned her attention to the largest Delrew, one of the two that
entered the room and she felt the air rush past her over her body toward
it. The creature opened its mouth and it felt like she swallowed him with
that air, that bit of atmosphere that surrounded her.
   Instead of roaring she heard the most horrid and unnatural sound - an
injured nightmare.  It was so acute, so painful.  She reached out with her
mind, tried to pry the light away from it.  Like two, large, periwinkle
wings, the dancing light parted and retreated back behind her.
   The Delrew sprinted out the door, but the others stood their ground.
   A surge of exhilaration flowed into Kamela, but she denied it.  She
denied the impulse to send the light after them.  Exuberance,
overconfidence - to have any of these is to lower your defense.
   "I fear nothing, least of all, loving one of you." Kamela lifted her
hands into the air and the light extended, spread out until she could see
it out both corners of her eyes.  "Or killing any one of you to protect
him."
   They backed away from her as they sent her assurances that no such
actions would be necessary.  She was welcome in their community.
   All of them left and she lowered her hands, but the glow remained,
undulating like sunlight off the surface of water.  Now how do I make that
go away?  She wondered.  Kamela went to her knees and felt the heaviness at
her back.
   "Come here." Varax stood before her.
   She looked up and saw the soft blue glow reflected in his shiny black
fur.
   "When one of our young have not learned to call the night fire," he
began as he carried her back to the bed.  "We put them in a circle and do
whatever it takes to make them feel the need to defend or attack.  Injury,
fights." He grumbled softly.  "Sent to the training camps."
   Kamela chuckled weakly, but she was glued to his every word.
   "Eventually, we are forced, instinctively, to call it out, learn how to
ignite it.  The first time can be very exhausting.  I lost my tooth before
I learned how to defend myself."
   "I am not a Delrew."
   "No.  I can see that, but the light from a marrow stone can banish the
shadow from the darkest corners of the underworld."
   Kamela pushed away from him, sat up and looked over her shoulders at the
tendrils of fading light.  "Me?"
   He pulled her back down onto him.  "You have found it.  Do we have time
now?"
   She chuckled and wrapped herself around him.  "Plenty."
   ***
   The Delrew have few, but very important lessons to learn.  Starting as a
cub, they learn defense, intimidation, what makes others afraid.  They are
sent to fight other creatures, train others, especially as cubs.  While
dangerous at that age, they are not instantly lethal.  Once they reach
adolescence, discover their fire, they spend their time learning the lore
of binding, items and being of specific classes.  The rituals of mating,
the rules of Delrew society, the ways of fighting.  All of these things, a
Delrew learns about before reaching adulthood.
   The Marrow Stone, the Light of Marrow, the Orb of Terror - known as so
many things by other species, but the Delrew know the most about this
fable. The Marrow Stone could only be found in their part of the
netherworld, technically true.  The light of marrow is created inside the
body of a creature than can transform a Delrew's weapon, its night fire
into peace, silence, fortitude.  The Delrew were not sure how their fire
was to be transformed.  Death and madness befell the creatures that entered
their lair seeking to find and use the light.  Trying to create a marrow
stone was punishable by a tortuous death.
   Varax unlocked the secret of an entire species when she told him about
nearly releasing her shadow fire without cutting herself.  She needed to be
pushed like a stunted adolescent, forced to face the last bit of discomfort
- and there was no better place for that than his home.  Now all of them
would know.  He had her in his bed and soon she would be the mother of his
young, and he would be the most powerful Delrew in all of the netherworld.
   Having seen it, Varax thought it was more beautiful than any one legend
could describe.  Was this the creature of legend?  The only creature
universally revered by all realms?  The underworld had its own legends
about the use of the orb of terror to rule over all races.  How did none of
the legends remember that the marrow was not a thing?  It was a being -
living, thinking, alive.
   She reached up to his shoulder and cut him, rubbed her face in the
wound, licked and sucked on the cut.  He smelled the bloom of her arousal,
the trace of his darkness in her body.  She spasmed around him, warm and
strong.  Varax steeled himself, waited.  He could not spill his seed inside
her until the second spasm, when her body would be ready to accept him.
   Kamela cried out as he cut her chest, lapped the blood up as he drank
from her.  Varax growled, thrusted deeper inside her, tantalized by the
warmth and affection he so longed to feel from her.  She began to spasm
again, her face buried in the fur on his shoulder, panting, trembling.  The
faint sprites of luminescence behind her flickered and flared with each
orgasm.
   Delrews took great pleasure in mating.  As a highly vocal species, Varax
had spent many a night listening to other pairs taking pleasure in each
other, whether fighting or fucking.
   Varax did not have to keep quiet as he came inside her.  He did not have
to worry or hide her presence any longer.  He knew that the blood exchange,
the preparation of a womb to accept him would be different, but the
intensity still took him by surprise.  She flooded his head with the desire
to please him, enjoy him.  Kamela moaned freely, cried out as if she were a
Delrew herself.  He answered her with the assurance that she felt
wonderful, that he relished being inside her, that he could never get
enough of her.  The he would always protect her.  They would always grow
stronger together.
   The pitch of her moans rose, she screamed, screamed with a feral
abandon. She had the most beautiful, powerful siren wail the Delrew camp
would ever hear.  They certainly heard it.  Kamela's trembling high pitched
scream filled the air and Varax roared in jubilation.  The faint glowing
light surrounding her turned blood red as she collapsed, trembling in the
wake of her fifth orgasm.
   Please, she begged, don't stop.  I want more.  I want you.
   Varax licked at the sweat on her face.  He would not stop until the
mating fire released her.
   ***
   Kamela felt a tongue lapping at her back.  Just like old times.  She
inhaled, the scent of blood caused her to sit up.  Varax nuzzled her back
down.  She was sore almost every where, but especially between her legs. 
If Varax got much bigger, she was going to have trouble, she thought with a
grin.
   She lay in the bed under his cleaning tongue willingly, stunned by her
blatant disregard for her surroundings.
   The smell of meat caught her nose again.
   "What is that?"
   "An offering for your appeasement.  Don't move.  I'm nearly done."
   "Nearly?"
   "You slept very soundly.  A good sign."
   This disturbed Kamela even more.  Her stomach rumbled.
   Varax made a few gruff noises, like another language, then told Kamela
to turn on her side.
   A Delrew cub wagged its tail and yipped.  Varax made more sounds and the
cub picked up a  strip of meat and carried it to the edge of the bed.
   "Take it from her with your mouth."
   Kamela eased over and took the meat.  It was like butter, rich,
delectable.  Like smoked salmon, but far meatier, bloodier.  Kamela sucked
the strip into her mouth with a grin.  What was wrong with her?  She didn't
even test it.  Eating food from the netherworld like that?  These are your
enemies.
   The cub bounded back to the pile for another piece.
   Kamela thought at her to have some.
   The cub gave a glance to Varax, but happily gobbled the meat, then
grabbed another strip.
   "This is really good," Kamela praised.  "Want some?"
   "I had my share earlier." There was surprise in his tone.  He also
expected her to refuse the food.
   "I trust you.  I trust you would not let anyone hurt me." She took
another piece from the cub.
   When the meat was gone, Varax barked and the cub bounded off.  Kamela
rolled onto her back and closed her eyes while Varax licked her lips.  He
settled his body over hers.
   "What was that?" Kamela put her arms around his neck.
   "A delicacy from the mountains, rock imps.  The girl you took it from
caught it.  You have to be that small to catch them, and you know how
popular Delrew young are."
   "I'm glad she got to eat some then."
   Varax rested his head beside hers.  "When must you go back?"
   "When I want," Kamela grinned and buried into his fur.  "Right now, I
only want to lay beside you."
   Varax made a low sound in his chest like a revving engine.
   <->
   Epilogue: I write a lot about the Delrew and 'Layali Pruess' in other
stories.  This is where I first came up with them.  Despite the rough
edges, I adore Kamela's story.
Written: May 2009
"My sexual interests are like my eating habits.  I'll try anything once;
twice, if you prepare it differently." -Bianca Lee
   Contact: nysidra at hot mail dot co
  
PlayBook