Childhood Demons

***In this, more of the strange group come together … or maybe I put that in a bad way. They join up.

Ok, forget about that.

There is mention made of a tribe of people in this and they’re still around at over 2 million, though I think that they’ve probably given up the way that some of them did the things that they did by now for sure.

But this is set in 1924, so at least some of it went on by then still, I’d guess. It’s just different now, though I’d imagine that they’re still dancing to keep the old ways alive, just like anyone would. 0_o

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Algeria, the coastal plains heading into the foothills of the mountains.

It had taken them from before the dawn to now just to get from the coast to some distance up the rocky slopes leading up into the mountains using the same horses that they’d bought for the trip in when they’d accompanied Yasmikha part way on her journey.

They knew to come, since Zhaeri had heard her large sister’s silent call across the miles. This time, A’ishah came along, feeling a little absurd. She wore clothing now and she was glad to have the clothes, but they felt more than a little strange on her since in her life to this point, she’d never owned or worn pants and boots.

So she felt a little out of place there, perched nervously on the horse which Zhaeri rode quite comfortably. What made the trip for A’ishah was that she got to sit in front of Zhaeri, under the extra insulation of the cloak and held securely between her arms as she guided the mare. They were leading another horse and the Bedouin could have ridden that one – if it weren’t for the fact that she’d never been on a horse in her life before.

Besides, this way, it made for interesting conversation.

The ground rose slowly at first and the cloak hadn’t been needed all that much before – other than to hide what Zhaeri was from the view of others at the outset. As they rode on, the time of year and the gain in altitude were making themselves more than a little known and A’ishah could only imagine what it must be like where Yasmikha had gone.

Algeria can be hot during the summer, hotter than anything, even near to the northern coast. What it must be like far to the south was a thought which kept shaming A’ishah a little, since she knew that her people were from there as she’d been as a child. Now, she was a transplant.

To a lot of people, foreigners mostly, the land was a place that was usually imagined to be flat and hot, but it wasn’t always, depending on where one might be. The truth was that while a good portion was somewhat flat, there were mountain ranges down to the south.

And long before one ever got near them, one had to cross what was more like a barrier consisting of several mountain ranges. Somewhere among them were the Djurdjura Mountains, though they weren’t going any farther than the foothills to meet up with Yasmikha.

Right now though, A’ishah was glad to be under that cloak, kept warm by the heat of one of the two that she loved most out of all of the four of her friends. She was frank in her thoughts to herself, because she knew that she loved them all dearly, even after such a comparatively short time.

She loved to lie with any of them. She adored both Yasmikha and powerful Håkan. She could easily spend a day just with them, trading caresses and being held between them. She had desires then which couldn’t be helped, for they’d never come to fruition, just out of their size differences.

She loved so much to suck and toy with Yasmikha’s breasts and nipples. She couldn’t keep her hands away, if the truth be known, and she liked to press her face right into that large and warm womanhood where those powerful thighs met. But it was always one or the other and never both.

She couldn’t do more than suck and stretch to get her fingers just a little near the entrance of her large friend when she did that and she so wanted to do that then. Being a bright and wickedly imaginative girl, she’d come up with something that all of them liked to watch when she was with Yasmikha.

It took a little doing and you had to get the big girl’s nipples hard in the right way first, but she loved to sit carefully on them, doing her best to get one inside of her as far as she could before having to move to use the other one in a similar manner. It went on until they all tired of it and the switching was most often due to the nipple that she happened to be trying to ride growing a little soft from A’ishah’s own warmth.

What kept it going was that if she could get one in her far enough, she could try to clamp on it, not that she really could, but Yasmikha liked to feel her try and that kept her nipples hard for a little while longer if A’ishah did it just right.

But it was so much fun to do and it always ended with A’ishah out of breath and needing to frig herself to finish as the others cheered her for doing it. She wasn’t shy at all by that point and lay with them all watching as she frigged and played wantonly. They made a point of it never to touch her then, not wanting to break the lovely spell that the smaller girl cast.

A’ishah could stare at Håkan for hours until he laughed at seeing her do it, never understanding why she did. She loved to lie on him and soak up the warmth when she could, feeling those impossibly large pectoral muscles, kneading them – even slapping them gently before she sucked in delight on the nipples of a male, never even having had the thought of it before, never mind the desire to.

She liked to lie in the opposite direction to his body, doing her very best to use her too-small mouth on his hot and turgid shaft, once she’d gotten it interested, of course, and that was never a difficult thing for her to do, since Håkan had such feelings for her. While she struggled to please him, sometimes spitting or drooling on what he had so that she could slide her hands over and along it while she did her best to use her mouth on something that she never could to the degree that he deserved.

Håkan took a long time to come when they were together and doing that, so A’ishah had lots of time to enjoy the way that he loved her in return. He always began by folding himself a little in a bed that wasn’t near wide enough for him to do that in. He’d noticed that whenever A’ishah masturbated, she often gave her sex gentle little slaps if she thought that no one was paying much attention.

So what he did for her was slap her there, though in order to be gentle enough, he only used two fingers, never his palm and never very hard. She loved it, feeling that as she ran her fingers over her nub in little circular motions and it always brought her off quickly, though by now, she knew that it was just the start.

He’d stretch a little and lick her to her joy for as long as he could stand the discomfort of the position.

After that, he’d ease back a little for his own comfort and lick A’ishah’s little asshole so that she moaned and squirmed almost constantly. She couldn’t get away if she wanted to those times and when he felt that she was making progress with her mouth, he’d place his palm on her belly, fingers pointed toward her head and he’d keep licking as he pressed into her slowly with his thumb and fucked her so easily, just drawing it in and out by bending it.

A’ishah’s transformation would be complete by that point. His attentions would never fail to turn her into a lustful thing who could do little other than moan out his name and how she loved him so.

He’d keep her almost glassy-eyed this way until her efforts caused him to spurt into her open mouth and all over her face, since she loved to draw it back for a second just for that before going back hungrily. She couldn’t possibly get it all – what came out of a male like him, hot and sticky and tasting so good to her.

She never told any of them, but she liked to enjoy thinking through little stories in her mind. Often it was her and the large pair or herself and either of them, as though the other one wasn’t with them. When she was with Håkan, she saw herself as a girl who’d been found / rescued / stolen by the beast that he was.

In those little stories, she saw herself as being frightened to death at first, only to be tamed by his true nature to become his little pet – one who loved him more than anything as they traveled together sharing adventures. These were the common elements to her little stories.

She considered that in the light of day, they were slightly juvenile things to daydream about. But she didn’t do that then, not very often, anyway. Those were the things that she brought to life in her mind as she relaxed in someone’s embrace to drift off to sleep for the night, usually at least partially covered in sticky female juices or some bits of Håkan’s semen that had gone unnoticed by any of them.

She never had those little daydreams about the other two, Zhaeri and Koåhn. She didn’t have them because she didn’t need to – she lived her daydreams with that pair. Every day or night was an adventure.

She was small to them too, but at least she was a lot closer to being a size that fit for them when they loved together. She’d let them lie on her carefully to fuck against her, though what the three of them all liked better was when A’ishah lay between their wide open legs and fucked on them.

Even much later, in the darkest hours of the night, when everyone was asleep, neither of her larger sisters would turn her away if she found herself in a position where she could copulate slowly for a while when no one could see them do it under the covers. Nothing felt so good to her then when they held her little haunches to help pull her against them.

With those two, A’ishah always did her best to please them and she never failed at it. She was astounded that they’d been first lovers between them for years and hadn’t thought of more things to do with one another.

The night that she’d gotten them together as she taught them about tribbing had been like a major sporting event in an arena with Håkan and Yasmikha sitting and staring with their jaws in their laps while Koåhn and Zhaeri lay on the floor with their legs scissored and fucking together.

A’ishah was cast into the role of almost a referee as she flitted back and forth, offering tips and advice or just pressing her face down there to kiss them and add a little moisture. Zhaeri had come first and there’d almost been cheering in with the applause before each one had insisted on a turn with their little sister.

A’ishah had gone with Koåhn last because she’d been thinking about it the whole day and working her ideas out in her head. She wanted to improve the wild one’s chances at pleasure, since she had a thick bushy bit of fur which couldn’t be trimmed.

So when she’d gotten on the floor with the furry one, she reveled in the feeling of working her little cunny into the crotch of the “fur-covered love beast”, as she’d whispered it to Koåhn beforehand. Other than jamming herself in between those legs, A’ishah was bent on finding out what she’d thought might work and she couldn’t wait.

“Come here and watch, Zhaeri,” she’d said, “I have an idea.”

With that, it had started out just as it had when Zhaeri had been doing it, but there was the issue of Koåhn’s clitoris, since it tended to get lost a little far from the action and A’ishah had noticed that. Of more concern to her was that it couldn’t take the pressure either, so her mind had gone into overdrive to think of a way that Koåhn could get even more out of this.

She asked Koåhn to go more gently and after caressing the amazing furred legs which held her, A’ishah had rolled back a little and spit on her hands as best she could, “Spit on it, Zhaeri,” she’d instructed, “Get her little banana good and wet for me.”

A’ishah began then, bucking her hips while trying not to crush that clitoris. It took some adjustment to find the best place, but once she did, she spit on her hands once again and began to pull that little beauty against her mound, high up on it and she began to caress it as best she could for Koåhn.

The girl reacted instantly and it was quite a ride, since Koåhn now felt the full benefit to her in a way that worked for her and she went to town with A’ishah doing her best to hold them together. She’d come twice and it had been good, but Koåhn had turned into a wild thing in it and none of them even knew how many times she’d bucked herself to her joy.

It ended with both of them on their backs out of breath and grinning.

And just as soon as Koåhn was past it and receptive again, Zhaeri was on the same wild ride.

Yasmikha asked to try and Koåhn nodded, but something unexpected happened that time.

Yasmikha was larger than any of them and somehow, Koåhn’s clitoris had gone inside. They stopped suddenly, looking at each other in surprise. Then they began to move ever so carefully and they went a long time, slowly and gently as they moaned and hissed in bliss.

Zhaeri had wanted to go again, but Koåhn was feeling a little raw then, so A’ishah slipped into place against Zhaeri and they enjoyed each other again.

The next night, it had been time for another lesson and it ended with Yasmikha and Koåhn on their hands and knees while Zhaeri followed A’ishah’s lead and slowly fucked her sister with her fist.

A’ishah did the same for Koåhn and when they were done, the girls who’d been fucked eased their tired bodies down happily and were asleep within minutes. So they missed most of the final act.

Zhaeri took A’ishah and laid her down to lick her until she was absolutely soaked from her tailbone to her navel, thighs and all.

Håkan lay down then and pulled A’ishah over while Zhaeri held her legs apart for her brother until he was between A’ishah’s thighs. He began to hump against her that way and at the height of it, A’ishah was very happy because the male had found a way that they could do it in a way that pleased them both very much at last. He clutched her tightly and slid that thing back and forth while Zhaeri moved up to pull A’ishah’s mouth against her sex and they were all happy as the others slept.

Even when it was slow between them, A’ishah had only to spit on her hand and rub Håkan softly to listen to him sigh and moan in response. She matched the pace in what she was doing for Zhaeri and when they were done, she was a complete mess, happy almost to tears at feeling so loved and used and vital to them.

They rode in silence for a long while and eventually, Zhaeri nudged A’ishah gently. “You have been so still for such a long time, sister. Have I said or done anything wrong?

I know that you do not sleep from the way that you sit. For most of our journey, we have talked of anything or you have told me your little tales and I have listened to every word, knowing that Koåhn will be jealous that I can have you against me for so long telling me your stories. Yet you are so still now.”

“It’s nothing,” A’ishah said quietly, “I was only thinking to myself at how lucky that I am. I am in the midst of four who would do anything for me and it came to me that I can honestly tell myself that if I had but one of you and not four, only one, I could be happy. But I do not have only one.

Zhaeri, I have four and more than that, I have found my place in the middle.”

She laughed a little, “I am lucky enough to share in a love between three of us girls. Zhaeri, most people might only hope for a chance to earn the love of only one other person. I have two others for my heart – as if the way that the big ones love me isn’t enough.”

She sighed, “And I lie in the middle and we all please each other. Such a wondrous thing.”

She felt Zhaeri nod over and behind her. “We have always been this way between us,” the she-orc said, “We saw the way that it is more natural for our kind to argue and fight. We sat together one night as we all wandered. We’d eaten our evening meal and I’d stolen some ale for us all that afternoon, so we sat as though we’d all eaten the greatest of feasts and we were happy to be with each other.

Koåhn suddenly remarked that out of all of the families that we knew among us as a band of wayfarers, we were the only one which had remained together in spite of everything. Of some families, there were only single ones left, or at most two. Our kind is prone to argue – as even you have seen. Yet we knew from the beginning that we were the only ones who could be counted on for each other. It just seemed natural to us.

Not long before we lost track of everyone else, we decided that we were enough for each other. We could go on together. We would anyway, so why not begin to mate with each other, since we loved each other so?

To have you in with us makes it all even sweeter. None of us can understand it even yet, but not one of us has even become a little annoyed with you over anything yet. You fit with us and you keep us all well-loved and very pleased.”

She put one arm around A’ishah and hugged her a little, “Koåhn and I share the most with you.”

She looked at the road ahead and where it was taking them for a moment. “Would you like to hear of what I have learned since we left this morning? There is a little more to tell now that I have had such a long silence.”

A’ishah nodded, “Yes. Tell me anything, Zhaeri. I love to listen to you anytime.”

She heard the surprised tone from behind her, “Really?”

“Oh yes, “the human declared, “I love to listen to you both for different reasons,” she said, “For her part, Koåhn speaks to me of more earthy things, what I should be smelling on the wind or how I should see the way that the leaves flutter in the breeze and try to see the things that she just knows when she sees things like that. Even when we are loving together, she is more … ”

She looked up at Zhaeri for a moment, “I want to say animal-like, but that is so far wrong. Our sister is very … lusty in her way. You are as well, but it is not the same to me.”

Zhaeri chuckled, “Now if there was ever a thing that I’d ache to hear from your lips, sweet one, this must be it. Tell me of it if you can.”

A’ishah shrugged, “I can try, but at best, I will be describing feelings, so it will be hard to do well. When I lie with Koåhn and she caresses me, it is almost never done with a fingertip – unless the way that we are lying makes it so. She prefers to use her palm as well as her fingers. She seldom traces over my shoulder or breast with just a finger. She takes that part of me in almost a grip – as soft as she does it and even then, it is a moving one most often.

You, on the other hand, use your fingertips much more and in some surprisingly subtle ways when you caress me. Sometimes, I could swear that it is the softest sort of breeze which brushes my skin and leaves such a pleasant and sweet tingle to let me know how I am loved by you.

You both love to try to keep me surrounded by your larger bodies – which I adore – but even there it is in different ways. And when you do things to love me, I often wonder if I will be left with a working mind at the end of it when it is time to sleep.

Most often, Koåhn takes me – purely, simply, open-heartedly and wildly as is her way – and that is what she does to me. I love it when she forces me down with my face against the bed as she fucks me with her jewel, holding me and just plowing me into the bed. She does it all like a girl loving another girl even so, for she is so strong and yet thoughtful of my comfort and pleasure.

But there is no doubt that I am being taken.

You do the loving of me in a far different way, and even so, I know that I am yours for that time and no other’s. You hold me as you did that first night and you play my body until I sing for you as sweetly as I can, for it is only what I ought to be doing then. Imagine if I cried out and grunted as I do when Koåhn has me for her pleasure. It would sound silly then, no?”

Zhaeri hadn’t ever thought of it this way before, but she could see it, knowing that A’ishah was right. Her way was all subtlety and even the occasional bits of sleight of hand when she worked her spells on A’ishah.

She still loved the way that she could hold the girl hanging from her as she held her from behind and toyed with her charms while A’ishah hung trapped in her arms, bucking slowly and yet crying out at the end almost as softly as a baby. So soft, that sound, and yet it said so much. So gentle, the way that it came out of her little lover as she felt that little backside touch up against her from the slow writhing motions that she made.

Either way, it was the same. No matter which of them had A’ishah, it always ended with her helpless and shuddering, mewling out her love so plaintively up to a point. Right there, her noises diverged, depending on which of them was having her as she’d said. With her, it was so soft that you had to almost listen for it.

With Koåhn, it was dramatic for the way that you could see A’ishah with her head thrown forward or back and her mouth wide open, lips drawn back, teeth in plain view, screaming with all that she had in her love.

So different – and yet it always said the same thing.

No matter how it was done or by whom, it always ended with A’ishah completely spent, shaking and weeping with emotion. You only had to see it once, no matter who was taking her and you wanted to weep in joy with her. Håkan could crush boulders if there was any weakness in the rock, yet as much as he loved to watch A’ishah being loved, he’d usually be sitting with warm tears running just to see it.

“In many ways, you have become our little darling,” Zhaeri murmured, leaning her head down to rub her chin against A’ishah’s head, “No matter what we do to you when we make love to you, it is not either of us who most often holds you gently afterward. Have you noticed this?

It is most always the other pair who take you into their arms then while you get your strength back. We let them, Koåhn and I, because it is plain to see that they need it then, just as you do.”

She looked ahead again into the distance, “But that – as warm and wet as it makes me only to hear – is not what I meant earlier. I have been talking with Yasmikha again and a good thing that it happened too. There are two surprises coming with her and the blonde one.

I am sure that I’ll hear all that I need to hear soon enough, but that one does not come alone with my sister. There are a pair of … others along on that trip down the mountain.”

She wouldn’t say much more to A’ishah, not knowing if what she’d been told had been correct, but she did say that there would be likely three more to them and not only one.

She’d been making for a place in the higher foothills that she’d caught a glimpse of the other day. There were already plenty of slopes around them and given that it was warm near the flatter land at the bottom and cold up above, there was a fair bit of mixing of the air and it yielded two things – or sets of circumstances where they were.

There were pockets of fog where there was already patches of snow on the ground, and there were places where the wind blew and the fog couldn’t gather. One took your visibility away and the other could take your breath with it’s icy cold air.

Zhaeri wanted neither one particularly. She was looking for a spot which she’d gotten only a glimpse of, a place where horses might be sheltered for a night and also … in that place – at the back of it – she’d sensed a flare of warmth from the earth, where the heat came not far from the surface. She knew that it would be a little warm there and it might offer a place for a weary group of travelers to spend a night before moving on to the coast in the morning.

Her attention was drawn to a thin figure out there up ahead a little way, what looked to be a large boy – or a smallish young man naked in the snow but for a pair of crude boots made of fur wrapped over his feet and tied with bits of hemp rope. He had a sort of bracelet on each wrist and one ankle was shackled, the chain stretching off out of sight.

He jumped up and down to try to get their attention and though he had little between his legs with which to draw a female’s eyes, what was there was small and tight against him in the cold so that it hardly moved at all from his jumping and it drew A’ishah’s attention anyway for the pitiful way that it jiggled as he danced.

A’ishah stared, “Look at that poor boy. Who would do that to anyone out here? Ride over there, Zhaeri. We have to try to free him.”

The she-orc wasn’t looking at him anymore as she shook her head. A’ishah looked up, feeling the motion and she wondered what had possessed her. She seemed to be looking everywhere but at the boy.

“Please – ride to him,” Aishah pleaded, “He is freezing alive and just wearing that metal on him must make it all the colder. We must help him. Ride over there – ”

Seeing that Zhaeri had other ideas, A’ishah was trying to squirm her way into getting one leg over the neck of the horse so that she could jump down. But she felt herself being held fast by Zhaeri, who still didn’t look at the boy, though she leaned her head down just a little.

“You will stay here,” she hissed sharply in a way that brooked no argument.

“This is a trap – and he is the bait.”

She reined back the horse and as they stopped, Zhaeri became aware of a motion off to the side among some boulders.

There was a sharp cracking sound from beside them as a boulder began to move as though a giant hand was trying to pull it free from the earth’s grasp and after a moment, the boulder flew away from them with a buzzing whoosh to crash against a man who had just stood up to level a rifle at them.

He disappeared from sight, crushed by the boulder which flew on, showing the wet reddish spot on one side of it as it tumbled through the air.

A second man jumped up from a rise of ground almost next to them and he was pointing a rifle as well.

Zhaeri weaved her right arm like she was hanging onto a chain with a great weight attached to it with the effort plain on her face as she heaved that weight around. The man looked to the side and prepared to jump away as the boulder now came hurtling back in his direction.

The speeding rock – easily a yard across – hit the embankment low and skipped off upward and then man grinned as he stood up and raised his rifle quickly.

But it ended as the boulder came straight down to land on him and stop.

There was silence for a moment then as the sounds which the boulder had made echoed from the hills in front of them and died away. The naked boy standing in the snow made no sound, his mouth hanging open.

“Zh-Zhaeri?” A’ishah whispered.

But Zhaeri sat holding her head with one hand, looking down at nothing.

A’ishah looked at the poor cold boy out there and she began to try again, “Zhae-”

“Hush!” the she-orc hissed at her and the Bedouin fell silent.

“Let me have a moment to feel …” Zhaeri whispered, “His mind out there … he wants to tell us … warn us … but he dares not speak.”

After another moment, she looked up and to the left. There was a puff of smoke and then they heard the crack of a bullet passing very close by, followed by the boom of the shot. Zhaeri growled something low in her throat and threw her right hand forward in an overhand motion in that direction.

The sky, overcast evenly all day over them now held distinct and dark clouds scudding closer rapidly, hovering under the overcast and out of them three bright flashes came hurtling, snarling as they went, crackling, surging as they joined … to bang down and strike the shooter. They carried on, snapping into several forks, which rippled across the small, bowl-shaped depression to strike two others before the bolt finally found it’s way into the earth, leaving snow flying up wherever it found it’s way down.

A’ishah winced at the brightness of the flash and the noise, but she saw it at the first man fell in several pieces. The others were lying motionless in the disturbed snow. All of them were smoking slightly and the hills rang with the crack of the thunder.

Zhaeri urged the horse forward and as they came on slowly, the boy tried to run away in the opposite direction, clearly in terror of them.

When he’d reached the end of his tether, A’ishah slid down and walked to him with a blanket. Zhaeri got down and walked off to the side where she took the chain in her hands and pulled it as though she was trying to get it to part.

It didn’t part, not right away, though the single link that she focused on gave up after it glowed hotly for a moment. She hung on to the chain and pressed it into the snow beside the broken link to cool it before she let it go.

A’ishah was astounded when the boy ran off as fast as he could, trying to get as much distance between himself and them as possible.

“Let him go,” Zhaeri said, “I think that he has nowhere to go and so he will come back after a time. We are not here to save naked young men – though I see that the idea pleases you,” she smiled. “We must get to that dark line there in the rocks up ahead. I think there is room there to get the horses inside and then I will need to try to find my sister. Your bare boyfriend there will have to fend for himself until his brain tells him that his little bottom is about to freeze.”

“What if he keeps on and gets lost?” A’ishah asked.

“He won’t,” the orc smiled, “There are those of my kind – females, you understand – who hold to the belief that males of all kinds are stupid. It has not been my own experience unless they were of our own kind, though my brother is brighter than any ten of those ones. The few human men that I have seen, most of them are not – most of the time, at least. That one will only follow after a time. It is the only choice that he really has.

Now go and take the rifles from those dead ones if you can. Leave any that look broken or in poor shape. And if you think that you have the stomach for it, my love, search them as you can for bullets as well.”

They got back on the horse and rode forward and in a little while, A’ishah saw that it was as Zhaeri had said, there was a place in between a pair of large standing stones. From the front, it only looked like a dark line, but if you walked between them, the rest opened to your view and you were in a cave which was covered above for most of it’s depth, and at the back, it was much warmer.

They got the horses settled as best they could after the struggle to get them inside in the first place and A’ishah tried to get a fire lit, seeing that the place had been a temporary home to many at one time or another. There was lots of dried wood lying around in rough piles. She was talking to herself as she worked, for Zhaeri had left her, going on foot to look for a likely path upward, hopefully the same one that her sister had walked upward on.

It took a little time, since the place was a bit damp and that had carried over to the wood, so A’ishah had to work at it, moving things around a little and waiting until eventually, she had it right and the little blaze began well. She warmed herself for a little while and muttered her own opinion over the intelligence – or lack thereof – displayed by naked young men in snowfields, since her thoughts kept returning to one thing.

The little bastard had run off with her blanket.

She looked around and by the light of the fire, she saw the source of the gentle gurgling that had come to her ears in the quiet – she just hadn’t had the light to see with before. There was a steaming pool there. She looked up and saw that there was steam sliding along the ceiling over to a wide fissure where it went upwards, still inside the mountain. She smiled then, thinking that it was nice. She didn’t need the humidity, but she did like the warmth.

In a little while, she found that their assailants must have used this place. She found bundles of clothing and a few bags of coins and some jewellery. That was when she heard the smallest gasp from a dark corner and when she looked, she saw a smallish figure, not much different in size to her move a little, trying to draw back into the darkness even more, but having run out with the cavern wall being already there.

A’ishah grew concerned, having neither anything to use as a weapon or Zhaeri to protect her. She picked up one of the rifles and ran to the little fire and drew out a stick which blazed brightly at the end. Armed with that, she stepped farther into the darkness near the back and held the burning stick high.

There was a girl there, chained and she began to weep and beg not to be harmed. It took a little trial and error, but A’ishah found that she could converse with her, once she’d gotten her a little calmed. Listening to her, A’ishah looked where she’d been told and came up with a set of old metal keys, very simple in design, but she found that one of them fit the shackles on the girl.

When she’d freed the prisoner, she learned a little and they exchanged names. Zahra, as the one was called, promised eternal gratitude if she was not to be A’ishah’s prisoner. She stared then as A’ishah laughed and told her that she was lower than Zahra appeared to be, having been a slave, so she didn’t want to hear about anything of the sort where that sort of thing was concerned.

She led Zahra to the warm water and told her to bathe so that she might feel better and A’ishah would see what sort of clothes she could find lying around. Zahra nodded, still looking as though she was in disbelief at being freed and they talked. During that time, A’ishah learned much.

Eventually, she drifted toward the opening and looked out. As she did, she saw him again, dipping down to hide behind a rise in the snow some yards out.

This time, A’ishah didn’t do a thing. She just stood there, leaning against one of the pillars with her arms crossed as she watched.

He popped up again and seeing her looking at him, he dropped down out of sight once more. But his face showed again an instant later, a little nearer this time. A’ishah stared at him a little, still wondering about him and how his misfortune had happened.

She could tell herself many things about him stealing her blanket. She knew that it wasn’t really anything like that. She’d been a little scared herself at what Zhaeri had done. Who wouldn’t be? She lived with the girl and it had been a shock to see all of that.

As he came nearer, clearly still worried, though he must have seen Zhaeri walk off, he tried to speak to A’ishah and a couple of things became a little clear to her.

There wasn’t a lot of depth to his voice, but she liked to hear it, as nervous as he clearly was, and … he was beautiful – very beautiful for a male, with a straight nose and thin, obviously carefully-plucked eyebrows over almond-shaped eyes and a very pleasant-looking, rather feminine mouth in a male face and oddly enough, it all suited him.

He didn’t look so … effeminate as he perhaps appeared otherworldly, in much the same way as his sister did without the influence of clothing to sway the observer’s thoughts. They both had absurdly long hair, dark brown, so dark that it appeared black and it did to A’ishah, but that was here. In the glare of noonday sunlight, the brown could be seen.

As it was here, it looked black and what could be seen at the front of his head was long enough to get in the way sometimes – long enough to be pushed behind an ear. But the rest … it was in a long thick braid at the back of his head and it hung down so that it brushed his bottom when he walked. Here was another difference between the siblings, for Zahra’s hair was just as long, but she braided it into three at the back, though the braids were thinner in diameter.

It didn’t matter in any case. When they walked, their hips moved in motions evocative of two-legged panthers; not quick and yet not slow … but they drew the eye then, their hair gliding across their golden buttocks. One might call the effect distracting to watch. It all depended upon the observer and his or her state of mind.

Some might call it a little maddening.

Eventually, just as Zhaeri had said, his need for a little warmth overcame whatever else he had going on inside of him and he came closer, still trying to talk to her, trying to see into the cave around her and looking very worried about something.

Finally, A’ishah just told him to calm himself. “I have found Zahra, so stop worrying over your sister and come inside.”

He looked relieved, though still nervous.

“What is your name?” she asked, “Just give me one that I might have something to call you by.”

“Kasim,” he mumbled, but she smiled, “I am A’ishah and you are frozen. Come.”

A’ishah held out her hand and taking his in it, she pulled him inside with him dragging the chain still there on his ankle and stood him before the fire. He looked so apprehensive then, wanting to feel the heat, but being a little shy at the same time. She walked off and came back with the keys and one of them fit to open the shackle with – the last one, of course.

“Oh, open the blanket, at least,” A’ishah chuckled, “I have already seen all of your charms, so there is no point to hiding now. Surely I deserve a little thrill for what I have done for you.”

He looked like he wanted to – but …

Zahra ran up to him and hugged him, so concerned at how cold he was. A’ishah stepped up to him and took the blanket from him slowly, talking to him all the while and telling him as best she could that he’d get warmer more quickly without it in here. Then, as she pretended to look for something in her pack, she looked back and saw that he stood trying to get warm and that it would take a little while even still. She walked back toward him and when he noticed it, he tried to hide himself with the blanket again and she let him because she was shocked. Before he’d noticed her coming back, she’d seen what she was certain was dried semen on his backside.

He’d covered that part of himself well enough, but she stepped around in front of him and reached down before he’d realized what she was trying to do. He almost jumped back at her touch, but she had her hand on his shoulder as she reached in and felt the tip of his penis for a moment. Her thumb slipped just inside of his foreskin and when she drew it back, she looked at what was on her thumb and another part of his mystery fell away and left her feeling a little sorry for him again.

A’ishah had lived in a brothel. She knew that males – even though they might not have enjoyed what was done to them, often ejaculated from it anyway. From his face, he looked shamed that she knew, so she wanted him to know that it caused her to feel for him, but she found no way to say it easily, so she said nothing about that part of it.

The next little while was spent with her telling him that she’d once been the same and if he’d allow it, she’d do what she could to help him. That took an even longer time, but eventually, the pair stood naked together in the warm water as she bathed him, surprising him for the way that she drew his foreskin back to wash him even there. Zahra stood nearby, talking to Kasim and telling him to allow A’ishah to help. At that, he finally began to talk more and try harder to make himself understood.

She heard a lot of their story and they got to hear hers. She told them of the nature of the strange girl that Kasim had seen her with and they stepped out of the hot pool together, much more comfortable with each other and all of them a little pleased that A’ishah had washed and clean off the traces of how he’d been used before she and Zhaeri had gotten there. She had him standing with his feet apart as she’d found something to use.

“Hold still for me, and I will try to soothe you back here. I see that you have been used a little hard lately.”

He nodded rather sadly and he flinched at first, but the cream that she put there did finally make him feel better, and she was very good in how she applied it so that he sighed in spite of himself.

A significant portion of the gold lying around was his he claimed, and from what he’d told her, she understood and agreed that it likely was. From her questions, she learned that they were twins. They looked alike to a degree but that was as far as it went and in any event, they were very lovely to A’ishah’s eyes, once they were clean.

They were twenty and had been on their way back to a village not far from where they were from and that they’d gotten lost a couple of weeks before. The ones who had captured them had used him, both for their pleasure as well as to bait the trap for any travellers out here. They hadn’t done much to Zahra, thinking that she could be sold to a brothel for a good amount.

As A’ishah heard more of it, she set about seeing what sort of meal she could put together for when Zhaeri returned, hopefully with Yasmikha at least. Kasim began to gather up what gold that he could find that he thought was his own. When she noticed it, A’ishah told him to gather up what he thought was his sister’s as well, and Zahra began to weep then.

When she understood why, A’ishah told them to gather up all of it if they wanted and she explained things as best she could as she worked. “I don’t know what can be done for you both; I find that I am at least a little hopeful. When the others return, there may be five of them and at least three will be large. Do your best not to look too frightened and above all, do NOT try to run away and please – let me do the talking for you, at least at first.

If all that I think there are come, then two, I know well. There could be a large man with light hair also. I know a little of him and I do not think that he would want to harm you. The others, I know nothing of, but I cannot think that you would be harmed. I see some of your difficulty and I will do as I can to help – and it needs no more than a little thanks, that is all.”

She looked at some of the jewellery lying around, “That is yours as well?”

Seeing Kasim’s nod, A’ishah smiled, “then please bring some of it over and come to me. I think – now that I know more – that I want to see some of it on your fine bodies, if for no other reason that to hopefully see you feeling a little better.”

She chose some out of what she saw and she adorned them both by placing jewelled collars on them because she knew enough of their kind to know that it was the way that things were done by them and she searched until shoe found the gold chains which were to go around their narrow waists.

A’ishah grinned to see that they were indeed feeling much better for it and she held still as they insisted while they adorned her body in the same manner.

“You are not one of us,” Zahra smiled as she fastened a small collar around A’ishah’s neck and adjusted the way that the heavy pendant lay over the Bedouin’s small breasts, “But I see enough of you now to know that you would wants this. Many women – if they had the means to own something like this, might love to wear it, but only their men – if they had one worth it – might ever see it.

It is not our way. We live most often without things to hide our bodies, after a point in the evening, most times. We live wearing things such as this, just as you knew of it and to us, you are alike to ourselves.”

A’ishah was touched. She only wanted a mirror, more than anything right then. But the pair told her that she looked very good this way.

—————————–

Zhaeri searched a little, and it was not long before she felt Yasmikha’s thoughts telling her that they’d seen her, so she stood near some rocks to get out of the wind and looked up the slope. The way was difficult to see, with clouds of fog rolling through most often, so she just waited.

After a time, she heard some horses and then she could make out a little conversation and she felt some relief. When she saw them all, she stood and stared for a moment before she pulled her wits about her and stepped out to greet them.

After what had to be one of the strangest meetings for at least a few of them, Zhaeri spoke of what had happened on the way and where she’d left A’ishah.

———————-

A’ishah saw them coming, just a group of indistinct figures on ghostly-looking horses in the rolling fog as the light of the day began to fade. She had time only to look back and call to the ones inside that the ones that she waited for were almost there. When she turned back, Zhaeri was right there, picking her up to hold her and hug her so that A’ishah’s feet dangled in the air.

“I know now that I can never be far from you, A’ishah,” she sighed with her eyes closed and a smile on her lips, “Poor Koåhn must be in agony, if she feels anything like the way that I do to be away from you.”

A’ishah kissed Zhaeri and then hurriedly whispered what had passed in the time that Zhaeri was gone. After only one look at the two by the fire, she nodded and turned to go back out.

“Tell them plainly with as little fuss as you can that there are two … demons among us.”

“Demons?” A’ishah repeated, “How is that worth no fuss at all?”

Zhaeri began to chuckle, “I’m sure that by now, you can take anything at all in your stride, my love. I will tell the rest not to frighten our new guests.” She was still smiling as she pointed, “I left you wearing clothes. I come back and you are as we love to see you most – and you even wear such finery!”

She grinned a little in spite of herself as she rolled her eyes, “You always tell us that you have lived a completely unremarkable life – and none of us understand it at all when we hear that.”

————————-

“It is warm in here,” Zahra remarked with a look toward Kasim.

He nodded, “I have lost the chill from outside. Now I begin to sweat.”

“Well take the blankets off then,” A’ishah smiled, “and if you do that, then I will as well.

But I think we should keep them near us all the same. Zhaeri has told me that there will be four others coming back with her. Her sister is one and that lovely girl is large and strong, much more so than Zhaeri.

As well, there will be a large soldier with her and he brings two who she says are friends from his youth. I am to say that they are a sort of demon – a male and a female – who wish to live here.”

The statement caused the pair to become nervous and agitated. “There are many kinds of demons, I have heard,” Zhara said, “What sort are these ones?”

A’ishah shrugged, “I cannot say. I’ve never seen even one like that. What these are, I was not told, but I know Zhaeri and she would not want me in danger. I trust her and so must you, I must guess.”

“You travel with strange companions,” Kasim said, “That one …”

Zahra wanted to hear what had happened and Kasim spoke of it while they began to cook what they could. Zahra listened closely and at the end, she looked across to A’ishah. “So you came here with a demon? Why did she not kill you? Isn’t that what they do?”

A’ishah shook her head, “Zhaeri is no demon and I love her. I cannot think that there is much to fear, or she would have told me.”

They heard the horses at the entrance not long after and they all looked. As the riders came in one at a time, a little fog swirled in around each one for a moment. It added to the effect, but as soon as they were off the horses and on the ground, Zhaeri pulled the newcomers into a huddle.

“There are men coming,” she said, “They are some miles distant as yet and they march, most of them. Some few are on horseback and there are other horses drawing wagons.”

“How many, Zhaeri?” Yasmikha asked and they all paused to look at Zhaeri, who stood in thought for a few moments.

“One hundred and eight,” Zhaeri said when she looked up. “I can do a little to hide us, but I don’t want to give up this nice warm cave if they come this far.”

“They will go up the same path that we came down,” Kari remarked, “I think they’d go to reinforce my unit, not knowing that there are none alive up there. The wagons carry food, clothing and ammunition. If they think to go up that path dragging the wagons, they’re in for a hard lesson.”

He sighed, “I’m afraid that at some point, not far up, the men will become the pack animals, carrying the supplies on their backs. Horses can’t go up that way pulling wagons.”

Kari looked out into the fog, “They should be taking the lower road up. It’s some distance farther to go, but the trip up is at least possible. I guess it depends on the brightness of the officers.”

He looked back, “Or, they know that they’d be ambushed on that road and take this way instead.”

There was no reply. When he looked, he saw Zhaeri standing in a strange posture, as though her head hurt or something of that nature. He was about to step over to ask when Yasmikha stopped him.

“My sister bends her thoughts on the conditions outside. She will be alright, only give her a moment.”

As though in answer to her, they heard the sudden rush of the wind outside and when they looked out, they saw that the wind was coming straight down the mountain and blowing away from them across the snowfields out there, picking up snow as it went and visibility was nil out beyond more than twenty feet.

“I … want to hide us and …” She took a laboured breath, “And I want to remove our tracks. Most of all, I wish to force them to make camp where they are. I am sorry, Yasmikha.”

Kari looked and Yasmikha stood in a similar posture, though holding her ears as well. When she felt the hands of the demons and Kari on her shoulders, she grimaced a little, “I feel the stones and the air as Zhaeri does. I feel the torment that she makes. I can stand it and she tries to help.

It hurts me to say it sister,” Yasmikha said, “but I have seen those ones. Whether it is out of the thickness of their officers’ skulls or from their own stubbornness, those are hard men and it will take a lot to make them stop.”

Zhaeri stood with her head bent and beads of sweat standing out on her face. “Then let it be a test of will – or stupidity,” she smiled, though with some effort, “I have more to draw on yet.”

There was a dull flash from outside which was followed almost at once by rattling thunder from not too far off. The wind went from blowing solidly and strongly to where it began to moan and whistle.

“If they still come in a little time,” she said, “then do not stand near these stones and above all do not go outside, for you will never be found when my winds begin to scream.”

They made their cautious introductions a minute or so later. Yasmkiha smiled and nodded when she met the other humans. “I have the best luck, I think now. We have been here for a time, yet until I met A’ishah, I never saw much in the way of beauty. I guess I didn’t know how to look or something.”

She laughed, “It must be so, to judge by these ones. Do you know A’ishah well?”

Kasim shook his head, “We have only met this day, but we talked as we waited.” He gazed at her as she took off her cloak and furs, “I’ve never seen …”

A’ishah told him what she knew, so as not to make anyone feel out of place. She didn’t want that now as she kept stealing glances at the pair of demons who stood nearby a little nervously. Kari said a little of his past and who the demons were to him and then Zhaeri and the pair of humans looked as the demons stepped forward.

“I like the way that you look,” Zahra said, a little shyly, “but why are you not wearing anything? You came in out of the cold that way and I … I only wonder.”

“We are not cold,” Ahnyazh said with a smile, “We do not need clothes except to deceive humans and then,” she smiled a little wider, “we cause them to appear as we need. But like anything that we do then, it is illusion and not real. We can look like anyone – even you if you like, but I think that it would frighten you and it is not what we want.

I can look like your mother if I wish, or even like …”

She spun with a little laugh and pointed, “like the one that this one holds in his heart. Do you wish to see how close that I can come?”

Zahra nodded, but Kasim shook his head – his eyes wide.

So Ahnyazh dropped her teasing demeanour, stepping closer to Kasim as she dropped her voice, “Then I will not show it. I would want to make a friend in you both, so that cannot happen if you feel shame.”

She touched his shoulder,”A joke is not a pleasant thing if it shames anyone.”

The rest of the introductions made, they all tried to help with the meal or getting the horses settled. Felldis turned his head and began to sniff. “I smell something from where Kari lived, some food for horses, I think.”

Kari was right there and after a little searching they found some hay and grass that must have been pulled not long before the men left to set their trap out on the road and the horses were eating not long after that.

Zhaeri dropped the winds long enough for Kari to bring in armloads of snow which he placed in a few pots that he found and placed in the fire to melt so that the horses had at least some water. They tended to the horses and Yasmikha worked at butchering one of her two goats, setting one aside after re-stuffing the body cavity with snow. The other one, she cut up and began to try to make them all a meal from to add to what the others had done. Of necessity, there was going to be a lot of meat to their evening meal.

One by one, they all came slowly to the fire, some holding up their hands in careful gestures so that the pair who sat huddled together under some blankets might see that they meant no harm. It was a good gesture, but Zahra and Kasim said that they didn’t feel a lot of fear, now that they were all getting used to each other. Mostly they said, it wasn’t that they were trying to hide much and only wanted the warmth on their backs.

All of them tried not to stare, as difficult as that proved to be since, though the humans looked to be sitting just on the border of feeling a little shy and a bit nervous and they were lovely in their uncertain way.

A’ishah spoke for them as she helped Yasmikha get the meal on metal spines and soon there were chunks of meat dripping fat into the fire as they cooked over it. Kari pulled his iron pot out of a sack and had it melting snow over the blaze as well but this time, it was for the ones around the fire, going out to bring more as what was inside melted and left room for it. They were all careful not to move quickly anywhere near the couple. When at last, what was in the pot began to steam and bubble a little, he threw in some tea leaves and the place smelled better only from that gentle aroma.

Soon, they were all sitting and sipping something hot and sweet while A’ishah did her best to explain on behalf of the two on the other side of the firepit.

“They are Ouled Nails,” she said and then repeated it slowly – “Oo-led Nyhals as it is said, a kind of Berber people from the other side of these mountains. Nhailis are a little like my own people in that many of them are herders and they try to grow crops as well, though they do move around to a degree. Most of the men do not travel far, staying with their animals and their families. The women are the same, doing the things that any woman does for her family.

But for some of them, that is only after they return.

Not all of them, but the girls of some families are dancers, learning it from their mothers and their aunts from the time that they are small. This is what has been done among them for … well, no one knows how long. They are taught to dance and to sing and to be the perfect entertainers in many ways. As they grow a little older, they are taught in the matters of loving also.

When they are about twelve, they go with older female relations to other villages and towns and there they take up their calling as dancers in the cafes and places of that nature. Where I am from, there is a part of the city known as the Ouled Nail section where many live and work. In many places, women wear the veil, but Ouled Nail women do not, most of them, and there is a reason, for they wish to show their beauty to interest clients.

They are there, most of them, to earn themselves their dowries and they save every coin that they can for that purpose. Many of them when they are older, do more than dance for the right clients and they hoard that gold even more. It can happen that they find themselves with child and they keep them and raise them as they were raised. But there is a goal in mind from the very first, and they never forget what they have come to do.

When they feel that they have enough some years later, they travel back to their home villages and there, they live better lives and find their own men – though now, they think of love and marriage and raising their own families.

Where they once would dance and sing and take anyone that they liked to bed – always for a fee, of course – once back home, they leave all of that behind to keep only one man happy, their husbands. Back home once again, they are the perfect wives and mothers, just as was always done by their people.”

She spoke a word or two and both of the ones held out their hands for a moment.

“See the bracelets that they wear,” A’ishah smiled, “Pretty, in a heavy way with a goodly amount of gold there as well. But ornamental beauty is only one part of it. Look at the bumps and edges to what sticks out from them.

They are weapons, used to keep men with probing hands away. No man can take hold of their wrists in a tight grasp and not bleed for the thought and they are taught well how to use those things to best advantage. Dancers and courtesans they might be, but they are not without their means, all the same.”

A’ishah smiled at the pair and told them not to be frightened and she asked something of them that only the demons understood clearly.

All of the others gasped to look at the smoldering glances which came their way from those eyes across the fire. What they saw was the promise of unbridled passion – in the right way and there was a subtle unspoken challenge there at the same time.

“It is not meant, but you see that it is an offer – which carries a price, of course,” she chuckled in a tone of some admiration. “There is a thing said of them,” she smiled, “a little proverb which is really a warning. Even I have heard of it, from my mother when she pointed a pair of them out to me when they came to work for a short time as guests at the brothel where I lived.

It is said that the man who sleeps with an Ouled Nail will first lose his heart, then his soul, afterwards his wealth, and finally his life. Our guests here do not mean what you see in their faces, for they do it since I asked them to show it so that you might see a little of what they can do.”

Her smile faded then and she shrugged a little, “That is how it is supposed to go for them. But that is not what happened to these two. For one thing, only one of them is a girl.

They are twins, a brother and a sister. Their father died when they were small. Still, their mother sought to teach and train her daughter for what was to become her way of life for a time. The boy has always felt some shame, for he never grew as most boys do, always being a little behind in his growth and never growing really strong either.

Their animals were taken over by the men of their mother’s family for them and no one wanted to teach the boy much of anything. So he learned to do more … womanly things at his mother’s hand.

When it was time, the girl Zahra left to travel with relations so that she could begin to make her way in the world as is their custom. After a time, their mother finally did find another man – but that man did not want her son. He had sons of his own and things went very badly for this one for a time.