War of the Races - The Verdant Realm

Chapter 2- The Vixen

18 months later-

“Look, mama,” Silvain cried out to our mother as I took my first steps.

I was so determined to grow up. I had already been a child once before. I didn’t want to be an infant, or child, or teenager ever again, and yet, here I was! It wasn’t all bad, though. I was constantly being bathed by, or bathing with, my sister and mother, and oh my god, Mama was so beautiful!

Glenna Moonlilly was tall for an alf, even among the nottalfar, standing five feet ten inches. Her skin was as white as the moon, and glowed more brilliantly or dimly according to the phase of the moon. Her hair was night sky black, and poofed out around her head before floating up to move to and fro like a flame. Amid her black hair, silver dots of light hovered like the stars that filled the night sky. She had a long, elegant neck and slim shoulders. Her chest was not very thick, but her breasts were exceedingly large, which were always out on display as part of her priestly garb. She was long-waisted, and her hips, buttocks, and thighs seemed too broad, thick, and muscular to be alfar.

My older sister, Silvain Moonlilly, took after our mother’s looks. She had moonlight-white skin, black orbs, and black hair that floated above her head. She already reflected our mother’s bubbly personality. In spiritual aptitude, although Silvain was only eleven, her mother already had plans to send her to Olympia to become a moon priestess once she was old enough. That was not something I was looking forward to because I loved Silvain so much. In my previous life, I was an only child, and I always wondered what it would be like to have siblings. However, what I really wanted was sisters.

In my previous life, I was an avid reader of manga and hentai. My particular favorite was monster harem hentai, but I enjoyed other genres as well, though I would never admit it.

“Oh goodness,” Glenna purred as she trotted over and stooped over, holding her hands out to me as I waddled from Silvain to her, “My goodness, my little man is already trying to walk!”

She picked me up as soon as I made it to her, and as my reward, though I doubt she saw it as such, was that she crushed me into her impeccable breasts as she hugged me. When she set me back down, she pointed me toward Silvain and purred, “Okay, now walk back to Silvy!” and I waddled off, happy and giggling, back to my beautiful sister.

“Oh, your father will be so sad that he missed your first steps,” Glenna sighed as she straightened back up and brushed off the simple white silk and silver ribbed corset that girded her waist from just under her breasts all the way to her lower belly. Below the corset, she wore a long frontal loincloth edged with silver that fell to her knees. She wore no socks or boots, for a Priestess of Selene was supposed to always remain connected to the earth while reaching for the heavens.

——(!)——

As a Priestess, Glenna was an educator, a historian, a councilor, and a physician. So, along with our governess, Frieda, and our tutor, Hailyn, she began my education as early as my first birthday. The first thing she taught was who we were, or more specifically, who she was and who I was. That there are Ljosalfar and the Nottalfar, the light alfar and the night alfar, but more commonly they were called the sun alfar or the moon alfar. Another term for them was the Silvan, because of their celestial bonds with the sun and moon. Glenna and Silvain were nottalfar, night alfar, or moon alfar, and were born of the Matriarchal House Moonlilly. A house that is both noble and hieratic.

Aside from the Silvan alfar, there were the villraflar, also called the wild alf, the dokkalfar, also known as the dark alf, and the svartalfar, also known as the black alf, among many other, much more derogatory aliases. My father, Summerset Vale, was a villralfar.

By the time I was five years old, I was already accomplished in arithmetic. Remembering math was easy since it transcends time, space, and language. However, reading and writing were completely different; I learned how to speak the native language as all babies do. From listening to my sister, mother, and father. However, learning to read and write was truly like learning a second language, and then there was history.

I soaked up the stories. I read every book Mama put in front of me, from ‘Sonnets to Freya’, ‘Adventures of Thor’, ‘Age of the Patriarchs’, ‘From Exodus to Paradise’, ‘War of the Races’, ‘Love and Devotion to Selene’, ‘The Black Matriarchs of Svartalfheim’, to the ‘Founding of the Five Kingdoms’, and I learned was that thousands of years ago all the races of Man came to this new world via doors, or pathways. Some scripts even called them roadways or bridges paved in the colors of dispersed light.

Science was never my strong suit, and I couldn’t for the life of me remember what dispersed light was, so I asked, and Glenna answered by telling me to wait until the next time it rained. When the day came, she took me out to walk in the rain with her, and she pointed up at the sky to a rainbow.

“That, my son, is dispersed light.” She said.

“Oh! A rainbow,” I mused out loud.

“A rainbow?” Glenna said, the rolling of her tongue like it was unfamiliar, as if she had never heard it before. Then she asked, “Yes, that name is very fitting, but where did you hear this word ‘rainbow’ from, Virdy? I have never heard it before.”

“Oh,” I him-hawwed as I tried to come up with a fitting excuse, and then smiled and shrugged, “I can’t remember,” I lied.

“Well, if you remember, please tell me,” She said as we walked back inside.

World history seemed to be dominated by theology, and so the first thing I learned was the Priest Cast. It consisted of six ranks of devotion: the Initiate, Disciple, Priestess, Apostle, Grand Priestess, and the High Priestess. Mama was an Apostle, and as such, she was commissioned to travel through the countryside declaring the glory of her Goddess, listening to confessions, redeeming the sinners, healing the sick, and most of all accepting tithes for blessings of the Goddess. However, the blessing was inside her breasts and womb, and whether it be man or woman, if they wanted a blessing, they must pay the tithe, then lie with her. Only once they partook of her flesh while she accepted their contribution would they receive Selene’s blessing.

I was ten when my mother explained this to me while sitting beside me on the lawn, her belly big and round with what I hoped would be a sister. If I were an actual ten-year-old, I think I wouldn’t have understood the implications of what she was saying. However, I was a twenty-three-year-old stuck in a child’s body, so I asked, “Does that mean Silvy’s daddy, and her daddy,” I said as I pointed at her belly, “are not the same as my daddy?”

“Oh, what a bright boy,” She cooed as she tousled my hair. “Yes. I made sure that when I wanted to have you, your father’s heir, that only he impregnated me, but I am a priestess, and my job is to give blessings, so sometimes that results in pregnancy. That’s why Silvain’s matriname is Moonlilly, because she is my daughter and I don’t know who the father is.”

“Mommy, doesn’t that hurt Daddy’s feelings that Silvain and your new baby aren’t his?” I asked, my childish voice full of concern.

“No, honey, it doesn’t hurt his feelings,” She answered with a husky laugh as she shook her head. “We married because I was a Nottalfar noble, and I fell in love with his kindly spirit, but he also knew I was a priestess of Selene. He knew from the very beginning the statutes and covenants I live by, and he is happy when I give him his heirs. Besides, he has many other women he has relations with as well.”

A couple of months later, she gave birth to my half-sister, Shadolynn Moonlilly.

——(!)——

May 5, 2001 - Midgard Time

Valeheim, in the Valelands -

As I continued my research, I discovered that there were apparently three of these ‘Rainbow Bridges’ at one time, all created on Earth Prime. Once the doors closed, there was no returning, which was fine since the races were fleeing a great cataclysm. However, they were only able to round up supplies and limited numbers of animal species before they fled.

With a shortage of manpower and resources, it was decided by the Council of Five that they would once again use magic and science, wielded together, to make hybrid races. They would once again splice the genetics of the races with the animals they brought with them, even though they knew that the cataclysm they fled from had been brought upon them in part because of hybridization.

Despite the warnings of the past and from fellow council members, they created a new animal species. One that was humanoid and intelligent. Able to speak and communicate, create bonds, and reproduce. The Prime genetics gave them long life-spans, but the animal in them made them age twice as fast. Only after they started breeding was it discovered that their animal DNA also shortened their gestation times and increased their fertility, and very quickly, the animal’s population rivaled the Prime races. So, with a perceived threat of the animal population explosion, and the Prime races becoming minorities, the Council of Five created new laws:

First, Animals are animals and thereby have no rights.

Second, Animals are property, whether domestic or wild.

Third, Animals are to be destroyed immediately should they cause harm or death to a Prime.

Fourth, reproduction of domestic animals is to be carefully governed by the owner. Wild animals’ reproduction will be curbed by the government.

Fifth, Animals are not to speak as if they are an intelligent race.

Sixth, Animals do not wear clothes.

Seventh, Animals are animals and must walk on all fours just as animals do, except when in the commission of employment to a master.

With those seven laws, the newly established kingdoms of Alfheim, Vanaheim, Svartalfheim, Nidavellir, and Asgard seized many of the Animals, took them forcibly from their homes, and established stockyards where they domesticated them, while the others escaped into the wilds. The domesticated animals’ populations were then reduced, and population control laws were passed. Then, domestic livestock was sold to merchants and breeders, of whom my great ancestors are one, having bought the land and the rights to breed all the feline-type animals. As for the wild Animals, hunting permits and licenses were issued, and have continued to be issued for thousands of years to curb wildlife populations.

Closing my study book, I gathered my sword, bow, and quiver, and then I ran outside and headed to the garden and the forest behind it.

“Don’t walk too far away from the house, Virdy,” Glenna called to me while holding Shadolynn in her arms, breastfeeding her again, as I waved before disappearing into the woods, headed for the back gate that would lead me out of the Valeheim and into the real forest beyond.

“Okay,” I answered as I waved back with my wooden sword.

I didn’t need anything but that. It didn’t matter that I was ten or the fact that both my sword and bow were wooden toys with wooden arrows. I was a knight of the realm in my imagination, and today I was hunting an elusive fox.

I didn’t hear Bastet when she came prowling up behind me on all fours, and I sighed in frustration. She always seemed to find me.

“Where are you going today, Virdy?” She asked in a true cat purr as she slowed to a walk and stood up on her back legs.

As soon as she did, I looked around to make sure no other alfar were nearby, then hissed, “Bast! You're going to get yourself into trouble!”

“Give me your bow and arrows, and I won’t be in trouble,” She retorted and flashed me a smile that showed her white teeth and her longer feline canines, “Then I will be in the commission of a job by my master.”

“Yeah, yeah,” I growled as I passed her my bow, but then stopped and looked at her. She had been my cat since the day she was born, which was the same day I was. However, I was ten while she was already twenty, fully grown at four feet tall, and already had a small, sleek chest with taut B-cup-sized breasts hidden beneath her black fur. Her waist was tiny, her hips were broad, her buttocks and legs were thickly muscled, and like all animals, she was clothed only in her fur.

She paused in whatever she was saying and searched my eyes before asking, “What?”

Realizing I was staring, I coughed and blushed as I mumbled, “N-nothing, Bast,” and then strapped my belt around her waist as her long, fluffy black tail tried to whip me in the face.

“So are you going to answer me or what?” She asked again.

“What,” I asked, then remembered her question, “Oh! I am going to hunt for that ghost fox in the woods.”

“Oh,” She retorted in disappointment. “Well, if it’s her you hunt for, then I will go back home.”

Stepping back, I looked at her in confusion as she passed my bow back to me and took off my belt, then turned and walked away, heading back home as she swished her tail in agitation before bending over and running on all fours. I felt very confused by her behavior, but then, I hadn’t invited her on my hunt in the first place.