War of the Races - The Verdant Realm

A Song In The Boughs, cont. 1

“Holy s**t!” I gasped.

“Yeah,” Sequoia agreed and then continued, “In the end, Nymphillus, their mirror city of our Olympia, was under siege, and they were refugees escaping the terrible war against the Fallen’s Amalgamations led by the Cursed human.”

“So, they came from Midgard via the Shadow Realm,” I asked calmly, trying to keep my feelings and thoughts from revealing my origins.

“You do realize that trying not to think about something means you immediately think about it, right?” Sequoia asked as she chuckled, “And when in the presence of someone who can read minds like me, it means you just told me everything.”

“Ah s**t,” I cursed as Sequoia's chuckle turned into a giggle.

“Don’t worry, young Viridian Vale, or, should I call you Daniel Reas?” She reassured me with a pat on my arm, “Your secret is safe with me.”

“Daniel Reas is dead,” I answered, “I am who I am now. So, where did all these new species of Animals go?”

Sequoia smiled and led me into a small clearing. “This is the far northern edge of my illusion,” She purred as an open field with wheat growing and another with corn appeared in front of us. Further away, I saw barns, and well before we walked into the village, I stared with my jaw hanging open as male and female refugee Centauri ranging in age from very old to the very young worked and played.

The men wore heavy belts girding their waists where the human part of their bodies met the horse part. The women wore heavily fleeced leather bras, or semiprecious gem-encrusted and bird-bone breastplates, sewn together with gut-thread and decorated with ornamental harpy feathers. They also wore feathers tied in their hair and tails, lending to a culture that reminded me of the Native American Indians.

“The majority of the Centauri fled to Northern Annwyn. It is colder up there, and harder to farm, but very few Alfar venture into those lands,” Sequoia explained as a few Centauri women gave us sidelong glances as we passed by. “The harpies fled in every direction, mixing in with our native Flocks almost seamlessly. The Lamia fled south to warmer climates, and the Gorgon found homes among the rocky crags of the Dragon’s Spine, and the Succubi seem to have disappeared.”

“That’s good and bad, isn’t it?” I answered as I pulled Sequoia to a stop and we watched a group of young centaurs practice their jousting, archery, and halberding, “So, why are you showing me this, Sequoia? What’s going on?”

“I’m showing you this, Viridian Vale,” Sequoia answered as she held out her hand and gestured to the village, “I’m telling you this because you have the potential of being the most powerful Guardian ever born. No matter where you came from before. None of them have ever had your shapeshifting ability, and with your ability to increase your power by simply cleansing female Animals of the magic blocking their Chi, you could quickly become a champion we desperately need right now.”

“I want to help,” I agreed, then shook my head as I continued, “I told my father as much, but he believes I am too weak to be of any real benefit.”

“You are weak, Virdy,” Sequoia agreed with a nod of her head, “Your father is right. You just came into your power. He was not trying to belittle you. It is simply the truth, but you don’t have to remain weak for long. I can help you to become strong very quickly, and help you learn control of this new power as you accumulate it.”

“You don’t understand,” I objected with a shake of my head and turned to face Sequoia, “Father told me how he accumulated his power. By mating with as many female Animals as he could, whether they were willing or not! I am not going to do that!”

Sequoia waited until I was finished, and then she put her other hand on my arm in reassurance, “What if I told you that I could have a hundred females for you to cleanse that are willing to breed and are not interested in a mate?”

I just stared at her, my jaw hanging open stupidly before I closed it with a click of my teeth, “What are you, a madam?”

Sequoia laughed and shook her head, “You know, I had no idea what a madam was until you said it just now. Human culture is so profoundly ironic and hypocritical. For instance, why would your lawmakers make a law prohibiting a private act of intimacy between two people, but then repeatedly get caught paying large sums of money to participate in said illegal act?”

“What can I say,” I said with a shrug, “That’s what makes them human?”

Sequoia chuckled, then purred, “No, I am no madam. I just happen to know some women who have no mates, or lost them, and it has been some time since they have felt a man’s embrace. Some of them are martial artists seeking to purify their Chi, and still some of them are devout followers of Selene and see this as a way to contribute to their Goddess's will.”

“What about you?” I asked, “You’ve been teasing Huxian all week. Are you interested? Or, are you just teasing her?”

“Actually, I am interested,” She admitted and looked up into my eyes with a new intensity, “I am very interested in finding out if you can purify my Chi like you can the Animals. If you can, I think it will be a benefit for us both.”

“So you’re not interested in mating,” I asked, my voice giving away my disappointment, “You just want to breed, and experiment?”

“No, I am interested in you as a mate,” She corrected with a shake of her head, “Especially if my hypothesis is correct concerning you acquiring Huxian’s shapeshifting ability, but I will not be as needy a mate as many of your more short-lived partners.”

“What hypothesis?” I asked.

“Oh, just a thought,” Sequoia chuckled, “Don’t you worry about it. If what I think is true, you will find out soon enough, and if not, then no harm, no foul.”

“Okay,” I answered with a nod, “I will let that go, so about these other females. I don’t want to hurt Huxian or Bastet. Is it really okay for me to breed with all these other women?”

“Hmm,” Sequoia hummed with a shake of her head, “There you go again, associating human morality with Animals and Alfar. The short answer is no. In the Animal and Arboreal kinds, females outnumber males fifty to one. We can’t afford to be all hung up on keeping one male only to ourselves, not if we want to breed, and certainly not if we want to have progeny. The only thing we females get a little possessive about is our mating week. It is a long-standing tradition that the bride gets her stud all to herself for seven days after her wedding.”

“I see,” I mumbled, but I wasn’t sure if I really did or not. So I decided to change the subject and asked, “So why are you doing this?”

“Mysterious things are happening, and not only on this Earth,” She answered. “In a few short weeks, you will be taken captive to a Svartalfar city. Who knows what will happen then? You will also be in the Dragon’s Spine. While you are there, I want you to look for this mysterious bridge that the Succubi and these other hybrids came through. We have always been told that coming to this world was a one-way trip. That there was no activating them from our side. They could only be activated from Midgard, and yet, the Succubi somehow found a way to do so. We need to know if we have been lied to all this time. And I want you to look for clues as to where the Succubi disappeared to.”

“I see, I will do what I can,” I answered with a nod, then turned and led us back the way we came. “I’m sure Huxian could find us when she wakes up, but I don’t want her to think we are being inappropriate during our celebratory week.”

“No,” Sequoia agreed with a shake of her head, “That would be bad.”

——(!)——

When we returned to the grove, Huxian was still asleep, which made me wonder if she was going to be awake all night. If she was, then I had a feeling she was going to be keeping me up as well. Sequoia left me and went to speak with the harpies up in the boughs of her tree, and I returned to my meditation spot between two roots with the sequoia tree behind my back. Closing my eyes, I let my thoughts wander in a black void.

Finding my Chi Wells was much easier this time. Touching the Soul Well, it felt the same as before, but this time, the gamer in me immediately parsed out what I was feeling into three core traits: strength, dexterity, and constitution. Touching the Spirit Well, again, I found I separated my overall consciousness into three core traits: intelligence, wisdom, and charisma. I got a general sense of being strong or weak in each trait, but there were no numbers that I could associate with just how strong or weak I was. However, I could sense that I was capable of getting stronger in all of them. When I touched the Well of Power, I felt a surge of overwhelming energy pulsing through my consciousness. As I meditated, for the first time, I could sense two different power sources within the well. The first one was like a vast ocean; I couldn’t even begin to quantify how much power there was, but I also could, since it reduced over time and was not replenished. The second was also a large amount of power, though it was more like a large lake instead of a vast ocean, and I could tell that it was only half of its capacity, but it was replenishing quickly.

Pulling back within my meditation to dwell on all three wells together, I became aware of what I deciphered as passive skills inherited from Bastet and Huxian:

Feline Grace: With this skill, I could perform complicated acrobatics, and no matter what I did, I wouldn’t ever lose my balance, and I would always land on my feet.

Elusiveness: I naturally was not a loud walker, but this skill made my movements almost completely silent. I also felt that I could be in a crowded room, and unless I did something drastic, no one would even realize I was there.

Prowl: With this skill, I could all but disappear, melding almost seamlessly into my environment.

Night vision: My eyes were now as keen as a cat's, capable of seeing in nearly complete darkness.

Evasion: If caught by my enemies, with this skill, I can cast an illusion of myself and quickly disappear for several seconds.

Hide: With the slightest of cover, I could disappear as long as I didn’t move.

Moonbeast: I could sense that this was what shapeshifted me into this hybrid-fox form. I could also sense that this was a blessing from Selene, but the base skill had been from Huxian, and it hadn’t allowed for this hybridization. Meditating on the Moonbeast skill, I tried to bring it into more tangible focus, and it opened before me like I was reading a book of drawings. On the very first page was a drawing of a normal alfar me. On the second page was a fox, but not the alfar-Animal like Huxian; rather, it was a fox from my previous world, as I remembered them. On the third page was a drawing of the alfar-Fox-hybrid form I was currently in. As I flipped through the rest of the pages of the book of the Moonbeast, they were all blank.

Pushing the Moonbeast skill away, I had a feeling I knew what I had to do now to revert to my humanoid form. However, I enjoyed being with Huxian like this. So, I left it and meditated on something new I was just beginning to get a glimmer of.

The Well of Power pulsed, and I could feel it flowing outward and filling my senses with knowledge of my offensive, defensive, and utilitarian skills:

Rip and Shred: Heavy clawed attacks that I could use in my hybrid form.

Bite: A standard attack in my animal form.

Foxfire: A magic fire that covers my back, shoulders, arms, hands, or paws, and claws. Upon receiving or inflicting damage wherever I was covered in Foxfire, upon coming into contact with me, its flames inflict continuous and persistent fire damage.

With the knowledge of my new abilities fully realized, my meditation shattered, my eyes popped open, and I felt exhausted. Looking up, Sequoia and Huxian were both standing over me with their arms crossed and looking vexed.