An Awkward Transformation
Two days later I was called to a meeting. Sean was speaking.
“bethQuirinus has transformed, and we have an interesting dilemma. She is in the room where she transformed, and won’t come out. Snow Blanket went in to her, and confirms she is transformed, and confirms that she is well past age.”
This was a problem for us. No more than Spearmen, did we have a place for unmated females-of-age.
“She must have a husband, obviously,” he continued. “But who?”
”Badger, obviously,” one of the older men put in. “I have never figured out what their relationship is, but how could anyone else be her husband? No husband would put up with her hanging around Badger all the time.”
But I’m too young! I thought to myself.
“But he’s too young,” Seamus, now Silent Spring put in, with a voice filled with sexual tension. His pheromones began filling the room.
As I flew through the air I suddenly realized that I was not too young. Seamus was not totally surprised at my attack, and turned to meet me. We tumbled, together, with the violence of my charge, knocking over chairs and a table.
No one had ever seen Ghosts fight before, as none had ever fought. The usual ring formed, if it could be called the usual ring with all of the observers on the walls. We were both very unfamiliar with our new bodies. Indeed, knowing what I know now, I believe that our bodies were unfamiliar with themselves.
I could tell that we were not fighting, as Dragons did, and as Horsemen and Spearmen might, to the death. Ours was a dominance game, with the winner to get the girl. But neither of us knew how to dominate.
I think in the end Seamus knew that he couldn’t really win. What they had said about Benedicta was true, and he knew it. He couldn’t really have a girl that always obeyed some other man. So he left it for me to find out how to win a fight as a Ghost.
We had gone round and round the room, and after one particularly spectacular fall together off a table, I wound up just behind him, and he was facing away from me, shaking his head to clear it. And I acted. I leapt onto him from behind, with my rear claws pinning him down, and put my fore claws up on either side of his neck. I opened my claws just slightly.
He immediately slumped to the ground, whining. And, though none of us had ever heard it before, we knew that that sound signaled that I had achieved dominance.
I climbed off, and this time it was my pheromones that filled the room.
“Perhaps I am not too young.”
--
When I entered the room she whirled to face me, crouching in one corner, lashing her tail. The room was filled with her smell, as it was filling with mine, and her eyes were almost wild. I don’t know how much longer she would have stayed waiting in this room. I, too, crouched, shutting the door with my tail.
“I see you have transformed.”
“It was time. I finally understood.”
My mind hearkened back to that day, so many months ago, when she had stood before me and said, “Apology you have, understanding not.” So now she finally understood. Perhaps, soon, I would too. Her punishment had been to obey me until she understood. So perhaps she would resist our mating. I could not command her to mate. And I wondered if I would have if I could have.
I began to creep toward her, and her posture made it obvious that I was not getting what I wanted without a fight. She edged away to the right, and we started circling.
I made several passes with my hands, but hers quickly rebuffed me. Then, as we continued to circle, I stamped my back foot. I couldn’t tell you why. It just seemed right.
She froze. For three whole seconds she didn’t move; her eyes seemingly unfocused. Then she started circling again, but with a confused look on her face. Together our pheromones filled the air. My blood was seemingly on fire. I stomped again.
What have we been doing?
We lay together on the floor.
When I was able to speak, I asked, “Now that you are my wife, can you explain to me what we have been doing for these last two years?”
She sat staring at me, slowly lashing her tail. For a minute I thought she would not speak, but eventually she said, “Now that I understand, I can explain to you, who have always understood.”
“Once upon a time there was a young and foolish girl. She was, at that time, a Speargirl, a worshipper of power and of strength. This young and foolish girl went with her parents on a trip; a long trip, away from all of her friends. All of her life she had lived in a castle filled with her people and others. And always, these other had seemed small and weak, of no account compared to her people, who were strong.”
She began pacing around the room, floor, walls, ceiling, “And so this foolish girl went on the trip with her parents, a long trip, which tired her out more than she would admit. And, once the trip was over, her older Brother, who she worshipped, went off on a tour of this new place. Though the girl was tired, she went with her older Brother, who she considered to be the strongest and wisest boy who had ever lived.”
“The tour went round and around through dark passages. Speargirls are never afraid, so she was not afraid-- but had she been of another race she might have called it that. And she was very tired.”
“The tour was of small places, inhabited by small people. People that could not, in this foolish girl's estimation, be of any account. Not truly even counted as people. Yet they walked easily in these small places.”
“Then, after the best part of the tour, where this young and foolish girl was allowed to finally see the sun, and when she was hoping, although she could not admit it, to be allowed to go back and rest; one of those people, those small people, the one who had led them through interminably small, dark passages without even bringing a light, asked what else we would wish to see.”
She stopped and faced me. “Then the Brother of that young and foolish girl said, ‘Everything’ and, if it had been possible for a Speargirl, which of course it was not, her heart fell within her. She could hardly face the possibility of continuing on this tour.”
“Yet how could she be mad at her Brother, whom she worshipped? So instead, in her youth and foolishness, she lashed out in her anger, and denied the very manhood of her host, the tour guide. She insisted in front of witnesses that he was no man, and never could be one.”
She paced again, and the rhythm of her words changed. “Do you understand, could you ever possibly understand, what I did? Spearman life is hinged upon an edge. Always they need to be careful of what they do and say. They anger easily, and their wrath is fearsome.”
“And my insult was damaging in so many different ways. You were my host, and the bonds of hospitality are sacred. You were a boy, and I a girl. You were of another race, and my insult violated all of our rules of courtesy toward other races. My Father was King, therefore, my insult reflected on all my people. And…and, I insulted you in front of my own Brother, whom you had beaten in open battle! I said of my own Brother that he could never be a man; my Brother who I worshiped.”
“He could have killed me, right there. He would have been well within his rights. When I crouched in front of him, it is what I expected.”
“But, he was wise. Not wise as the likes of Dwarves or Elves. My former people are far too short lived to ever develop that kind of wisdom, but wise in leadership, in making instant decisions, with far reaching consequences. Instead of killing me, he made me your slave; your slave until the day you took me as your wife, or concubine.”
“And I could never tell you. No one could tell you. I knew that from the beginning. If my Brother had wanted you told, he would have told me from the beginning to tell you. So I had to serve you all this time, and yet never speak of the nature of my punishment.”
“And I watched you, month after month, and learned what a foolish girl I had been. I watched you, small and weak and hairless and pink, do things that struck my blood cold with what would have been, had I not been a Speargirl, fear.”
“I watched you, a Dwarf raised among Dwarves, move out fearlessly into other cultures, learning their languages and adapting to their ways.”
“I challenged your ability to control me, forcing you into what I hoped would be humiliating circumstances of having to force me to behave in ways that embarrassed you. And yet you called upon wisdom I couldn’t have dreamt you had, and challenged me to do your will instead of simple obedience.”
“At every step I made things as hard as I could, and you rose above them, and above me; as it should be, for a true man.”
I stared at her.
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Von
Oh, very good.