Feathers Ch. 02

"Aye." Aeldon muttered. "On the center-right, but we were part of the reserve, closer towards the center. We filled in the rightmost gap in the center line when they were pushed back to the hill, and the Duchess made her final heroic charge."

"She called for us to hold..." Detmier whispered, "and the few of us that were left did... but I don't know how!"

"We had to!" I added sadly. "We held and we died, but still we held, all of that long afternoon... for her. Until the Everdun infantry in their heavy armor arrived and burst through our ranks and swept the field before them in their anger and terrible rage... and somehow we found the strength to follow them."

"Aye." She grunted. "I saw men fight on past death with wounds that would have slain wild bears. They fought to the end and beyond, until they knew that their companions were safe and the day had been won, and only then did they fall into Shadow, content. It was a terrible, terrible day, but we won."

"But was it worth it?" The widow cried out. "Our town sent nearly five hundred men to that battle and but a few handfuls returned home. We have no companions left to share our simple joys and happiness's with, no men to plow and seed the fields, to give us comfort and children, or even hold our grandchildren with pride and delight. We are undone!" She cried, and she fled from the tavern to drown her tears in the driving cold rain outside.

"It has to be worth it!" The strange lovely horsewoman stated in a quiet calm voice. "So many were sacrificed, but the battle and the war was won. Only the smallest handful of Boar-Men lived to return to their remote mountain homes and their race has never again set foot unto the lands of men. May this ever be so!" Now that I could squint at her better, I could see that her words were true, as she had the same dark haunted eyes that we had. Like us, she had seen and done terrible things in order to survive, and also like us, perhaps contentment in peace had not yet found her.

"Aye." I muttered. "It all has to have been for something greater than us. Perhaps our companions all died to later save many others that would have been later slaughtered instead. It was indeed a grim sacrifice, and if I could but see a little good come from this, I could go to my rest with my heart much more at ease."

"Also, in most of the other duchies, brave young women also shared the sacrifice with their men and they served well. Many fell together. Perhaps it would have been kinder if Oswein shared that custom, or allowed women to serve in its army, as most of the other duchies do." She sadly added. I think she meant it as a reproach to the women who had stayed behind, but it was not unkindly said.

Thegléamanthen played a happier song, and for much of the remainder of the afternoon, our hearts were indeed put much into ease. I never did catch the horsewoman's name that first afternoon, but our fates were arranged so that our paths would cross again the very next day.

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It had rained all that night long and my night terrors were even worse than usual. I was pretty much exhausted, having had little or no sleep in weeks. With the fields all fallow for the winter, I decided to spend the day working with the livestock and I took a large wineskin with me to fend of the wet cold and help calm my trembling hands. As usual, drink did little to help. By noon, the skies were unloading rain by the bucket load, freezing cold and wet, and as the world around me grew darker and more sinister, I became certain that I was once again back on that muddy abattoir of a battlefield, reliving Lacestone once again, exactly seven years later.

I was battling unseen Boar-Men and shouting out orders to my companions around to hold the line, when I felt hands grasp me, to pull me back from the battle-line. A warm dry blanket was wrapped around me and I was led back home, to my lonely farmhouse and to my soft bed, and thus comforted I slept but for once I had no dreams that disturbed my rest.

When I later awoke in darkness, a mug full of something warm was put to my mouth and a soft voice directed me to drink it down. When I had finished the soup I was softly directed to return back to sleep, and somehow I did.

I ended up spending the better part of two days in bed, mostly asleep in my exhaustion, and when I awoke early the next morning I found that my guest had made herself quite at home, and had even prepared a breakfast porridge for us.

I was feeling much better, and more or less my usual self again now, but I knew that I had had some sort of a breakdown and I was too ashamed to discuss it. She also pretended that the incident had never occurred and merely asked if I was feeling a bit better with some sleep. I nodded, and the entire matter was declared closed.

"I'm just passing through town." She casually declared. "I heard an interesting rumor about your town when I was passing through Palista and thought I'd stop by an visit.

I'm not sure how long I'll stay or where I'm even heading to next, but would you mind if I shared your hospitality for a few days?" She enquired.

How could I possibly say no?

Her name was Alta and already she had taken over the other bedroom, which I had used as a boy when my father and I visited the farm, and she quickly settled her few belongings into the shelves and cupboards. She knew more than a little about farm work herself, and unasked she took over tending to our one milk cow, the chickens, geese, pigs and the small herd of rather wild sheep. In the afternoons she began to tackle the pile of untreated wool that had been sheared last spring, but left abandoned in a barn. She started to clean and card the wool and spent her evenings in front of the fire in my mother's old rocking chair, spinning it into yarn and then knitting, which she did with a great deal of pleasure.

My father had never let anyone ever sit in that chair since my mother had died shortly after giving birth to me. I thought about asking her to get up from it but the look of pure pleasure on her face as she slowly rocked deterred me. To my eyes, she now belonged there... the one place left in this world where she indeed truly felt 'at home'.

With her help that winter, this gave me more time to tackle the hundreds of other ignored things that I hadn't found time to do in the last year or more. The farm tools finally were repaired and the dung was even gathered and spread into the closer fields that I soon hoped to get plowed and sown in the spring.

Long before the first warm sunny day of spring, I had quite forgotten that my guest was a temporary one, and more and more I began to depend upon her as an equal partner in our shared enterprise.

Never once though had she made an effort to share my bed, although during my more restless nights I more than once thought I felt her soft hands caressing my hair, soothing me, bidding the terrible bad dreams inside to depart, if but for just one more night. When I sometimes awoke screaming, I'd find her there at my bedside. She'd never utter a word, but with a smile, or a caress of her hand, my night terrors would vanish, and often now I could return to sleep.

One spring morning I noticed that the knife beneath my pillow was now missing, and I asked her where it might have gone to. She merely replied that I didn't need it anymore, but that she had moved it into a drawer in the barn with my other tools, if I ever did someday need it again. I said, "Oh", and pretty much forgot about it. She was quite right, with her by my side at night, Ididn'tneed it anymore. My spectral Caestorian scout became increasing more afraid of my guardian Alta than he had ever been of my knife!

Slowly, the night-terrors were becoming an increasingly occasional thing, instead of a nightly ordeal. I was sleeping better and my nerves steadily now improved so that my hands hardly ever now shook. Slowly I began to enjoy life and I even began to smile occasionally.

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Late the next winter, just before I was preparing to start plowing the usual six fields for spring planting, we made our usual Freo visit into town to shop for a few necessities and to visit our friends at the tavern later in the afternoon. As we left one store, Alta suddenly found herself nearly surrounded by a group of rather unhappy young ladies who much blamed the foreign girl for their own consortless misfortunes.

"Bitch! When are you going to get back on your horse and ride on back home, and leave our few remaining men alone?" One angrily demanded.

Alta laughed. "The day a single one of you whiney little sluts can offer any of them something that they really need, like comfort and understanding. I fought in that awful war... nearly every single bit of it. I was with Rowan, Gwenda, Ayleth and Loren at Ruromel! I've seen the elephant, as the expression goes, so nothing can ever frighten me again. I like it here, and I think I'd like to stay! I've found a wounded, frighten colt and someday soon it will be ready enough for the saddle, but not yet. When that day comes, I might be willing to accept a sister-wife or three, but first you'll need to prove that you're worthy enough ofme, let alone him! Now, get your asses out of my way!"

Some poor foolish misguided woman then attempted to grab Alta, which was mistake number one. Their next mistake was to try and gang rush her, to collectively try and beat her up. Instead, in a matter of moments, Alta had the lot of them on the ground, tripping them with various leg sweeps, blocks, kicks, and shoulder throws, so that she could now take on her attackers' one or two at a time. It wasn't even remotely a fair or even fight. Women are said to fight rather dirty, with kicks and scratches of their nails, but Alta expertly fought both viciously and dirty until each of the five women were howling for mercy on the ground. Still, Alta put in her hard leather riding boots a few more times into their unprotected ribs until she was sure that the jealous women had all learned a lesson or two.

By then, I had learned a lesson or two myself. Alta very much considered me to be her sole property, and the decision ofifI was to be 'shared' was very much hers and hers alone. She knew that I was still damaged by the wars, but I was now on the mend, slowly. She understood what I needed and she wasn't going to rush things. In fact, I could tell that she was still damaged too, just like me. She had done and seen terrible things during the war as well, and it was only since she had settled down with me that she had begun her own desperately needed healing, especially each afternoon and evening after supper in her rocking chair.

We had both been broken, but now, together, we were slowly healing and becoming human again. We smiled at each other, and took the other's hand as we walked into the tavern to visit our friends. Lovely in her dress I had no doubt that she was the most beautiful woman in the entire valley, and I was proud to display her, arm-in-arm at my side.

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She didn't sleep in her bed that night, but she had slept as she sometimes did in a large oversized chair in my bedroom, watching over my sleep. That night was peaceful but the next night I had my night-terrors once more and she lay down on the bed next to me to soothe me back to sleep and when I awoke at dawn she was still lying next to me with her arm around me, whimpering to some nightmare of her own. Now it was my turn to soothe her. From the next night onwards, we shared the same bed, with increasing tenderness.

The next Freo morning, I awoke with the light of dawn to find that Alta had also just woken up as well. I heard her go outside to visit the outhouse and assumed that she'd return to the kitchen to start breakfast for us, as usual. Instead, I was surprised to see her return into our bedroom, and in the early morning light I watched her watch me, and smile. Then slowly she unbuttoned her long woolen sleep-shirt and let it fell to the floor, thus displaying herself naked to me in the early morning light. Slowly, she walked the few steps back to the bed and she slid under the covers to rejoin me, with her bare breasts now pressed against my chest. Quickly, my own sleep-shirt was unbuttoned and removed; each button unfastened with a hundred kisses upon my bare chest, as hers now increasingly pressed against me.

We hungered for each other lips, and while we deeply kissed each other I felt my cock being released and being placed at the entrance to her hidden inner sex, her soft lips both gently caressing and urging me to enter her, but also teasing and ever so slightly resisting casual entrance and penetration. Her eyes and her lips said 'yes', but she now wanted me to make this final decision for us.

Now upon her back, her legs spread widely for me, and while her right hand once again placed my cock at the entrance to her cunt, she wanted me to make that first move, to boldly thrust into her, to take possession of her, and for me to claim her as my concubine, my common-wife at long last. As I entered slowly, ever deeper into her, her legs slid around my back to hold me there in place, as if this was where I had always belonged, inside of her, and together we kissed deeply for a very long time, thusly intertwined.

As this was my first time having intercourse with a women, my sexual experience was negligible, my technique even more minimal, and my endurance was virtually nonexistent. Quite overly excited, I all too soon exploded my seed inside of her. I was a bit apologetic, but quickly discovered that my partner was much more experienced in these matters, and 'once and done' was by no means in her vocabulary. She had a lot to teach me, but she wasn't in any particular hurry.

Again and again that long morning, she found new ways to keep me stimulated and to once again get my cock to rise up to her attention. She gave me a very long blowjob, teasing me whenever I got too excited and ready to cum, until she finally took pity on me and gave me a long overdue release into her waiting mouth.

Both my duchy Oswein and her own, Broadmore, had the social custom that if an unconsorted couple engaged in all three forms of intercourse together, oral, vaginal and anal, then by the common law they could be considered as consorted. That night, after a cheerful afternoon at the tavern with our veteran friends, we completed this one last necessary act of love to bind our lives together forever. It was different, and not at all unpleasurable for either of us, and I found it amusing that she enjoyed sex in her ass rather roughly at times. She had no objections to this rather undignified type of penetration and indeed enjoyed this sort of pleasure, and often in the future would even request it.

A few weeks later we made more formal vows before our town priest and officially took our consort-oath together, but for purposes of determining our 'wedding anniversary', we marked the date of our first coupling together in bed.

Well fucked every morning, I first plowed my belovedgeféraand then plowed my other domestic fields with equal delight and pleasure. That spring, I somehow managed to get eight of the twenty fields plowed and sown, despite being kept up nearly half of most nights once again making sure my other domestic plowing was getting done, night and morning, both. Soon Alta began to swell with child and we couldn't have been any happier, but already my scheming consort had additional plans for me!

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