Strength of a Woman

There is a legend many centuries old that tells of a legendary warrior. A woman of great courage and power who helped the men and women of her land and left an unforgettable mark on the world she lived in. She was known as Kaleva. Legend will call her She-Who-Rends.

The sun rose over the land of Chalcis. It was a day like any other. The men and women of the land woke up and went about their daily business. Today, deals would be made. Marriages will be done and children will be born. People will fall in love. People will die. Today was a different day only in one regard.

A woman was visited by a man last night. Nightly visits are nothing unusual. The only unusual thing was the nature of the man who visited the woman. He was not a man at all. Rather, he was one of those things that take human form to walk the earth. One of those things that are older than humanity itself. That thing took the form of a man named Morbius. Morbius was a man well-known to the woman. The woman's name was Kala and she was betrothed to the real Morbius. The thing that assumed Morbius's form and seduced her left her pregnant with its child. Kala would give birth to a child nine months later. The child was named Kaleva.

Kaleva would be raised as the daughter of Morbius, one of the princes of the Chalcian kingdom and Kala, his beloved wife. She was different than all other people on the planet in that her father was not human. She was half human and half something else. Something unknown. Something old and powerful. Kaleva grew up as would any human being. She did not look any different from any other ordinary person in the land of Chalcis. Her supernatural origin was not something that people could see. She was the first child of Kala. Two years after the birth of Kaleva, Kala and Morbius had another child. A male child named Teucros. Teucros stood to inherit all the wealth and power of the House of Morbius when he reached adulthood. He was the son of a wealthy and powerful man. In those days, daughters were not given the power of a House. Female children were married off to so-called suitable matches. This was not fair. Not fair at all. Kaleva knew this as she grew up in Chalcis.

Kaleva never knew that she was not exactly ordinary until she was twelve years old. Someone set fire to the palace in which the Morbius family resided. Kaleva was asleep in her chambers that she shared with her little brother Teucros. The flames had reached far into the palace and all exits were blocked. The young girl woke up and saw the smoke and flames. She looked about and saw that there were no other adults around. She looked at her little brother and saw that he was sleeping. She reached out and woke him up. Upon seeing the flames, he panicked and shouted for his mother and father.

He started crying. Kaleva tried to calm him down but he ran and hit his head against a wall. She looked at her unconscious little brother. There he was, just lying there. Exposed. Dangerously close to the flames. She took him into her small arms and was able to carry him through the chambers. She looked for the exits but there were flames everywhere. She looked outside a window. It was a long way down. Kaleva ran down the stairs with her precious burden in her arms and made it down.

Kaleva made it down many flights of stairs. One thing that the young girl noticed as she walked down was that the flames could not hurt her. Several times flames jutted out in front of her and yet she remained unharmed. She was unhurt. Her little brother didn't suffer any harm because he was shielded by her body. Kaleva told no one about this incident. When she handed her little brother safe and sound to her parents, they looked at her strangely. Kaleva thought it strange that her parents had made it down without concerning themselves much for the welfare of their children.

Still, she was a young girl who had just survived what could only be called a terrifying ordeal and as such, she did not give the matter much thought. Kaleva did not know what to think of her ability to survive the flames unscathed. She grew curious but did not really give the matter a lot of thought. She had been raised to think that people of royal blood were better than ordinary people and those were tales that she half believed herself. It occured to her that she might be really different from those around her but what the difference might be was something she could not figure out.

Six years later....

Kaleva is now eighteen years old. She is a rather ordinary-looking young woman. She is no great beauty but is set apart from other people because of her height. She stands six feet two inches tall. Her hair is long and black. Her eyes are a pale blue. Her skin is light bronze. She has a hard, athletic body from the activities that she enjoyed in her earlier years. She did not enjoy knitting or making quilts or painting like many women did but she liked riding horses and guarding the sheep in the hills. This was a young woman whose days were spent at the beach. She liked swimming and loved the water very much. She liked hanging out with an equally wild friend.

Her best friend was Nikita, a young woman her own age. Nikita was the daughter of Patricius, a Chalcian general. The general's daughter was a wild young woman. She was almost as tall as Kaleva, but had blonde hair and green eyes. Like Kaleva, Nikita enjoyed riding horses, guarding goats and sheep and of course, swimming in the sea. The two had been best friends since they were in their early teens. Presently, they were at the beach......

Kaleva lay on a blanket that she had thrown on the hot sand. She lay there, under a tree. She was resting a bit. She had just climbed a tree and chugged down two coconuts. She just lay there. She could hear the sound of the waves and the strange sounds made by her friend Nikita as Nikita attempted to imitate the cries of various marine animals.

"Would you stop it?" Kaleva called out.

"What?" came Nikita's reply.

Kaleva got up and looked at Nikita. The girl was standing in knee-deep water. She was acting like a fool, as usual. Kaleva walked up to her and grabbed the beautiful blonde girl by the shoulders.

"Quit making noises, I'm trying to sleep."

Nikita looked at Kaleva. She smiled naughtily and nodded. Kaleva turned and headed back to the beach. Nikita suddenly jumped on her back. Nikita's attack caught Kaleva by surprise. The blonde girl put her arms around Kaleva's neck and tackled her by twisting her foot between Kaleva's legs. Kaleva cried out as Nikita sent her falling in the water. The two young women struggled in the water and for a moment their two athletic bodies enlaced and embraced in a strange fight. Kaleva pushed Nikita back but Nikita held on.

"Let go of me." Kaleva cried out.

"Not a chance in hell." Nikita laughed.

Kaleva struggled against her opponent. They were roughly the same size but Nikita was a bit stockier and had more upper body strength. Nikita knew this and she smirked as Kaleva attempted to push her off. Kaleva glared at the young woman and the sight of that smirk pissed her off.

She closed her eyes....and then....she pushed. When Kaleva opened her eyes, she heard a surprise scream. Nikita was thrown back across almost twenty feet. She landed in the deeper water....and screamed. Kaleva looked at her friend, surprised that she was so far away. The brunette looked at her two hands in disbelief. She was surprised at the strength that she was able to find there.

Nikita stood in the water, looking at Kaleva with disbelief...

"What the hell was that?" she asked.

Kaleva said nothing, and the two of them walked out of the water in silence. They went to their blankets under the tree. They didn't talk about what happened for the remainder of the day, although Kaleva apologized extensively.

"I didn't mean to hurt you, Nikita. I love you."

Kaleva and Nikita went back home that day. It was one of those interesting summer days. They promised to see each other the next day. It so happened that they didn't see each other for a week. Kaleva missed Nikita sorely. Finally, she saw Nikita a week later. They went deep into the woods where Nikita told Kaleva something tragic and unexpected.

" I'm getting married."

The two young women looked at each other and nothing was said for a long time. Kaleva just looked at her friend. Nikita smiled sadly. Kaleva opened her mouth to speak but the roar of a nearby tiger covered whatever she was about to say. The beast was near and had come after prey. Vaguely Kaleva remembered talk in the city about a man-eating tiger roaming the woods...

Kaleva looked at the charging tiger. The beast looked quite formidable. A blur of animal savagery and power rushing at her. She stood her ground, feeling a strange sense of calm. She waited until the snarling beast was dangerously close to her, close enough to tear her limb from limb before striking with one swift and decisive motion. The young woman's hand struck the tiger's head. The beast fell as if struck by an unimaginable force. It lay still.

Nikita came out of her hiding place and looked at the tiger which her best friend had killed. The beast was dead. Its skull was split in half. Nikita looked at Kaleva, who stood as if frozen. The young woman stood motionless, staring at her hands and at the slain beast's carcass.

"How did you do that?" Nikita asked.

Kaleva looked at her. " I don't know."

Nikita looked at her best friend. She couldn't believe what Kaleva had just done. She knew that Kaleva was a strong girl but no one was strong enough to split a man-eating tiger's skull open with their bare hands. No one was that strong. She looked at Kaleva and saw the young woman looking at her with a bewildered expression on her face.

"What just happened here?" Nikita asked.

Kaleva looked at her friend. She had been carrying her secret for a long time. Should she take a risk and tell her best friend? Would Nikita understand or would she think that Kaleva was a freak? Perhaps the people of the city would find out and try to persecute her. She had seen what happened to people accused of being witches or servants of evil. They were often driven out of their homes and publicly tried, humiliated and executed. An awful thing to happen to anyone. Kaleva took a long look at her best friend of so many years, and took a chance.

" I am not exactly normal." Kaleva began.

She began to tell her story to Nikita. Nikita listened very carefully. She listened as Kaleva described her childhood in the land of Chalcis. She talked about her father Morbius, her mother Kala and her brother Teucros. She told her friend the tale of how she braved the flames of the palace to save herself and her younger brother. She talked about how frightened she had been when she discovered that she was very different from other people. She had a strength that was so great that she had to take great care to hide it from those around her. She also could not get hurt, for some reason. Kaleva's body could not be burned, pierced, stabbed or crushed. Some force resided deep inside her that rendered any attempts to physically harm her simply useless. When Kaleva finished telling her story, she looked at Nikita.

"So this is why you're so secretive all the time?" Nikita said.

"Yeah, I don't know how people would react." said Kaleva. " I thought they might hurt me."

Nikita looked at Kaleva. For a young woman endowed with such awesome powers, Kaleva looked so vulnerable. Nikita felt something in her stir. She went to Kaleva and held the young woman in her arms. Kaleva hesitated, then let herself go. She was so relieved that she had been able to tell her best friend her biggest secret and that her friend had been understanding as opposed to rejecting her. The emotional intensity of it all made her weep. She sobbed in Nikita's arms. Nikita just held Kaleva in her arms.

She just wanted to hold her best friend in her arms and be there for her no matter what. Yet she felt something in her stir. Something familiar and disturbing. She felt aroused by the presence of a beautiful young woman in her arms. She held Kaleva's face in her hands. Kaleva looked at Nikita through tear-filled eyes.

"I love you, Kaleva." she said.

Kaleva just smiled and held onto her friend tightly. She felt safe in Nikita's arms. Nikita just held her and rocked her gently. Not long after, Nikita realized that Kaleva had fallen asleep. She gently put Kaleva to sleep on a blanket on the floor of their favorite clearing. They hadn't discussed the fact that Nikita's family was pressuring her to marry some young man. Nikita didn't want to be married. The life of a married woman and future mother was not appealing to her.

At all. She didn't want to be some man's wife. She didn't want to go through the hard, repressed condition of being married. She didn't want to be a housewife. She wanted to be wild and free....with Kaleva. She thought about Kaleva and the thought of not being with her was terrifying.

Nikita looked at Kaleva's sleeping form. God, she was beautiful. She looked so damn good. Kaleva just lay there, her face peac eful and her beautiful body at rest. Nikita reached out and tentatively touched the girl's face. Kaleva moved in her sleep and for a moment, Nikita feared that she had woken her up. She gently caressed Kaleva's face and stroked her hair. Her heart beat faster in her chest and she took Kaleva's hand in hers. She held the hand for a minute and slowly put the fingers into her mouth. She licked them one by one and then sucked them. Again Kaleva moved in her sleep and Nikita withdrew her mouth from the fingers. Nikita looked at her beautiful friend. Kaleva was so beautiful and strong and yet so naive. She had entrusted her greatest secret to someone she thought was her best friend. Nikita had a secret of her own. She was one of those women who were a bit different from other women. She lusted after members of her own gender. Other females. She had been attracted to them for a long time and known about that attraction for a long time.

This was a secret she kept from even those closest to her. She had lost her virginity to a man named Kurtis a few months after she turned eighteen. She had been curious about sex with men, just a little bit. The experience sent her back to women. She met a forty-something woman named Tecmessa. Tecmessa was the wife of a Chalcian prince named Althoros and also the mother of two young men, Othos and Aephialtes. Nikita's affair with Tecmessa lasted three months. Tecmessa ended their affair because she feared being found out as a lesbian. Homosexuality and lesbianism were taboo in Chalcian society.

After the end of the affair with Tecmessa, Nikita met a young woman named Thalia. Thalia was twenty five years old and a devoted mother of three. Their relationship was brief. Thalia's husband found out and almost killed her. Nikita started to hang out with her best friend Kaleva more and more and fell in love with her. Nikita wasn't sure if Kaleva was a lesbian or even bisexual. Kaleva had never had a lover but a long time ago she used to be in love with a young Chalcian prince named Alexandros. Alexandros married a woman named Calpurnia and Kaleva was devastated.

Looking at Kaleva, Nikita couldn't help but wonder. A young woman with extraordinary powers....no great beauty or intellect but a tenderness that touched your heart, and a strength that could rend a tiger limb from limb. She never thought there was that much more than meets the eye about Kaleva, and now apparently there was. Kaleva stirred in her sleep and Nikita came closer and planted a brief, soft kiss on the sleeping young woman's lips.

"Sleep well, my love."

Nikita smiled to herself as she watched Kaleva sleep. Such tenderness sheathing such power and passion...she was gonna enjoy unraveling Kaleva's mysteries, and ravishing her too. Kaleva slept with a content look on her face and Nikita found herself in awe of the innocence and purety emanating from the sleeping young woman. She knew right then and there that she had fallen in love, not just for now but forever.

What had she gotten herself into?

To be continued.