Posted by Kimnikki on January 19, 2003 at 15:35:40:
For the Love of The Hunt, Part I
a story by Kimnikki
Prologue:
Soft light was pushing back the velvet curtain of night, signaling that dawn was fast approaching.
Bird song slowly increased as the first rays of the rising sun spilled across the vast expanse of the
Great Forest.
In another time and place the seemingly endless expanse of gigantic, ancient trees would have
been called primeval, or perhaps primordial. Cedars, oaks, firs and conifers of every description
towered hundreds of feet up into the sky, as if it was only their presence that held the sky in its
place.
Even the birds, thousands of feet above the dark green carpet, could not see where it ended. In
the far distance, in every direction, a barely seen line of mountains might have been the forest’s
limits, but it was doubtful. Even at this distance a line of green could be seen climbing halfway
up the mountainsides. The dark gray rocks, with their snowy caps, looked more like islands in a
green sea than the peeks of a mighty range. The Great Forest stood within this titanic ring of
rocks like water within some unimaginably large bowl.
For more than half their lengths the majority of trees were barren of branch, twig or leaf. Long
trunks, covered in knobby, gnarled bark, soared up and up until the first limbs began to spread
out. And what limbs these were. Many of them were thicker through their middles than a tall
man stood, and could easily have withstood the weight of hundreds of men and women standing
upon them. Some of the largest trees had branches that reached far out towards their
neighbors. So far in fact that it would have been easy to walk thousands of paces in any
direction, moving from tree to tree hundreds of feet off the ground, on limbs so thick that even
the clumsiest of people could have balanced on them easily.
But for all the interweaving of twig and branch and limb it was neither dark nor dank on the
forest floor. Scattered light filtered down to the loamy soil below giving the world below the
green a soft even lighting. While they did allow light to seep beneath them, the interweaving of
the trees kept it cool even on the hottest of days, and softened the bite of wind and cold on
those chill days of deep winter. It was never bright beneath the trees, but it was not the dark
world of endless shadows that many would have imagined it to be.
Small shrubs, ferns and bushes in a riot of sizes and colors carpeted the forest floor. Some
where no bigger than an apple, while others could have hidden a tall man behind them.
Scattered here and there, in those small places where full sunlight fell, small yet brilliant wild
flowers grew. These were not the massive blossoms of a rain forest, but the small yet colorful
plants that had found shelter and nutrients in the dappled light and shadows of the forest floor.
Against the dark brown and greens of the trees, these smaller cousins seemed that much
brighter.
It was not a Garden of Eden, for it was a wild, dynamic, living thing. But for those creatures that
called it home it was far better than any garden could even have hopped to be. A place of light
and darkness, struggle and bounty and of beauty beyond compare. In short it was a paradise.
But like any earthly paradise it could be fragile and it demanded a price from the souls that
shared life with it. One had to live in harmony with The Great Forest, and with The Goddess that
had created and protected it.
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As the brilliant disk of the sun broke the line of mountains, it spilled its light across the trees in a
sudden blaze of light. Parts of the forest previously in the depths of night went from darkness, to
twilight, to the normal dapple of the forest in a matter of minutes.
But it was neither the light nor bird song that awoke Nath’ra, rather it was the gentle touch of his
mate’s slim fingers, brushing across his chest, and the butterfly caress of her lips across his own.
“Good morrow my love,” she said, smiling down at his face. She was propped on her side on one
elbow, her fingers still playing along his chest.
Returning her kiss, Nath’ra looked up into her warm green eyes, amazed as always that she had
chose him over all those that had courted her. She was the eldest daughter of a High Cast
family. He was the half-breed illegitimate son of a mercenary and a minor Temple Priestess.
When he had met her, Kiith’thals’ hair had been the deep brown of the Great Trees and her skin
the milk-pale of a highborn lady. That skin was flawless ... not the slightest mark, blemish or
even freckle marred its surface.
And those eyes ... oh those eyes ... the shade of light green that only the High Cast ever seemed
to be born with.
Her ears tapered to perfect points, making a line with her cheekbones and chin that gave her the
classic lines of the eleven princess that she was.
His mother had been the only one with even a hint of noble blood in his family. His father had
been a bowman and solider of the Dark Elves. A people whom the High Cast held in thinly veiled
contempt ... at least until they needed somebody to fight for them. Nath’ra didn’t even know his
fathers name.
But his father had left him one gift ... a skill with the bow that was legendary even among his
fellow Elves.
Nath’ra had been hired by her father to teach Kiith’thal the Way of the Bow. He had noticed her
beauty of course, but he was already more than 100 years old, while she was only 30. While an
elf could live for hundreds of years, 70 years was still a wide gap. That and the differences
between their stations should have kept her far beyond his reach.
His only intention, on the day he had met her, was to honor his word to her father, and teach
this child to master the bow.
Much to his surprise ... it was she who had taught him the lesson. A lesson that love was far
stronger than place, years, cast or creed. Within the year, a staggeringly short time for people
who lived for centuries, she had asked him to be her mate.
Her father, quite naturally, had very nearly died at the news that his daughter, a possible heir to
the Eleven throne had decided to be the lifemate of a commoner mercenary. He had, of course,
banished them both.
But where to go? Not among the humans ... at least not those that lived in the “civilized” world.
They feared and hated their Eleven cousins with a frightening passion.
The great elf city of Myth Dranor was her fathers’ domain, and none of the smaller villages that
surrounded it would risk his wrath to take them in.
Nath’ra knew that the Dark Elves barely tolerated him ... they would never accept his High Born
mate.
In the end, their choice had been made for them. They would have to go far away from both the
Dark Elves and the High Born, and there was only one place in the entire world where they could
do that and yet still be among their own kind.
And so it was that two wildly different beings in body, though one in heart and soul, found
themselves heading for the heart of the Great Forest, far from the life that either of them had
known.
But the Goddess had perhaps been watching the lovers even then, for their banishment had been
a blessing in the end.
The Forest Elves were looked down on by both High Born and Dark Elves as primitive savages.
These “primitive savages” in turn believed, to the depth of their souls, that their brethren had
paid far too high a price for their “civilized” ways, and both lovers would soon learn to agree with
them.
The Forest Elves had taken them in without hardly a question, welcoming the by now famous
lovers both as refugees and as skilled users of the bow, which these forest lovers always
welcomed.
Kiith’thal had proven to be far hardier than her High Cast breeding would have led one to believe.
She had also proven to have a talent for the bow that was only surpassed by his own. She also
proved to be as good as hunter. It would serve them well, in more ways than one.
In very short time their skill with their bows had made them a home among these people. And
their love for each other and their newly adopted family placed them among the most well
thought of and respected mates in the forest tribe.
And their life together in the farthest depths of the Great Forest had been a beautiful one. Far
more alive than ever before in her life, Kiith’thal had never once regretted her choice. And as for
Nath’ra ... he had a beautiful mate, a stable home in a good place and for the first time in his
long life, he had people he could call his own.
There had been a slight personal price for Kiith’thal to pay. Her milky skin had long been
changed to a golden brown, and her once dark hair had turned the color of summer wheat. To
her own cast, she was scarred and ugly ... to Nath’ra she was even more beautiful than the day
they had met.
And as a true sign of their rejection of their birth rites and their embracing of their new ways,
both had asked to be marked in the same manor as all of their forest brethren, a facial tattoo.
Kiith’thal had had a small green flower marked upon her face, while their new tribe mates had
marked Nath’ra with the 3 chevrons that were the mark of a Bowmaster.
Nath’ra had long ago stopped believing in coincidence. The Goddess simply had to have had a
hand in their lives, for the same day they had been marked as full members of the forest tribe;
they had both heard the call that would change the rest of their lives.
From the depths of the forest they had heard her voice calling them. Both frightened and elated,
they had answered the call and had found their Elban Bows ... made by the hand of Jajgin
herself. Elban bows were the rarest of magic ... impossible to fake; to even touch one without
Her approval was instant death.
To be bound to one was to have the touch of the Goddess on your very soul. To be so bound
could be both blessing and curse. But the lifemates had found within themselves a love of Jajgin,
and a love of her ways, that filled their lives with a beauty that still touched them both to their
very cores.
They were perfectly bound ... to each other, to their Elban bows and to their beloved Goddess.
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Nath’ra pulled his mate close, and filled with the love he felt for her, simply held her there for
several long moments. Kiith’thal did not say a word, she didn’t need to. They had only become
closer in the near century since they had fled to the forest and she knew that he had been
thinking of their first encounter with the Goddess ... because it was exactly what she had been
thinking of.
“Come love,” he said quietly as he released her. “It is time we prepared for the day.”
Kiith’thal looked up at her mate as he got up from their furs. No elf ever really showed signs of
old age, but Nath’ra was still magnificent for an elf of his age, which had passed 2 centuries
some time ago.
She knew that Nath’ra considered himself lucky to have won her. But she always considered
herself just as lucky to have had this “low born half-breed” come into her life and change it
forever. She sometimes wondered what a life at court would have been like if he hand not come
along, and no matter how hard she tried, she could not imagine it as anything other than lifeless
and loveless compared to what they shared now.
Her mother had commented on Nath’ras darkened skin the first time they had met.
“At least the Dark ones have picked a true color,” her mother had said, commenting on the jet-
black skin that was the mark of a Dark Elf. “But this one ... look at him. He looks like some
mongrel dog of the Humans!”
Kiith’thal was sure that Nath’ra had heard the old harpies comment, but he had never said a
word.
But what had bothered her mother only made him all the more exotic and beautiful to her
daughters eyes.
She lay in bed; hands propped behind her head, watching her mate dress for day.
His hair, rather than the usual silver of his fathers’ kind, was a mix of silver white and gray. It
was a long shinning mane that Kiith’thal never got tired of playing with, running her fingers
through its silky weight, or sitting before the fire brushing it out for him, as he often did for her.
His skin, which had seemed so foreign to her at first, was now no more remarkable than any
other she knew. A bit darker perhaps than most, but a dark coloring that wasn’t actually black
was far from unusual in a people that lived openly with nature.
While there was no such thing as a “fat” elf, Nath’ra was still as hard and lean as the day she
met him. He was no less fit, hale or dangerous than that day so long ago ... not a bad feat for a
being approaching what was for him his early middle years.
Though she had willing accepted the tattooing that was a sign of their joining the tribe of Forest
Elves, she had fretted at the time that the markings would make one, or both of them less
appealing. But he had caught his breath at the pattern on her cheek, and she had thought from
the first that the angled fletching on his face only enhanced his beauty.
She watched him as he buckled on his ceremonial armor. White, silver, black and gray ... the
colors of Jajgin. It would not have been much use in actual combat, but then again, it was not
meant for that. This outfit, like her own, was meant only for The Hunt.
Once dressed he presented an ominous figure. Not evil ... not cruel ... but ominous. A sense of
the power he possessed, the danger he could represent, and the touch of Jajgin that she shared
with him was an almost physical presence around him.
The long familiar sight brought a warmth between her legs and made her heart flutter with
excitement. Oh but it was going to be a wonderful day ... she was sure of it.
He retrieved his Elban bow, leaving it unstrung as he turned to face her, a smirk crossing his face
as she saw that she had been watching him the entire time.
“Lazy one ... this is the Goddess’ day ... not yours ... up ... get ready,” he said, with a teasing
laugh in his voice.
With her own laugh, she rose and dressed in her own leathers, a match for his except for the flair
of her hips and the swell of her small breasts. She picked up her own bow, and her eyes closed
and she gave a small sigh as the wave of warmth filled her, pulling on things down low in her
body. Her bow was looking as forward to this day as much as she was.
When she turned back to Nath’ra he was standing by the window looking out into village and the
trees beyond, a somewhat wistful look on his face.
“Why so sad a face my love?” Kiith’thal asked. “Today is a day of great joy, beauty and love.”
He turned to her, a sad smile crossing his features.
“I know that dear one. But once ... just once ... I wish they understood that as well.” On the
word “they” he had pointed off into the forest.
Kiith’thal placed her hand on his cheek, understanding the longing in him. Today would be
beautiful for them both, but she also felt the longing for this to be a truly shared day. It had
been so very long since it had been.
“They are scared and frightened love. None of them truly understand. Oh they accept, they
believe, and they know it must be, but they don’t really understand what Our Lady wants of
them. They fear what they don’t understand ... and fear makes them foolish.”
Kiith’thal caressed Nath’ra’s cheek, and he kissed her fingers.
“I know, I know. And I don’t hate them for it ... I just pity them. This day could be as much a
celebration of life and beauty and love for them as it is for us. I just want to share it ... that’s all
... I want them to love Jajgin ... not fear her.”
He closed his eyes for a moment, whispering a quiet prayer. When he opened them again, the
sadness was still there, but the old familiar excitement was there as well. His hand closed tighter
about his Elban, and he bent to kiss her.
“But I do love Jajgin ... even if they don’t.” He kissed her again, his eyes beginning to light with
his excitement.
He pulled her to him, giving her an almost bruising kiss. She returned it, feeling the excitement
coming from both him and her own Elban bow. The Goddess was beginning to call them, and
her need and excitement was filling them both. They both greatly enjoyed this duty and that only
added to their growing excitement.
“And Goddess willing ... someday love ... perhaps someday they will come to understand as our
people do,” he said as he broke the kiss. Keeping one arm low around her waist, he turned her
towards the door and they headed out into the village.
As soon as they emerged they saw that the rest of their tribe was waiting for them. Dressed all
in white, silver and gray ... the dark colors making bleached hair and bright green tattoos stand
out all the more. The escort that was to accompany them, 20 warriors in all, were dressed as
they were, though only the priest and priestess held Elban bows ... all of the escort were simple
longbows.
Mith’ral was the eldest of the villagers and she was also the chieftess. These two things did not
always go together, but in her case it did. Like all other members of the village she was a
worshipper of Jajgin though not a priest or priestess as Nath’ra and Kiith’thal. But this was a
special day for all of The Goddess’ followers.
They had all been preparing for nearly 2 weeks. The village was decorated in the first flowers of
spring and the one great open space between the tree homes had been cleared and stood ready.
The villagers were very nearly excited as the two lovers, though for different reasons.
They walked up to Mith’ral, taking the older woman’s hands in their free ones.
“Life Kiith’thal,” she said to the younger woman, kissing her on the cheek.
“Life Nath’ra,” she repeated, kissing Nath’ra on his cheek as well.
“Life,” the lovers repeated, kissing the elderly elf matron.
Then they turned to the assembled villagers, holding their Elban bows high and calling out to
them.
“Life!” they shouted as one.
With a single great voice the villagers answered the benediction.
“Life!” they roared back, hundreds of voices making the call echo around the great trees that
made up the village, their eyes reflecting their excitement.
“We go now to the human’s,” Nath’ra called out once the tumultuous call had died down. “It is
the season of renewal and on this day Our Lady demands and deserves a renewal of the pack
that has allowed us all to thrive.”
“Prepare, lovers of The Goddess,” Kiith’thal continued, “for we will return before the nightfall.”
The villagers cheered, calling out “life” over and over as the lovers turned and jogged out among
the trees, followed closely by their escort.
“We will be waiting my friends,” Mith’ral called out to them. “The Goddess be with you.”
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With the pace the elves could keep, it took them little time to cross the 5 miles to the Hunting
Mount ... which lay exactly halfway between the human village and that of the elves.
As they jogged, all of them noticed what an outsider would not. To someone not familiar with
The Great Forest it would seem to be brimming with life and health. But both priest and
priestess saw the subtle signs; flowers that were not the colors they should be. Trees that had
leaf, but no cone or bud to spread their life beyond their own. The small shrubs also had no
flowers of their own, and the leafs that covered them were neither as dark nor as full as they
should. It had been a full turn of the seasons ... and the power of The Hunt had been expended.
It was time to renew The Pack, and to renew the life of the forest upon which all their lives
depended.
Despite his misapprehension, Nath’ra soon began to feel the familiar excitement thrum through
his body, echoed and attenuated by his Elban Bow and his lady love. He reached for her hand,
which she gave, smiling without looking at him. She was always a bit more excited at first than
he was, but his love of The Lady, and of The Hunt soon always brought him out of any dark
mood he was in.
Still, he wished deeply that their human neighbors would understand and accept all that this
could be, both for light and dark.
The trees began to thin and soon the Hunting Hill could be seen through the trees. They slowed
to a walk, feet nearly silent on the forest floor. They had learned long ago that to just run up the
hill from the tree line could send The Hunted into a panic ... which was the last any of them
wanted.
But just as they reached the edge of the trees, a familiar form could be seen sitting on a large
moss covered boulder at the foot of the hill. A young woman, in a soft green cloak and snowy
white soft wool dress sat there, apparently watching the gathering of humans atop the hill.
“Hello my friends,” came the quiet voice of the woman who sat with her back to them, the smile
they could not see heard in her amused voice.
“Hello Bethany,” Kiith’thal said with a smile of her own as Nath’ra chuckled quietly to himself.
“Greetings on this day of Our Lady young one,” Nath’ra said to the young woman as she turned
to smile at them. “How is it that we can creep up close enough to a deer to touch its hide, yet
you seem to hear us from half a league away?”
“Oh Nath’ra ... if you could only see the things that I hear, you wouldn’t ask that question each
time we meet,” the woman replied very seriously, then dissolved into laughter as she hugged the
elves and was in turn embraced by them.
Bethany was the only human among the hundreds who lived in the village that they could call
friend. Perhaps it was because she was quite different from her fellow humans that she had
sought comfort in the forest, and had formed a friendship with several of her elfin neighbors. And
while she was friendly with all of the forest folk, Nath’ra and Kiith’thal knew she considered them
to be her closest friends.
They had know Bethany since she was a child, and had watched her turn from a pretty child into
a true beauty, now in the middle of her 19th summer. She had the dark skin and inky black hair
that was a sign of her mixed heritage. Her skin was a dusky brown, far darker than any tan
could account for.
Bethany’s father had been a soldier and adventurer, who had hired his skills to any who line his
pockets with gold and his stomach with food. For all of that he had been an honorable man, and
an intelligent one for all his lack of formal teaching.
Her mother had been a Hindi slave, a dancer from a Tantric temple. She was supposed to have
been transported, ironically enough to the household of Kiith’thal’s father. It was perhaps even
more ironic that when the bandits had attacked, it had been the crude mercenary and the exotic,
sophisticated dancer from another land that had been the only survivors.
They had wandered to the village ... and had never left. What strange twist of fate had brought
them together had also had a sense of romance, for the rough man and the gentle woman had
fallen deeply in love, and Bethany had been the result. Even from the earliest of days, she had
been a beautiful child. But fate at times was also not very kind.
A plague had come to the human village ... a plague stopped by a gift of blood to Jajgin that
restored the village and drove out the sickness. But not before it had done its damage.
Many had died ... including Bethany’s parents. And Bethany, who had been at death’s very door
when the restoring wave had washed over her village, had paid a great price for her survival.
Her eyes were the only mar in an otherwise flawless face. Covered by the cataracts that blinded
her, they were a deep coppery color, making her eyes bright and somewhat disturbing all at
once. She had been blind since the age of six, caused by the occlusion left behind by the
sickness she only just survived.
But it was her very blindness that made her a bold explorer of the Great Forest where most of
her people only stuck to those parts that they knew well and trusted. Her senses were her ears,
her touch, her taste and her nose ... and they “saw” nothing dark or frightening in the deeper
parts of her home. One would think that a blind woman would not be able to find her way
around the wild, but she knew the forest for miles around the village better than anyone else
living there. She had spent many hours wandering, exploring and encountering the forest in
ways a sighted person would probably never understand.
And because of this, she knew her villages’ elfin neighbors better than just about anyone else in
the village, despite her young age. And that, combined with what others thought of as “the
curse” of her blindness, made her something of an outcast in her own village.
Their escort, who had to be in position before the priest and priestess, moved around and by
them, moving to surround the woods which encompassed the hill. Those who knew Bethany
called out to her as they passed and she turned her face towards them, waving a greeting in the
direction of the voices.
“So what brings you out to greet us,” Kiith’thal asked their young friend, touching the side of her
face.
“Well ... it is the day of The Hunt ... and I thought you two might be here. You ... you usually
are,” she answered them.
“Well The Hunters always require an escort young friend, in case your people panic. The Pack
must be kept ... your people know that ... but many don’t really understand it, even if they do
accept it. So The Hunters have companions with them, at least here at the Hunting Hill. Once
they are in the woods, there is little to fear.” Nath’ra also touched her face ... an old greeting
among them.
He felt a small pang of guilt for not revealing the whole truth. They had never told their friend
that ‘they’ were The Hunters ... that it was they who made the sacrifice, and that they were in
fact far more than just followers of Jajgin. But they had learned long in the past that even those
who liked elves and could be friends with them were not able to accept their love of The Lady.
In nearly every case it had ended the friendship, and even when it hadn’t, it had never been the
same. So they had never told her. As far as she knew, they were simply part of the escort.
“I ... I just wanted to meet you again. You’ve been away, preparing for today I guess. I ... I
missed you,” she said, shrugging and smiling up at them.
The lovers smiled at that. They both knew, without having to speak of it, that someday they
would take this blind human beauty to their village and make her their lover. They had known
since she was little that she was attracted to them. They were only waiting for her to make the
first move ... to prove to them she was ready for love, and they would take her from this place
were she was so little understood.
But that was for the future ... today was a day of duty.
“We must go my friend. The Hunt will began soon ... we must be in place. Good morrow to you
... we’ll come by tomorrow to see you, I promise,” Nath’ra told her, bending to kiss her forehead.
Kiith’thal did the same, though she gave her friend a gentle kiss on the lips.
She gave a small sigh, and it was obvious she was disappointed.
“Tomorrow then ... I ... I’ll be waiting,” and she gave them a small wave.
They moved away, moving around to the far side of the hill from their friend, making sure that
their escort was in place. In all their years as priest and priestess, there had never been any
treachery, but having the escort was as much a part of the ritual of The Hunt as they were for
the protection of The hunters.
Taking a deep breath, the two lovers moved into the open.
As always nearly the entire human village was there, though unlike the elf village they had just
left the mood here was somber, even fearful.
Several gasps and cries sounded out as they stepped from the trees ... they never meant to
scare the humans, but their eyesight was so poor compared to their own that it was if they
simply appeared from between one leaf and the next.
END OF PART I