(Let us Live, my
Lesbia, and Let us Love)
in
an age of troubles
in an age of uncertainty
in an age of dwindling hope,
you still have me
no
matter where you are
no matter how far from home
no matter if you're lost,
you still have me
Never Doubt I
Love
Melanie Doane, Shakespearean
Fish
© 1996 Sony
Music Entertainment Inc.
|
“O |
k folks,” yelled the Arch-Mage, “this is
how we are going to handle this.”
Everyone paused in their preparations for
battle in order to understand clearly what Willow had to say.
“Daithi,” she continued, “I want you and
the other guardsmen to keep this first group as busy as you can with missile
fire. Buff, I want to keep you back in
reserve till that second group gets closer.
Grael, Frankel, Amana can you three keep any of those demons in the
first group from breaking off and circling behind us?”
“We will do our best,” replied Amana,
“but we will need help once that second group gets here.”
“That’s where Buffy and I get into it,”
Willow replied, “I hope. Aiofe, Bridie,
what can you do to help, we haven’t had any time to really talk about your
magical abilities.”
“We will stay out of the way,” Aiofe
replied, “and keep the horses from panicking.”
“If worse comes to worse,” added Bridie,
“we’ll fight. After all, we were
guardsmen at one time.”
“Ok then,” Willow shouted, “lets kick
some demon ass.”
Everyone burst into action. Daithi and the guardsmen immediately began
to lay down withering fire with their bows, assisted by Buffy and her
crossbow. Grael spotted a
yellow-skinned demon breaking for the trees and yelled out, “bassoil ùir!” With that spell, the demon was suddenly
enveloped in the earth as the ground rose up and smothered it. “One down,” he muttered as he kept a sharp
lookout for any others.
Willow meanwhile began thinking about
options on how to handle the second group of demons. She knew that they would have very little time after dispatching
the first group before the larger group would be upon them. The only solution she could think of quickly
was to devise a method of channelling the enemy so that only a small group
would be able to attack them at any one time, therefore giving them a chance
against the demon’s greater numbers.
Looking at the terrain in front of them she noted that they were in a
small valley with a river to their left and the road that they had been
travelling on going down the centre, parallel to the river, then disappearing
over the hill ahead of them. They were
in a copse of woods that followed the river; open fields were on the other side
of the road. She saw that if she were
able to block the demons from coming over the fields on the right side of them,
the river would block them from the left, leaving only the ten meters directly
in front that they would have to defend.
She decided to try to use a variation of the shield that Amana had
taught Buffy, except this shield would be much larger.
Drawing upon as much energy from the
surrounding area as she dared she grounded herself, focused, then cried out,
“Bree fuar bhalla!” A translucent blue wall sprung up angling out from where
Willow was standing, crossing over the road and the fields in front of her and
disappearing over the hill. Creating an
effective barrier to the demons, she hoped.
“That should keep them from getting
behind us,” Willow commented, “now we’ll only have to deal with a small group
at a time.”
“Yeah,” commented Buffy as she took
careful aim and fired at another demon, driving a quarrel through its eye, “ten
to one odds, we can certainly deal with that.”
“Sarcasm is unbecoming in a pregnant
woman,” Aiofe quipped as she was trying to keep five horses under control. They had taken one look at the approaching
demon hoards and had decided bolting was far better than staying.
“I mean it,” the Slayer responded, “this
is going to be fun.” Bridie and Aiofe
looked at Buffy as if she was possessed, and thinking that their new lover was
just a few apples short of a bushel.
They had more than Buffy’s sanity to
worry about; the horses were becoming a real handful. They smelled the unfamiliar scents of the demons, the blood being
spilt and the general commotion in the small camp. They had almost gotten away from the two young women several
times. Frankel noticed the problems
that they were having and came over to the horses. Laying his hands on each of the horse’s heads in turn he
whispered into its ear. The results
were immediate and dramatic, the horses immediately calmed down and stood
placidly while Aiofe and Bridie tied them to some nearby trees.
“That should keep them quiet,” commented
the sage.
“Thanks,” replied Aiofe, “I thought that
we were going to lose them.”
“Let’s get our armour on,” added Bridie,
“we can do more good helping the guardsmen by using our shields to protect them
from the demon’s missile fire.”
Just then, Amana spotted a demon breaking
for the river, with a shouted, “Tendreil orraghey,” a bolt of lightning sprang
from her palm and hit the demon just as it entered the water. The results were impressive, electrocuted
smoked demon.
“That’s a delicacy I’ll avoid,” commented
Buffy as she continued her banter, “I mean desiccated demon is not on my list
of edibles for expectant mothers.”
“Come-on Buff,” Willow pleaded, “get
serious for a second will you?”
By then the entire first group of twenty
demons had been dispatched. Everyone
took the opportunity to catch their breath and re-arm for the upcoming major
battle.
“I’m nearly out of arrows,” commented
Padrick, “only eight left.”
The other guardsmen were in a similar
situation. Looking around Daithi
commented, “Ok then, all of the arrows to Padrick and David,
everyone else use your shields to protect
them and rest up for when we run out of arrows and that second group of demons
reach the barrier.”
The larger group of demons were now in
bow range. Padrick and David immediately began to rapid fire their remaining
arrows, selecting arms and legs as targets wherever possible in order to
disable as many of the enemy as possible.
They were not able to stop the tide of demons, only slow it for a short
while, then they were out of arrows and the first of the demons were directly
in front, at the barrier, and snarling for blood. It was then down to hand to claw fighting. Willow kept Buffy back from the conflict,
wanting to use her as a strategic reserve, and to protect the mages from
interference. Some of the demons tried
to go through Willow’s barrier, and received nasty shocks and burns for their
troubles. In addition, since the
barrier was keyed to Willow, she was able to target those who tried to go
through it for direct spell action.
They were holding their own, however, there were a great number of foes,
and they didn’t seem to be slowing down.
One by one the guardsmen had to retreat
out of the battle due to minor wounds and exhaustion until there was only
Aiofe, Bridie and Daithi left on the line.
At this point Buffy felt an intense burning sensation on her chest. When she looked down she saw that the tattoo
of the sword was pulsating. She reached
down and when she touched the tattoo, it turned into the sword, and separated
from her body.
<Willow, do you see this?>
<Yes, but I don’t believe it,> the
arch-mage replied, <but, she did say help would be yours when you needed
it.>
<We will have to talk about this,>
Buffy commented as she raised the sword overhead.
As soon as she lifted the sword over her
head it bust into flame and she was consumed by an overpowering and out of
control rage. Buffy leapt over the
improvised barrier of logs that they had been using, directly into the midst of
the demons. Demon ichor and gore flew
everywhere as she cut a swath through the middle of the enemy ranks. The demons were bewildered and confused, no
attacks seemed to touch or affect this berserk woman in their lines. Buffy was seemingly able to anticipate every
blow against her and turn it aside with her sword. Where her sword struck demon flesh it burned as if the sun had
touched it. Her arm was tireless as she
thrust, slashed and parried ceaselessly.
The sword was feather light in her hands, almost as if it was weightless.
The mages took advantage of the
disruption Buffy was making to let fly with various bolts of energy, flame and
lightning, to further decimate the enemy ranks. Within minutes the moral of the attacking demons had broken and
they began to break ranks, the remaining two dozen or so, mostly wounded,
fleeing back up the hill. Buffy, still
in her berserker rage, started after them when suddenly the sword
disappeared. Buffy collapsed; exhausted
from the psychic and physical effort she had been under.
Willow, seeing her soul-mate’s collapse,
immediately ran to her yelling, “Amana, Grael, keep harassing them while
Frankel and I collect Buffy.”
The two of them quickly reached Buffy’s
side, and Willow sent a brief <Buff, what happened, you ok?>
<Where am I, and did anyone get the
number of the truck that hit me?>
Buffy replied as she slowly stood up.
“What happened?”
“You went berserk,” commented Willow,
stating the obvious, as she and Frankel helped to support either side of
Buffy. Once she was upright and mobile
the three of them started to walk back to their improvised campsite.
Buffy was a mess. Her hair and armour were matted with demon
blood and gore. She was also a mass of
bruises, which even as they walked back to the camp were in the process of
healing.
“Ugh,” Willow commented, “you stink of
blood and goo. We will have to get you
cleaned up before we move on.”
Buffy sniffed herself and said, “no
kidding witch-girl, I am rank. What was
I doing?”
“Butchering demons,” replied Aiofe, “come
on, lets get you into the river and get that junk off of you.”
Buffy took a look around the
battlefield. There were bits and pieces
of demons everywhere, in addition to the demons that had been dispatched by
various spells. Those that had been
killed by the mages had been burnt, strangled, webbed and electrocuted.
“My Goddess,” exclaimed the Slayer, “we
certainly did a number on them, didn’t we?”
“That we, or rather you, did,” replied
Bridie as she was getting various items out of the travel bags, “lets bathe and
get some food into you.”
Shortly the four women were in the river,
three of them trying to get Buffy clean.
“This water is cold,” complained Buffy as
she was doused with another bucket of water, “hurry up, I’m beginning to
freeze.”
“We’ll get you warm again,” commented
Willow, “don’t worry about that, besides, none of us got covered in demon goo,
did we?”
“None of you have a Goddess who decides
to drive you berserk either,” retorted Buffy.
“That’s true,” replied Willow contritely,
<forgive me?>
<Always, now get me out of here before
I turn blue.>
<A blue Buff, now that would be a
sight.>
<WILLOW!>
“Ok, ok,” Willow said as she finished
rinsing off Buffy’s hair, “let’s get her out of here.”
The four women left the river and quickly
grabbed towels and quickly began to dry off.
Willow finished and turned to Buffy and asked, “need any help love?”
“That would be nice.”
Willow began to vigorously rub Buffy’s
hair, trying to get all of the water out of it. She also began to caress her shoulders and neck.
<Mmm,> commented Buffy, <that’s
nice.>
<I promise a good backrub tonight
love,> returned Willow.
<I’m going to hold you to that.>
Within minutes all four women were
redressed and the entire group remounted, Buffy taking the opportunity to bolt
down some food while sitting in the saddle.
Willow turned to Daithi and asked, “how
are you and your guardsmen doing?”
“Just some minor scrapes and bruises,” he
replied, “nothing a good nights sleep wouldn’t cure.”
“I’m open to suggestions on how we
proceed,” Willow continued, “I don’t think that we drove them off all that far,
not that we left all that many to drive off.”
“I agree,” the guard captain commented
with a slightly pensive look in his face, “we, or rather Buffy, did kill over
three-quarters of them. That alone will
probably keep them demoralized enough to allow us to continue relatively
unmolested.”
“But,” asked Willow.
“But, I’ll send two of the guardsmen to
the flanks as sweepers,” he added, “and Padrick and I will ride slightly ahead
of the rest of you. With luck we will
not see anything, but the four of us will give the rest of you enough warning
to set up a defence if we do.”
“Sounds good,” Willow said, “alright
everyone, lets ride. We have three
hours to sunset and that’s just enough time to make it to our destination if we
don’t have any more distractions.”
“Before we head out,” said Frankel, “we
should do something about the bodies.”
“You’re right,” Willow commented, “let
me.” Willow once again reached deep
into the surrounding energy and used a variation of her fireball spell to
return the demon corpses to their component elements.
“There, that should do it,” she commented
as the last of the corpses turned to dust, and was scattered by the winds.
“Remind me to never, ever, get you mad at
me,” said Buffy with a stunned look on her face, “you just vaporized them!”
“I think I can only do that with dead
flesh,” responded Willow. Turning to
everyone she said, “that’s it, lets get going before any more demons show up to
ruin our day.”
The four guardsmen immediately set out at
the gallop to take up their positions ahead and on the flanks. The remaining members of the party broke out
into a hard travel ride; alternating the pace of the horses from canter to walk
to trot and then back to canter. It was
a pace that the horses could maintain for an extended period of time without
becoming overtly tired.
“My but is going to ache tonight,”
complained Willow, about an hour into their forced ride. Like Buffy, she was not yet that comfortable
with riding, and she was beginning to feel aches and pains in muscles she
didn’t know she had.
“That’s ok, sweetly,” commented Buffy,
“I’m sure that Aiofe and Bridie will be happy to massage our various aches
later.”
“You bet,” commented Bridie.
“Looking forward to it,” added Aiofe.
They were able to complete their day’s
travel without any further incidents.
Daithi, just before they reached the town of Peters Forge, rode back to
talk with Willow.
“We’re being watched,” he said as he drew
near and fell in beside her. “I think
that a small group of eight or so are keeping pace on our right flank, well out
of range, but staying in contact.”
“Meaning?” asked the Arch-Mage.
“Meaning that they will definitely know
where we are headed,” he replied, “and maybe what you are trying to do. In addition, I’m certain that they have sent
word back to their commanders about what happened.”
“We are going to have to worry about that
tomorrow,” Willow said, “do you think they will try anything tonight?”
“Not in the town, I don’t think,”
answered Daithi, “and if they were strong enough they would have hit us by
now.”
“This is how we’ll do it then,” said
Willow, “pull in your outriders, and we will rest for ten minutes. Then we will ride hard, directly to the
inn.”
“Sounds good,” commented Frankel, “when
we’ve reached the inn, we can set up some wards and with luck get some sleep.”
“Wards,” asked Buffy.
“Shields,” answered Aiofe, “similar to
the ones that you do, which will warn of anything approaching the inn.”
“Cool,” commented the slayer, “I’m
exhausted and could do with a good nights sleep.”
“Is that all you could do with,” asked
Willow, an impish smile on her face.
<You know better than that.>
<Just checking.>
The party immediately began a hard gallop
to the town, reaching it as expected just as dusk was falling. They rode up into the stable yard of a small
two-story inn named the Boar’s Feast and quickly dismounted, passing their
horses over to the stable boys. The inn
was a hundred year old timber framed structure with a slate roof. It could accommodate twenty or so travellers
and had facilities for their horses, equipment and other items.
Daithi and Frankel proceeded into the inn
in order to arrange for their stay while the others gathered what baggage they
would need for the night. The remaining
items would be left in the stables, under the care of the stable master. Just as they were approaching the inn’s door
Daithi came out into the yard with a worried look on his face.
“Problems,” asked Willow.
“They are full,” he replied, “absolutely
no room in the inn, so to speak.”
“What are our options?”
“Well we have three choices,” Daithi said
ticking them off on his fingers, “first we can ride on and hope for another
inn.”
“That’s out.”
“Second, we can bed down in the stables.”
“Benefits,” asked the arch-mage.
“Easy to secure,” he replied, “and easy
to defend.”
“Detriments?”
“No privacy.”
“What’s our third option?”
“Third, we can bunk down in the common
room,” replied Daithi, “it has the same privacy problem as the stables, it is
as easy to secure, probably more comfortable, but.”
“But?”
“But, we will be sharing with a number of
other travellers.”
<Buff, what do you think?>
<Stables, at least we will be with
only our group.>
<Ok love, stables it is,> “Ok
Daithi, lets go with the stables. Will
they at least feed us, and is there somewhere we can clean-up?”
“Basic country cooking,” he replied, “but
lots of it, they also have baths around the other side of the inn.”
Willow turned to the others and said, “Ok
folks, here’s the deal. They have no
room for us tonight, so we are going to takeover the stables. Grael, Amana, Bridie, get everything in one
place and set wards so that only the eleven of us can pass. Then join the rest of us for dinner.” Within the quarter hour Willow’s strike
force were all sitting to dinner, discussing the days events.
------------------------------------------
Deep within a darkened fortress, far from
where Willow and her party were enjoying their dinner, a demon master sat in
his operation centre reviewing the progress of his various demon offences. He was pleased with the progress of the last
two days, and knew that within a day or so he would have the capital city of
Maldorstat surrounded in siege. While
few of his armies had met their objectives, most were at least progressing
against the humans.
“Human scum,” he thought to himself,
“soon we will have all of you to heel.
Then we can begin our true work here.”
He paced about the room thinking about
the operational plans that he had been given by his masters, and how to use his
forces to accomplish those objectives.
He hoped that they could subdue Maldorstat quickly; he had additional
work for those troops.
He knew that he was out on a limb. He had accelerated his attack plans, well
ahead of the general demon offensive, due to the information that he had
received from his slaves in the human capital.
It gave him complete surprise over the hated humans, however, it also
left him short of reserves, since they would not be available through the
transfer portals for two or more weeks.
Every one of his troops was needed urgently, for several different
objectives. “Oh well,” he thought, “I’ll
just have to keep juggling the forces and hope that I don’t lose too many of
them.”
His reverie was interrupted by the
arrival of two of his slaves, one of them the quasi-human Hugh d’Torville and
the other, one of his company commanders.
He acknowledged their respectful bows with a nod of his massive head and
granted them leave to speak, “yes, what is it you have to report?”
“Grave news dreaded master,” began Hugh,
“Junulak here, our Northern approaches commander has returned with information
on those two strangers that the mages in Maldorstat were working with.”
“Yes,” replied the red-skinned demon
master, “must I wait forever for the information?”
”No lord,” replied Junulak. He was a two-meter high, blue-green skinned
demon with yellow eyes, no hair and two spiral horns jutting out from his
brow. “As you know, my company was
advancing on Maldorstat from the North-East.”
“Was?”
“Yes, my lord,” replied the company
commander, just beginning to sweat, “was.
As we were moving through a small valley, burning out the farmsteads, I
noticed two mounted humans ahead on the road.
I ordered a platoon to give chase and then gathered up the rest of the
company to follow.”
“The point, get to the point,” demanded
the demon master said impatiently.
“When we caught up to the platoon, I
noticed that they had been eliminated by a small band of humans, soldiers and
mages. There was only ten or so of
them, so given that I outnumbered them ten to one I attacked.”
“AND?”
“And they had created a force shield of
some type so that only ten or so of my troops could attack at once, and then,
just as we were beginning to make headway and wear down their dammed soldiers,
this woman went berserk and leaped into our ranks and began to attack us. Nothing we did could stop her. She killed or maimed over half my forces,
along with those cursed mages. Finally
the troops could take no more, broke off the attack, and ran.”
“Casualties,” asked the demon master.
“Of my one hundred and fifty soldiers,
one hundred and ten dead, thirty wounded and only ten functional.”
“Good Gods of Chaos,” said the demon
master stunned, “one woman?”
“From Junulak’s description,” continued
Hugh, “it was one of the strangers I reported earlier. As I said earlier,” he
continued, “these two are dangerous.”
“That is why I accelerated the attack,
and increased the attacking forces dedicated to the capital assault. It appears, however, that the reasons for
that attack slipped out of the capital where they were relatively safe and are
heading north into dangerous country, why?”
“My lord,” said Junulak, “I left eight of
my company to trail them. When I headed
here to report to you the humans were heading towards this small village,”
Junulak pointed out the town of Peters Forge on the situation map that
dominated one wall of the room. “It is
the only human habitat of any size within a day’s travel of where we attacked
them.”
“What forces do we have in the area?”
asked the master demon as he studied the map carefully.
“None, now,” replied Hugh.
“Pull back half of the troops dedicated
to the siege of the castle and send them after those impertinent humans,” the
master demon ordered, staring at the situation map with intense concentration,
and sudden realization of the danger he and his forces might be in.
“Master, that is over five hundred
troops. Why so many for a mere ten
humans.”
“Fools, do I have to spell out everything
to you,” he replied pointing at the map, “they are after the hell-mouth. They must know what we use them for, and
they might also think that they can do something about it. When are we due to start transferring
personnel through it?”
“Not till next week, lord,” replied
Junulak, stunned at the possibility that the inter-world transport network
which they had used for millennia could be tampered with, “with the
acceleration in our attack plans, none of the other battle groups were ready,
nor were the reinforcements from home.”
“Send messages to the other commanders
and ask if they can speed up their plans,” the demon lord answered, “in
addition, I want to send a messenger back through our transfer portal, to
inform the commanders back home. Third,
Junulak, I want you to take personal charge of capturing and disposing of these
pests. I do not have to tell you the
price of failure. Now go make your
plans, I expect you to be ready to leave in the next three days and I will want
to review them before you leave.”
Hugh d’Torville and the demon Junulak
immediately left their master’s presence to carry out his orders. Meanwhile their master returned to his
contemplations. He now had a
significant unforeseen problem to deal with, and reduced resources to use
against it.
------------------------------------------
On a pile of hay, which had been covered
with several blankets and comforters, lay four young women and a cat, knotted
together in a tangled pile. After
eating their dinner Willow, Buffy, Aiofe and Bridie had bathed and retired for
the evening. They had made brief, but
passionate, love - more out of need than true desire, and afterwards Aiofe and
Bridie had immediately drifted off to sleep.
Willow was not even close to being asleep. She had been thinking about the day’s events, her role in them,
and the extraordinary events surrounding Buffy. She turned towards her soul-mate and asked, <you still awake
love?>
<Yes, what is it?>
<Crazy stuff going on.>
<Yeah, but…>
<Oh, I don’t know, how are you dealing
with it?>
<Getting by, barely, I just wish we
had more time to get a handle on everything.>
<You ok with the initiation and
everything?>
<You did promise to make it special,
and boy did you deliver.>
<I’m worried about you’re little ‘fit’
this afternoon.>
<That is the understatement of the
evening, but maybe with time I will have more control over everything. At least I hope so. Why don’t you tell me what is really
bothering you love.>
<Am I that transparent?>
<Only to me, now give.>
<It’s just that everything is
happening so quickly. We are going to
have children, this mind thing between you and I. We feel everything the other does. When you were making love to Bridie I felt your climax.>
<Oh,> Buffy blushed internally,
<I didn’t realise.>
<It’s only when your barriers are
down. But that isn’t the main thing. I don’t know if, let alone how, I’m going
to close the hell-mouth. And everyone
is counting on me.>
<Ok, lets look at your fears one at a
time. First, we have eight plus months
to worry about the babies. As long as
we eat right, get the exercise we need we’ll be fine. People have been having babies for generations, and we have
excellent support here.>
<Yeah, the technological dark ages and
giving birth in the middle of a war, fun.>
<But, we have the advantage of three
excellent midwives, and our new healing abilities. And the war might be over by then. If
everything here becomes hopeless, we just
head home and have the babies there.>
<You’re right, I just wish we knew
more about how, and why, we became preggers though.>
<So do I, but we won’t figure that out
anytime soon. Now second, your
un-voiced fear, me.>
<I didn’t want to bother you with
it.>
<You know that nothing you do or say
can truly bother me now.>
<I know, but this is all so new.>
<To continue, I will be fine, trust me
Red. I admit this thing this afternoon
scared me, but I went into it willingly after all. Given time, we, and I do mean we, will work it all out.>
<I was worried that you’d blame me for
all of it. It wasn’t what I had
planned.>
<I’d never blame you love, besides,
the Goddess often has other plans for us than what we want. Now as to this mind thing, I think that we
are dealing with it just fine, for now.>
<Meaning?>
<Meaning that over time our shields
will get better, you and I will become much closer and we will develop the
skills to work both independently and collectively.>
<You’re right. Besides, the advantages
are better than the problems. After all
we are never alone now, I always know where you are, and if I try, I can hear
your heartbeat, and feel your emotions.>
<Exactly, now last, this business
about everyone depending on you.>
<The scariest part.>
<Wrong, love, the easiest part.>
<Say what?>
<The easiest part. No one has any idea about closing the
hell-mouths, so Amana and the others will agree with anything you come up
with. Second, given the prodigious
amounts of power you’ve been playing with I’m sure that you will figure a way
to seal the hell-mouth, even if you have to be so unsubtle as to dropping a
mountain on top of it.>
<Now that’s an idea I hadn’t thought
of,> Willow drew Buffy into an embrace and whispered, “love me?”
“I thought you’d never ask,” the slayer
whispered back as she ran her fingers along Willow’s side.
“Mmm,” the redhead purred, “that’s sooo
nice.”
“Shush, let me just move you a little.
Buffy reached under her lover and shifted her down the hay pile, away from the
other two women,
“I don’t want to disturb the others.”
Buffy then proceeded to kiss Willow
gently on the neck and shoulders while moving her hands around the front of
Willow to cup her breasts. She
continued to kiss her, while stimulating Willow’s nipples with her thumbs.
Willow took the opportunity offered to
cup the Buffy’s buttocks in her hands, she then began to use one hand to
squeeze gently while her other made soft stroking motions, moving between
Buffy’s clit, and ass-hole. While she
was doing this, Willow started to rub her clit on Buffy’s leg, which immediately
drew the attention of the Slayer.
“Bad, Willow,” she whispered, “didn’t
your mother ever tell you that self-stimulation leads to blindness?”
“Do you listen to everything your mother
told you,” quipped back the Arch-Mage.
“Obviously not. Now lets see what I can get up to.” Buffy slowly licked her way down Willow’s body, stopping briefly
to tease her nipples, finally reaching Willow’s already damp sex.
“I just love it when you are wet,” Buffy
commented as she began to lick and nibble Willow’s clitoris, while reaching up
to pinch each nipple, rolling them between her thumb and forefinger, and using
her remaining fingers to stimulate the rest of Willow’s breasts. Suddenly Buffy had an idea, <if this
works, we will have fun forever.>
<What, Buffy, what are you talking,
no, not talking, thinking about?>
Willow was beginning to lose control as
the various points of her body that were being stimulated were starting to have
the desired effect on her. Suddenly she
felt herself being penetrated by something, she was confused, she felt Buffy’s
hands on her breasts, her tongue on her clit, she could not figure out what was
penetrating her.
“Buffy, what are you doing, <how are
you doing it,> she babbled, slipping from one form of communication to
another.
“Just using a special type of magic on
you,” Buffy replied softly, “I’m using that extension thing I was working on
the other night.”
“Nifty,” exclaimed Willow, panting as she
did so, “what other surprises do you have for me?”
“Do you trust me?”
“Implicitly.”
Willow felt an invisible extension caress
her backside, separating her buttocks, and softly circling her asshole.
“Oooh,” she whimpered softly, “be gentle,
please.”
“I will love,” Buffy replied as she
continued her oral assault on Willow’s clitoris.
Slowly, almost teasingly, the extension
began to penetrate Willow’s sphincter.
Willow initially tensed her muscles, but as she grew comfortable with
the sensation began to relax them. As
she did so, Buffy thickened the two extensions and then began to simultaneously
thrust them in and out of their respective orifices. It was more than Willow could take. She climaxed violently, biting her tongue to keep from screaming
out in pleasure. As she had her orgasm
the barriers in her mind dissolved and Buffy was flooded with conflicting and
confusing images and sensations.
Once Willow had regained some of her
composure Buffy moved up her body and gave her a long, passionate, kiss. <Is the feedback I received from you what
you get when I come?>
“Basically,” Willow replied, tasting her
salty blood. “I think I hurt myself.”
“What did you do?”
“Bit my tongue to keep quiet.”
“Didn’t work,” responded Aiofe in a soft
voice, “you two are just so noisy.”
“Can’t two girls get a nights sleep
without distractions,” commented Bridie with an impish smile on her face.
Buffy turned to her lover with a knowing
look on her face, <shall we?>
<Yes, such impertinence deserves our
response.>
Turning back to the other two women Buffy
shouted out, “Lets get them!”
Aiofe and Bridie were suddenly seized by
unseen hands and pinned to the blankets.
Both Willow and Buffy jumped on the other women, Buffy on Aiofe and
Willow on Bridie, and proceeded to kiss and softly caress them, with
intermittent bouts of tickling. Within
minutes all four women were once again engaged in enthusiastic love making, as
tongues, fingers, and magic were employed by all in various acts of stimulation
and pleasure. Finally all four
collapsed in exhaustion, with very little of the night remaining. Willow summed up the thought of everyone
with “that was incredible, but boy am I going to regret the lack of sleep in
the morning.”
“We’ll just tie ourselves to the horses,”
replied an equally worn out Aiofe.
------------------------------------------
Later that morning, four exhausted women
presented themselves to breakfast. They
had stumbled out of bed at dawn, only at the insistence of Buffy. After completing their exercises, Willow
complaining that they had exercised enough in the night, they had bathed and
dressed before heading to the inn for breakfast. There had been one other event of note in the early morning. When both Buffy and Willow had woken up,
they had both immediately headed to the bathroom, were they were violently ill.
“I guess this just confirms we’re
pregnant,” Willow said as she finished ejecting the remains of her stomach.
“Joy.
Bliss. Happiness,” replied
Buffy, as she too finished being sick, “I’d heard about morning sickness, but
the reality is far more dreadful.”
Aiofe and Bridie were concerned when told
of the morning sickness, and offered numerous contradictory suggestions for
helping to ease the symptoms. Amana was
equally worried about the morning sickness, however, her suggestions were a bit
more helpful, “always keep something in your stomach,” she advised, “and avoid
the high fat content foods. In time you
will learn which foods you can eat, and when you can eat them. It will also pass once your body adapts to
the changes that are happening to it, in about three months or so.”
“I’ll be dead in three months if this
keeps up,” replied Buffy sarcastically.
They were once again eating in the same
room, which they had had dinner the night before. It was the inn’s common room and served as both a dinning area
and as a bar. It was furnished with
simple wooden benches and tables. A
large oak bar dominated the side of the room away from the door to the
stable-yard, and doors to the kitchens were beside it. On one wall was a large fireplace, and the
stairs to the inn’s rooms were on the fourth wall. It was a cheery room with several large windows and numerous
lanterns for lighting. The room was
about half-full, most of the inn’s guest having left earlier in the day.
Both women ate in moderation at
breakfast, confining themselves to fruit and dried toast.
“Bagels,” remarked Willow, “we have got
to get somebody who can make bagels.”
During their breakfast the party
conversed quietly on several, innocuous, subjects. Just as they were finishing up, Willow turned to Daithi, who had
gone into town earlier that morning, and asked, “ok, what is our situation, and
what news do you have for us?”
“First of all,” began Daithi, “the herald
network of message riders appears to be still functioning, so they have been
able to get some news here. However,
the news from the capital is spotty and incomplete, but this is what we
know.” He paused to take a sip of juice
before continuing, “it looks like the demon leadership in this area jumped the
gun.”
“How’s that?” asked Grael.
“There have been no other reports of
demon attacks anywhere else,” replied the guard captain, “activity in this area
has been light, with only sporadic incidents of demons attacking the outlying
farmsteads.”
“Consequences,” asked Frankel.
“Basically the farmers have fled to
town,” Daithi replied, “thinking that this will be over soon.”
“But,” asked Buffy as she idly toyed with
the remains of her breakfast.
“But,” he replied, “if they don’t get
back to the farms soon, the crops won’t get in, and we will face starvation
next winter.”
“That won’t really matter,” commented
Amana, “if this goes on till next winter, they’ve won.”
“Enough about far future speculation,”
Willow said, “we may not survive the next week, let alone the next year.” Willow suddenly received images from
Shadow-cat and thought “what is that cat doing now, letting me know how she is
hunting?” But the images were not the
usual ones of the cat stalking and killing its prey, or of it checking out the
various new territories and scents it had been exposed to. This time the images were of the kitchen,
and a number of scruffy looking people who appeared to be harassing the cooks.
<Buff, we have trouble in the
kitchen.>
<Again? What is it with kitchens.>
<Don’t know, but I’m going to check it
out, you keep things going here.>
Willow proceeded to move quietly towards
the kitchen door, while Buffy took up the conversation, answering Grael’s
questioning look with a shake of her head and a whispered, “later, Willow is
checking out a problem in the kitchen.”
Willow continued her stealthy approach to
the kitchen door, noticing for the first time that all of the serving staff was
missing from the dinning room.
Thinking, “this has the look of a robbery,” she paused by the door and
extended her awareness to link with her familiar. Quickly making sense of the cat’s jumbled images, she
concentrated on hearing what was being said in the kitchen.
“Alright then,” said one particularly
large and scruffy man who appeared to be the leader of the eight or so robbers,
“give us all your cash and horses, or we start cutting up your staff.”
<Buffy, get Daithi and yourself over
here. We have a robbery in
progress.>
Buffy motioned to Daithi to follow her
and soon the three of them were standing by the kitchen door conversing in
whispers.
“What do we do?” asked Buffy to Daithi.
“If they’ve got the staff as hostages,”
replied Daithi, “we have to be very careful.
Remember, you are not allowed to use your magic against humans.”
“But can we use it to protect the staff,
while we use conventional methods against the humans,” asked Willow.
“Yes,” he replied, “what are you
thinking?”
“That I’ll use a variation of my shield
spell to protect the staff, while you and Buff kick the robber’s butts right to
jail.”
“Sounds good to me,” replied the Slayer,
“shall we?”
Buffy kicked the kitchen door open and
yelled as she leapt halfway across the kitchen, “Everyone stand still or I’ll
kick your butt.”
Willow and Daithi followed Buffy into the
kitchen. They saw the inn’s owner being
held by two men, while a third held a knife to his neck. Three other men, all armed with short swords
and knives, had the remaining cooks and serving staff at one end of the
kitchen, while two other armed men were keeping watch at the kitchen door. With Buffy’s dramatic entrance everyone in
the kitchen paused, for just a second.
Willow had been prepared as she entered
the kitchen. As soon as she saw the
situation she called out, “Fuar bhalla!”
With that spell, a shield wall appeared between the hostages and the
three men who had been menacing them.
She then yelled, “all but one safe, take them out Buff!”
Buffy had brought with her the sharp
knife that she had been using at breakfast.
As soon as she gained her bearings, she threw the knife at the hand of
the leader, piercing his wrist. He
screamed out in pain and turned to Buffy saying, “Bitch, I’m going to chop you
into pieces for that.”
“I seriously doubt that,” Buffy replied
as she closed the distance between them and delivered a roundhouse kick to his
head. The kick propelled the bandit
across the kitchen, into one of the sinks.
“Let’s see what you’re saying if you ever get out of the sink.”
The kitchen exploded into general melee,
with Daithi and Buffy taking the fight to the seven remaining bandits. Buffy concentrated on the two still holding
the innkeeper, while Daithi went after the ones who were menacing the serving staff. Willow gestured to the cooks and serving
staff that they should leave the area, since they were now protected by her
shield spell. This would give more room
in the kitchen for Buffy and Daithi.
Buffy had by this point had almost finished disarming and disabling the
two men who had been holding the innkeeper.
<Buffy, two of them are making a break
for it,> Willow commented as she noticed one of the remaining men gesture to
the other that they should leave.
<Keep them around love,> Buffy
asked, <I’m still a little busy with these two.>
<No problemo,> Willow replied
thinking to herself, “a variation on my shield should keep them inside the
room. I’ll just block off the door.”
Buffy punched one of the men she was
faced with in the chest, which caused him to double over in pain. Just as he was about to raise his head she
grabbed a frying pan from a kitchen table and smashed it over his head,
knocking him out for the count, and joining his other comrade who was already
unconscious on the floor. “That’s three down,” she commented turning towards
the remaining two, “now for the others.”
“Let’s get out of here,” yelled one of
the men turning towards the kitchen door.
He ran towards the open door, and as soon as he crossed the threshold he
immediately bounced back into the kitchen, colliding with the other bandit who
was following him, since he could not see the shield wall that Willow had cast
in the open doorway. Both men ended up
in a heap on the floor, looking up at a very angry Slayer.
“Stay,” she ordered, “or you’ll get
hurt.”
“We’ll stay,” replied both
simultaneously.
“Willow, keep an eye on these two. If they move, kick their butts,” said Buffy
as she turned back to the kitchen to see how Daithi was doing. “Need a hand,” she asked the guards captain.
“No,” Daithi replied as he finished
disarming the last of the three men that he had been initially faced with,
“this scum is used to beating on un-armed opponents, when faced with skill they
crumple.”
“Well, not bad for a morning’s work,”
commented the slayer, “Daithi can you keep watch over this rabble until the
town’s guard gets here?”
“Yes,” he replied, “I assume that someone
has already gone for them.”
“That wasn’t what I was thinking though
you are probably right.”
“What were you thinking,” asked Willow.
“I’m hungry, let’s eat,” Buffy replied as
she left the kitchen to go back to finish her breakfast.
------------------------------------------
Just before noon Willow’s strike force
was ready to leave, albeit belatedly.
They had spent the balance of the morning being interviewed by the local
police, each of them having to give a statement. Buffy and Daithi were required to answer numerous questions
regarding the fight in the kitchen.
Before they could depart everyone had to promise to return the following
week when the magistrate would set the accused bandits down for trial.
“That’s if there is anything around next
week,” commented Willow to the group as they gathered their horses and prepared
to continue their mission.
Willow then turned to her mounted force
and said, “ok folks, the day is half gone, but the good news is that the
hell-mouth is only about three hours North-West of town. We have already arranged for rooms back here
tonight, so that is one less worry.”
Willow reigned over her horse and headed out of the stable yard with the
rest of the party following.
“We don’t know what the demon forces are
like at the hell-mouth, nor do we know the precise location.”
“What do we know?” asked Buffy, echoing
the thoughts of most of the group.
“Basically,” replied Frankel, as he began
to perform the task that he had given himself, “that this particular transfer
point has not been used that often by the demons. In addition, there has been historically little activity by
demons in this general area.”
“Hopefully,” continued Willow, “the demon
force that Buffy dismembered, literally, yesterday was the only major force in
the area, and therefore I will be able to do my job without any major
interference.”
During the conversation the group had
left the town boundaries and had started out on the northern road. After an hour on the road they came to an
intersection, the main road continuing north, with a badly overgrown secondary
road heading in the direction they needed to go.
“Why do I get the feeling that this road
is trying to tell us something,” commented Buffy as she examined the road that
had obviously not seen any traffic for days.
“You’re just a pessimist,” replied
Willow, “after all, we don’t know for certain that only demons live up this
road now do we?”
“I wouldn’t bet against it though,”
commented Aiofe dryly to her lover.
“Nor I,” Bridie replied.
“Pessimists, I’m surrounded by
pessimists,” said Willow as she turned her horse onto the side road, “Daithi,
you’re not worried are you?”
“Um,” Daithi replied choosing his words
carefully, “worried isn’t the word I’d use.”
They continued on the road for another
hour, with the road getting rougher and the undergrowth along side of it
thicker. Suddenly after going around a
corner in the woods the road widened and the undergrowth had been cut away
leaving a pleasant clearing.
“I think we should pause here and discuss
our plans,” said Amana as they rode into the clearing, “we need to get some
idea of how you plan to proceed Willow.”
<Here we go,> commented Willow to
Buffy as she paused for a moment to collect her thoughts.
<You’ll be fine,> replied Buffy in
encouragement, <remember what I told you last night.>
“You are right Amana,” replied Willow,
“it’s just that I’ve been formulating my plan and checking for problems before
I was willing to discuss it with everyone.”
“Are you ready to discuss it now,” asked
Grael.
“Yes,” answered Willow as she dismounted
and walked around the glade stretching her muscles. “My basic idea is to permanently seal the transfer portal. To do this I’m going to link with Aiofe and
Bridie and use them as anchors while I shift my awareness and attempt to
destroy the links and sources of energy that support the portal in the magic
realm.”
“Ambitious,” commented Frankel, “what are
your plans for the rest of us?”
“Simple,” replied Willow, “Buffy will
guard the three of us, while you, Grael and Amana will use your magic to keep
any unwanted nasty things at bay.
Daithi and the guardsmen will watch the horses and protect your, and the
other mages, back while you do your stuff.”
“Have you been able to get a fix on the
location of the hell-mouth,” asked Grael.
“I think so,” replied the arch-mage, “it should
be about three kilometres north of here.”
“No road,” commented Aiofe.
“Nope,” replied Buffy, “time to travel
through the woods. Someone bring the
pebbles?”
“Huh?”
“Don’t worry Aiofe,” said Willow, “its an
in-joke.”
Everyone took the opportunity to dismount
and stretch before heading into the woods.
Daithi and his guardsmen took the lead since they had the best chance of
finding paths and trails through the forest that would lead in the direction
that they needed to go. The others
followed closely behind, with Willow and the other mages using all of their
senses to attempt to find potential trouble, before it found them.
“Strange,” commented Amana after twenty
minutes of travelling through the dark, dense forest, “I’m not able to sense
any sentient creatures within kilometres of us. Could they be masking us somehow?”
“I don’t think so,” replied Grael, “I
think that somehow we happened to choose as our first target a sparsely
populated area, and an underused portal.”
“Let’s just hope this luck holds for the
rest of the day,” said Frankel, echoing the hopes and fears of the entire
party.
The reached their destination without any
incidents, with Willow bringing everyone to a halt at the edge of a clearing in
the middle of the forest. The hell-mouth
was an invisible, evil, presence that they could all feel located in the
precise centre of the clearing. The
mages were however, able to ‘see’ it using their ability to see into the magic
realm.
“We’re here, commented Willow needlessly,
with just a bit of apprehension in her voice.”
“Can we do this now, or do we have to
wait for a specific time?” asked Buffy as she swung out of the saddle.
“No,” replied Willow, “we’ll start as
soon as everyone has had a chance to eat, call it twenty minutes or so.”
“That will leave about an hour or so to
sunset,” commented Amana, “is that enough time?”
“Plenty, I hope,” answered Willow.
Within thirty minutes, everyone was
ready. Willow, Aiofe and Bridie took up
their place facing the portal and about twenty meters away from it. Buffy was with them, keeping a close eye on
the edge of the woods. Daithi and the
guardsmen had staked the horse’s reins into the forest floor, with two of them
watching the horses and the other two the remaining mages. Frankel and Amana had taken up a position
about ten meters behind and to the left of Willow with Grael on the other side.
<You ready love?>
<As ready as I’ll ever be.>
<Luck, knock them out of the park.>
Willow took the hands of the other two
women and began her breathing exercises.
Within minutes all three women were breathing using an identical
rhythm. As soon as they were
comfortable, they grounded themselves and prepared for Willow’s expedition into
the magic realm.
“Here we go ladies,” Willow called out,
“remember, no matter what happens, at least one of you has to hold onto me, or
I could be lost.”
“Don’t worry,” replied Aiofe, “we won’t
let you go.”
Willow took one last deep breath then
translated her awareness into the magic realm.
As soon as she did, she could see the hell-mouth for what it was, an
evil construct pulsating with malevolence, and sucking energy from the
surrounding area. “This thing is two
way,” thought Willow as she surveyed her surroundings, “they must use them to
transport energy back to their home worlds.”
As Willow was beginning her work, Frankel
noticed movement at the edge of the woods and he yelled out, “we’ve got
company,” as a band of twenty demons burst from the woods heading directly for
Willow and company.
“Got them,” replied Buffy as she moved to
intercept them before they could disrupt what Willow was doing. The other mages and the guardsmen all began
to fire missiles and spells into the demons, trying to keep them from their
target.
Willow meanwhile had begun to gather
energy into herself. She detached
herself totally from the real world, trusting that she would be able to use
either Aiofe or Bridie to return. She
focused the energy into the centre of the hell-mouth and yelled out “co-healal
dorrys!” The result was
spectacular. There was a titanic
explosion in both the real, and in the magical realm. Somehow, Aiofe was able to keep her grip on Willow as the three
of them were blown back twenty meters by the force of the explosion. The effect on the others was equally
dramatic with bodies both human and demon being blown in every direction.
As soon as she could regain her
equilibrium, Aiofe called out, “Willow, return to us, return to the ones who
love you.”
Willow slowly regained awareness of the
real world, sitting up, she shook her head and commented, “got to think of
something else for the next one.”
------------------------------------------
The effects of Willow’s spell were felt
far away from the hell-mouth. In the
demon master’s situation room the closing of the hell-mouth was instantaneously
felt, since all of the demons in the room immediately collapsed in pain. After a few minutes the demon master got to
his feet and yelled out, “Hugh, I want you here now.”
Running into the room Hugh replied, “Yes
lord, your will?”
“I want you and Junulak to leave
immediately and deal with those humans.”
“Yes lord, but may I ask why?”
“That damn human has figured out a way to
close a transfer portal permanently. If
she keeps on closing them, our existence both here and at home will be
threatened. Now leave me, and don’t
return without proof of their deaths.”