Genesis 2:19
Journal Entry 082 / 00843
Noren, Virta 09, 00843
There's a little temple near my home, belonging to a heretical little
sect of what is ostensibly the Catholic church, but not like any of
the Catholic churches I remember from when I was a younger man. I always
thought that churches were supposed to be near the people they served, but
this one was far in the hills of the Rocchodain Spinward ridge. A modest,
cylindrical structure that actually seemed to emerge from the hillside,
it had a flat roof except over the door, where a downward slope housed
one of the most beautiful pieces of stained glass I have ever seen. The
glow from it shone down by the unvarying sun into the space between the
priest and the parish without blinding either.
That's a better metaphor for science than religion, I think.
Someone deliberately burned it down yesterday. We still don't know who.
Although the temple invited people onto the scene who are investigating,
we're not accustomed to hate-spawned violence like this, especially not
out of sight of the almost omnipresent AIs. "Almost" being the operative
word. The temple was without AI; without power, actually. As close to
their god as they could get; even to get to the temple, you had to walk
nearly a kilometer from the nearest Sdisk to reach it.
I rode Laboratory out to the scene of the crime- it was a short ride,
although after the first hour my butt was telling me in no uncertain terms
that I hadn't ridden in a long time- Ouch! But I managed to persevere
long enough to reach the temple before lunch.
Almost two dozen people milled about the scorched building. Dress
clearly identified two as members of the investigative team, but the
rest of those there wielded hammers, saws, measuring tapes- all the
tools necessary to rebuild the temple as they remembered it. I looked
and saw that the stained glass window I had once enjoyed so much now
lay scattered on the floor beneath its former frame. The frame, made
from carefully crafted leadwork, hung down from the walls, melted and
tattered under the apparently intense heat.
Someone noticed me and pointed me out to another. I saw a tug on
the sleeve of the priest in charge here. Like almost all Catholic priests
he was both male and human. "Kennet Shardik," he called out. "What brings
you out here?"
"I heard about the fire, Father. I came to see for myself the damage
done." I dismounted from Laboratory's back and tied him a convenient
tree at the edge of the clearing before heading up towards the activity.
"Came to gloat?" he called back as I walked towards him.
"No, sir," I replied. "I came to help. I understand that you'll only
take honest sweat to rebuild your sanctuary. Well, if you can call my
shoulders honest, I'm willing to put them to work for you and yours."
He looked at me suspiciously, then finally nodded. "Well, if you want to
help, we can surely use it. First, we need the boards for the roof cut
down to size." He pointed to a Felinzi and a human who were measuring
several five-by-tens. "I think Shar and Anna can use your help the most."
"Then that's where I'll begin."
Shar and Anna turned out to be an amusing pair, really. They were very
clearly upset by the destruction of the temple but managed to keep a good
humor about. "It's not so bad," Shar said. "Place needed a good airing."
Anna laughed. "You just wanted an open-air church the first time we
built it!"
"You were here for the original construction?" I asked Shar, surprised. He
had measured out the piece he wanted for a suspension beam and set me
to sawing at it.
"Yep. Long time ago."
"Are you a member of the church?" I asked.
"Not in my wildest dreams," he said. "I'm like you and probably around
a quarter of the people here. Just hate to see someone else's home burn
down and want to do what I can to put it back together."
I nodded. I put the saw through the beam of wood. "There you go, Anna.
Five point two meters to the mil."
"Thank," she said, taking the piece and handing it up to someone
up around the stone rim of the temple, who began fitting it into the
circular scheme of the construction.
Her thanks sounded a little gruff to my ears. "What's with her?" I
asked Shar.
"Pedon is her bioparent. She's not a member of the church, so she's here
mostly 'cause she feels obligated."
"To who? Pedon, or to the church?"
"To her father, I guess. Why would someone who wasn't a member of the
church feel obligated to it?"
I shrugged my head and went on to the next piece Shar had measured for me.
"Dunno. Religion does strange things to people."
"Yes, it does, Kennet," the voice of Pedon interrupted my musings.
That explained Anna's sudden miff; she must have seen him coming. "It
succors the weak when they have nothing else, it strengthens the
downtrodden when there is no strength, it gives one freedom from death."
I tried to give Pedon a smile and didn't quite succeed. "We don't have
much in the way of weak and downtrodden on Pendor, Pedon. As for
death, well, Absolom's postulate hasn't held water for over a millennia."
"Then why are you here?" he challenged. "You have often positioned
yourself as an enemy of Christianity."
"An enemy of religion, perhaps. No one in particular has my enmity." I
turned my attention to the next beam to be cut, scoring a corner with
a small hacksaw before picking up the big manual saw to cut it to
size. "I'm here, Pedon, because this is a place of support for
those who feel they need it. I don't question the needs of others so long
as those needs don't unfairly impinge upon my own." I put down the saw,
placed my hands on the beam and looked at him. "I'm here because I'm
angry. This is a house. God's house, even if I feel god is an illusion
by those who need one bigger than themselves. It's a place where most
of the people working around us come together to share something. It
makes no difference to me what that sharing is. Someone burned down
a home. Someone put a big in a Pendorian community that clearly
worked." I resumed my sawing. "If nothing else, I'm here to send a
message. I don't put up with crap like that."
Pedon seemed a little taken aback by my long-winded explanation, but he
recovered. "Forgive me, then."
"For?" I didn't stop my back-and-forth sawing. Small flecks of wood
sprayed into the air around the bite of the saw.
"For my comment when you first arrived, the one about gloating. I had
no idea you felt this way. I was under the impression-"
I stopped. "That I would approve?" I snorted derisively. "I do not have
much ken to faith, Father; I find my wonder in the beauty of atoms,
stars, and the wonderfully complex creatures that live and swirl around
me. I apply raw skepticism to anything placed in front of me with the
word 'believe!' written across it." I went back to work. "Over the past
eight hundred years I have seen religion falter and fade, and that's as
I would expect. I'll not hide my earnest hope that we all outgrow a need
for a bigger than us all and learn to stand up to the universe
without fear or shame. But burning down the dreams of the faithful is
not the way to do it."
"The dreams have not been burned. It's just a shell."
"Yes, but it's your shell, Pedon. You'll recover, and I'll help
in that recovery. But let's be honest men, Pedon. This hurts. This is
complete eeyaich." (Editor's note: "Eeyaich" was a common slang in this
century. It is a slurring of the letters "E.H.," meaning "event horizon,"
the distance from a black past which nothing, not even light,
may escape.)
He nodded. "It is such a shame you don't have faith, Kennet. We aren't
the enemies of science. Indeed, we believe in the importance of science-
God has commanded us to know everything."
"Father Pedon!" a voice called from somewhere further down the hill.
"Tarim is coming!"
"Be right there!" he called back. "Excuse me, Shardik. Our glass expert
is here."
"Tarim Wain?" I asked, recognizing the name. He had been the artist who
had first crafted the stained glass. "I hope he can restore the damage.
That was truly a lovely piece in the roof."
"I hope so too." He departed, leaving me back to continue cutting.
The morning progressed along as expected. We did a good job of getting
all of the support pieces for the roof cut before nine, so by ten I found
myself walking along the stone rim of the temple, fitting the pieces
into place carefully. They all radiated from a centerpoint supported
by a column of wood. Despite the fire, the original column hasn't
burned very much itself, although the fire had destroyed most of the pews,
the altar, and the roof.
"Go down there and check on this piece, would you?" Shar asked. "It
doesn't look aligned right."
I nodded and climbed down the ladder, walking in through the front of
the temple (and over the now solidified droplets of lead that once held
the windows together) to the center. "It doesn't look right from here,
either," I agreed. "It's a little too far to your left," I said, pointing
up in Anna's direction. "Push it to the right and try to lock it down."
She gave it a small push. "More," I said. Another push. "Again." She
gave it a shove and it came loose from the support it was lying on-
and headed right down towards me! I reacted slowly- my muscles were
still sore from the all the work I had done already, and I didn't get
out from under it. I raised an arm to fend it off as I tried to run and
it clipped me on the bicep. Something went >crack<. I felt immense pain.
"Ken?" I heard a shout from above.
"Anna?" I cried back, holding my arm. "Call a doctor! I think I broke it!"
"You arm?" I nodded. "Hold still!"
In less than ten seconds several people had surrounded me as I slowly
dragged myself into a sitting position. "Oh, prag," I swore. "That hurts."
"Yep, that's broken," someone said. "Arms shouldn't hang like that." A
neural neutralizer found its way around my arm just below the shoulder
and the pain diluted from something blinding to just a dull roar that
made me know how bad it was.
"Kennet?" It was Pedon.
"Here," I croaked. "Hurt myself."
"It was my fault, Daddy," Anna was saying. "I shouldn't have pushed it
so hard."
"I shouldn't have been so stupid, standing underneath it like that."
"No one is to blame here," Pedon was saying. "Stop standing around," he
said to the gawkers. "We have much to do, and a doctor will arrive soon."
He looked down at the arm. "That must hurt."
"You have no idea."
"You're right. I do not. The neutralizer says that you are in more pain
than it can manage wholly."
"That's good," I said. "Stop me from getting cocky and doing more damage
to it."
It was less than five minute before P'nyssa arrived with an assistant. I
managed a smile. "Hi, sweetheart."
"I can't believe you're still conscious," she admitted, looking over my
arm. "You must be in terrible pain."
I chuckled. "You know, people reading the Journal Entries are going to
think I'm accident-prone."
"You are accident-prone. This is going to hurt. Brant, pull."
She didn't lie. It did hurt. Worse than the uniform. I must have blacked
out for a moment, because the next time I looked down at my arm it
had a shiny new shell of white, rigid plastic around it. I also had a
brace around over the shoulder of my healthy arm, and a belt around my
waist. "I had to isolate the shoulder. Try not to move it too much, Ken,
and it'll heal just right in a day or two."
I nodded. "Thanks, love."
Her eyes reflected her concern for me. "You're so good with machines,
Ken, but when it comes to simple stuff you are clumsy and accident-prone."
"Really?"
"Really," she said, nodding her head. Those solid yellow eyes had tears in
them. I kissed her and tried to make them go away, and she held me close.
"That could have hit your head, Ken."
"I'm glad it didn't. Brains tend to work best in the original container."
She laughed. "Gross! That's disgusting! Your sense of humor didn't break,
at least."
"Nor yours." I hugged her back as well as I could. "Thanks for the fix."
"Should I stay? Is there anyone else who needs help?"
"You are welcome to stay," Pedon told her. "We can use more hands."
P'nyssa sighed. "Now that I know he's going to live, I have my own work
to attend to. Some other time, perhaps."
By the time evening fell the beams we'd been working had set into place
and the entire roof had been covered with a large plastic sheet to keep
out the rain. People inside had managed to sweep out the remains, and
although the floor still bore the burns and scars of the night before it
was still a church. All of those who had helped that day remained to watch
the service, even if many of us remained in the back and just watched.
Anna stood next to me. A lovely-looking human girl, with on
dark skin, bright eyes and an incessant smile except when her was
around, I still couldn't figure out what she got out of all this. So I
asked her, quietly, while we sat and watched.
"I turned my back on my father's faith a long time ago," she said. "But
not on him. I do love my Dad, even if I think he's a bit of a fruitcake."
"Why?"
"He's a member of the Genesis 2:19 Group. It's so far out of Catholic
Mainstream I don't even know if he's on the Pope's roster."
"Which pope?" I asked.
She smiled, giving me a dazzle as she did so. "Good question. Anyway,
Genesis 2:19 is where Jehovah gives Adam the commandment to name all
the animals. It's the only commandment God gives that has nothing
to do with avoiding or redeeming sin, and so my father's church believes
it to be the most holy of commandments. To know the name of everything,
to really know everything, is a holy cause."
"Sounds like a harmless enough heresy. I could even subscribe."
"I suppose," she shrugged.
"So what do you do?" I asked. "And why are you on Pendor? I thought
Pedon was a visitor."
"He is. So am I. But we've been here so long I guess I've gone a little
bit native. Might end up walking the Hall- something he desperately
doesn't want me to do. Considers Hallwalking to be a major sin, turning
my back on God's design for me and all that."
"You wouldn't do it just to dis him off, would you?"
"Not my style. I'll do it if it's right for me."
I nodded. We watched as the platen with the wafer was passed around; I
let it pass me without comment, as did Anna. Pedon looked visibly upset
at her refusal, but he passed on. "Hic non est tua mensa," I said softly.
"Excuse me?" she asked.
"Latin," I said. "'This is not your table.' A play on the phrase 'This
is not my table.' Back before there were churches, Christians used to
meet wherever they could. Priests would say, 'This is not my table'
when they believed someone at the table could not receive communion, for
whatever reason. It was left to the people at the table to decide who was
the interloper, and what to do about him. Now, it is we who refuse the
priest despite his desires. We no longer welcome his food at our table."
"You sound sad."
"Whenever something passes from this world, even faith, there should
be some sadness." I watched as he moved from fen to fen. The looks on
their faces, the anticipation before hand, the relief-- or pleasure--
or whatever, just made me wonder what it was that they got out of this
rigamarole. It didn't make sense to me. And I knew, without rational
explanation, that it never would. I had my own faith- in myself, my
loved ones- that made all this seem insignificant to me.
She nodded. The room was crowded, and her body was pressed up against
mine in a way that, under other circumstances, I might not have found
disquieting. But here, it felt odd. Inappropriate. It also seemed that
she was doing it deliberately as a way of gaining my attention.
"Go with God," Pedon said, closing the ceremony. We slowly shuffled
out, passing the four people who now stood around the Temple. After the
last of the participants had shuffled out, Pedon closed the doors
with his hands, crossed himself before the closed doors. As he walked
past me, I nodded to him. "We will find who did this, Father."
"I pray you do," he said. "And I ask you to be merciful when you do."
I watched him lead his crowd down the hill on foot. I waited a respectful
time before heading over to where I had tethered Laboratory. He had
stood calmly all day tied to the tree, but then since under his hide he
possessed a stainless steel frame and a fusion heart, he was hardly in
any position to complain. As I hoisted myself onto his back, Anna's now
familiar voice said, "Going anywhere interesting?"
"Home," I said to her. I pulled on the reins and headed in that direction.
"P'nyssa?" I asked as walked into the house. "Aaden?" No answer. "Dave?"
"I am here, of course," the AI reported calmly. "What happened to you?"
"Church fell on me," I said jokingly. I reported the to him,
leaving out nothing. In the end, I even told him about Anna.
"Sounds like an eventful day. You will be happy to note that we have
determined that whoever burned down the building is a Satryl, male, and
young. I'll have a DNA match on fur he left at the scene in the next
couple of hours. Even if he isn't registered, somewhere down the line
his are."
"Thanks, Dave." I settled back into the chairbag lying on the floor.
Essentially a loose sphere filled with gelatin, it conformed to my body
shape and let me sag. I felt as loose-limbed as the thing underneath
me, exhausted.
"P'nyssa has arrived. Aaden, I suspect, will be home much later. He is
conducting a flight-training exercise tonight."
"Ah," I said, remembering hearing my love mention that this morning. The
door opened up and I waved. "Hi, love."
"Hi!" she said. "Glad to see you made it home in one piece. Take an SDisk,
or did you ride?"
"I rode," I sighed. "And yes, it hurt." I turned to my left to rise from
a kneeling position. It's really the only way to get out of one of those
chairs. Gave her a hug with my good arm.
"I'm surprised you made it home. Didn't you get any offers from some of
those charming churchgoers?" she asked with that mischievous tone she has.
"Actually, yes. But I turned her down." I shrugged, then winced. "I
can't write worth a damn with my left hand, you know. Looks like I'm
effectively out of commission for a couple of weeks."
"You better not be out of commission," she murred to me, her voice
developing that odd purr that I've long known to recognize as the sound
of heat.
"You surely don't expect me to... "
She nodded. "I've been at work all day, Ken. You've just spent the last
couple of hours doing nothing at all, I imagine, with your arm like that.
I expect you to perform, sport."
With a grin and a wink, I played the wounded party. "Do I have to?"
"No, you don't have to. I'll just go into the bedroom, by myself, and take
out one of those smaller dildos you own, and I'll put it someplace I know
you want to be." She caressed my cheek with her mitt, letting it slide
down my healthy arm to take my hand. We dropped down into the bedroom. I
started taking off my clothes. "Let me help with that," she offered.
She took my off, stroking my bare chest with her mitt. "Oooh,
so smooth," she said, making me a little self-conscious about the fact
that not only was I in the minority as a human, but that I didn't even
have any chest-hair. I had trouble growing a decent beard. In a world
where the term hair care was virtually synonymous with decent hygiene,
the fact that I didn't have a lot sometimes bothered me.
I helped her out of her one-piece jumper, taking as many opportunities as
presented themselves to me to play with her breasts. My opinion of her
breasts changes with the wind-- they're comfortable breasts, soft and
with a slight hang, neither small nor large. She says they're larger
than average for a Tindal her size, and sometimes my eyes tell me the
same thing, but not often enough to matter.
My fingers closed on her nipple and she moaned softly. "You like that?"
"Mm-hmm."
"Hmm," I said in investigation. "Normally, you're not much into your
breasts."
"I don't know what it is. Recently I've been getting very turned on when
they're played with." She brushed my hand away so she could touch them
herself. "What do you think it is?"
"I think it's gorgeous," I sighed, kissing her cheek.
"So," she said, "Would you like to fuck me where I have something in
common with Aaden?" She giggled when she said it. P'nyssa's appreciation
of anal sex was something else that had started only recently. I was not
normally one to complain about such privileges, but to be honest I had
enough butt from Aaden. Still, it wasn't something I got all that often,
and she has a gorgeous ass. I agreed.
We fell into bed. Actually, she fell into bed. I eased myself in to
take care of my wounded arm. She took advantage of my weakness to take
advantage of the situation, cuddling up to me and closing her mitt about
my cock. "Aww, you're not hard yet."
"Keep that up and I will be soon enough." Even as I said it, I felt
warmth flooding my cock as it grew heavy. Under her skilled fingertips,
I soon had a rampant erection.
"You have a pretty cock, Ken."
"'Pretty?' Is that a word you normally use to describe penises?"
"Yours," she agreed as she leaned down to take it into her mouth in one
gulp. I gasped, my fingers twisting at the bedsheets. Rings, she's good
at that. With her, it's like her mouth is shaped around my cock. Every
millimeter of skin feels touched by her mouth, her tongue, the back of
her throat. I stroked the black tangle of hair on the top of her head,
minding the ears (I didn't have enough brains left to tickle them the
way she likes). She stroked my cock with my mouth, making it even harder,
if that were possible. My hand slid down the side of her body, reaching
underneath her to fondle her breasts.
She moaned as I gently pinched her nipples again. She wiggled against the
bedsheets as I played with her, waiting for her to tire, as she always
did. P'nyssa rarely had the strength to finish me completely to orgasm.
That usually fell to me.
She did, but not until after she'd pushed me pretty damned close. I
twitched against the bed with desire, wanting to come and yet not even
close enough to think about it. "Wow," I sighed, "I wish you did that
more."
"I wish I had the jaw to do it more. I don't understand how you and Aaden
can go at it for an hour like I've seen you do." She slid up against me.
"Doesn't your jaw start to hurt?"
I slid down the other way, between her thighs. "You learn to ignore it.
It's not as important as the cock in your mouth." I kissed her mound
and she cooed, a go-ahead to continue. "Or the pussy."
She giggled, parting her legs wider, allowing me in. I was oddly bent over
as I nuzzled her cunt. I finally pulled my legs underneath me, sitting
cross-legged and bending over to lick from her mons down, over her hood
and her clitoris. "Yeah," she sighed. "Oh, yeah." Her mitts came down
between her thighs to hold her lips apart, granting me even better access.
Her has a sweet flavor that I've never found anywhere else. I
can't describe it-- we have a woeful language for describing taste--
but it tastes like I imagine the wines in the afterlife might smell. The
thick, interlocking tangle of indigo fur that covered her parted
under our combined influences and her thighs tensed and relaxed as I
licked directly over her clitoris in the demanding pattern she enjoys
so much. "A little harder," she gasped. "Like that, yeah," she said as
I focused my tonguing down to just over her clitoris, a rapidfire direct
assault that P'nyssa really liked.
"Yeah, morrrre..." she groaned as I licked her very hard, locking my lips
around her mons veneris, pressing so hard that my tongue was almost numb.
No other fem I've ever slept with likes oral sex as hard as P'nyssa does.
The back of my tongue started to ache. She tensed, and I could see
the muscles in her belly pulling up into tight rings as she started to
come. I pressed hard as she thrashed into her orgasm, waves of pleasure
shaking through her as I finished her off. "Oh, wow," she gasped.
I looked up at her through the now unkempt tangle of fur that covered
her mons in layers. "Good?"
"Yeah, very." She reached down with one mitten under my arm to pull me
towards her.
"Ouch." My shoulder ached; I had been in an unnatural position for quite
a while and it had been hanging painfully while I'd been there. "I'm
glad you liked it."
"You still have to fuck me in the ass," she murmured.
"Then I need a hard-on."
Her mittens did the work this time, and very soon she had me as hard
as stone. Turning over onto her knees, she reached for her vibrator
and pressed it up between her thighs. I crawled around behind her,
looking down. "You've got a beautiful ass, Nyss," I sighed. She does,
too. It's round, and from this angle looks a lot like an upside-down
valentine heart done in indigo fur. Her cunt, still damp from her climax,
winked at me. I stroked it gently with my fingertips, penetrating her. She
moaned softly, the sound coming clearly over the soft hum of her vibrator.
I pressed my lips softly to her asshole. "Mmm..." she groaned. She
likes that, if not as much as Aaden. I licked around her delicate in circles, caressing her, seducing her to open up to me. I could feel
the muscles underneath her flesh twitching, relaxing. My tongue pressed
deeper, actually penetrating her for a few millimeters before got back
up to a kneeling position. With my one hand, I dripped some lubricant
from the ever-full bottle onto my cock and her hole. "Ready?"
"Go slow," she gasped. The vibrator was clearly doing its task
well. I bent my cock down to her (even though she's only about
ten centimeters shorter than I am, it really shows during sex. Her legs
seem much shorter than mine) and pressed downward. I didn't have to go
that slow. Between my tongue, her relaxation from her previous orgasm,
and the distraction of the next one coming, she almost didn't react to
my cock as it slid into her asshole.
By Osiris, sometimes I forget how good this feels! Her wrapped
around me, a warm yet somehow dangerous sensation, as I plunged down
deeper into her. I slid in cent after cent until I was into the hilt,
her asshole gripping the base of my cock. We moaned simultaneously with
the feelings we were both getting. I had her filled, and she had me held.
I made very slow strokes with my hips, watching my cock go in and out
of her butt, feeling the soft caress of her fur against my thighs with
every press. The sound of the vibrator hum dropped a few tones as she
pressed it harder against her clitoris. "Harder," she gasped.
That's not something I normally hear from her during anal sex! I gave
her what she asked for, though, filling her asshole over and over with
the length of my cock, leaning over slightly and resting my good hand
on the headrest to hold me up, allowing the curve of my hips to exactly
fit the curve of her buttocks, moving just my hips to fuck her hard. She
was so tight, and there's something about her ass that just feels hotter
than anyone else I've ever made love to.
I started to lose a little control. I wanted, and she had what I wanted. A
loud moan, a long groaning "Ohhh!" of pleasure came from as she climaxed
once more. I could feel her entire tightening up around my cock,
giving me even more pleasure than before. I was so close, I couldn't hold
back. She had me wound up, so ready to explode, when I came I literally
saw stars before my eyes.
I slid out of her a moment later. She gave a more traditional groan as
she turned over. "Whew."
"Thank you," I said gleefully as I leaned over and kissed her. "That
was great!"
Her yellow eyes glittered. "You're very welcome. We should go clean up."
I nodded. As we walked into the bathroom the shower started up as of
its own will. "Thanks, Dave," I said, appreciating the close attention
he gives us always.
As we got into the shower and I spread liquid soap all over her buttocks,
she asked me "So, what happened between you and that fem at the church?"
"It was Pedon's daughter. While I normally don't object to having sex
with beautiful, large-breasted fems, there was just something about her
I didn't like." She started soaping me up as I spoke. "She seems to have
wanted me just to make her angry. I decided to stay out of that."
"Good reason," she said. "Turn around." I obeyed and she began soaping
up my backside. "I showered before leaving Cutters, but it looks like
you've still got the whole day on you."
"Pretty much," I agreed. "Yeah, so I came home. Snubbed her hard. Glad
I did, though-- making love to you is much more preferable."
"Especially when I give you what you like so much."
I laughed. "Well, I get enough butt from Aaden. I actually like vaginal
sex, too, y'know."
"I know. But sometimes when we make love that way your balls get in
the way of the vibrator. And I like the full feeling I get. It's so
different."
I kissed her cheek as I rinsed off. "I know that well." The water
turned off and the fans came on, drying us off. I shook my hair out,
then helped her brush her fur as the winds raged around us. She yawned
wide as I rubbed her down. "I'm ready for bed."
"Me too," she agreed. A few minutes later, slightly missing Aaden,
I was passing into sleep next to her warm and lovely body.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
The Journal Entries of Kennet R'yal Shardik, et. al., and Related Tales
are Copyright (c) 1989-2000 Elf Mathieu Sternberg. Distribution limited
to electronic media not-for-profit use only. All other rights are reserved
to the author.
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