rickgriffin

Symmeran Wastes 6

Added 2022-03-13 18:33:12 +0000 UTC

Whoops I wrote some more to this story. Mainly wrote this part so that the next few could focus harder on the Falix/Ayrsir stuff. Comments appreciated!

Falix had indeed promised to teach him to write so long as she could get the approval of her colleagues—which Ayrsir asked about again, but Falix promised next time he was out there she’d definitely explain that part. So after sharing a meal together and discussing more minutia, mostly regarding the various functions of Falix’s mobile caravan, as well as details on how Ayrsir or others typically went about their everyday business, the sun was getting low in the sky, so Ayrsir had to make his way back home in order to show off the proof that Falix had agreed to be his mate. Even with the buffeting winds on the way back, Ayrsir managed to return back to the Cleft just as the sun touched the horizon.

He presented the gift of the golden chain to Cariphan and two other elders, with it scarlet thread tied up in a bow.

“There, you satisfied?” Ayrsir said. “She agreed! I think she’s definitely more than passingly interested the people.” As usual, Ayrsir tried very carefully to never say anything that was outright untrue.

“Well I can certainly tell this was fashioned by mortal hands, at least,” Cariphan said, inspecting the gold in the dimming overhead light. “It is more traditional to make it a cowl, or some other fabric.”

“She had none to spare,” Ayrsir said. “Alas, all the riches of the outer lands, but the wilderness provides few coverings and little shelter. Tragic, almost poetic.”

“It is the way of Domour,” the elders agreed—in a way, chastising Ayrsir for expressing the fate of things without invoking Domour’s will.

“I hope you don’t mind if I keep this for a while—” Cariphan started to say, but Ayrsir immediately snatched the chain out of his paws.

“I’m sorry, that is untraditional,” Ayrsir said. “It is to stay with me in my tent as witness to my mate. I am not suggesting one revered such as yourself might use this as an underhanded way of stealing a mate—”

“Such things are unknown to us!” the elders chanted.

“—indeed, so let us be certain they remain unknown,” Ayrsir said. “We have these traditions for a reason, after all!”

“I only ask because of the unusual nature of this arrangement,” Cariphan said, clasping his paws. “If this strange metal were to pose some threat to the people…”

“Domour will protect us,” Ayrsir said. “And if he should send punishment, it should be on my tent alone. I would not put the Elders in such danger.”

Cariphan gave Ayrsir a long, steady look, as if sizing him up. Ayrsir knew what his next argument was going to be. Even though the official doctrine was that the evil magics of the outside world could not harm the Children of Domour inside the Cleft, he always suspected the elders weren’t quite so certain about the absolute nature of that Edict. They’d want to inspect the gold closely, and Ayrsir really didn’t want them to take too close a look at it, lest they decided it was too alien of a—

“Very well.” Cariphan said, standing up straight.

“You don’t—what?” Ayrsir’s ears flopped aside. “Wh… you’re not going to argue?”

“You are correct in this instance, I cannot make you give up the gift proving your pairbonding,” Cariphan said. “Please, go, take it with our blessings, we are satisfied enough for now.”

Ayrsir returned the chain to his pouch. “Well… okay, but just so you know, I may be gone for a moon and a few turns. Falix has things to… show me.”

Some of the elders smirked. “Would be the first time since your mother, I suppose.”

“Now hold on, I am doing this in part to be in Domour’s good graces,” Ayrsir told them. “The life of sin is behind me. I am mated to a female now, and will soon put the strange lusts of my youth behind me.”

That wasn’t technically a lie either, even though Ayrsir had all intent of humping Rohomes into the bed that night. He was going to be gone a while, after all, and this might have been his last chance. But he would be leaving behind the strange lusts of his youth… at some point, given he would not longer be young in a few more years.

“As you say before Domour’s ears,” Cariphan said, and bowed. Ayrsir bowed his head lower, and the other elders nodded in their agreement before leaving him to return home. Rohomes returned not long after, to find Ayrsir tying the chain around the corner of the bed post.

“I can’t believe that demon agreed to this,” Rohomes announced, immediately pulling off his cowl and armbands to climb into the bath basin of used water.

“Hush!” Ayrsir said, greeting his friend with a kiss. “Apparently this thing is not unknown to her people.”

“This deception isn’t going to go on forever.”

“No, indeed it shouldn’t,” Ayrsir said. “I still intend on claiming that my mate has abandoned me. Maybe then it will be prudent for the elders to stop pressuring me to find another.”

Pulling off Ayrsir’s cowl and hanging it up, the two climbed into the basin together, and as their routine, scrubbed each other down with particular care made to the undersides of their paws; cleanliness was especially important in the desert, lest the skin between the heels or the toes dry out and crack, and it was not particularly easy to walk on sand with open sores.

This was the standard practice, but Ayrsir always found it aggressively intimate. It was merely an extension of family bathing practices for the same reason, as a mother would wash her kits the same way. But basins were not particularly large, and two adult mysa barely fit inside one together as it was, mostly to keep the water line raised to their waists. Ayrsir always found his legs awkwardly tangled under or over Rohomes’s, their testicles bumping and rubbing against one another as they shifted about. Trying to lift their legs to scrub with the bristle brush, they would slide up into each other, slipping, laughing. It often evolved into groping and kissing. Though as Rohomes had pinned Ayrsir to the side of the basin, and the water sloshed and threatened to escape from them, Ayrsir looked up to his friend.

“I’m…” he stared. “Going to be gone for some weeks.”

Rohomes’s expression fell. “You said you would be back most nights.”

“I am, this is just to start. I would ask you to come with me if you could…”

“That would… the elders would not allow that.” Rohomes pulled away and crossed his arms on his side of the tub. “And it’s something they would notice. I have no excuse to leave like you do.”

Ayrsir noticed that Rohomes was glaring at the chain around the bedpost. His ears drooped.

But Rohomes’s ears perked. “Isn’t the heat approaching this moon?”

“So far as I recall, yes,” Ayrsir said.

“Does she know?”

“I… don’t know. She didn’t ask.”

“She is going to become disgusted with you.” Rohomes said. “You’re going to accost her in the madness of heat. And you saw how fearful she was when you struck with your knife, she is not going to remain so patient for five days of heat.”

“Well maybe it’d be best if she did,” Ayrsir said, quietly. “I know, Rohomes, this can’t last forever. If I drive her off, maybe… it’d be better that way.”

“And what am I going to do in the coming week?” Rohomes asked. “I have no mate.”

“Many of the elders have none, either.” Ayrsir said. The female half of the clan on the other side of the Cleft was rather sparse in its population lately, as death in childbirth was sadly common. “They manage.”

Rohomes snorted.

“What?”

“Ayrsir, you’re such… you rub harshly against Domour because you think it will grant you wisdom, and yet your eyes remain shut.”

“What am I not seeing?”

“I would not speak of it.”

Ayrsir’s ears fell, and he got to his knees, and kissed Rohomes on the mouth. Rohomes didn’t respond, but neither did he push away, and with some more coaxing, he wrapped his arms around Ayrsir and pulled him in close.

“Domour help me…” Rohomes muttered. “Why am I so attached to the thought of you?”

“It’s love, Rohomes.”

“It is not love, it is lust.”

“So what if it is?” Ayrsir insisted. “It does not stop me from loving you so dearly.”

“I wish we could do this without the carnal sin.”

“So do I, but if Domour will not grant us that—”

Rohomes put a finger to Ayrsir’s lips.

“Sorry,” Ayrsir said. “I forgot.”

They climbed out of the basin, and sat to eat with one another as the dry air pulled the water away from their fur, and once having eaten and dried off, they climbed under the blankets of the bed together, for the night was growing cold quickly.

“Ayrsir…” Rohomes whispered as though someone were listening. “I’m going to miss you.”

Ayrsir pulled his friend closer, kissing and nibbling along his neck and ears. “And I you. But I need to go and see the world from the outside. I have to know if there’s something missing.”

“I know. I just… wish things didn’t have to change.”

“I’m sorry. I have to do this, lest they don’t.”