Chapter 52 – Teller of Fate

Teller of Fate

Sixth Movement: The Fate of Stars

Chapter Fifty-Two

* * *

The first thing Jane became aware of after the dwarf did his magick was the feel of softness all over her body. The second was the sound of purring on her left.

She opened her eyes to dimness and a flickering fire to her right.

It was still; peaceful.

Jane turned her head, reflexively bracing for the twinge from her side. There was none. Experimentally, she tried rolling toward Erahndira.

No pain! She felt her injured side. Gently at first, then more firmly, she prodded the parts that had hurt the most.

Nothing.

She rolled over and laid an arm across Erahn’s almost hairless tummy, stretching her right leg along her lover’s furred one, and hugged her tight.

The cat-woman’s head was turned away, her exposed ear folded tight against her head. Jane leaned up and blew softly into it. It popped fully open and shivered.

Jane giggled as quietly as she could, both hands over her mouth, shaking and huffing in little spurts. After she quieted, the former Custodian tried something else. She reached up and laid a hand on Erahndira’s left breast. Slowly, she began to knead it, rubbing and then pinching the nipple.

Jane was rewarded with a moan, more like a growl, from Erahn’s throat. Jane felt the rumbling with her forearm.

Erahn’s head turned, and her eyes opened just a slit. When she saw Jane’s smile, she smiled, too. Saliva coated enamel caught the light of the fire between full, blue-gray lips. Whiskers shivered.

Erahn rolled on top of Jane without a word. Hands came up and threaded themselves into Jane’s hair.

Her mouth descended, soft lips covering Jane’s. A tongue gently probed her teeth, which parted eagerly. Their tongues met and wrestled gently. Teeth and lips pinched, bit, and sucked.

The mostly bare flesh of the cat-woman’s trunk was now pressed against Jane’s own skin. Sweat soon lubricated the join and her lover began sliding side to side and up and down, just a little.

Jane’s breathing became longer and deeper. Responding to the pressure of one of Erahn’s knees, Jane’s legs parted.

One of the Miu’s hands descended and a padded finger slid along her labia from bottom to top, drawing a shudder form Jane.

Her lover began working the former Custodian’s clit with feather light switches of her thumb while fingers gently stroked and probed her vulva. One, then two fingers poked into her vagina. At first only a little way and then farther and more quickly as Jane became wetter. Then in and out faster.

Erahn’s fingers were thicker than most men’s. Two of them and Jane felt well a truly fucked.

The human woman began moaning into Erahndira’s mouth, as the heat began building, spreading from her cunt to her belly and halfway down to her knees. Moisture slicked her inner thighs and ran down to the sheets. Her face and upper chest became hot.

Erahn began to punish her clit as she felt her lover’s orgasm approach.

Jane reached around the Miu, grabbing handfuls of the coarser fur on her lower back. Her pelvis lunged toward the fingers fucking her over and over. She broke the kiss and bit Erahndira’s softly furred neck. Muffled by flesh, Jane howled as the waves of pleasure pulsed outward from her crotch.

Too soon, the ecstasy faded.

With a shuddering sigh, Jane let herself go completely limp. Teeth marks were visible through the short, fine hair she’d sucked on in Erahn’s neck. She’d not broken the skin.

Her lover settled to one side again, embracing with arm and leg, and kissing cheek, neck, and shoulder.

Jane, sweaty and weak as a kitten, was also tingly all over.

It felt glorious.

Turning away from her Miu lover, Jane looked toward the fire and saw the elf, Dævara. The latter was seated on the far side of the round depression that held the circular couch, naked and reading the Incunabulum. Jane just stared in wonder for a while. She’d first read Dæv’s story as a child; it was one of her favourites. And there she sat; a fantasy come to life. But she was an elf. In fiction, Jane was quite fond of them. In life, her family had a long, contentious history with the Fæ.

Dævara had a small notebook and stylus on one side. As Jane watched, she placed a finger on the Book and made a note.

After a time, the elf seemed to sense the look. As she finished making the note, she looked up straight into Jane’s eyes. Her smile had nothing but warm affection in it.

Jane was discomfited meeting those scarlet orbs. Her familial distrust of the Fæ was at odds with what she knew of this particular one and the picture this elf had presented in the hours since she’d met her. Not one to harbour prejudices, she decided to confront this one and try to learn better than her kin had taught her. It was also, she could admit, a chance to get to know one of her childhood heroes.

She rose from the bed.

Erahn murmured a question to which Jane responded in the affirmative. Together the two of them approached the fire.

Dævara’s smile was radiant when they came over. “Greetings ladies.” Her voice was muted to comfort the sleepers scattered around the room. “Will you have a drink with me?” She closed the Incunabulum and placed it on the notebook, then reached behind her to a cut crystal glass half full of an amber liquid.

“Is that scotch?” Jane asked. She climbed down and sat on the elf’s right before the answer came.

Erahn sat next to her lover.

“No, ‘fraid not. ‘Tis good Irish whiskey. I can get scotch for you, I can.”

“Irish’ll do,” Jane answered. Dævara’s charm, seeming completely unfeigned, was quite disarming. She found herself warming to the elf.

“And you, luv?” addressing Erahn. “Will you have a glass with us?”

Erahn nodded, smiling herself. “I’ll drink with ya, ya.”

Dævara filled two tumblers with two fingers each of whiskey each and handed them over. She topped up hers as well.

As Erahn accepted her glass she said, “Name’s Erahndira. We never were introduced properly.”

“Dævara Tatharsdottir, Teller of Fate,” she bowed her head slightly. “You can call me, ‘Dæv,’ if you like. All my friends do.”

“You can call me ‘Erahn’, ya.”

Dæv responded with a warm smile.

“Have you any food?” Jane asked. “I’m starving, for some reason.”

“Certain I do!” Dæv reached behind her again and produced a plate of roast chicken, still lightly warm.

Jane’s mouth flooded as the aroma hit her. Accepting the dish with unseemly haste she grabbed a chicken breast and began devouring it.

Erahn and Dæv each helped themselves to a bit, leaving the bulk for the former Custodian, who cleared the plate in moments.

After wiping her face and mouth with a damp scented cloth, Jane downed half the whiskey which, despite not being scotch, she found excellent and declared, “Much better now.”

Soft laughter echoed her smile.

Close to, Jane found the elf’s colouring fascinating. She’d pictured it in her mind countless times, but the reality outstripped her imagination by a mile. Even in the dimness of the fire’s light, her skin prickled with silver. Pale blue accented the hollows of her skin. Her pubic hair was short and thick and the same pastel shade. Even the nails on her wee feet and hands had the palest blue tinge to them.

The hair on her head, loose now, was the deepest red, but the threads of gold in it shone even in the low firelight. Her arched eyebrows echoed the same.

Jane had always wondered at the discrepancy twixt collar and cuffs.

She asked about the dim light and was told that the glass of the suite was opaque. “I thought everyone could use a bit o’ darkness, I did.”

The City Without a World was quiet. Jane reflected that everyone must be waiting for an attack, but none knew by who or what or when. It made for a tense time. There were many questions Jane could have asked, but none would have left her feeling any better. She decided to keep things light.

“So, why is it that your pubic hair doesn’t match the hair on your head?” she asked.

Dæv gave her a look that must have been unfeigned shock; wide-eyed and open-mouthed. Her scarlet eyes shifted to Erahn and back sever times.

They all three erupted in giggles. As their mirth trailed off, the noise of someone moving in the dark came to them.

Dævara placed a hand to her lips and said, “People are sleepin’, they are!” She spoke lowly, merry eyes dancing. “Let’s not wake ‘em.”

Still grinning that enchanting smile, the elf responded, “It’s been that way ever since my change, it has.” She looked down and began plucking at her short pubes with thumb and forefinger.

“I imagine you have to trim it, to keep it that short.”

Dæv looked up. “No, I don’t. It never gets longer, it doesn’t. No sideburns, either.”

Erahn asked, “Sideburns?”

“Yes, look.” With no indication of self-consciousness, the elf put both feet far apart on the couch. Indeed, there was no hair growing on the outside of her outer labia. Her vulva itself was a deep blue; almost a match for the tone of Erahn’s pussy, in fact.

Jane looked up to find that Dæv was staring at her, an impish grin on her face. The elf turned the look on Erahn, who had leaned over Jane’s thighs for a closer look. The Miu laughed, but softly.

“It’s not rough, like the pubic hair of some women, either. Have a feel.”

Jane could see the mischief in the elf’s eyes, clear as day. She was flirting! ‘Seriously?’ she asked herself. Maybe a little, but mostly it had to be just play.

Jane took the dare.

As she got closer, the intoxicating scent of the elf’s pussy lightly perfumed the air. Shocked once again, Jane began salivating at her close view of the elf’s cunt. Chubby outer lips parted just enough to reveal the slightly wrinkled folds of the inner, glistening with moisture. A sudden urge to lick that dark blue vulva bulled its way to the forefront of her mind. Her own sex began to tingle. She was sure the flush of her cheeks must be apparent.

Dæv’s pubic hair was all of a length, maybe half an inch and soft as down. Jane tentatively stroked it with her fingertips. Again, she was reminded of Erahndira. She turned to her lover, “Come feel, Erahn. It’s as soft as yours.”

Grinning her toothy smile, Erahn moved closer. Kneeling by Dæv, her hand joined Jane’s on Dævara’s pubis. “Oh, very soft, ya. Not so soft as mine, though.”

“I don’t believe you, I don’t. Lemme feel, woman. Stand up.”

Erahn obeyed, smiling, sharp teeth glistening in the light. Moving close to Dæv, the cat-woman stood, legs slightly apart and pelvis thrust forward. Jane could see her substantial inner lips poking out beyond her modest outer ones. They, too, were wet and added their perfume to Dæv’s. The elf reached up, fingers down, and felt the blue-black fur on Erahndira’s mound with her palm. “Almost as soft, it is. Not quite, though.”

“What?!” cried Erahn softly, mock outraged at the slight to Miu womanhood’s honour.

She sat on Jane’s knee, placed a hand on her pubes and the other on Dæv’s. After a few rubs, “You’re crazy, ya! Mine are clearly softer than yours.”

Dæv reciprocated, rubbing herself and Erahn. “No, no woman, it’s you who’re daft, y’are!”

Just then, Jane saw Dæv’s hand ‘slip.’ Her narrow fingers skimmed along Erahn’s clitoral sheath. The Miu caught her breath as the elf took the reaction as permission to begin wiggling her index finger side-to-side.

Erahn closed her eyes and pushed her crotch forward, inviting rougher contact.

Dæv began to oblige when the Miu’s fat ridged thumb pushed down over the elf’s emerging clitoris and buried itself to the knuckle in the former’s vagina. Dæv’s gasped and threw her head back, but not so far that she lost contact with the other’s pussy. Soft moans of both women drove Jane most of the way to her own orgasm. After giving herself service for a while, the former Custodian decided to play as well.

Jane moved out from under Erahn, interrupting the mutual pleasuring episode and spread her own legs wide.

Both women stopped and looked at Jane’s crotch. They looked at each other.

Dævara said, “I don’t see any hair at all, I don’t.” A hint of wicked smile painted the corners of her lips,

“Me neither, ya,” Erahn answered. “She said she had it ‘waxed,’ whatever that means.”

“Feel it, you two. Then tell me who is the softest.”

Both women complied.

“’Tis soft, there’s no doubt, there’s not.”

“Smooth skin, ya. It’s not fur, though,” Erahn tried for stern when she looked at Jane; she almost made it.

“It’s softer than your fur, admit it.” Jane said.

“I’ll have to test that with me tongue, I will.” Dævara knelt slowly, never breaking eye contact with Jane.

Jane wanted to stop her but felt a passivity in the face of the elf’s advancing mouth.

Shining blue, cupid’s bow lips parted, and a pointed tongue emerged, making serpentine movements over Jane’s clitoral hood that sent thrills over her skin and made her button throb. As Dæv got closer to Jane’s womanhood, she had to raise her large, ruby eyes to meet those of Jane. That subservient look aroused like nothing Jane had ever experienced. She could feel her excitement trickle down her over her anus. Jane could actually smell her own sex and wondered how powerful it must be to the elf.

Not once did Jane recall her generational distrust of the Fæ. She was in love with Dævara all over again. This exquisite creature was seconds away from giving a pleasure of a magnitude Jane was now sure she had never experienced before. She could no longer deal with the delay.

Placing her hands firmly on the back of Dævara’s head, Jane firmly pulled that mouth to her vulva.

Dæv’s lips and tongue touched Jane’s inner lips as the former’s nose brushed against her swollen clit. That’s all it took.

Jane’s orgasm erupted.

Mindful of the sleepers, the former Custodian jammed her forearm across her mouth, clamped down on it and screamed, bucking her hips over and over, slamming her sex against the elf woman’s eager lips and tongue.

As the ecstasy subsided, Jane flopped back on the couch, shuddering and tingling all over. Her hitching breath slowed as her heartbeat stopped pounding in her chest. Waves of now diminishing pleasure continued to flow from her pelvis. She felt like she was floating.

The former Custodian heard Dævara’s voice as cool hands caressed her inner thighs, “Have I overcome your distrust of elven kind?”

Jane lifted her head, so surprised was she. She thought she’d hidden her prejudice well. “You know about that?”

Dævara’s smile, coming from between Jane’s legs, was warm. The skin of her lips and chin glistened with the evidence of Jane’s ecstasy, as the elf’s hands continued their caresses. “Yes. I also know that our kin from Scotland are of a different mind to the Irish Sidhe. Mortals have trouble, with the Scots elves, so I have heard.”

Jane nodded, “We do.” She looked directly into Dæv’s eyes and saw the gold flecks in them. “You’ve overcome any dislike I might have harboured.”

Dævara’s smiling lips compressed and her eyes crinkled, “Good.” Her voice was hoarse. She stood, pushing Jane gently to the couch, lay down on the prone woman. Skin softer than she ever thought possible slid along her own. Small breasts tickled then pressed more firmly to her own.

In yet another unanticipated move, once Dæv’s head was level with Jane’s, the elf kissed her.

Dævara’s mouth had the caramel taste of whiskey mingled with the citrusy flavour of her own sex. Her lips, firm and softer even than they looked, teased in a most exciting, expert way. Jane, still high from her orgasm, felt the speedy build up to another. Her lips parted at the request from the elf’s tongue.

The meeting of tongues was a beautiful waltz. Jane lost all sense of herself but for the dance and the renewed tingling in her nethers.

Jane finally broke the kiss with, “I want to taste you, Dævara.”

The elf smiled wider. “Erahn’s not had a turn, yet.” Both looked at the cat-woman, who was a bit along the circular couch past their feet.

Erahndira was slouching, knees spread wide, working her own pussy with one lazy hand while she watched them. Her eyes crinkled and her whisker-ends witched up shivering up as she became the focus of the pair. She made to kneel in anticipation of her task, but Dæv, hopping lightly off Jane, stopped her with a hand.

“Nay, love.” The elf proceeded to lie on her back, taking care to move the Incunabulum, notebook, and stylus to the ground near the firepit. Looking up at the anticipating Miu, she said, “Climb aboard,” and stuck out her wagging tongue.

If she were surprised, Erahn hid it well. Moving swiftly, the Miu straddled Dævara’s face and settled her crotch onto the latter’s mouth with a deep growling sigh.

Jane took her chance. Flipping over, she lay face down along the couch until she was mouth-to-slit with the elf’s pussy.

The heady aroma perfuming the air drove all thought from her. Hearing the beginnings of her lover’s arousal, the former Custodian dove.

The elf tasted like honeyed liquor.

Jane lost herself in taste, texture, and smell. One hand wrapped around the elf’s white, velvet smooth thigh, the other stretched along Dæv’s abdomen, playing with first one breast then the other, squeezing, stroking, and nipple tweaking. Soon both were hard, the areolas wrinkled and swollen.

The elf’s tummy began to rise higher as longer, deeper breaths signaled her pleasure.

The first sounds happened in moments, as Dævara moaned through a mouthful of cat-woman pussy. Jane realized that she was perilously close to another orgasm herself.

The elf’s tummy began twitching rapidly. Jane hand left off squeezing a thigh. She buried two fingers in Dæv’s pussy to the hilt, pushing up hard against the rough mound of erogenous tissue she hoped was just behind Dæv’s pelvic bone.

Jane heard her lover growl, but as quietly as she could. She looked up to see the cat-woman’s head thrown back, hands to her breasts. Close they both were.

Jane came for the third time without so much as touching her own sex, bucking her hips against the soft surface of the couch. She heard Dæv’s muffled cries as the elf’s orgasm hit, her moans in syncopated rhythm to Erahndira’s.

A timeless instant later it was over.

Jane lay her head against Dævara’s thigh and savoured the afterglow.

When Dæv began to move, Jane slowly levered herself into a sitting position. Dæv snuggled up to her, Erahn quickly completing the elf sandwich. For minutes, the three women just cuddled, casually stroking arms, hands, thighs.

Finally, Dæv spoke, looking back and forth between the lovers. “So, friends?”

Jane and Erahn each answered with a fierce hug.

Jane felt the friendship of these two women, a soothing balm. The dread of the immediate future had gone. ‘Let death come,’ she thought. ‘I will meet it in the company of friends and lovers.’

* * *

As more whiskey was drunk, the conversation turned to that dreaded future. Jane wondered aloud why Dæv needed the Incunabulum.

The elf sipped her whiskey before answering, “How much d’ya know about what’s in the Book, Jane?”

“I was taught how to read it in childhood. I know the main part of it is—spells, I guess they’d be—ways of performing various things. The end seems to be instructions in how to use something. I’ve only read a bit of that; it didn’t make much sense to me. There’s a large section at the beginning that I’ve never looked at. My father said it was dangerous and useless for most things.”

Dævara looked intently at her while she spoke, nodding occasionally. When Jane was done, Dæv said, “The beginning’s a detailed set of instructions on the construction and consecration of a Syrat, it is. The ending’s a series of lessons teaching how the Syrat can be used for both the Telling and Causing of Fate. The middle section’s not spells, as such. It’s layouts of the cards and what they mean.

“This—” Dævara placed a hand on the Incunabulum—“is a book concerned entirely with the Syrat.”

“Why does everyone think it’s so dangerous, ya?”

Dæv turned to Erahndira. “When one reads it, the letters change for a time, the spells change along with that, and a bit of Reality changes for good, it does. If one is not careful, it can destroy or kill.”

Erahn’s brow wrinkled. “I don’t understand, ya. What d’ya mean the letters change?”

Jane interjected, “A while ago, I spelled the Book to stop the letters changing. I knew it wouldn’t last. I just wanted to give the Thief—your father, that is—a bit of a shock. When Erahn looked at the Incunabulum, the letters didn’t move because of that spell.”

But Dævara was shaking her head. “You can’t put any spell on this Book, you can’t.”

“But I did.”

The elf placed a hand on Jane’s. “I’m not doubting you, sister, but the spell wouldn’t work, it wouldn’t.” The word ‘sister’ made Jane blush. She felt honoured.

“You,” she addressed Erahndira, “read from this book and the letters didn’t change?”

Erahn nodded. Jane contributed, “I saw it myself.”

Dævara picked up the Incunabulum and handed it to Erahn. “Open it. Read. Jane, you’d best close yer eyes.” Jane did so.

She heard the book open and heard the gasp from Dævara. The elf spoke words in a language Jane almost understood. ‘Must be Gaeilge,’ she thought. “Erahn, you mustn’t take your eyes off the Book for a minute.

“Jane, you can look, if you like.”

Reluctantly, Jane opened her eyes. The Incunabulum was open across Erahn’s knees. The page was covered with dense lettering, red and black on yellow parchment, in complex patterns. None of it was moving. Jane could read the book, of course, but only a few characters at a time and only after years of training. This was disconcerting.

“Erahn, you can close the book.” The Miu did so.

Jane turned to Dæv, puzzled. “How?”

The Dævara’s eyes were wide; her lips pressed together and curled up at one side. “Dunno. My father said something about the Miu having an odd relationship to time and space. Maybe this is part o’ that.”

Erahn’s brow was wrinkled. “What happens when ya look at this book, ya?”

“Like Dæv said, the letters move and change when they’re looked at,” answered Jane. “The change in the letters causes changes in Reality.”

“Why?” Erahndira asked.

Jane, “I don’t know. There were a lot of theories, but…”

Dævara said, “The characters the Book is written in are part of a language called Kazhi, they are. It was forbidden by the Templars. The Syrat uses the same language, it does. The individual letters are powerful talismans. Extra-Pleroma magick tied them to parts of Reality. When the letters change, so does that bit of Reality tied them. The Ancients called this kind of connection ‘Quantum Entanglement.

“Kazhi was never intended to be tied down on a page. The Syrat was engineered to make the letters safe to use; cards, rather than pages of text. When the letters are altogether on a page, they squirm and try to get off, they do. They don’t settle down unless pinned by a gaze. Without the proper training, there’s no predicting what the final change will be. This, the Ancients called ‘Quantum Uncertainty’.”

Jane listened, fascinated, to Dæv’s explanation. On her world, Quantum Theory was only two centuries old. She and John had studied it as a routine part of their education. In a few minutes, she had learned more about the tome her family had sworn to protect than had been learned in ten generations. She couldn’t wait to tell her brother. “How did the Incunabulum come to be written, if the letters behave the way they do?”

“’Tis a puzzle, it is.” Dæv looked at Erahn. “At least, it was.”

“Why did you bargain your Syrat for this Book?” Jane asked.

Dæv sat for a moment, staring at the fire. Finally, without looking up, “No one knows the origin of the Syrat. The Templars deny having anything to do with it and I believe ‘em, I do. I also know that because the Templars banned Kazhi, they’re not the makers of the language.” She turned to them. “That—” she pointed to the Incunabulum still in Erahn’s lap—“maybe older even than they; and I want whatever answers it has, I do.”

“You set in motion the events that led to the theft,” Jane said. She felt no acrimony; she merely stated it as fact, wanting the elf’s response.

She met Jane’s gaze directly and spoke. “That I did. I didn’t know at the time what method my father would choose to get it, nor did I know where it was. But I’ll tell you straight, even had I known his methods, I’d’ve done nothing different, I wouldn’t.”

Jane shared the glance for a moment more and then reached out a hand and placed it over Dæv’s, resting on her own thigh. A smile from the elf and everything was good.

The moment was broken by the unmistakable sound of John. He was waking. Jane got up and moved toward the mattress they’d laid him on. The others followed.

John was stretching. He looked up as Jane crouched to one side of the bed. Before he could speak, she pulled him up into an embrace. She was trembling with relief. She’d feared something had been broken in his mind by the rough possession of the Wanderer in the Wastes.

He returned the hug for a moment, then, “Jane, why am I naked? Why are you?” He gently pushed away from her. In his dark eyes Jane could see that it was him; whole and sane. He had that crooked smile he always got when he didn’t quite know what was going on. He looked behind her and saw the other two. “Aaaaand they’re naked too. I missed something fun, didn’t I.”

Gentle laughter all round. “No, you didn’t,” from Jane. Erahn arched an eyebrow and Dæv laughed openly.

“What’s the last thing you remember?” Jane asked of John, but he was still looking at the others. No, just at Dæv.

John’s mouth now hung open; his eyes stared. He was hopelessly bewitched. Sensing this, Dæv stuck a pose and, smiling like an enchantress, began caressing her waist, hips, and thighs.

The elf had spellbound another.

“John?” she nudged her brother.

“What?” he looked back at her, finally. “Sorry, what did you say?”

Jane heard a snigger from Erahn and a throaty laugh from Dæv. Trying to keep her expression serious, Jane said, “I asked what the last thing you remembered was.”

His brow furrowed. “A man—I think it was a man. Tall and lean, tanned. A place where big…balloons? …got sucked into a hole. A dream, I guess. Before that only trying to get to the Manor. There were thieves after the Book.”

“He’s no memory of the hurt done, Jane,” said Dævara. “That’s to the good, it is.”

John looked up at Dævara, a look of polite inquiry with just a touch of lust on his face. Jane made introductions and the three of them filled him in on what was happening.

A heavy sigh signalled the immanent awakening of Elian Kneecapper. In minutes everyone was up even Bradwold, who must have sensed the stirring of the others.

Only after light clothing was donned and breakfast eaten did the one person who’d missed the night’s adventures make an appearance.

The Templar came into the suite without ceremony. He was the immediate center of every gaze. “We must prepare,” he said. “We only have a few hours until the White God comes.”

— Gideon Jagged
Innsmouth, August 2026

© Gideon Jagged
All Rights Reserved