Teller of Fate
First Movement: The Birth of a Teller of Fate
Chapter Seven
After spending a day looking for Dævara—and failing, the old elf resumed his research on her home world. He didn’t look for her again until he’d completed it.
Dævara was at the home of Tathar’s friend Golradir, in bed with him, his mate, and two others he knew slightly. All of them were nude.
A damask curtain over the only window reduced the perpetual light to a memory of itself, dimming the white room. There was enough illumination make out the five of them, sprawled on one another like kittens, breathing deeply and slowly. The twisted knot of the bed sheets lay mostly on the carpeted floor.
After Tathar theatrically cleared his throat, Dævara raised her head from Siofra’s breast and, craning her neck, saw him.
She greeted Tathar with a smile that could have melted granite. Her eyes literally glowed. She wiggled out from under Gol and hopped lightly onto the floor.
With no warning whatsoever she bounded toward him, jiggling most unnervingly, and leapt into his arms.
“Good mornin’ to you,” she giggled up at the look on his face. The laugh deepened and ripened when she felt his reaction to her along her belly. “Anythin’ I can do for you?” she asked, head tilted to one side, her expression defining mischievous gaiety.
Tathar found himself on the verge of telling her exactly what his first reaction prompted. He overrode the impulse quickly.
His expression must have given him away; her left eyebrow rose, and her smile drooped just a fraction. “Okay, then. Let’s go flyin’, let’s do!” Without a pause to find, much less gather clothing, she sped from the room.
Tathar tore his gaze from the doorway—and his mind from the memory of an exquisite backside—and turned to the bed.
No change. No sign any of them had even noticed his presence, or Dævara’s absence for that matter. He sighed.
“Tath, are ya comin’, then?”
He turned to see her head poking around the doorframe. The brighter light of the hallway lit the cascade of deep red, threaded gold that reached from her brow halfway to the ground.
“Come on!” Without waiting for an answer, she blew him a kiss and ran laughing down the hall.
“Dævara, wait! Where are your clothes?” He bounded after her, catching her up just as she reached a wide veranda overlooking the forest.
Dævara stopped when she reached the trellis and turned, “Dunno. I haven’t seen ‘em since yesterday, I’ve not.” She laughed merrily at the look on his face.
Turning quickly, she made three passes in the air before the woodwork of the barrier before her, muttering words Tathar wouldn’t have thought she knew.
The branches withdrew from in front of her, forming an arch that opened on nothing but the air.
‘Oh, she’s in a fey mood!’ he thought, smirking inwardly at the play on words. Aloud, “Who taught you that, child?”
The elf woman had taken a step back in preparation for her leap. At his question, she stopped, turned, and gave him a look as stern as someone in such obvious good cheer could give. “Child, am I? Have ya trouble with your eyes, man?”
Dævara took a deep breath, lifting her arms. She ran her fingers through her hair, head tilted back. As she exhaled, her head came forward, piercing Tathar with a gaze that had nothing of mirth in it. An old, old smile came to her face as her hands slowly ran up her flanks and ended with each cupping one of her small breasts. A small frosted blue areola capped each. She bit her lower lip, a look of naked hunger in her eyes.
As her left hand rose to stroke her neck, her hips cocked left. Her head tilted right, as if inviting him to bite her where her finger tickled. Her eyes slowly closed as her right hand descended to the tuft of pale bluish hair growing from her Venus Mount.
Fingers splayed, the heel of her hand brushed the hair, the third and fourth fingers curling. As they disappeared between her legs she moaned, once more tilting back her head.
Tathar’s laugh seemed to startle her. “Alright, woman. You’ve made your point.”
Her former mood quickly returned, and she giggled in turn. “Are you flyin’ with me, then?” She held the pose, fingers still buried in her pussy, knuckles flexing as she continued to pleasure herself.
“No, I—” He never got a chance to finish.
With another merry laugh she stepped back, pausing to lick the nectar from her fingers, swung both hands above her head, and with a whoop leapt backward off the ledge.
Tathar cursed and jumped after her.
⁂
Dævara arced out and away, headfirst. The wind of her descent slammed her arms to her sides. Eyes barely open against the force of the air, she saw the trees around her. Below, one of the branch cities was fast getting closer.
She arched her back slightly and was flying past the city, coming close enough it seemed as if she could reach out and brush the bark of the branch.
She twisted her body to her right and dove away from the tree and out into the space defined by the nearest trunks. She was giddy with the thrill of the experience.
Like the lovers she’d taken in the last few days and…well, everything else since her rebirth in this world, flying was a glorious sensory revel.
Air driven past with gale force furrowed the skin of her paps, tummy, and thighs like the fingers of a sadistic masseur. The air chilled Dævara to the marrow, forced her limbs to splay behind her. The wind pushed its thumbs into her eyes, squeezing tears out. Her hair flogged her back.
It felt wonderful.
Concentrating on small muscles in her upper back, she visualized the symbols she’d been taught and pulled out of the dive. Slowing not at all she levelled out, curving ever so gently to slide to one side of a tree. It was no smaller than the one she’d been living in, but such was her speed it passed a handful of seconds.
The newly born elf arched her back more sharply this time, swung her arms out and bucked her hips. Her flight turned into a spiraling ascent. She bled speed. Her rotation slowed and stopped.
Dævara now hovered, panting, and looking at the world around her. Every inch of skin tingled. The air seemed warm now.
Reaching out with senses she’d been unaware of only days before, she could feel the life in the trees, see it throbbing in the very air.
She turned to regard another flock of those glowing white birds, noting with surprise that they had neither heads nor tails, when Tathar tumbled into her, knocking the wind out of her.
They spun around, out of control, each trying contrasting things to slow their wild spin.
Instinctively, Dævara twisted toward the larger elf, meaning to hang on to him. He, however, was changing his grip at the same time. The result was she ended up with her right hand on his crotch and the other in his hair, while his left ended up squeezing one of her buttocks, the right hovering just over her left breast. She removed her hand from his head and firmly pressed the latter against her.
His palm was hot against her nipple. “D’ya mind, luv? That one’s cold, it is.” Again, that impish grin she couldn’t resist tugged at her eyes and mouth. Finally, their rotation began to slow.
Tathar laughed, “You do behave like a child sometimes, Dævara.”
“That I do.”
“How did you manage to master flight so quickly?”
“Golradir taught me.”
“He should’ve known better. How did you talk him into it?”
Through her grin, “I didn’t use my mouth for talkin’!” Then her mirth got the better of her again.
Tathar muttered something she didn’t catch about it taking time to teach, or something. More loudly, “How many tests did you manage before this?”
“Tests? What d’ya, mean?” her good humour stilled for the moment.
A concerned expression dominated Tathar’s face. He asked, “Have you tried this before now?” His hazel eyes held actual fear.
She shook her head. “Why?” Suddenly, she felt a chill.
“Dævara—” he rearranged their limbs, so he was holding her close. Into her ear, he whispered—“most fail to stay airborne when learning for the first few times. It takes a while for etheric wings to form and mature.” They were now still in the air.
She squeezed her guardian tight. “I’ve worried ya, haven’t I.”
Tathar pulled away until he was facing her. She’d been teasing him before, but she realized he really was quite handsome. A great affection, part lust, part gratitude for the care he’d given her, welled up. Suddenly, she was ashamed of having caused the pain she now saw in his visage.
His look softened into a smile. “No harm done, Dæv. You’ve mastered flight in record time, it appears.”
“So, I’ve wings now.”
The old elf glanced over her shoulder. “You do. They won’t be visible to mortals, but they’re present now.”
Then she saw his wings. Much larger than she thought such things would be, they were all but transparent, flickering through the colour spectrum as they flapped too fast to make out clearly.
Tathar appeared to master himself and began. “Are you at all curious why I came after you?”
“I thought you’d changed your mind, was all.”
“I don’t mean out here—” he indicated the air around them, —“I meant to find you today.”
“I thought you might’ve missed me, I did.”
“I did, in fact; but no. I came to find you to tell you what I’ve learned about Scorn.”
Author’s Note
This chapter is the emotional heart of the story, for it is here that Dævara is truly born. I sculpted it while listening to a song. Though it has another name, I will always think of it as Dævara’s Song.
— Gideon Jagged
Innsmouth, July 2026
© Gideon Jagged
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