Arete led the way through the tall whiskery grass. The stems slapped against her muscular thigh as she mowed the trail with her body. She had the scent. The following is a bit of alternative fiction based on certain characters from the Xenaverse. It is not meant to infringe on anyone else's rights. If you don't agree or disapprove, please go read something else.
Arete led the way through the tall whiskery grass. The stems slapped against her muscular thigh as she mowed the trail with her body. She had the scent.
Well it wasn't really a scent, though that was how she was interpreting what she was feeling. She didn't smell it, but she felt the line of the earth's force tugging her, pulling her. The tall woman followed the trail like a hound, with that same kind of anxiousness to find her target. Kalai was just a long for the ride.
She followed close on the heels of her lover. Where the grass touched the blonde's thigh, it came almost to the brunette's waist. She had a finger hooked onto her wife's belt and was almost, but not quite running; as was Iovene, who for once was shocked silent.
All she'd made was one suggestion and suddenly they were on the move. Well, that wasn't entirely true. She'd been trying to explain, for about an hour, the concept of lay lines and how she dowsed. They'd listened with arms crossed and stances wide. They even nodded their head once in awhile, but Kalai and Arete were a tough audience. It wasn't until she started relating what she did with the rod, to the way a hound searched, that one of them got it.
It had been a joke. Arete had grinned and said, "Oh, so you just sniff the air and wander around till you've got the scent." After a long one sided conversation with Iovene, they'd finally gotten her to agree to let them speak for themselves by threatening not to help.
The frazzly woman shook her head. This was harder than she thought. She wasn't used to explaining what she did or how she did it. She just set about her way and there it was. Her face made several different kinds of expression. "Uh, actually it's not a scent. It's a feel." She placed her hands on her hips and grimaced at them. For people so close to the elements, they sure were hard headed. "And I do NOT wander around. I go in specific directions. I get a feel for the direction." She'd sighed in frustration. "Look, just try. Close your eyes," Iovene closed her eyes and squinched her face, trying to demonstrate what she was talking about, " and feel it."
The blonde smiled wider, showing bright straight teeth, "Oh so you FEEEL it." She dropped her hands to her side, closed her eyes (still in the manner of a typical Amazon jokester) and had squinched her face exactly like the curly brunette's. Iovene speculated, that at that moment the idea was all that was needed, because green eyes abruptly popped open and the grin had disappeared.
And now here they were, practically loping down a hill to Gods knew where. Iovene cast a glance at the sky and checked her inner compass. Amazingly, they were headed in the right direction.
They found the problem spot by almost falling into it, though there was no opening. The sinkhole wasn't very large, but it was a very apparent dip in the earth. Kalai was the first to speak, "That doesn't look good."
Arete crouched and touched where the earth had fallen down. She felt a kind of tingle that still flowed through her shoes and up her body and down through her fingers. "It's like the ground grew weary." She grabbed Kalai's hand and pulled her down, so the small woman was touching the ground also, "here, you can feel the tiredness. The support's gone."
Kalai gingerly touched the ground and closed her eyes and suddenly felt so tired that she had to sit down. It was rather abrupt. Her eyes snapped open and as soon as her hand left contact with the sink hole she felt much more herself. "Whew!" she said in surprise.
The muscular blonde moved from her crouch and sat closer to Kalai. "Yeah," was her sweet, but short response. They looked at each other and shook their head to clear the residue from their minds, but it wasn't very effective.
Iovene looked carefully at the inwardly puckered earth and gingerly placed one foot at the edge of the indentation. Her tongue pressed against the side of her mouth as she tamped down with her heel. She felt the ground give and quickly withdrew the pressure. She stepped back and then went over and sat by Arete. A sense of true despondence filled her body. She pursed her lips and didn't say a word.
They sat in silence for almost a half a candlemark. At least it felt that way to Kalai, until she finally got tired of it. . .she giggled. .That was the problem wasn't it. Kalai grinned. Well, they'd always called her overactive for a reason. She clapped her hands and the noise banged loudly as she jumped into the air, hollering. "Okay Folks! Let's Get some ACTION here!"
Arete instinctively startled up and into a crouch, her warrior senses fired up. She was immediately pulled, by the shoulders, into a energetic and feisty kiss that curled her toes. Then she was abruptly released. Her mate, much to the blonde's consternation began whooping, hollering and stripping off her top. Kalai flung the garment at her wonderfully tall lover and laughed as it smacked in her face.
"What THE!!!" Arete began, but didn't have a chance to say anything because Kalai was screaming and running to the middle of the divot, without a lick of caution. Arete, common sense thrown to the wind, followed straight after, with the intent to drag her lover back to safety (and a slight anticipation of handling wriggly naked Amazon).
Meanwhile, the curly dowser was watching Kalai's action with pure fascination. She kept picking up thoughts that were almost too fast to understand, but she got the main idea. Kalai intended to wake the earth up. She let go of the fear that Kalai would fall into the earth (though that would have happened with an Amazon who wasn't one of the corners, she was sure) and simply shouted encouragement to the small one who was now jumping up and down, pounding into the ground with all the small weight of her body, arms waving, and shouting, "WAKEUP! WAKEUP! WAKEUP!" Iovene grinned and wondered what the reaction would be.
Now all of Earth is Gaia and one might even say all of the seas are Gaia, but Kalai wasn't trying to offend the Goddess. She was, however, pretty sure that if there were fire elementals and water elementals that had responded to a simple hello, there had to be an earth elemental, or what would be the point, Right? Well, it wasn't entirely logical, but the nut colored Amazon thought it was reasonable. And this elemental was obviously asleep on the job.
So, she decided to pull on of her more frivolous attitudes and make a nuisance of her self. She wasn't sure if it was working, but it did get Arete's attention and that was always nice. Her blonde giant was in the process of scooping her into strong arms when the earth groaned.
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These pages were last updated: Sept 26, 1997
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