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Chapter 23

"You want to do what with who?" Hestia screamed down at Jestia from her throne.

"I'm going to marry Ufalla," Jestia said matter-of-factly.

"Ufalla, your best friend Ufalla? Harris's daughter Ufalla?"

"Yes, that Ufalla. Mother, I know you're ageing poorly, but are you getting feeble minded as well?"

"Jestia, you tax me!" Hestia thundered.

Wow! I wonder if she really will crap herself. She is really upset. In fact, the color of her face is clashing with the blue velvet in that draping that's hanging behind the throne and . . . That would make a wonderful gown. She turned her attention back to them with an effort and then said thoughtfully, "Why do we always have to have family discussions in here? Do we not have a parlor where we could meet like a real family? Must you sit on your throne and look down on me like I'm one of your subjects instead of your daughter?"

"Jestia," it was her father who spoke now. "Your mother is right. You are second in line to the throne. Now you may keep this girl as a lover but you can't marry her. You must marry a man and have heirs to the throne."

"Oh, really why? Has Katan suddenly started doing really reckless, outrageous things like not eating enough vegetables or sleeping with the window open? Here's an idea for you—how about I marry Ufalla and let Katan do the making heirs thing? Come on . . . it doesn't matter what I do. Hell you would have been happy if I'd died in the territories."

"Jestia, how can you say such a thing?" Hestia said in a gasp.

"I open my mouth and flip my tongue around and sound comes out. Come on . . . Seriously. Do you care about me or do you just think I have to suffer with some loveless union for the sake of the kingdom because that's what you have done?"

Hestia started, "What a terrible . . . "
"But true," Jestia chimed.

" . . . thing to say. You think you love Ufalla then? The poor, wretched girl, she's just the latest in a long string of things you've done just to annoy me. She isn't even full-blooded Kartik, Jestia. A sword slinger, raised among the Katabull. She knows there ways more than ours and . . . "

"You are making me madder by the minute old woman! You are talking about the woman I love," Jestia said, glaring at her mother angrily. "Do your subjects know how little merit you have for them?"

"What do you mean?"

"This is the Kartik, Mother, yet all of the things you have just said sound more like they should have come from King Persius's mouth instead of a monarch on the Kartik throne. It isn't the Kartik way to care who people love, or what their country of origin is and certainly no real Kartik would ever have contempt for the Katabull or their ways. I am going to marry Ufalla, I am going to live my life with her, and you don't even want to try and stop me because I have become a very powerful witch." And with that she stomped out of the throne room and down the hall to where Ufalla was waiting for her. When she saw her sort of hiding behind a suit of armor she glared at her and hissed, "Coward!"

Ufalla just smiled weakly and shrugged. "Well what did they say?"

"They said you're a lovely girl, we make a very handsome couple, and they can't wait to have you as part of the family."

"Jestia, do you even know how to tell the truth?" Ufalla asked with a laugh.

Jestia wrapped her arms around Ufalla's neck. "You want to hear the truth? I love you, Ufalla. I need you, and no one is ever going to keep me from being with you. If they try I'll make them damn sorry." She kissed Ufalla then released her and took her hand. "Now come on I finally have something to dress for.

* * *

Kasiria was still disoriented. It had only been six days since she had awakened. Going from being just a little better than dead in a field in the Jethrikian held territories of the Amalite to being in a spa in Montero in the Kartik had been hard enough to understand. She'd now gotten half a dozen accounts of what had happened and all seemed to be more or less the same with some people doing a better telling than others.

She'd hardly gotten to feeling like her old self again when she was dressed, sitting on a horse, and in route to the Kartik capital to meet with Hestia the Warrior Queen herself.

At Montero, Jabone had been happy, light hearted. He'd been very loving those first few days, just staying with her, helping her in and out of the spring, making sure she got plenty of rest and enough to eat. At night he'd lie with her and just hold her 'til after three days she was the one who couldn't stand it any longer.

"Jabone I feel really good now," she had told him as they lay in bed holding each other.

"Good," he said.

She had sighed. It wasn't lady-like to be forward. "I do, I feel really, really good. As if I'd never been shot with an arrow at all."

He smiled and kissed her forehead and said, "That's good."

"Jabone, you know . . . Is something wrong?" she asked.

"No, nothing's wrong," he said pulling, her close and smelling her hair. He just wasn't getting it at all.

"Jabone." She kissed him on the lips gently. When that didn't get the reaction she wanted she kissed him a little harder. When she still didn't get the reaction she wanted she pushed back from him and said, "I'm not going to break you know?"

Jabone's face lit up with sudden understanding, "Oh you want to . . . "

"Don't say it, Jabone, just do it."

Because of course she could do it but still couldn't make herself talk about it.

After that she and Jabone had just spent the days making love and walking around the town with him telling her what everything was and trying to teach her a little Kartik along the way, and she found that she was getting to a point where she could mostly understand what they were saying but was still having trouble actually saying the words.

She loved Montero, it was peaceful, beautiful. Everywhere you looked there were waterfalls and flowers. The air was like perfume. She loved spending time with him in the spring; it was like magic. Something had made a perfect round hole in the rock. The water was soft, almost too hot, and had a greenish-blue tint. You could see it bubbling up from a small fissure in the bottom of the pool and watch it run over the top. It had a cover over it supported by six stone columns, a wood walk way built around it and connecting it to the spa, and there was a fence all the way around it for privacy. She'd never wanted to leave there, but when she'd learned they'd all be going to the Kartik palace she'd been really excited until it was obvious that Jabone wasn't.

"What's wrong, do you not want to go?"

"I don't mind going to the palace, I like it there. You will to. It's the reason we're going I don't like. My madra makes plans to go back to the territories," Jabone said. "To fight the Amalites in their hive. I don't want to go, Kasiria, I don't want either of us to go." He wrapped his arms around her then. "I almost lost you there. I never want any of us to go back again. I don't care what happens there."

She hadn't even thought about it, hadn't wanted to she guessed, just wanted to put the battle out of her head, let it be like a bad nightmare she could talk herself out of in the daytime. But it wasn't just a bad dream, it had all been real. When she started to remember how they had looked crawling through the woods, how they had come upon them like relentless waves of flesh with swords, pikes and axes, when she remembered the burned-out husk of the village of Grey Noke and the look on Derek's face as he perished, his dying words fear for her safety, and remembered that he was only there because he was trying to protect her, then she knew what she had to do.

"I do care what happens there, Jabone. Unchecked those things will swarm the whole of the territories and then the Jethrik. I know that means nothing to you, but it's my country," Kasiria said gently. "I understand if you don't want to go . . . "

"Don't you dare say such a ridiculous thing! I am bound to you. If you must go there then so must I. In all honesty I knew this is what you would say, and were you to say you would stay here I would go because I would not send my family and my friends to face that while I cowered here. The only problem with the spell that Jestia put on you is that you don't know what your body went through. You almost died and you don't seem to understand that at all, because for you it's not quite real. My mother stitched you so well that even your scar doesn't remind you. But I was awake. I saw everything. I saw your insides, Kasiria. I watched you as you just lay there looking almost dead. So I'm afraid, afraid for you, afraid for everyone I love who will be going. I will go, because I'm no coward, but you can't make me like it. No one can make me like it."

She nodded, and said, "If Tarius the Black is leading the combined forces of our two countries then it will not be for us what it was, Jabone."

He nodded, but didn't seem any happier.

Now they were preparing for the feast. Apparently they would feast tonight and talk business tomorrow. The palace was not like the huge, drafty castle she'd grown up in. It wasn't a fortress. In fact it looked much like the homes around it only bigger and with a huge garrison attached to it. They had all been given their own rooms but at the moment she was in Tarius and Jena's.

"I have no clothes," she said in an excited panic. "I don't know what's proper and it wouldn't matter if I did, because . . . I don't have anything to wear anyway," she said, gesturing to the brown puffy pants and bright red shirt she wore that actually belonged to Jabone.

"Relax girl," Tarius said. "It just isn't that formal." But Kasiria noticed Tarius was donning fancy armor. Jena must have read her mind.

"That's her battle armor not dress armor. She doesn't own dress armor," she said.

Tarius stood to her full height, put her hand on her chest and said, "I like to get dressed up pretty when I feast or kill people."

The skulls on her palderons and knee cops appeared to be smiling at Kasiria mockingly and Kasiria said to Jena, "I need something to wear besides breeches and a shirt."

"Oh, you mean like a girl," Tarius teased.

"Tarius finish dressing and go away," Jena said with a smile. She looked Kasiria up and down. "I have an extra dress you can wear. You're taller than I am so it may be a little short on you."

Kasiria looked at what Jena was wearing. You could see her knees as it was, anything shorter would be obscene.

"I ah . . . "

"She's all yours," Tarius said, and gathering up her sword and slinging it on walked out.

"Too short?" Jena asked.

"I'm just not used to well . . . When I went to the academy and switched to men's clothing that was a big leap, but at least it was one I wanted to take. I know it's the way you all dress but I'm just not comfortable wearing so little clothing in front of anyone but my husband." She felt her face getting flushed. She considered Jabone her husband though they hadn't been married in any sort of ceremony she'd ever seen, but among the Katabull the binding held that meaning and she was Katabull. However she thought parading around half dressed in front of strangers was a bit much to ask of someone who'd only been in the country a few days and still couldn't even speak the language.

"I could ask Hestia, you're very close to her size . . . "

"No, don't bother the queen with anything as frivolous as that."

"Mother finds nothing about clothing to be frivolous," Jestia said, walking into the room in a long, flowing blue velvet gown that was absolutely beautiful and exactly what Kasiria would have liked be wearing to a feast at the Queen's palace. "Tarius said you might need my help," she said, and Kasiria wanted to strangle Tarius. As it was she owed Jestia a debt she could never pay, and she knew Jestia delighted in the knowledge.

"Kasiria needs a dress," Jena said, "and I'm afraid all of mine are too short."

"Too short," Jestia said, as if she couldn't imagine such a thing.

"I have to admit it took me awhile to get used to Kartik clothing myself," Jena said.

"I don't think I'm ever going to get used to Jabone running around in that nothing he wears," Kasiria said.

"It's called a loin cloth," Jena said.

"I don't understand you people at all. If you've got your junk covered what else matters?" Jestia said. Then she nodded looking thoughtful and looked from Kasiria to Jena and back again. "She's taller but you have a lot more boobs and more hips," she said to Jena as if Kasiria weren't important enough for her to talk to her. She seemed to think a little more then finally turned to look at Kasiria and ordered, "All right. Change into one of Jena's dresses and I'll make it longer."

Kasiria took off Jabone's clothes and put on one of Jena's dresses, and then before she had a chance to see how she looked in the mirror, the dress was changing color and growing longer and the neckline lower. She turned to look at Jestia and shook her head. "No . . . I can't have . . . Well there should be more cloth here." She moved her hand back and forth between her breasts. It was so low cut that when she looked down she could just make out the beginning of her scar.

"But there isn't any more cloth. You can have it long like that or short," Jestia said with a shrug.

"Why'd you change the color?" Jena asked curiously.

"Red and blue better suit her coloring than the yellow and green. Yours, too, really Jena," Jestia said with a shrug. Jena nodded so she obviously agreed. "How do you like mine?" Jestia asked, spinning around.

"It's beautiful Jestia," Jena said with real appreciation.

Jestia giggled. "I made it from the drapes behind Mother's throne."

"Jestia," Jena said in a scolding tone but her smile made it ineffective. "You have to stop goading your mother."

"She'd better stop goading me. She's all upset that Ufalla and I are getting married . . . "

Kasiria interrupted her, "But you're both . . . " she fell silent when they both turned to look at her as if she were about to eat a live toad, and she realized that what she'd been about to say would probably get her chewed up and spit out by these two women.

"Both what?" Jestia asked with a sadistic smile.

"So . . . Well suited to each other," Kasiria said quickly. Jena and Jestia looked at each other and laughed.

"What are you going to do?" Jena asked Jestia.

"What do you mean, what am I going to do? I'm going to marry her anyway. My mother can demand all she wants but I'm not one of her subjects, I'm her daughter," Jestia said, flipping her hand in the air. "If she pushes me too hard I'll make her feeble, turn prince boring into a dog and then I'll be queen and . . . Well I don't think any of us want to see that so she better just tread lightly and stay out of my way, that's all I'm saying."

"I doubt that," Kasiria said under her breath. Then aloud said, "I can't sit down to a feast with the Queen of the Kartik half dressed."

"Half dressed?" Jestia said pulling a face. "You're wearing more than Mother is. I have to go find Ufalla. She's hiding somewhere because she's sure Mother's going to have her beheaded. I could use a spell to find her, but it's just so much more fun to look for her the normal way." She grinned wildly rubbing her hands together. "It will make the finding so much more entertaining."

"Jestia, don't be late for your mother's feast," Jena said.

She made a dismissive noise and said, "I'll get there when I get there and if we make an entrance all the better."

Kasiria looked at herself in the mirror and then at Jena who laughed and said, "Kasiria you wouldn't want to be wearing more clothing than the queen would you?"

"I suppose it doesn't matter. By their customs I'm not nearly naked, right?"

"Not at all. I admit I was not so bold myself when I first got here, but it didn't take me long to embrace their ways." Jena smiled broadly. "Of course I was never proper enough to suit my father or my aunts. You look beautiful and I'm sure you'll put the sparkle back in Jabone's eyes."

"He doesn't want to go back."
"I know," Jena said.

"I think he's mad because I do."

"He's not mad, Kasiria, he's worried," Jena said.

Kasiria rubbed at the scar where she could see it. "He says between Jestia's spell and your fine sewing I don't really understand how close I came to dying and don't know enough to be scared. But I do know fear now, Jena. I remember the battle. I remember leaving Derek and Richard and all the others behind to be eaten by those beasts. I remember the look on Jabone's face and I remember the arrow. I just think my reaction is different than his. It just makes me want to go back and kill them all to the last man."

Jena smiled. "I wonder just how much you heard Tarius tell you when you were asleep. That's not the first time I've heard you say something that might have come straight from her mouth. Put all of it out of your mind for now, Kasiria, tomorrow we will talk of war but tonight we will feast and dance."

* * *

Tarius watched as Jestia tugged Ufalla into the dining hall far after they'd started their meal and thought, Ufalla looks more uncomfortable than Kasiria does. While I understand why Ufalla looks like she's chewing rocks I don't understand Kasiria. She's the king's daughter. She should be used to these sorts of things.

Hestia was glaring at Tarius then. "How could you let that happen?" Hestia said, motioning her head towards the young couple who sat down between Jabone and some young man of Hestia's court that Tarius didn't know. When she saw how he looked at the two girls—with total disdain—she had no desire to. She was glad to see Jabone laughing and enjoying himself and trying to get Kasiria to relax. "Tarius, I asked how you could let that happen?" Hestia accused.

"First off I had no control over that happening Hestia, and second it would take a cold heart to try to kill that love."

"Tarius I know you don't understand as you and Jena are a love match and you are a follower of the Nameless One alone." Most Kartiks believed in the nameless god but they also believed in many others, the Nameless One balanced the rest out as most of them were willful and selfish which was why the Katabull didn't believe in them. "You don't understand that royalty has to live by a standard different than the common man . . . "

"I don't understand it because it is utter crap," Tarius said, dismissing the entire idea with a flip of her hand. "And you'd best not insult my non-blood kin," she said pointing at Ufalla, "or then you'll have a fight with more than just Jestia."

"I have nothing against Ufalla, Tarius. She's a nice girl, a brave girl, a beautiful girl. I know, I can tell looking at her that she loves my daughter, but . . . Jestia has duties . . . "

"Made up ones because we all know that unless some peril should befall your family she will never rule. that being the case, why shouldn't she have what she wants? Because it looks bad, because it sets a bad precedent? Bearing children should never be a duty. I say again, Hestia, it takes a cold heart to try to kill love."

"She can keep her love, but she needs to remember her responsibilities as a royal. Tarius, your son, he has made a good match for himself. Jena and Arvon and Dustan are all Jethrikian. She is Katabull so that is a good match she fits your family well. Ufalla, she is half Jethrikian the royal line must remain pure . . . "

"Unless Jestia is an even more powerful witch than I think she is, I don't think you have to fear Ufalla 'fathering' Jestia's children," Tarius laughed then got serious. "So what's your real complaint? That she's shirking her duties as an heir to the crown or that you couldn't? Jestia has always been willfull and headstrong, Hestia. I thought it was some joke when she said she wanted to go with the others to the territories, but I did everything in my power to break her, so that she would beg to be left behind. She didn't budge so she already had my respect before she went and she certainly proved herself there. Had she not been with them then all would have perished and the Amalites would still be growing under the ground undetected. You should be proud of her, Hestia, Jestia is a smart girl, a brave one, and though she doesn't want anyone to know it she is a kind and compassionate girl as well. Jestia threw herself between Ufalla and an axe-wielding Amalite to save her. That being the case do you really think that there is anything you can say or do against their coupling that would affect Jestia's opinion in the slightest? She's going to do exactly what she wants to do. You never have been able to control her and you won't stop her now. If I were you I wouldn't try because she has become a very powerful witch, and you will only make yourself look a fool."

"How powerful?" Hestia asked curiously as if this would be the deciding factor.

"I have fought with and befriended both the witch Jazel and King Persius's wizard Hellibolt, and I believe neither of them are as powerful as Jestia. Jazel herself has told me this. The girl is able to cast spells from pure thought. So again I say, don't cross her. Certainly don't cross her over something over which she has very little control. You can't help who you fall in love with."

Hestia nodded and sighed, "Perhaps you are right Tarius." She lowered her voice. "My children . . . Well I was never close to any of them not as a mother should be. I had them because I had to, not because I wanted them and . . . Well I do envy her Tarius. Part of me always has because she has always just done whatever she wanted and . . . These walls could never hold her as they have me. She had more spirit in her at five than I've had in me in my whole life and the only time I ever really felt alive was when I went to the Amalite with you to fight in the Great War." She looked at her consort briefly and then back at Tarius. "Him, well I love Dirk, but it's the way you love a good dog, not like what you and Jena have. Maybe if I had ever had that sort of love I would have known how to love my children."

"You can love that one," Tarius pointed at Jestia, "by letting her marry Ufalla, by letting her have her love on her terms, by not forcing the life you've hated upon her." Hestia still looked uncertain. Tarius sighed, glad that Jena was too busy talking to Kasiria at the moment to pay attention to their conversation. "That lovely perfect girl my son has bound himself to, the one that's so right for my family?"

"Yes?" Hestia asked curiously.

"Well she doesn't just have good courtly manners because she's had academy training. She is Persius's own daughter."

Hestia was openly shocked.

"That's right and she will bear my grandchildren and his blood will run through them with mine. I think that if I and even Jena can deal with that you should be able to deal with Ufalla in your family."

Hestia nodded thoughtfully. "As always, Tarius, you give good council."

"Yes, and I've had enough of it. Let's enjoy good food and good company. In our youth we discussed business as we feasted, now we're old I find it annoys my digestion. Tomorrow we discuss war, let's enjoy the rest of the night."

* * *

"I see you still have your head," Jabone teased Ufalla. He was glad she had sat beside him. He had been busy with Kasiria and she'd been busy with Jestia and they really hadn't seen each other, much less had a chance to talk. He guessed this was what happened when you fell in love. The person you fell in love with took the place of everyone else in your life, but that didn't mean he didn't miss just being with his friends all the time. He was sad to look around the table and not see Tarius. He had hoped he would have met them there but no doubt he was quite happy at home in the Katabull Nation telling stories of everything they'd been through in the Amalite to the whole of their people.
"So far, of course I've managed to avoid her 'til now. So you'll notice I put my gorget on just in case," Ufalla said, once again taking a sideways glance at the Queen.

Jabone laughed then said, "My madra would never let her harm you."

"I'd never let her harm her," Jestia said, glaring at her mother with real contempt and then actually sticking her tongue out at her when she glanced their way.

"I can't believe you put me in exactly the same dress your mother is wearing, as if I weren't uncomfortable enough," Kasiria said, gazing around Jabone and Ufalla to glare at Jestia.

"If it was the 'exact same' dress you'd both be very uncomfortable," Jestia said, and Ufalla and Jestia both laughed and Jabone had to bite his lip to keep from doing so.

"It's not funny. It's bad enough I'm only half dressed," Kasiria said, an embarrassed expression on her face.

"You look even more beautiful than usual. The dress looks better on you than it does on Hestia," Jabone said, smiling at her. Tonight he had decided to not think about why they were here and just enjoy being there with Kasiria. "Is the food to your liking?"

"I would enjoy anything but stew but everything I've eaten since I've been here is so good that I can see why you all complained about our food so much. All your food is so full of flavor." Kasiria seemed to relax some.

He leaned over and whispered in her ear, "Do not be self conscious, Kasiria. My dear love if all eyes are on you it isn't because of what you're wearing but because you are by far the most beautiful woman in the room. Relax, you are part of the Marching Night now. We are not in your country now we are in mine. You are the Katabull and here that alone makes you the most celebrated of the queen's subjects."

Kasiria smiled and whispered back to him, "I keep thinking if I could just drink the wine . . . Look at Ufalla. When she first walked in here it was obvious that she was even more uncomfortable than I am. A couple of drinks and, well I don't even want to think about where her hand is right now."

Jabone glanced where Kasiria was looking and he could see where Ufalla's hand disappeared under the table cloth. "Just resting on Jestia's thigh would be my guess. If she was doing any more than that I'm sure everyone in the castle would know." He smiled, thinking of hearing them in the next room at Jazel's. While Kasiria had been lying in a comma he had resented the sounds of their energetic and more or less constant love making but when Kasiria was awake again and not an imbecile it had just reassured him that life did go ever on. Then when he and Kasiria had started making love again he was sure they gave even better than they got when it came to noise.

Kasiria smiled too, nodded and said, "True. Still my point is I'd like to be able to take just a little drink to relax me."

"Hestia doesn't care about having her feasting hall filled with Katabull," Jabone said. He looked around Kasiria at his mother. "Mother tell Kasiria that Hestia doesn't mind having the Katabull in her feasting hall."

Jena looked at Kasiria. "The very first time Tarius met with Hestia the whole of the Marching Night were with us . . . "

"All of them?" Jabone said, looking at the size of the hall where almost every seat was filled.

"There were considerably less of us in those days. Any way, Hestia said she didn't mind if the Katabull drank and," she smiled at some distant memory, "this hall was filled with drunken Katabull."

"The drunk part is what I fear," Kasiria said.

"She's nervous," Jabone explained, and didn't understand why Kasiria gave him a dirty look.

"Relax girl," Jena said. "No one here bites." Then she smiled and said, "Except Tarius." Jabone felt himself blushing. Jena saw him blushing and reached around Kasiria to slap him in the shoulder. "So, do you bite too then, Jabone?" He watched as Kasiria turned a bright shade of red and his mother laughed and said to her, "Oh so you're the biter."

"Mother! I don't think you're helping Kasiria relax."

* * *

Kasiria just stared at Jena in disbelief and wondered how she had known. She had in the throes of passion bit Jabone on the shoulder hard enough to draw blood, for which she still felt guilty. She had explained that she was sorry and that she wasn't really used to either being the Katabull or making love. Jabone had just laughed and said it didn't hurt, which she was pretty sure was a lie.

She looked around the room. It was not like any feast she'd ever attended. There was no sober air to it. There were minstrels playing music and singing and everywhere people were talking in wide-sweeping hand gestures that reminded her of the way her unit talked. She smiled. After all that had happened she still thought of them as her unit.

People were talking too loudly and laughing too much, obviously having drunk a great deal.

Then suddenly the tempo of the music changed. It got louder, became more primitive in tone with more drums. And then four people, two women and two men, walked in wearing next to nothing. The men wore only loin cloths, the women see-through skirts under which they wore only a small piece of bright red cloth and over their breasts they wore only a single piece of red cloth tied in the back. They started to dance. Or at least she supposed that was what they were doing. It certainly wasn't like any dancing she'd ever seen. And Jabone, he was watching them.

She slapped him without thinking. He looked at her with no understanding what-so-ever. "Don't look," she said, and leaned over her plate staring at it. He laughed at her and kissed the back of her head.

"They're just dancing. It's the entertainment we are supposed to watch," he said.

Ufalla said something to Jabone in Kartik and he laughed. Kasiria turned to glare at Ufalla.

"What did you say?" she demanded.

"That you're the oddest Katabull I have ever known," Ufalla said, and her speech was slurred so she was half drunk.

"They aren't even that good," Jestia said.

One of the women dancers danced right up to Tarius the Black and danced in such a provocative way that Kasiria found herself covering her eyes and then looking out through a hole because she wanted to see but was embarrassed to have anyone think she might be watching. Tarius clapped approvingly and then as the dancer moved away from Tarius, Jena got up, walked around the end of the table and took the dancer's place in front of Tarius and Tarius seemed even more pleased.

"See? Even Jena dances better," Jestia said.

"My mother is a great dancer," Jabone said, an insulted tone to his voice.

Jena's hips gyrated and her hands gestured for Tarius to come to her. Tarius stood up, jumped onto the table, and then onto the floor in front of Jena and then . . . Well they were dancing with each other in a way that seemed more like love making though, most of the time they weren't even actually touching.

"Now that's dancing," Jestia said. Then she jumped up and grabbed Ufalla's arm. "Come on," she ordered when Ufalla didn't get up right away.

"Jestia . . . your parents," she said looking over at them.

"So, drink the rest of your wine and come on. You know you want to."

Kasiria watched in near astonishment as Ufalla downed the wine in one gulp and then walked around the table to where Jestia was waiting, and then . . . Well it became obvious why Jestia was so judgmental of the dancers. The girl just moved like there were no bones in her body, and Ufalla moved with her. It was beautiful. She put her embarrassment aside and just watched.

Their hands and arms moved slowly and with purpose, enticing one moment, loving the next, then shy, their bodies moved together in rhythm and then apart again. And each dancer, each couple, told their own separate story to the same music. Jena and Tarius's dance was a story of old love grown stronger with the years but still fresh. Ufalla's and Jestia's a dance of new love still seeking, still exploring, still unsure, fired by an aching need to just be close. The song changed and their movements changed but what their bodies said to each other as they danced never really did.

Jabone had stood up without her noticing and he reached down and took her hand. "Come dance with me."

She looked from his hopeful face to the dancers on the floor and shook her head violently, "Oh . . . I couldn't Jabone. I don't know how, I would be an embarrassment to you."

He smiled down at her, "There is no knowing how."
"Jabone, you aren't going to tell me that," she motioned with her head towards Jestia and Ufalla, "that those girls haven't been dancing like this all their lives, that they haven't taken classes and trained." He was silent. "That's what I thought. Look at your mothers. I imagine you've been dancing like this all your life. You think that it's easy because you have always known how to do it. I will look a fool."

"Not to me and who else will be watching?" He motioned around the room. No one else was sitting. Everyone had moved to the floor between the tables. Even the queen danced, and Jabone was right, no one watched the other dancers. They were all caught up in the music and each other. He took her by the hand and led her onto the floor. At first she was embarrassed and clumsy but as she watched him, his every move a testament of love and desire only for her she just couldn't be bothered with what she might look like and just moved as her body felt like moving.

"Not bad," Jestia said at her shoulder and as Kasiria turned Jestia moved away pulling Ufalla back across the dance floor. Kasiria relaxed completely and just gave herself up to the dance.

* * *

Ufalla looked around the room at the moonlit expanse of fancy dresses and toys. She remembered coming here as a child thinking how grand everything was. Playing with Jestia with these toys which were nothing like what she'd had at home.

We have danced togther hundreds of times in classes together and with each other and it was never like that. Our love making has been fantastic but tonight it was so much more. She gave me so much more and I don't remember doing anything at all special today.

Jestia was lying with her head on Ufalla's chest in this huge, comfortable bed in the palace in the room Jestia had grown up in surrounded by all her magnificent positions and . . . What could Ufalla ever give to Jestia that she didn't already have? She held Jestia even closer as if she was afraid she might lose her hold.

"What?" Jestia asked.

"I was assigned a room. I'm pretty sure that's where your parents expected me to sleep."

"And I expect you to sleep here with me so I win again," Jestia said. She moved her head then so that she could look at her. "What's wrong, Ufalla?"

"You really want to marry me?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Because I love you, Ufalla. You know that."

"Why? I'm nothing special. You have everything you could ever want, I can't give you anything. I don't have anything."

Jestia smiled at her and kissed her lips then said, "Are you going to force me to get all sappy and sentimental? Ufalla, you see all this?" she asked, sweeping her hand around the room. "I had all this, and I ran from hither to yon and back and tried many different men and many different things and nothing, absolutely nothing, made me happy until you loved me. It's not the love making that has made me stronger, it's you Ufalla. It's what you give me. What you've given me that no one else ever has. You love me."

"Is that the only reason you love me, Jestia, because I love you?" Ufalla asked.

"Ufalla," Jestia sighed. "You are magnificent, beautiful, funny, strong, brave to a fault and in bed," she rolled her eyes and sighed again though in a different tone, "you did something to me that very first time we made love. I didn't know what it was at first, I thought it was strictly great technique and then I realized that what you did was that you made me feel. I never really had before."

"But . . . Why did you bed me in the first place?"

"Because you were my dearest friend and I knew you loved me that you wanted me. I thought you were going to die so I just wanted to make you happy."

Ufalla just glared. "You didn't even want me physically? You were just sleeping with me out of pity? I at least thought you found me attractive."

"I always have, just not that way. I do now so what does it matter? Why are you so mad?" Jestia laughed and kissed her. "Don't be mad at me, Ufalla," Her features suddenly changed and then she lay her head back down on Ufalla's chest. "Never be mad at me."

Ufalla wrapped her arms around Jestia to reassure her. She moved to kiss the top of Jestia's head. "I could never be really mad at you, Jestia, you know that."

"I do," she said. "Fate put us together, Ufalla. Fate bound us when we could hardly walk. We were always meant to be, you knew that, I was just too ignorant to know it because I had no idea what love was. How could I have learned?"

Ufalla could feel Jestia's tears fall against her skin, "Oh baby, I'm sorry I didn't mean to upset you."

"Why Ufalla? Why doesn't she love me? Why did she never love me? What's wrong with me?"

"There is nothing wrong with you. She doesn't love anyone, Jestia. She is a bitter woman old before her time because she's never let anyone in," Ufalla said angrily. She took Jestia by the shoulders, lifted her up and shook her. Jestia just let her head hang and didn't look up. "Hey stop it, look at me." Jestia lifted her head and their eyes met. "It's her loss, not yours. You can't fix what you didn't break. You belong to me now. I'll do the wedding ceremony because it's what you want but I don't need anything or anyone to tell me that we belong together. You are part of my family, my pack now, and you know they all love you. Why care at all what people think who are too stupid to care about you?"

Jestia smiled. "You make every pain go away. You fill my heart 'til it wants to burst."

Ufalla kissed her and set her back down on her chest. "You were amazing tonight," she whispered.

"I want to make you feel the way you make me feel," Jestia said uncharacteristically shy, "I have to make sure you never want to leave me."

"Oh Jestia, if you don't know it now you never will, I could never leave you." She paused then added, "after all you'd hunt me down and kill me."

 

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