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- AIMEE' Chapter I
- ~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~
-
- The sound of the door opening told Darynn that his student for the
- evening had arrived. He put down the quill he worked with, moving slowly,
- and then covered the inkwell with a small stone cap. He turned slowly,
- anticipating the look of awe in the student's face (they always looked the
- same). But when he turned, he found himself surprised, because he had
- never before had a female student. "Well," he said.
-
- He estimated her age between fourteen and fifteen years. That age
- where children become just perfect for teaching the ways of the advanced
- magicks he, of all the mages, understood best. Her hair hung about her
- face and down her back in a black frame of soft, tight curls. He saw
- beautiful, powerful slate blue eyes under that frame, and a tiny, delicate
- nose hovered above an equally small and expressive mouth. "Come here,
- child. Sit, over there, on that stool with the blue pillow, yes." She
- moved as he directed, and although she needed her heels on the bottom rung
- of the stool, she did manage to get onto it without help. "Now then," he
- said. "Tell me your name."
-
- "Aimee', sir." She held out an envelope.
-
- "And your master?"
-
- "Teltirray, Darynn-sir."
-
- "He purchased you?" He opened the letter, which indeed carried Mage
- Teltirray's seal on it, as he listened.
-
- The girl shook her head nervously. "No, sir. Well, yes sir. I mean
- I do not know. He removed me from an orphanage seven months ago, but the
- arrangement did not have the contract exchange of a slave."
-
- "But coin passed hand nonetheless," Darynn said, nodding. Teltirray's
- last two students had been girls like Aimee'. They were always girls.
- Darynn disliked Teltirray, partially for his tastes and partially for his
- utter lack of social grace and manners. Teltirray's last two "students"
- had aparrently found the stress of living with him unbearable and committed
- suicide, and he had suspected from the start that Teltirray merely drove
- them to madness as a simple method of disposal. With Aimee's appearance
- and the instructions in the letter she held out to him, he felt his
- suspicions were confirmed.
-
- Darynn examined Aimee' carefully while deep in thought about a
- personal dilemma that had not existed before she had walked through the
- door. He switched his vision; decades had passed since he had needed to
- say anything in order to effect such change. Under his eyes, she appeared
- as a conglormeration of green and blue masses, swirling lazily. "By
- Sphahis!" he whispered to himself, then caught his words. This girl
- radiated power, power he was very familiar with, and Teltirray's current
- plan became clear to him. Teltirray sought his skill not so that he might
- train an apprentice, but an odalisque.
-
- Darynn became convinced, and smiled to himself. Aimee' would get the
- training Teltirray sought, but he would not get just an odalisque; he would
- get an houri, as well.
-
- "So, you have come to me to learn my magicks, Aimee'?" he asked.
-
- "Y... yes, sir. He told me you knew best the teachings in the world
- about the magicks of the Satyrs and the Megass." She fidgeted nervously in
- her seat, still not daring to make eye contact with him.
-
- He rose from his chair. The sound of his seat rocking startled her
- slightly, and she looked away. He stood before her and reached out with
- one hand to touch her under the chin, to reach into her. He wished her a
- calmness and she received it, turning her head back towards him. "Look at
- me, Aimee'. Tell me what you see."
-
- Her eyes looked into his and her gaze pierced him. Oh, Teltirray, he
- thought as he let her in, you do like to play with fire, don't you? "I see
- a man. Young, but fully grown. Brown, your eyes, the same color as your
- beard and hair. You have a handsome nose, and a wide mouth, but the lips
- look thick, but not unhandsomely so. Your body, what I can see of it,
- shows care, well-shaped and strong. And you possess power."
-
- "The last. Your opinion, or that of rumors given to you?"
-
- "Mine," she said firmly.
-
- He smiled and walked back to his comfortable chair, slowly lowering a
- spherical shutter over the magically glowing orb that sat on his desk.
- He wanted the darkness of the room to make it seem smaller and more
- intimate. He wanted her trust above everything else. "I want to tell you a
- story, Aimee', that tale I tell all my students, of my first encounter with
- the Satyrs and of my learning of the ways of love, of power, and of men.
- That you should hear it intrigues me, because I have never told it to a
- female before. Your master tests me, and I do not like being tested. But
- do not relay that message to him. You may tell him everything that
- occurs... but that. Do you understand?"
-
- "Yes... yes sir."
-
- "Good. Now listen closely."
-
-
- I began my life as a simple blacksmith's son and the very idea that I
- might end up a mage never crossed my mind. I knew my place in the world
- and I knew that the worlds of mages lay far beyond my simple reach. Never
- did the twain meet.
-
- I had a talent for the smithy, make no mistake. I knew how to make
- steel behave in manners never seen before or since, and I can still do the
- same today. I still smith as a hobby. And as a way of making the tools of
- my true trade, of course.
-
- Do you know where Daber Wood lies on the map, Aimee? No? Some day I
- shall pull out my maps and show it to you, once you have learned to read
- the simpler ones. Yes, I intend on teaching you that as well. Suffice to
- say it should take many weeks and many forged rivers to reach it walking.
-
- My father had many customers and when I came into my own often he sent
- me to see to their needs. As I approached my seventeenth birthday it
- became apparent to both him and me that my talents would someday surpass
- his. Customers more often requested my presence at their needs then they
- did his. I must give him credit for his fortitude and his benevolence for
- never once did he express greif or anger at my inborn skills, only joy and
- happiness at what we both saw as my future success. He knew that someday I
- would have the skills to save him in elder years. And now, although in
- ways neither of us intended, I do. But we could never know what would
- happen to me that summer.
-
- Father dispatched me one morning to the house of a customer who lived
- on the other side of Daber Wood. He called himself Thomas Cailleac, and to
- the knowledge of our town he had come into his estate and his wealth from a
- combination of family and the lucky spoils of war. He had often called me
- in the past year, admitting to me once that he enjoyed my natural talents
- as a worker of iron, lead, and silver.
-
- Even starting out first thing that morn the ride to his home would
- take me well into the day. It would also carry me through the thickest
- heart of those Woods. The stories in town often called those woods
- haunted, or worse, cursed! Men vanished in those woods, and sometimes,
- late at night, the sounds of pipe and drum carried on the wind. My father
- often warned me about the Daber, telling me not to ride through them after
- dark. When visiting Cailleac I often rode through them in the early
- evening but often managed to break through them before complete nightfall.
-
- I reached Cailleac before high noon. As much as I could tell, Thomas
- lived alone although his house could easily have hidden a dozen sleeping
- chambers and staff. He extended his kindness as always, offering me bread
- and beer before indicating the work he wanted done. Iron frames and lead
- workings held the glass windows in his home in place but often those frames
- and working needed mending. He supplied the glass panes and the lead but
- he needed my skill to shape and work them properly. At least, he always
- said so. But Thomas had told me once of his life as a warrior and I didn't
- think him the kind of man to disdain simple physical labor. I offered to
- teach him the simple things that would make it possible for him to do most
- of the mending himself.
-
- He laughed heartily. "I like your company, Darynn. Sometimes I think
- of breaking the windows myself just to have more excuses to invite you out
- here. But, your words have sense. Show me."
-
- I taught him the basics of lead and the dangers therein. Then he
- showed me an iron fence that had rotted through and the bolts that had come
- loose in the last windstorm. Fixing that ruined masonry took quite a
- while.
-
- I felt his eyes upon me as I work. I make no exaggeration in that.
- He wore tight pants of tanned cowhide, tall boots, the kind a soldier
- should own, and a simple tunic with a slit 'v' at his neck that could be
- drawn closed with a strap of leather. The heat of day sweated the life out
- of me as I worked and he brought me water, but as he offered it to me I
- could feel his eyes touch my skin where my shirt did not cover me. And his
- breath, like the scent of warm horses, carried to my nostrils something
- that I could not fathom.
-
- For at that age I had known the pleasant company of women but not
- their intimacies. And the intimacies of men... pfagh! All I knew of that
- came from legends of evil, sickness, and death. What did my town cleric
- know? Nothing!
-
- Forgive me, Aimee. I forget that my cleric now thinks my kind of
- knowledge 'corrupt' and evil, and I think he knows absolutely nothing. I
- must remain focused in my tale.
-
- Have you ever watched a man walk, Aimee? They all walk in almost the
- same manner. All except Thomas. His boots should have leant him a
- strident, powerful gait. Instead, his power seemed elsewhere, in his eyes
- and his broad, massive chest. His stride came in short, careful gestures,
- as if he thought about every step before making it. For a man so long a
- soldier he looked uncomfortable wearing those boots.
-
- "You could stay the night," he offered me as I prepared my horse to
- leave.
-
- "Father will want me home."
-
- "Night falls already, Darynn. I fear for your safety if you walk
- through those woods at this hour. It takes you four hours to reach your
- home from here."
-
- "I only spend the first two in the forest, sir. I will have no
- trouble."
-
- His eyes darted back and forth, and the concern in his face warmed me.
- But at the same time it made me nervous; did he know something I didn't?
- His nervousness said he did. Finally, though, he nodded his head. "Take
- care of yourself, Darynn. I will want to see you again." He reached out a
- hand and dropped payment in my hand. Seven silver, and
- more than I had asked.
-
- "And you, Thomas. God bless you." I mounted my horse and rode
- towards the woods even as the darkbess of night fell further.
-
- As I rode, I realized the error of my choice. For the clouds had
- covered the sky and neither moon shone through to light my way. At first I
- felt confident, but fear began to push that confidence down, so I lit a
- lantern.
-
- I saw that I had strayed far from the road. I could not see it from
- atop my mount. I guessed that I had ridden in a straight line since
- leaving the path and that if I turned around and road straight back, I had
- to reach the road again. As my horse walked, I heard thunder in the
- distance. At first it came as a slow rumble, then it grew louder and
- sharper and closer. Then a lightning bolt struck nearby; my hair stood on
- end, my skin burned. Naturally, my horse panicked and threw me off. I
- landed on the ground, cursing, and then as my horse flailed my pack of
- tools feel from his back and landed very near my head. A blacksmith's
- tools weigh many pounds, and I realized that had they fallen on my head I
- would surely have died.
-
- That thought stayed in my head for a long time. The fall had stunned
- me and I sat up to collect my wits. And then a young, boyish voice rang
- out through the woods. "A human, fallen from his horse!"
-
- Another voice sang, "What shall we do with him?"
-
- And the first answered, "Why, take him, of course!" Suddenly a small
- crowd of young boys appeared out of the woods. The oldest looked no more
- than sixteen, and the youngest thirteen. I looked around, bewildered, as
- they threw a net over my shoulders.
-
- I sputtered and cursed as they drew the net tight. "Unhand me!" I
- demanded.
-
- "Ah, ah!" the eldest chided me. "You dared to walk through our woods
- at night, and now we have you for our amusement."
-
- "What... what shall you do to me?"
-
- "You'll see. You'll like it." He smiled, and fear gripped my heart.
- The fall had stunned me so hard that only now did I realized that none of
- the boys wore any clothing. Hair covered their legs from the waists to
- their ankles, and those very legs ended not in feet, but in hooves. Satyrs
- had taken me. I knew the end of my life approached soon.
-
- "I thought... I thought Satyrs only took women."
-
- "We take what we want," the boy replied. "And tonight, our Master
- wants you."
-
- "Your Master?"
-
- "You will see." They hoisted my net between two poles and carried me
- through the woods like a stag trapped in a hunt. Which, in a way, they may
- have regarded me. We approached an open circle ringed with torches, and as
- we approached the winds seemed to die away. I knew that they controlled
- the magics of the woods, and here I saw the evidence.
-
- The circled grew out of the side of a hill, and set into the hill I
- saw a throne, covered in shadows. A shape sat in that throne but I could
- not see who-- or what-- owned that shape. "Master," the eldest spoke, "We
- have brought your prize."
-
- "Good." I expected their master's voice to frighten me, but instead
- it did the opposite. I felt warmed by it, reassured by it. And it had a
- familiar sound to it as well, as if I knew this Master. "Remove him from
- the net."
-
- They lowered the poles and removed the net from about me. The Master
- spoke again. "Strip him."
-
- The boyish, youthful satyrs tore my clothes from my body. I felt no
- urge to fight them. Instead, I felt curiosity, wonder, reassurance, and an
- uncontrollable emergence of lust. "Bring him closer."
-
- They did not have to lead. I walked voluntarily and he noticed this.
- "You want," their Master said. "I can see it in your eyes and the way you
- hold your body. Good. You will need that. Now kneel before me."
-
- That I would not do. I resisted him. I wanted to have my curiosity
- satisfied but not at the cost of my diginity. "Kneel," he repeated, his
- voice firm and demanding. The boys grabbed at my arms and my shoulders and
- began pushing me down. And although I felt my need to resist him utterly
- strong and unquestionable within me, I also felt myself sinking to my
- knees. But still I looked up, holding my chin high and defying him.
-
- I watched him stand and approach me. As his face came into the light
- I recognized it and I knew his name. "Thom." But the same hair that
- covered the boys covered him, and instead of feet I saw hooves. "You... "
-
- "They call me the Lord of Satyrs of Daber Wood." He smiled, his hand
- reaching out to stroke my hair. His fingers touched me and I felt the
- first touches of his power within me. "And they name me Thomorr. You may
- call me that, my beloved Darynn."
-
- I cannot tell you what confusion lived in my heart, Aimee'. For I
- knew they should kill me that night; few whom the Satyrs took lived to talk
- and those that did kept their secrets close. But at the same time I knew
- that I trusted Thom. Had always treated me well. And the lust, Oh,
- Aimee', the lust I felt I cannot describe. It took me over, it fed me and
- it burned me.
-
- His legs looked like the trunks of trees under their sheaths of thick,
- curly hair. As I looked up I saw his sex, and I will tell you shamelessly
- that horses are not so blessed with such enormity, nor angels with such
- beauty. To measure it, I saw three hands of length to it and a thickness
- that rivaled my wrists. Behind it his sac hung, full and large. Above
- that a thick tangle of reddish brown hair protected his beauty from the
- cold, and above that I saw his lean, broad chest and belly. He smiled, his
- face calm and handsome; no woman could refuse him, as man or as beast.
-
- His hands stroked his sex and it grew harder under his touch, although
- I will not say it grew any longer. "You will take this tonight," he said,
- looking down at me. "You know how a woodsman splits wood with a wedge,
- Darynn? Look at this engine, Darynn. My boys, they call this the
- Boysplitter." He caressed his manhood with a closed fist, running his
- hands along the length of that unbelievable shaft, reaching the end and
- seemingly twisting as he stroked. "Kiss it, Darynn. Bless this body.
- Worship properly and you may learn the secret of living through the night."
-
- "Thom..." I gasped, my toungue thick. All I knew instructed me that
- what he asked was evil, but I knew that I wanted it. I wanted him. I
- wanted him to take me as he wanted to take me.
-
- "Kiss me, Darynn. Kiss my sex. Open your mouth and receive the first
- of me."
-
- I knelt, my face upraised, and opened my mouth. He stepped forward,
- one small step, and the head of his manhood pressed against my lips. For
- the first time I knew the taste of a man and I knew I would again never
- find satisfaction in the arms of women only. Hear these words, Aimee',
- that our lessons forbid the taste of our own sex with good reason, for once
- we have learned it we will never find satisfaction in half of mankind
- alone.
-
- His very largeness prevented me from taking all of him. I could not
- fit more than the head of his sex into my mouth, but he seemed to take
- pleasure from that alone. I had my eyes closed and I did learn worship at
- his maleness, tasting him and sucking him. I felt the slick mass of his
- sex against my tongue and the power of his maleness there. I smelled him,
- his warm, loamy scent, rich and heady, washing over me with every breath.
-
- "Good little man," Thomorr said as his hands caressed my face. He
- took his sex away from my mouth, but I wanted him back, I wanted more. I
- cried out with need.
-
- He smiled and directed his boys, "Hold him down," and they did as they
- were told. They pulled me forward and laid me across a stump that I didn't
- remember seeing when we entered the clearing. The very roots came to life
- as they pressed my palms to the darkened soil and very soon those roots
- fixed me into place, a part of the still-living but soon- dying stump they
- had brought me to.
-
- Thomorr covered my body with his, the enormity of his sex pressing
- against my back. My fear rose and threatened to become blind, unreasoning
- terror. I had not anticipated his desire to enter me, to take me. I had
- thought about it only in esoteric, indistinct terms. I had not come to
- grips with his wish to press his sex to my anus, to push it into me, to
- fill me and to ruin me. "Thom..."
-
- "Hush," he whispered into my ear. "You can take this, Darynn, I
- believe you can. If you do, if you learn to take my sex and to open your
- body and your heart to me at the same time... if you let me become a part
- of you and share your part with me, then you will survive. You have
- strength within you that no one understands. You have magic, Darynn.
- Believe in it."
-
- I did not know what to say. I trusted Thomorr but only as I knew him,
- as the human Thom Cailleac. I felt fingers playing with my buttocks and
- between them, caressing my anus with a warm cream. "Butter," Thom told me.
- "It will make loving you easier."
-
- My breathing came faster and my head grew light. I knew fear, Aimee'.
- And then his legs were between mine, pushing mine apart. He gave me no
- preparation, no time to relax. I felt the head of his sex slide between my
- greased buttocks, finding my anus and pushing in gently. My legs trembled
- and I began crying. Tears squeezed from behind my shut eyelids. I knew I
- would die.
-
- And he pressed, his strength becoming greater. And as his greased rod
- penetrated me, ripped into me, I screamed. I knew he had split me. I knew
- my life even then drained into him. And I felt the head of his sex
- penetrate deeper. He plunged further into my guts, Aimee', and I felt
- every inch as he did.
-
- And I heard his voice at my ear again. "You will not die, Darynn, my
- sweetest boy, if you open your heart to me. Come, beloved, feel the loving
- strength of my sex within you, joining us. Feel the pleasure of our
- joining. Feel the heat of my body."
-
- And I did. I felt his chest against my back and his legs against my
- buttocks. I felt the throbbing of his manhood deep within my body. And I
- cried. I wept for all the things I had lost in his ravishment. But then I
- felt something else come from deep within me. Maybe it came from the tip
- of his sex; they seemed in the same place. And that thing reached my
- throat and I felt joy within me. I began to laugh. I felt mirth and
- freedom, and I heard Thom laugh along with me. And then he pulled his sex
- from deep within me. I whimpered.
-
- "You want it back?" Thomorr asked me.
-
- "Yes!" I said. "I want it within me."
-
- "Then have it you shall!" he said as he pushed back into me. Then out
- again. Then in. His sex rubbed at the opening of my anus and the head
- rippled within my guts.
-
- And then the pleasure took me. I cannot describe the feelings as he
- raped my restrained body, Aimee'. My body trembled at the obscene invasion
- of man into man, my legs shook with shock and my eyes filled with tears,
- but I laughed and I blessed and I loved Thomorr as he took me with the
- force only men can muster. My own sex was hard and rubbed painfully
- against the wooden table he took me on. He knew he didn't have to take
- care with me and I didn't wish him to.
-
- His body pressed against mine like a force of nature destroying a
- mountain. I fought my restraints not to get away but to get at him, to
- drag him deeper into me. And as he pressed his sex deeper into me and his
- chest to my back, I felt us being to merge, to breathe together. I cannot
- describe it any other way. We began to fall into each other, and I felt
- the meeting place of our bodies in my heart... in our hearts. It
- was more than a joining, more than a mating.
-
- He grabbed my hips and began thrusting madly. I wanted more and I
- tried to tell him so but my voice would only make the sounds of animals.
- His sex ravished me and my hole burned at his pounding. My chest rubbed
- against the wood of the stump. My legs burned and my wrists ached from my
- wish for release. I felt possessed by his enormous manhood and his
- unquestionable force. He grunted with every pushing, jabbing thrust that
- sent a ripple of pain and pleasure along my back, between and through our
- bodies. Small gasps escaped his lips, a chant of "aye, aye, aye," with
- every thrust and when he screamed his pleasure I did too. For I felt it.
- In my heart I felt the coil of his climax explode and in my body I felt the
- shooting sperm of his jutting sex bathing my insides with their magical
- warmth.
-
- And then I lifted my hands. Free! They had released me! I turned,
- but I did not see him. No one stood in the clearing but me, and I felt I
- possessed so much strength, so much fire. The fuel of his sex burned
- inside my guts and I needed to get it out. I took to my feet and I began
- running, chasing something, but what I don't know. I ran faster, harder,
- and then the voices began to surround me, boy's voices. They appeared on
- my left and on my right, running with me. My feet sprouted hooves, and the
- hair on my legs grew thick and entangled. And they led me now and I
- followed them. We passed through the woods as so much wind and reached
- another clearing, this one holding a large pool of still water. They all
- leapt into the water and I leapt with them.
-
- We laughed and we splashed and we joked in a language that I had not
- known until that day. And we touched and I caressed them and they me. And
- on the banks of that pool our play dissolved into a long night of play, of
- men and of boys and of hands and tongues and shafts and holes. And
- although I never wanted the sun to rise, I knew it must, and I knew that I
- would return to the world of the living.
-
- With this play that lasted for a night's worth of forever I fell
- asleep before the crow of the cock. In my belly and in my backside I held
- the eruptions of several satyrs, and in several satyrs they held mine. And
- as I curled up to lay my head on another's leg and sleep claimed me, I
- knew...
-
-
- I awoke in the early morning with a start. And although startled and
- long dreaming, I felt fully rested and refreshed. I didn't want to look
- under the blanket, but I knew I had to throw it aside and I did. I still
- had my feet and the hair on my legs looked the same as ever. I felt fit,
- although within my belly I felt warm as well.
-
- I looked at the room and I recognized the windows. Lead, and so I
- realized I had spent the night at Thom's house. As I rubbed my head in
- confusion my fingers found a bump, probably from when I had fallen from my
- horse.
-
- The door opened and Thom entered the room. "Darynn? I heard you
- shout."
-
- "I had a dream," I said.
-
- He sat on the bed and smiled. "Part of a dream," he assured me,
- laying his hand on my thigh. He wore no boots this morning and I could see
- his hooves clearly. "You did not dream last night."
-
- "But I still live."
-
- "You learned the secret to living," Thomorr replied. "I need to tell
- you something, Darynn. You have inside more power than I have seen in
- four centuries. You have a beauty that some of the gods cannot match. And
- you have a will that you can train to take advantage of both. If I needed
- to describe my feelings about you, Darynn, I would say 'smitten.'"
-
- "Last night we committed such evil. Your very existence belies that
- evil." I lied to him, Aimee'. Although my upbringing had ground those
- words into my head, I did not feel them. I felt only trust and a growing
- sense of love for Thomorr, the Lord of the Satyrs of Daber Wood.
-
- "You know no such thing," he replied. "I only think of action as
- evil, not mere existance. Now I have committed what you would call evil
- in the past in my search for a boy like yourself. But we Satyrs have
- different rules and live by the laws of magic."
-
- "If I told the townspeople they would come here and they would burn
- you out and they would try to kill you, Thomorr."
-
- He leaned back, his hands clasped about one knee. "Yes, I suppose
- they would. Will you tell them, my beautiful Darynn? Or will you keep
- this secret, and return to me as we both will it, and let me teach you of
- magic? You have the born skill but no training. You have discipline, but
- not in the right talents. Let me teach you, let me show you."
-
- "And the cost?"
-
- "You lived the cost last night. You gave me everything. I would not
- dare ask anything more of you but your attention, Darynn." He looked into
- my eyes and that presence of lust returned and lived again between us.
- "But if you want to share my bed and my pleasure, Darynn, I will whore for
- you as no woman could ever give." He smiled as he spoke.
-
- "Give me privacy, Thom."
-
- "Certainly." He rose and left. Now alone I felt comfortable enough
- to dress. I gathered my pack and left the room, walking towards the
- stables, hoping to avoid Thomorr. But he had anticipated my needs and he
- brought my horse to me across the stable's open field.
-
- Without a word I took the reins from him and I mounted the saddle.
- "Darynn," he said as I turned around to leave. His voice tugged at me, the
- pain and the hope so readily near. "Will you tell them?"
-
- I looked back on him and shook me head. "I need time to think,
- Thomorr. I... so much has happened."
-
- "You cannot go back unchanged. I cannot undo what I have done."
-
- "I know. I will not tell them."
-
- "Darynn," he said. "I will summon you again, if only to fix my broken
- windows and mend my gates and shoe my horses. But I will not mention the
- teaching of magic or the loving of men until you do. You must choose your
- path, as blacksmith or as mage." He smiled crookedly. "Goodbye, handsome
- Darynn."
-
- I did not speak another word to him as I kicked my horse, encouraging
- her out of the gates of Cailleac and now, through the Daber Wood by the
- safe light of day.
-
-
- Archmage Darynn leaned back in his chair. Aimee' seemed to almost
- squirm in her stool and the effect he thought quite attractive. "Aimee'?"
-
- "Sir?"
-
- "That ends your first lesson. Sometimes a student's life means
- sitting and listening to your teacher rattle off a boring tale."
-
- "Your tale did anything but bore me, sir! I thought at points I might
- cry in fear or sadness or even desire in the telling!"
-
- Darynn nodded, a smile crossing his face. "In any event, Teltirray
- has heard it before. Or at least read it in the records of the Guild. I
- bid you, Aimee', take my story with you and think on it tonight."
-
- "I will sir. Do you dismiss me, then?"
-
- "I bid you goodnight, Aimee', but my students I never merely
- 'dismiss.'" He grinned.
-
- "Yes sir, I understand." She hopped off the stool and made her way to
- the door. Darynn gestured and the lock opened.
-
- "Goodnight, Aimee'."
-
- "Goodnight, Sir Archamge Darynn."
-
- --
- "Aimee', Chapter 1"
- Aimee' is copyright (c) 1993 Elf Mathieu Sternberg. This story may be
- freely distributed by electronic media; hardcopies are limited to single
- printings for personal use.