GOODSON ACADEMY GATEHOUSE
OCTOBER 24, 2009
(10:41 P.M./EST)
* * * * *
"Not nice, Willek. Really not nice!" exclaimed Michael, as he repeatedly slapped Sandy's back, in an effort to help her cough out the lemonade she had swallowed the wrong way.
The older Wotani had to agree, adding: "Forgive me, my dear! My inner child sometimes resurfaces, and I become more immature than I often scold Landor for being."
"Qui---koff! Koff! Quite all right," replied Sandy, wanting to change the subject: "So, you're a mind-reader, huh? Did this Church of the Great Parent teach you that, as well?"
"In a manner of speaking. As you know, all humans use less than ten percent of the total power their minds are capable of generating. The Azulings are capable of using twenty percent! And, they're willing to teach any non-Azuling, willing to learn, how to do the same. Those physically unable to learn can still communicate telepathically via parahedrons."
When Sandy asked what parahedrons were, Michael showed her his, followed by Toray's. Demonstrating their psychokinetically-variable size. Small as a pea, for better portability. Large enough to fill a cupped pair of hands, for better transmission and reception!
"That's all very fascinating," she admitted: "But, that still doesn't explain how the four of you got together. Or, why you came to this world?"
So, Michael continued their back-story.
"The war was still going on by the time I was five. Because, it was basically an endless series of stalemates! The Osiri had the advantage in the grasslands, while the Wotani (who had never developed knights in shining armor) had the advantage in forested areas. Finally, my father decided to ask the Azulings to actively enter the war. After all; the Great Exchange had been their idea! So, why were they remaining neutral?"
Toward that end, King Golar sent Landor's other half-brother, Golar the Younger (the king's only son by Vara), to the Azuling capital of Cerulea. With Lord Toray as intermediary.
"Toray was Patriarch Xamurep's Envoy-General. Sort of a cross between Henry Kissinger and James Bond. In fact; it was Toray who had reminded Xamurep of the ancient Azuling custom of spousal exchange! So, I guess because he felt somewhat responsible for the war, he had agreed to arrange an audience between Prince Golee (as I affectionately called him) and the Patriarch. Unfortunately, Ashrog's spies got wind of the meeting. And, the night before it was to go down? A hundred Osiri warriors snuck through the sewers of Cerulea...and burned the local Wotani embassy, there, to the ground!"
In the process, however, they had apparently abducted and killed the Wotani Crown Prince. For, his body was found the next morning, just outside the rear gate of the Patriarchal Palace. With his forehead having been branded with the Osiri symbol...for illegitimate birth.
Michael broke down into silent tears at this point. Sandy looked at Willek in puzzlement. So the latter explained.
"Among the Osiri, it is forbidden for a man and woman, of the same clan, to marry. No matter how distant the biological relationship, if they belong to the same clan, any physical intimacy between them is still regarded as incestuous. And, any child born of such a union is indelibly tattooed on the forehead with the...aforementioned symbol."
Conversely, the Wotani believed that the body and soul were still intertwined during the first twenty-fours hours after physical death. Thus, to mutilate a corpse less than a day old was supposed to identically mutilate the spirit that used to inhabit it!
"And, the only way to rectify that," concluded Willek: "...is for the descrecator to be killed. And, then, likewise posthumously mutilated!"
Sandy's eyes became as wide, with horrified shock, as an anime' character.
"Th-th-that's...barbaric!"
Willek shrugged: "By the standards we've come to live by, here, yes. But, there's an old proverb that a lot of Wotani, back home, still live by. 'Justice and revenge are but differently-named sides of the same two-headed coin.' "
tbc
Giantess World
