FicWad



Clanluna

Chapter 61: Day one: the journey begins

Harry Potter is owned by JK Rowling
Earth’s Children is owned by Jean Auel


Mara appeared in the middle of the Sungaea Summer meeting. Pulling her wand from behind her ear, she enlarged her bag and took of her red skirt, leaving her naked, and put it in the bag. She then pulled out of the bag a hat she had made out of the head of an old Snorkack. The hat was animated so that it looked like the purple reindeer with the single crumpled horn was still alive, with its’ head perched on hers. After donning the hat, then shrunk the bag and put in on a thong around her neck. The bag was currently on a couple of inches across. Mara then began wandering about the tents.
In the trading area, Mara found Aeolusartoremus, one of the young men she’d redfooted for. Mara gave him a nod and he stood and began following her.
She found Sarpedyonysiseus with some other boys, practicing with their spears. A nod from her was all it took to get him to follow.
Achillupercaliajax, she found hanging around the redfoot meeting place trying to convince a couple of redfeet that he still needed more training. Mara gave him a frown and he gave here a sheepish grin, before falling in with the other boys following her.
Hectoparisiam, was found in his mother’s tent, helping her pack to leave
Hephestusetusargon, was leading woman, only a couple of years older than him, into a tent went he spotted Mara. He gave his girl a kiss goodbye before joining the procession.
Perseusiriusulla was just coming back from a hunt. He handed the deer off to his mother’s mate before joining Mara.
Hadeservisylla, was with some other boys sitting in front of a tent staring at the crowd going by. They had illicitly gotten in to some sacramental mushrooms and were enjoying the trip when Mara showed up. She grabbed him by the ear and pulled him to his feet, before giving him a blistering kiss and pointing with her chin to the other boys.

Now that she had gathered all the boys she had redfooted for, Mara led them to the tent of the Clanlunaea. When the redfoot guarding the door tried to slow her down, Mara pulled her wand out of the holster she had build into the mouth of her hat. (It looked like the Snorkack was holding the wand between its’ teeth) With a quick flick of her wand, Mara had levitated the girl 10 feet up in the air and Mara’s group just walked under her in into the tent.

Sitting in a row opposite the door of the tent, were the Sungaeae, those who serve the Mother for each Camp. On the end of the tent where the door was, sat two groups of women from various camps with an aisle between them. There were various redfoots around the room attending to the need of the Sungaea, and helping things run smoothly.

“so, we’ll divide the meat from the hunt along . . . What is the meaning of this!” demanded the Head Sungaea, sitting in the center of the line of Sungaeae.

Mara had already swished her wand, casting a quick charm as she came in the door
to amplify her voice.

“I AM GAEA!” proclaimed Mara. “I HAVE BEEN WALKING THE EARTH AMONGST YOU SECRETLY IN THE GUISE OF A REDFOOT. BUT TODAY I COME OPENLY BEFORE YOU TO REVEAL THE TRUTH!”

“You’re not Gaea!” sneered the Head of the Sungaeae. “You’re just a foolish little girl with magical powers. We all know of the Clanluna who live in the presence of the Mother and the magical powers she grants her children. Just because you can do strange things, doesn’t make you the Goddess.”

“IT IS TRUE, I HAVE WALKED AMONGST THE CLANLUNA IN RECENT YEARS,” said Mara. “BUT AS OF TODAY, I AM GRACING THE SUNGAEA WITH MY PRESENSE . . . AND IT YOU DOUBT MY POWER BEHOLD!”

With a flick of her wand, Mara silenced the voice of the Leader of the Sungaeae. A redfoot charged her but she put her in a full-body-bind. Mara’s wand waved over the assembled Sungaeae and transfigured them into a reindeer, a megaceros, a wolf, a lynx, a cave bear, and an onanger.

Mara was a Defense Against the Dark Arts Prodigy. . . more skilled in DADA than even Zeen or Luna. And part of her skill was tactical . . . the ability to analyze a hostile situation. So she could see that this could easily escalate into injury of death . . . possibly even her own if someone got lucky . . . she had to end this quickly!

Mara then silently cast a patronus. It was in the form of a full-sized dragon made of solidified light and it filled the tent. It was fully corporeal and pushed the women out of the way as it expanded to fill the tent. The women screamed in fright!

Mara then vanished the patronus, and returned everyone back to normal.

“What would you have of us?” quailed the Head Sungaeae. “Do you intend to supplant me?”

“NO,” replied Mara. “YOU HAVE SERVED ME IN THE PAST AND WILL CONTINUE TO BE THOSE-WHO-SERVE-ME IN THE FUTURE. THESE YOUNG MEN,” (Mara gestured at the ones she had brought with her) “SHALL SERVE ME PERSONALLY. TO HELP MAKE THAT POSSIBLE, I, GAEA, WILL BE FORMING A NEW CAMP WITH THEM. YOU WILL PROVIDE THEM WITH ENOUGH FOOD AND SUPLIES TO LAST THE WINTER. EACH CAMP WITH DONATE TO HELP THEM. AT THE NEXT SUMMER MEETING, I WILL BE ACCEPTING FEMALE APPLICANTS TO MY CAMP FROM AMONGST THE REDFOOTS TO BE THE NEXT GENERATION OF SUNGAEAE. SO SAYS GAEA!”

Mara then turned and led her men out of the tent. They kept walking until they had passed a 100 yards beyond the edge of the tents of the Summer Meeting. Mara waved her wand and a small hill with a flat top appeared, covered in the same grass as the steppes. Mara pulled out a hide with the fur still on it, enlarged it to full-size and climbed up to sit and wait. She had made the hill tall enough that her eye-level was slightly higher that the tallest man.

“Sit!” commanded Mara as she pointed to the ground at the base of her hill.

Her young men swiftly complied.

Within a short span of time, the Camps of the Sungaea had come out and laid before them enough food and other supplies to last the winter. After checking to make certain that there was enough (and there was actually more than enough) Mara shrunk it all down and put it in her bag, before enlarging her broom and straddling it.

“Follow me!” commanded Mara as she kicked off, and flew up into the air. A huge crowd had turned out to watch their Goddess in the form of a naked young woman with the head of a living purple iridescent reindeer with a single spirally crumpled horn, on top of her human head, fly up into the air. She bobbed and weaved in a North Westerly direction as the 7 young men followed underneath her on foot.

They continued traveling all day. As sunset drew nearer, Mara landed and directed them to stop. She them began pulling everything out of her bag and enlarging it. Now seemed a good time to take inventory what they had and had gotten from the Sungaea.

First she took the 3 tents that the Sungaea had given them and levitated them into a pile, before transfiguring the pile into a tipi. Mara then levitated the tipi into position and assembled it. . . . They now had a place to stay. Then she looked through the things she had brought with her. Supplies accumulated during the years she’d been planning this. .

There was her wand and broom, of course. And she had made herself 3 sets of winter clothing and 5 summer dresses. And there was her red skirt. There was the Snorkack hat she had made in imitation of the ones, her mother had made before. She had the potions she had been making and accumulating in recent years. Ayla’s watchful eye had limited what she could make openly. Now she had no such restrictions . . . She’d be doing a lot of brewing this winter . . . it never occurred to her that her collection included a distinct lack of healing potions. And it still wouldn’t occur to her until she needed them. She’d left the iron cauldron that her mother had made her, behind. While Luna was good enough at transfiguration to have studied for a full 7 years, she wasn’t so good at potions and didn’t understand what made a good cauldron different from a cooking pot. Ayla had found (and taught Mara) that the best way to brew potions was to suspend a bison stomach from a tripod and drop hot rocks into it. Similarly, the glass potion flasks transfigured by Luna were not always suitable. Ayla had figured out how to make better flasks for specific potions. But it was complicated remembering which kind of flask was best for a particular potion. Mara had a selection of flasks of different types as well as a stock of ingredients for the potions she wanted to make, but couldn’t, in a cave with Ayla, without arousing suspicion.

And Mara had the various rune stones she had made in advance.

She had the bow and arrows she had not used since she became better at hunting with hexes than weapons.

And, of course, Mara had the ordinary household goods of a woman of the Clanluna: the wood cups, bone plates, reed baskets, and bone needles . . .

Once Mara had assured herself that they had enough to survive the winter, she began shrinking things and putting them away in her bag. She’d bring them back out as needed. She then, set to work on making the tipi habitable. The inner and outer covers were made from mammoth skins, magically fused together so that each was a single piece of leather. The poles were made of smaller tent poles that had been magically fused into perfectly straight long poles. After bending low to step into the tipi, Mara began with casting a warming charm on the inner wall to keep it warm enough that they could live in it through the winter. There was no need to warm the outer wall, an accumulation of snow on the outside would be a good thing if it happened. The snow would insulate. Instead, Mara charmed the outer wall to pull smoke out the hole in the top. Mara set a series of rune stones in a circle in the center so that nothing outside them could be ignited by the center fire.

Mara then stepped back outside and charmed the outside of the smoke hole to repel snow and rain. The she then returned to the inside to prepare a meal for her new Camp.

“um . . . Gaea? . . .” one of the young men had stuck his head in the tipi.

“Yes, Achillupercaliajax, what is it?” asked Mara.

“Well . . . um . . . you see, Great Mother . . . You promised that if I served you . . . there would be someone to, you know, Share Pleasures with me. . . not meaning any disrespect to my Goddess. . .” stammered Achillupercaliajax.

“Yes, I will,” replied Mara as she added another ‘special’ mushroom to the stew. “but I’m cooking right now. I’ll Pleasure you after dinner.”

“Yes, well . . . I couldn’t help noticing that there are, you know, seven of us men, and, um, well . . . you’re the only woman!” stammered Achillupercaliajax. “It’s just . . . who’s going to Share Pleasures with the other boys? Are we expected to Share Pleasures with each other?”
“No, I will be Sharing Pleasures with all of you,” replied Mara as she added a stronger dose of the potion to the stew. “I demand complete devotion from those who serve me. Think of me as being like your mate. Of course, you’ve already found that Sharing Pleasures with me has its’ compensations . . . Now, leave me. I’ll call you all in when dinner is ready, and afterwards . . . I’ll make certain that you have no regrets about your new life. . .”

Mara had laced the stew with a particular mix of mushrooms, herbs and potions that would increase the intensity, and speed of reaching the peak of Pleasures, before putting them to sleep. This made it easier to Pleasure each of them in one night and still get some sleep herself.

ĐĐĐĐĐĐĐĐĐĐĐĐĐĐĐĐĐĐĐĐĐĐĐĐĐĐĐĐĐĐĐĐĐĐĐĐĐĐĐĐĐĐĐ

Once they stopped spinning from the portkey, Mariza looked around. She ridden portkeys created by Luna or Mara and much preferred Zeen’s, because they didn’t make her fall down. In front of her was the Cave of the Đűmbleđore Član. Near the entrance were the artificial caves that the Đűmbleđore Član had made by piling up rocks. These stone houses had round mortar-less walls that ended in a stone roof with a smoke hole in the center. One of these had been set aside for the cave bears that guarded the Đűmbleđore Član and begged for handouts at mealtimes.

“Šo, Mariža, I’m happy to have you join uš,” said Đučaviča. “But thiš was all rather šuđđen. What are your planš? Are you going to mate Širtić and be my šišter wife?”

“No, I’ve come to realize that I’m not suited to be any man’s mate,” replied Mariza. “Actually, I’ve decided to go on a journey. But I thought I might spend the winter with your Clan first. Though, if you’d consider a more temporary arrangement . . . I wouldn’t mind being mated to you as your 2nd mate.”

“My What!?” gasped Đučaviča. The Đananđanđa had a taboo again homosexuality. The Harvatišaranaa, sometimes had androgynous ones-who-served-the-Mother, but rarely. Since the Đananđanđa had become the Đűmbleđore Član, Luna, Ayla and Iga had made them more accepting of the idea of some people Sharing Pleasures with their own gender. But they had never heard of a same-sex mating before! Sure, Đučaviča enjoyed Sharing Pleasures with her best friend. And she knew that Mariza had chose to stay at her mother’s hearth and not take a mate. But she didn’t realize that Mariza felt strongly enough about her to want to mate her!

“Űh . . . All right,” said Đučaviča. “Šure! I woulđ be Happy to have you as my 2nd mate! I’ll go ask my mother.”

While Đučaviča when to consult with her mother, the Đűmbleđore Član’s, clanluna, Širtić stepped a little closer to Mariza.

“Šo what đoeš yoűr being her 2nd Mate mean?” asked Širtić. “Will yoű be Šharing Pleašureš with both of űš, or jušt her?”

“Just her,” replied Mariza. “It’s not you. I just don’t like Sharing Pleasures with men.”

“But yoű’ll be šharing oűr hearth?” asked Širtić.

“Yes,” confirmed Mariza. “Are you going to agree to this? If will help, I could take her outside the hearth when I Need Pleasures.”

“NO! . . No, that’š not neššešary,” replied Širtić. “I’m perfečtly fine with you two Pleasuring eačh other in front of me.”

“Mariža! My mother šayš šhe’ll perform the mating tonight!” said Đučaviča.

“Thank Luna!” said Mariza.

A few hours later, Krstulović, the clanluna of the Đűmblđores, gathered the Clan together outside of the Cave entrance. Širtić Stood next to her. The whole član had been talking about this all day. Many of them still didn’t believe this was going to happen. Iga had made Luna the measure of morality. Anything Luna did was considered moral. And so, the closeness of Luna’s relationship with Ayla had made Iga preach greater acceptance of same-gender Pleasures. But even after a generation of this, only a daughter of Luna or Ayla had the political clout to make a same-gender mating possible. Mariza wasn’t the first to have these kinds of feelings, or even to act on them. But she was the first woman able to make the Clanluna accept a same gender mating.

“Tođay we are gatheređ together to witnešš the joining of two people aš mateš,” began Krstulović. “Širtić son of Katić, iš your mate reađy to be joined with her sečonđ?”

“Šhe iš, članlűna,” replied Širtić

At that signal, Đučaviča emerged from her house. The Đűmbleđore Člans cave was not large enough for all of them, so the lower ranked families, like Širtić’s, lived in round stone houses. Earlier in the summer Đučaviča had been ordained as a clanluna and she was now dressed as a redfoot in her red skirt. She had freshly dyed the soles of her feet for the occasion. She walked over and stood next to her mate, holding his hand.

“Đučaviča, đaughter of the članlűna, Krstulović, born to the hearth of Đalibor, Đučaviča, junior članlűna and redfoot of the Đűmbleđore Član, Are you reađy to gain a šečonđ mate?” asked Krstulović.

“I am reađy, članlűna,” replied Đučaviča.

At that signal, Mariza emerged from the house. It had become tradition amongst the Đűmbleđore Član for women who were being mated to wear only a skirt, similar to a redfoot. But Mariza had adamantly refused to. She thought it made her look too much like a redfoot, and she in no way wanted to be mistaken for one-who-serves-the-Mother. So when Mariza stepped out of the house, she was wearing only her wand, tucked behind her ear. The crowd gasped at the sight of her, not only at the way she was not dressed, but also at her beauty. Mariza he used a hair-growing charm on herself and her now waist length golden blonde hair and sky-blue eyes, made her a striking figure. She had done the same thing to Đučaviča’s auburn hair and standing next to each other, in spite of the difference in their heights, the tips of their hair came to the exact same elevation.

“Mariža, đaughter of Ayla, born to the hearth of Zar, weečh, are you prepaređ to be joineđ to Đučaviča?” asked Krstulović.

“I am, clanluna,” replied Mariza.

“Then, by the power entrušteđ in me by the Lűna, I binđ you two together as mateš,” said Krstulović, as she tied their hands together. She then painted the signs of their totems on their chests. The idea of ‘totems’ had come to the Đűmbleđore Član when Krstulović had brought the Luna religion home. “The špirit of the Hare haš joineđ with the špirit of the Štork! You are now Mateđ! Mariža is now the 2nd mate of Đučaviča.”

The two women, still tied together, walked back to their house, with Širtić following behind. They would not be allowed to untie their hands until after they had Shared Pleasures. . . which was the first thing they attended to, on entering their home. Širtić took care of their sons while they did so. At one point, while Mariza was licking Đučaviča, she felt a man’s hand caressing her rear in circles. But when she turned and shook her head at him. Širtić left them alone.

ĐĐĐĐĐĐĐĐĐĐĐĐĐĐĐĐĐĐĐĐĐĐĐĐĐĐĐĐĐĐĐĐĐĐĐĐĐĐĐĐ

The next morning, Mariza woke to find herself alone in the round house. There was a cup of tea waiting for her and breakfast of fish stew. Mariza drank the tea, but left the food until after she had emptied her bladder. After pulling on her summer dress and ducking low, so she could make it through the entrance without bumping her head, she spotted Širtić with their two boys, trying, without much success, to teach them to use a spear thrower.

“You’ll never get them to learn it like that,” chided Mariza. “You should teach them to throw the spears first.”

“Me throw spear like big boy!” retorted Zariz, defiantly.

Mariza chuckled at her three-year-old son’s antics and continued on to the pit to empty her bladder. When she go back to her new home, after eating the stew, Mariza decided to inventory her possessions. She hadn’t really planned this journey in advance. It was more of a snap-reaction to Mara’s being elevated to the clanlunae.

She did have her wand and broom. But she’d grown quite a bit this past year, especially in the breast. Her winter clothes no longer fit. And only two of her summer dresses still fit, one fit better than the other. She did have a Clan-style wrap. Her mother, Ayla, still preferred to wear one in the summer except when she was hunting. But Mariza couldn’t remember the time before Iga had introduced the Abraxas Clan of the Clanluna to her summer mini-dresses that supported the breasts and made it easier to run. But until she’d made so new clothes she’d have to wear a wrap, like a woman of the Clan

Mariza realized she’d just shrunk and thrown random things in her bag, and not all of them were useful. It was still warm enough to gather potion ingredients. And she’s need a lot of them, especially healing potions, if she was going to take a journey.

At least, she could still go hunting . . . she’d brought her bow, arrows, sling, and some stones.

Mariza sighed . . . she’d have a lot of work to do before winter and a lot of brewing to do during the winter if she wanted to go on a journey next spring. . . . And maybe she should think about making some rune stones to make this home more livable?