Ava

‘’Pssst...’’

I ignore the little rascal thinking I wasn’t watching her ‘stealthy’ approach towards me through the camp.

‘’Pssssstt...!’’

She picks up the volume and lowers the pitch of call keeping ‘hidden’ behind a tent totem pole that oozes spiritual energy so overwhelmingly that its all any of us can do to try and ignore it. At this time of course Sema is grinning like an idiot happy for whatever reason, Jorri and Onimorē are pretending they didn’t notice her effort to remain hidden so as not to discourage her. Well Jorri likely doesn’t care either way but I figure she’s just curious what scenario I’ll find myself in this time.

‘’Pssshh...., Aunty Ava...!’’ Kira ‘whispers’ loudly before sidling closer towards me in a convoluted route that takes her a lot more time than I have the nerve to wait for. I scowl as I watch her approach, making sure she feels my gaze and knows I’m watching her approach with disapproval. The little fynx starts sweating but refrains from even raising her eyes to catch my eye, almost as though she is stubbornly willing herself to invisibility as she ‘sneaks’ towards me.

Sema giggles noticing my expression ire on her quickly looks away, still giggling like a fucking Kekul bird cackling it’s mocking amusement.

Kira eventually gets close and fucking sidles under my blankets like a warm ferret before looking up at me like the adorable creature it is, watery eyes of misery and pout of begging on full display. I grin despite myself at how manipulative these fucking children can be.

‘’What the fuck do you want?’’ I say in my best mean voice but the full smile behind my voice belays my harsh words, even as tough as I know I’m supposed to be to Barbarian children Sachi’s kids somehow don’t seem to fit the bill.

"Aunt Ava, Billy’s hurt...’’ she says with that manipulative gaze on full display, her arms hugging around my torso, her chin quivers slightly before she lowers her head in feigned humility.

Sema laughs outright for a breath before turning it into a cough then a giggling cough finding solitude in Onimorē’s shaking in his amusement. Maybe it’s my flabbergasted expression but really I don’t know what Sachi is teaching these kids.

‘’Who the fuck is Billy first of all and if he is hurt why not take him to your mother instead of bothering me with it?’’ Do these kids not realise they get me in trouble when their parents eventually find out as they almost always do that I covered up something without their approval?

‘’Mama is very busy, its only a minor wound I doubt it will need her direct attention,’’ she says quickly. Then with a low voice making me her co-conspirator she adds, ‘’Rayna is hurt too, you know how she gets when Rayna is hurt.’’

I grumble under my breath conceding the point. It is not easy to separate the man and the woman part of Shea, she changes her gender so quickly so smoothly and so frequently that I will start a conversation sure I’m speaking the a guy and I’m hear a laugh come from the slender throat of a woman. The quickest way for her womanhood to come to the fore though is when something happens to little Rayna, her love child with Mira. Shea is not strict with any her other children but the way she obsesses over the child has little Raynie too scared even to report minor bruises and a few cracked bones for fear of consequences.

‘’Still, you could just go to healer Asclepius, you know where his tent is.’’ Everyone knows where that tent is at all times. As the first barbarian to Awaken to purely healing magic he is quite the strange one amongst my people but also a great asset for the Tribes going forward.

The little girl wrinkles her nose at me in displeasure; an expression of Mira’s that’s always annoyed me yet looks so cute on this adorable face. ‘’Da said we can’t trust the fae and everyone is always watching Healer’s tent though you all pretend like you’re not.‘’ The fae run almost all the healing in Paradisum, even in this expedition there are more fae than anyone else in the Host medics.

‘’Fine, I’ll take you the see Gordga,’’ I say after a moment of though. Onimorē’s disappointed sigh reminds me that I’ve acquisited to this little fynx’s demands yet again without even thinking much about it. I grumble, glaring at the little Barbarian child for being so manipulative, with so many mothers and so many siblings it must be part of the course in that household thought.

‘’What are the injuries?’’ I ask standing, the little rascal falling from my blankets to land smoothly in step with me.

‘’Billy lost his hand at 10 th bell but has been too busy tending other things to get it properly seen to, Raynie only lost a finger in a friendly spar a little while ago nothing major.’’

I grunt, walking slightly faster as I weigh the fact that it’s now 86 th bell in the deep of night, almost dawn in fact and a kid spent most of it without a hand with the possibility that me walking faster with one of the kids close behind will attract one of the ‘wives’ and Shea is bound to find out I covered up his kid’s injuries again. I don’t see why it’s such a big issue with her, I mean Morpheus didn’t even lose his eye in that incid-

I notice little Kira is not longer with me, maybe her stealth training is good for something besides being funny after all I think to myself even as I notice a couple of kids signal me around a hill up ahead. I follow the instructions given to me as I get them from each group until I reach a little bubbling brook where the young men and women of the Barbarian tribes sit scattered. I see two of Sachi’s kid’s Aurora and Hannah immediately, they standing out as being amongst the obvious leaders even as it is Aurora that comes to me from the gang of them.

‘’Aunty Ava, Kira has explained the situation to you?’’ She says walking into my arms for a hug. I glower at all of them even as I enfold her in my arms as scent deeply of her warm fluffy hair, I show my teeth to one kid I notice hiding a grin, that shuts him up quickly and I watch the others, eye to eye as I enjoy Aurora’s embrace for the pleasure it is.

‘’What do you all think you’re doing?’’ I ask strongly. ‘’Do you think you are still back in the tundra? Do you think you are still back home? This is enemy territory and not time for you all to be ‘sparring’ and injuring each other. You are just showing the Sandorians your moves here, you think they don’t see us? You think they aren’t watching us here in their own kingdom uninvited as we? Yet here you all are, almost every single born barbarian youth in the camp secluding themselves from the rest of the Paradisians your age as though we were factions like those skinny slavers. Now whoever is injured I don’t care I’ll take them to Gordga no questions asked but I don’t expect to be here again to deal with secret injuries during war time. And don’t send the fucking kids when you have a public message like this.’’ I say that last part with my eyes locked on Andrew, none of the kids must be used as runners coming to me, I don’t like it.

He nods his accent with a slight nod and I’m rustling through the trees on my way out of their little nest, the injured follow. Little Rayna shuffling at the back embarrassed for having caused such a fuss as she hold her closed fist in her left her, cradling her detached finger. Cute Rayna, so much like Sachi yet the only one of his children without his blood.

*

Gaia

I watch the Sandorians delegation meet with some of the Chief Aids up ahead on the little hill that’s been cleared of boulders so all can see and keep up with the discussion that takes place between our leaders in this expedition and the army of southerners assembled against us. Six men and women from the Sandorians delegation walk up the hill escorted by two Aids to where War-Chief Mandrax has pitched a tent and set a table as not to disturb the delicate sensibilities of the southern mages.

Cicilia stands slightly ahead on my left with a scowl over her shoulders; I know her face is set in a stubborn yet peaceful expression, her resting face for years now. Selah and Thandeka both stand with her assessing the Sandorian army assembled to challenge our passage through their lands, it’s a courtesy force by my estimate, not a force that could actually stop or even delay our advance for more than a few dozen hours.

I watch what I can see of the forces assembled against us both through my own senses and access to the higher consciousness of sending connecting most of the Awakened in the Host so that we are all mostly on the same page. The network is something Seer Gladys discovered after her Awakening, something of spirit and mana that we weren’t taught by the fae, dwarves, elves or any other that have come to our lands in the guise of ‘friendship’. It hasn’t been long since we’ve reconnected with the rest of the world, only about three decades, but we’re quickly catching up.

I sigh; of two minds about the many directions our culture is being influenced. I adjust my shoulders, the larger plates of armour interlocked to my shoulder guards shifting as I do to allow greater flexibility of movement. The armour is conclave made, almost massed produced for the Barbarian heavy armour division of the Proelium Conclave. It’s where I started wearing heavy armour and it’s where I discovered how devastating an advantage it could be in a fight to the death. Many of my people sadly still don’t share my sentiments but I’m glad the Chiefs when planning the training and armaments of the Horde didn’t take growing sentiment against armour going around to heart.

I’m eager to actually see what the Horde is capable of. It started out as an experiment, well technically it still is an experiment to see how this concept of a ‘standing army’ that is constantly in training having no other profession besides this ‘soldiering’ will do when things get serious.

‘’I recognise that one from the last time we passed through here,’’ Cici says indicating to one of the southerners in the delegation far ahead on the hill. I think I recognise him as well but I can’t place him.

‘’That is Mayner Barathian, that man beside him is Colonel Estergrade, Lieutenant Colonel now judging by the stripes on his armour.’’ Mira sends from somewhere.

I’m still not sure who Mayner is but I remember a Colonel Estergrade being present as the officer in charge of our ‘welcoming’ committee the year we had to deal with the child stealing sorcerers on our way to Pangaea.

Turning my gaze to the left and the mass of tribesmen eager for an excuse to fight my eyes land unerringly on Lysandra over a kilometre away in a clump of her siblings. As my sister’s direct child I know where she is at all times, the mandate of protection grandma placed on my spirit as she died enabling me to keep track of both Cici and her descendents. Next to Lysandra is Hannah, Nikita, the twins Orochi and Serenity then standing a step behind them is Erabus, my son. The bad thing about this mandate placed on me is that my children have inherited it as well and it influences their personality.

Never has Sachi or anyone in his family treated any of my children differently from any of the other kids, but the obsessive need to always be close either to Cicilia or Lysandra has created a rift between them and the rest of the children. It isn’t just the obsessive behaviour the gease they inherited from me to keep an eye on Cici or Lysa that irks the others, it’s the fact that they try to ‘protect’ them even from everyone else in the family. That’s something that’s been bothering me for years now but at least the older the boys get the less anal they are about everything.

I look away quickly when I notice Aurora and Andrew, Om’s son join the group. I don’t know how I feel about her, she’s my friend’s daughter and grew up right before my eyes so its difficult, almost disgusting to see her in a sexual way. But then I did have sex with her, I know how whole she made me feel during those precious minutes we spent intimate together and I can’t seem to forget how succulent her mouth was in mine.

I breathe deeply, meditate those thoughts out of my head before they distract me. It was just that sexual energy that Sachi brought to the home that led us to each other’s arms, nothing more. I take one last look at her, her outfit today a blend of Hito and southern ideas she must have gotten in Pangaea. Her ripe lips moving as she speaks without realising the captivating sight they portray, her dark eyes deep and unfathomable, Andrew places a hand on her womanly figure leaning to her ear to say something, I look away.

They aren’t really related Andrew and her, but still I find myself disapproving of the couple since they grew up together and both refer to Sachi as ‘da’. How did Sachi become a father to so many children so quickly anyways, I was present most of the time but I feel like I missed it somehow. I wonder how Om is doing though, how many years has it been since he left for Atrium, seven, eight? Kiera even ended up coupling with Soal; I’m surprised she didn’t just declare a divorce with how unhappy she seems to be sometimes.

I sigh again as I watch the hill, mostly ignoring what’s going on there focusing instead on scanning for any immediate threats before trying to re-ass the armour stretching out before us. My own mate is unhappy, I really don’t know what to do with her to be honest. Her family is important to mine, they also being keepers of a part of our rune history but her complete loyalty to her birth family makes her untrustworthy to this one, thus she remains an outsider just like this Selah girl that managed to insinuate herself amongst us.

It’s not long before the meeting ends and as the Host leaders exchange salutations with the Sandersonians more than a few in our crowd are disappointed to see the amicable departure. No fight here then, good for us not looking to fight but not so good maybe for those eager to spill blood regardless to which southerner it belongs.