Chapter 2

She woke up and stretched, feeling life and vigour course through her veins. It was already warm and the sky showed clear in an azure blue that darkened at the horizon. Che was nowhere to be seen, but the ground where he had lain was still warm. She could just faintly smell his equine odour. Susan sat up and surveyed her surroundings. The fall of water terminated in the clear lagoon. Strangely, it caused no ripples or disturbance to the crystal clear water. It did however, remind Susan that she needed to pee and get a wash. Dirt from yesterday was beginning to cake on her face, hands and feet. She was acutely aware of the smell of the woollen shift she had been wearing since this all started. The bra and panties had both stayed at Che's village. The bra she could do without, but a clean pair of knickers would have been nice.

She got up, found a little hollow and relieved her bladder. The smell coming from her groin almost made her wretch. She dived into the lagoon fully clothed and scrubbed herself clean. The water felt warm and soft and so inviting. Susan trod water while she pealed herself out of the woollen shift, which she deftly threw unto a nearby bush to dry, while naked, she swam and gloried in the freedom of movement.

Che re-appeared, coming up from the path they had used the night before. He had been successful in his hunting and soon had a ptarmigan, stuffed with wild mushrooms, wild garlic and thyme cooking over a small fire. He watched her bathe and smiled as he waved and signalled that breakfast was ready.

The ptarmigan was delicious. Somewhere, he had found some roots and had roasted them in the embers. She finished the resplendent meal with some tiny wild strawberries that oozed juice and took her back to her childhood with the taste.

"I cannot thank you enough." Susan at last broke the shared silence. She glanced at him from under her brows to see what his reaction would be. "I feel so much cleaner now and stuffed to the gills with an excellent meal. Thank you."

He surprised her with a sob. He looked crest fallen and abject misery countenanced his face.

"What on earth is the matter?" She became a little alarmed.

"I have to leave you." He informed her with more sobs. "I can only take you to the edge of my Kingdom, from there you must travel alone and I am afraid I will never see you again." He broke down and cried, huge tears and racking sobs took him over.

Susan reached for him and laid his head on her bare chest. She stroked his mane of hair and cradled him to her bosom while he ran the gamut of his misery. Gradually, his cries subsided, but she continued to hold him, feeling the warmth of his breath as it wafted over her nipple. The familiar itch began in her loins and soon she was fondling him and then kissed him full on the lips. His mouth parted and they explored each other's mouths.

Susan wriggled around and soon had him in her mouth. Che gasped and tried desperately, not to repeat yesterday's debacle. She was prepared this time and knew what to expect. His cock stiffened and sprung to it's full glory, but instead of taking him to his climax with her mouth, Susan quickly turned under him and, grasping the shuddering member, guided his mushroomed headed penis into her body. His thrust had her almost losing balance and shifted her across the ground from the force even though she had braced her feet. Then she was lifted bodily as he reared onto his hind legs and impaled on his throbbing organ until he screamed his climax and fully flooded her from within. Che's arms encircled her and one of his hands found her clit. Gently, he rubbed and tweaked her pleasure nub while rocking her on his still hard cock. Susan could not last and her own shuddering climax smashed through her skull, leaving her bereft of senses.

Their combined juices flowed from her as he carefully returned to all four feet while still cradling her against his belly. Susan collapsed in a sated heap and rested for a few minutes then, waded back into the water to clean herself off. She spread her legs wide and with one hand, opened her inner lips and caressed her self. The delicious warmth or water cleansed her body as she floated in a dream like state while her nerve ends gradually returned to normal.

There were more tears at their parting. Che had brought her to the foot of a mountain range. Forest had closed in around them, leaving little more than a game trail to follow. At last, they burst into a clearing. Grass covered the small mound that was surrounded by the ancient trees that stood like sentinels in quiet guard. Nothing stirred and the usual susurration of birds and insects had ceased.

"This is as far as I can go Susan. I must leave you here and you must continue through the mountain pass that is just above us." Huge crocodile tears coursed down both cheeks and his sobs shook his muscular shoulders. Had he been any other male, she would have told him to stop being a wimp, but with Che, she could feel and sense the depth of feeling and sympathised with it.

"What is the mountain like?" She wanted him to think about anything else and stop crying.

"It is never the same for any traveller. For some, it is a pleasant hop over the hills and tors, but for others, it is an arduous journey, filled with danger and pitfalls. I hope yours isn't the latter." He was beginning to calm down a little.

"Well, goodbye then. Take care going back and I am sure we will see each other again. Thanks for the lift and everything." She turned to go, trying to make it as easy as possible, but Che threw his arms around her and kept kissing her face and hair. She struggled to free herself, then kissed his cheeks and stepped beyond the boundary of his domain. From Che's point of view, she had just winked out, but Susan could see through the void between them. She watched Che, shrug his shoulders and instantly compose himself. It was the ultimate show of 'out of mind'.

She turned and faced the seemingly impossible climb and noticed that the woollen shift had now become a cotton shirt with a leather jerkin and woollen breaches. She also had a stout pair of boots on her feet. Susan had given up trying to work out the mysteries of this land some time ago.

A small knife was tucked into a belt that cinched the ensemble together and a machete poked her in the small of her back where it was carried in a sheath slung from a leather thong around her shoulder. The machete soon proved its worth in clearing the dense vegetation from her path. In no time, she had begun the climb and had passed beyond the tree line, climbing over heavy basalt rocks that strew over the lower reaches of the mountain.

Susan climbed in silence. The air grew cooler and more rarefied, but sweat made the new clothes stick to her and the thong chafed her shoulder. She reached a small outcrop with a flat surface and awarded her self a rest period. The sun, although clear and bright, provided just enough warmth to be comfortable. Susan started to doze with her back to the cliff face.

Some loose scree rattled down and landed on the ledge she was resting on. It confirmed her feeling she had been having, that she was being watched. Who ever was keeping tabs on her was now above her. She slowly and with nonchalance, picked up a handful of rocks about hen's egg sized. Seeming not to be doing anything, she weighed them in her hands before launching them high over her head and slightly backwards before ducking under the overhang of the cliff above her. She was rewarded with a curse and an "OW". Then a body fell flat on the ledge at her feet.

He was colourless; in so much as he had no colour other than grey and shades of it. His face was grey with long pointed ears that had a grey hat pinned under them. His long beard was also grey and was tucked into a grey belt and divided a grey pair of rough trousers from a grey tunic. Altogether, he was about three feet in length and was obviously winded from the fall.

"Oh great! Just what I need, fucking dopey from the seven dwarves." She poked him with the toe of her boot and immediately wished she hadn't. He grasped her breaches and hauled himself upright in one fluid motion that was too fast to really register. His head came up to her waist and his eyes peered at her from two suspicious looking slitted eyes.

Suddenly, he began to wave his arms about and screamed at her in unintelligible words. The more Susan didn't do anything through her lack of understanding, the more agitated he became. It went on until Susan held up her hands, palm outwards to shut him up, but he must have thought she was going to push him off the ledge, because he cupped his hands and issued a high trilling sound. Nothing happened for a second, then, twenty figures, identical to the first, melted out of the rock face and surrounded her. They all carried wicked looking spears with wickedly sharp looking points, all aimed at her midriff.

By gestures with the spears, they indicated that she should turn around. Susan complied and faced the wall. One of them pushed a rock that seemed to be just lying there and a large section of the rock face slid away to reveal a dark passageway beyond it. A jab with a spear in her buttocks got her moving forward. She had to bend at an alarming angle to avoid banging her head. Here we go again, she thought.

After what felt like several hours, but was in fact only a few minutes, they entered a large torch lit cavern. Hundreds of the little grey men were sitting in tiered benches cut in the rock all facing her as she was pushed onto a low dais at the foot of the amphitheatre.

She stood and looked at them, noticing how they all looked the same, with no identifying marks or variation in their clothing. Idly, she wondered if they were clones or something.

Then, as if given a jolt of electricity, they all rose and as one, started with the unintelligible chattering. Susan guessed that the noises were questions by the cadence of their speech, but could not make out a single word.

"CAT, WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU?" Susan screamed at the top of her lungs. Two things happened, both equally startling. Silence, profound and complete hit her like a slap with a wet fish. The last noise, apart from her echoed voice, was the click of hundreds of teeth as mouths snapped shut.

The other thing was the sudden and dramatic appearance of the Cat in purple smoke, right in the middle of them. Ignoring the frantic efforts to get out of the way, the cat nonchalantly sauntered down to the dais that she was still standing on and brushed it's self against her legs.

"Trouble Darling?"

"Well duh". She was not impressed with her guide. "What's with these guys?" Susan resisted the urge to stamp her foot in the classic spoilt princess routine.

"Seems to me, we have a bit of a situation here." His calm and condescending tone was really grating her nerves.

"No shit Sherlock..." She would have continued, but a small voice piped up.

"Err... excuse me... erm. We thought you was the mythical snow man and we was trying to trap you so that we could get some water in here... you know, from you melting... silly really... and we didn't know you spoke goblinesque." The diminutive figure trembled at the foot of the dais. He was in standard uniform, grey.

It was obvious to Susan that she was not playing with the brightest bunch of candles in the candelabra here.

I'm Human, got that? Human." Her exasperation threatened to overflow. "How can you think I am the sodding Abominable Snowman? I mean would he be all white?"

"Dunno." The little grey goblin looked up at her and blinked.

"What do you mean you don't know? Haven't you ever seen a human before?"

"Er... no."

"WHAT? WELL DO I look like a fucking snow man?" Susan's anger was simmering nicely and she was starting to get wound up. It didn't help that the cat had jumped up on the shoulder of the goblin and was watching her with that supercilious grin on its face.