Chapter 8

"Hot sausages!" the vendor called from his stall in the food court. A tall man dressed in a simple robe was attracted by the call and stepped toward the vendor. His wrist was bound with a delicate metal chain which looped down and away from him, the length of the chain dragging in the dirt. The other end of the chain eventually rose up from the dirt pathway to encircle the bare wrist of a small, delicately formed, young and very naked female. The female was completely ignoring her master, instead watching a juggler attempt to keep a half-dozen small round fruits traveling in a circle in front of him. Every so often, the juggler would snag a bite of fruit, managing the feat without dropping any of the other fruits he was juggling.

The darkly tanned female watched for a few moments, until the juggler took a break, then stepped forward. The juggler noticed the female looked very slender, perhaps malnourished, and held out a pear – one that he hadn't already taken a bite out of. Smiling, the girl reached out ... and her hand was yanked away by the attached chain.

Silently, she glared at her master while the juggler picked up the fruit she'd dropped. The female didn't look at the juggler or his food again as she turned and followed the man down the corridor of vendors, gamesters and food stalls. As she caught up, the man handed her a warm length of hot meat, wrapped in a thin waxy paper.

"What? No bread?" Elsa asked, admonishing her 'master'.

Vlad grinned and informed her, "I've had servants whipped for such a simple question."

"Good thing I'm not a servant, then," Elsa grinned up at him and bit the end off the erotically round length of meat. Grease burst out and sizzled down her chin, but she ignored it and let it dribble down onto her breasts and stomach. A few seconds later, her blistered chin was completely healed.

Vlad frowned. "You didn't use Phoenix fire to heal that."

"In this body, I'm also a Goddess," Elsa informed him. "At least according to these people. There are, like, a couple dozen of us here, and we pretty much run the place."

She held up her arm with Vlad's chain and grinned, "We submit to our subjects' sexual fantasies only when we fucking feel like it, but I remember a few years ago there was one of us who let her subjects eat parts of her..." She took another bite of the hot sausage, sending Vlad the image of her biting off the end of his cock. "Maybe now that there's a male 'Goddess', your subjects can 'eat' parts of you..."

But Vlad was still thinking about the 'Goddess' who had let her subjects carve into her like he had carved into Elsa when they'd been trapped in Earth's prehistoric past. After a moment, he ventured, "I don't see how a woman – even one with powers like yours – could maintain her rule over people to whom she submits herself for their pleasure."

"Well, first of all, we don't 'rule' the people – you know, like passing laws and making them obey – and also we don't tax them, so nobody complains about any kind of top-heavy ruling class. This is more of a socialistic society; the people share the food that's grown by the farmers, the products of people who can work with wood and stone, though there are a few townships that use paper currency for some trading."

"Is this one of them?" Vlad asked, because he wasn't charged for the two sausages he'd 'bought' earlier. His grateful 'thank you' had been enough, which was really strange, mostly because of his own overbearing nature. He definitely wasn't used to sharing, which was proven a second later when a man approached the pair.

"Is your talkative little bit here available?" the man asked. "I assume she is; otherwise you wouldn't be parading her around as trade wares."

Vlad began to growl, but Elsa shot him a silent thought; 'This is who we are, darling. We share what we have with each other. Your little jest of chaining me to you just backfired. If you didn't want to offer me to others in trade, you wouldn't parade me around in public!'

'Like the man with the sausages?' he asked, beginning to understand. 'Is that why he offered me his food?'

'Not entirely, ' Elsa replied. 'He probably saw that I was with you and he... '

'I should have let him FUCK you?' Vlad was really getting angry now. 'For a fucking sausage?'

'I think he was simply appreciative of the fact that you had me naked for him to view, ' Elsa chortled. 'If he wanted to fuck me or feel me up in exchange for your lunch, he would have offered. A common exchange would be a blow job.'

"Is there something you're willing to exchange for?" the man asked. "I have skills in repairing appliances and some machinery."

Vlad began to tell the man to fuck off, but Elsa interrupted. "We don't have any appliances. In fact, we don't have anything. We are looking for lodging – a place to stay for the night."

The man grinned, seeming grateful that he had something they might want for the use of her body. "I have a spare room; shelter for the 'night' if you want, though we usually don't call it 'night', here."

'You're going to blow him for a cot in a flea-infested hovel?' Vlad blasted into her mind, still angry that she hadn't told him what he was getting into when he'd chained her, naked, to his wrist so she wouldn't wander off by herself. He'd thought he was demonstrating his power over her, not offering sex to anyone who thought they could make a trade for her.

'You set this up, Vlad darling, so live with it!' Elsa chortled into his mind.

'You're a Goddess! We can stay at the palace!'

'And let everyone know I'm back?' Elsa thought, sounding shocked. 'I've been exiled from here – in case you've forgotten!'

'You just saved the whole planet!' Vlad growled back. 'That should earn you the status of Ka Khan.'

'There is even a higher status than doing something so heroic that the death penalty can be forgiven ten times as was practiced by the Huns, and that's to be declared 'carte blanche'. My Mother the Queen is 'carte blanche', which means she can do anything she wants and not be held accountable. Ever. Or by anyone.'

'And you aren't... '

"Well, if you're not interested, I'll be on my way," the stranger said, not realizing he interrupted Vlad and Elsa's silent discussion. He was beginning to become annoyed that they were simply standing there, seemingly ignoring him.

"Sorry, I apologize," Elsa replied. "I was considering your offer and didn't mean to be rude."

"Why would you be considerin' it?" the man asked. "The decision'd be up t' him, wouldn't it?"

Instead of replying, Elsa simply turned toward Vlad, to let him make up his mind. She didn't think anything at him, and she was shielded to prevent him from making any snarky comments to her. This was his show, and she was delighted to watch him stand or fall as his behavior dictated.

Vlad smiled. "Möchten sie eine wurst?" and held out his uneaten sausage.

Elsa brayed out a loud, rude laugh. "Is that how you're going to play it?" she asked out loud, laughing so hard she could barely get the words out. When she had her composure back, she turned to the startled stranger and said, "He doesn't snort um, speak snicker-snort much English. So I snerk usually talk for him..." Bronx raspberry as she bravely tried to keep her mouth shut so she wouldn't spray right in the poor man's face. 'You don't Spreken sie Deutsch worth a shit!' she chortled into Vlad's mind.

When she could, she continued talking to the stranger: "He understands a bit, though, and he says he would like to see your, um, snort accommodations before deciding if I may warm your bed tonight."

Disgruntled and more than a bit upset about the weird laughing that the naked girl kept doing and the even weirder glare in her master's eyes, he turned and motioned for them to follow. She looked good enough that he didn't care if they laughed at him or not, so long as he got his hands on that tender, succulent body of hers.

Tabatha found herself on her bed, waiting for Jake Hedron, her husband, to return from whatever errand had cause his disappearance. For a single instant, she felt something burst right into the middle of her bedroom and jerked her eyes open to see...

'That's ME!'

Tabatha had met herself before, so she knew what to expect and braced for the inevitable impact and merging of her future self, hoping that whatever tragedy she'd come back to warn herself about wasn't too serious. Then her two souls merged, and she understood what had already happened. 'At least, there's no longer any danger, ' she realized, then also suddenly realized LISA'S BACK!

She sat up straight in the bed, nearly knocking Jake's breakfast tray out of his hands. "Oh, shit!" she exclaimed. "Sorry!"

"What? What?" Jake asked nervously as he quickly sat the tray down on the bedcovers before he dropped the whole thing onto the floor.

Tabatha stared at him for a moment, then urgently told him, "I have to go see Elaine!"

"But what about break..." Jake began, but she'd already disappeared. "Damn! It sure is hard to keep some people happy..." He sat down on the bed and sulked, upset and disappointed, though not so depressed he didn't pick up a slice of bacon from the tray and begin nibbling it while he pouted.

The southern crystal sun was getting dim as Alana glided high over the palace, enjoying the feel of the air against her bare skin. The air whistling through her hair and along the length of her body greatly relaxed her, 'Almost better than sex, ' she thought to herself after a long day listening to problems the citizens of her little domain brought to her.

Thinking of sex, now, she thought of her mate and wondered if Sibilius might be found out here, somewhere in the darkening skies. He was a hybrid now, just as she was (and always had been – for almost five thousand years, anyway), but her stoic monarch had never allowed himself to be enlightened regarding the joys of flying under your own power. Yes, he could do it, but he didn't enjoy being so far away from something he'd rather be standing on – like the ground!

In fact, the only times Sy had enjoyed flying was when Alana took him so far up into the center of New Eden that it would take an hour to return to the ground. And, except from Northern or Southern, it was actually impossible to fly from the ground to the airy center of the world. Too much turbulence: a girl could get her wings ripped off trying to fly through the hurricane winds that swept across New Eden at the height of a few thousand feet.

As could be expected, thinking about flying with Sy made Alana think about having another child. She'd had four; her son, Jason, the twins, Becky and Samantha, and Lisa. Three different fathers, three different men she had flown with – though with Lisa's father, she'd lain on the ground and wrapped her wings around him, certain at the time that she would spend the rest of her existence with him. With Jake.

Wind whipped tears from her eyes as she remembered the years they'd spent together. But now, Jake was with his chosen, Annalisa, and living in the past – thirty-five thousand years in the past – not even willing to be on the same planet with her – or even in the same time period.

And Lisa? Thoughts of her only brought more tears. Lisa had willingly vanished, removing herself from space and time (as far as anyone could tell) rather than submit to her mother's wishes. Alana wished, more than anything, that her daughter would one day return to her.

'Whatever happened to you, Lisa?'

'What?' A surprised reply, then...

'No! She couldn't be!' Alana nearly fell out of the sky as she lost her balance. It took a moment to stabilize into a long, shallow glide as she forcibly brought her emotions under control. Well, almost. 'Where are you!' Not a question, and sounding much too angry to elicit a civil reply.

'Oh, Enchi! Please answer me, baby, ' Alana pleaded into the ether. 'I miss you so much ... I would give anything to see you again... '

Alana flew until her wings began to feel numb. The Southern sun had dimmed, and the tiny, sparkling lights of several towns became visible on the upwardly rounded horizon. Alana banked, looking down, and realized she didn't know where she was. There were no familiar landmarks, and the dark ribbon of the Equator River hung high on the horizon. 'Have I flown this far?' she asked herself. 'Maybe I should just continue and go visit Tabitha.' But, she didn't know if the glowing lights of the town ahead of her was LaCross or Lorraine or another neighboring villa. She knew what her chambers at the palace looked like, so she closed her eyes, concentrated, and vanished.