Chapter 3

Jabbit was lying on his side, the rag doll held to his chest and watching the dying embers of the campfire. The camp was asleep or at least it seemed to be. Only the girl was still awake. She had pulled the blanket over her head and her body lay curled up beneath it. With only her eyes visible, she looked like an animal spying out of its burrow. She had been crying and her eyes were still brimming with tears but eventually had stopped weeping and now just stared at him. He closed his eyes and the memory of another young girl singing banished the sounds of the night.

He awoke from his slumber when someone snatched the doll out of his hands. It was the girl. She rolled onto her side with her back towards Jabbit, clutched the doll to her chest and curled around it. He lifted his blanket and covered the trembling girl. She moved a little closer but stopped when her back touched his chest. Then she retreated until their bodies did not touch any longer.

“The Princess and the Rabbit,” gushed the big man stepping out of the darkness. “It sounds like the name for a fairytale.”

Jabbit watched him coming closer. Kuwasi wore loose linen pantaloons but was bare above the waist. His hairy chest looked huge, almost as enormous as his no less hairy potbelly. Many scars of different sizes and shapes marked his body and the tattoo of a giant, red spider embracing the hull of a ship covered his right shoulder. He crouched down, crossed his massive arms in front of his chest and his mouth warped into a wide, toothy grin.

“Do you like the pretty princess, Jabbit? She’s so sweet and dainty.” He sighed and his smile turned sad. “My friends would hurt her like they hurt her governess. We’re not cruel men. That’s just how it is. The world is a cruel place for dainty, little girls. If you come with me, the pretty dove can stay here and rest. What do you say?” Kuwasi asked smiling brightly again.

Jabbit watched and listened to everything Kuwasi said but all he saw was a fat man and all he heard was a slurring voice. When Kuwasi finally asked his question Jabbit simply nodded. As he moved to get up, he felt the girl pushing back into him and a voice arose from across the campfire.

“Kuwasi, the boy is mine and you won’t touch him.”

“Aww, what is it with you, Eva? I thought we’re friends. You don’t want the boy and he wants to come with me,” the big man whined.

“I don’t care what he wants, and if you want to stay my friend you’ll keep your greedy paws off anything that’s mine.”

Kuwasi heavily sighed and shook his head.

“I pity you, boy. You’re owned by a very cruel woman. Evanis never shares her joy and her greatest delight is to torture the souls of us poor men. Keep the princess warm. I’ll leave and mourn the loss of my home and happiness in Ibanee. I’m stranded at the Alorian shore and all alone amongst its bitter people.”

The big man rose to his feet. He cast a last yearning look at Jabbit before he vanished into the darkness of the night. Soon thereafter, Jabbit could hear the distant sound of some men’s bellowing laughter.

Jabbit soon dozed off again. He was drifting between the stars and listening to the sound of a lullaby when the girl disturbed his rest.

“What’s her name?” She asked so low he could hardly make out the words.

“Neesa,” he answered.

“You are a man. Why do you sleep holding a doll?”

“Because I lost the girl and now the doll is all I have.”

Silence followed and Jabbit left for the realm of the stars once more.

Opening his eyes, Jabbit squinted at the figure looming above him. Actually, she was not that tall but it was morning and he awoke lying on his back. Evanis stood looking down on him.

“Don’t wake her up and follow me,” she commanded.

Turning his head to the side he looked into the face of the sleeping girl. Her cheek was resting on his shoulder, her limbs thrown across his body and the rag doll clamped between them. Her body appeared to be boneless as he carefully lifted her off him. He doubted she would awake anytime soon; at least not on her own.

He followed Evanis to the small creek and they walked a little further up its course. Evanis stopped when they reached a spot where the bank slope was level enough to easily step into the shallow water of the slow flowing stream. She dropped the bundle of clothes she carried and grabbed the hem of her short, red tunic but suddenly stopped in mid-movement. Evanis turned around facing Jabbit.

“Have you ever seen a naked woman?” She asked, and it seemed the question was tugging at the corner of her mouth trying to raise a smile.

Jabbit did not need to think for long. “No,” he answered.

“Then take a good look, this is your lucky day,” Evanis said, her green eyes flashing.

She grabbed the hem of the tunic once more and in a single, fluid motion pulled the garment over her head and threw it aside. The piece of cloth fluttered to the ground, disregarded.

“What do you think?” She asked, striking a pose with one hand reaching high and the other on her cocked hip.

Her full, round breasts sat high on her chest and seemed to be too large for her frame. Her waist was tiny though the muscles showing beneath her skin denied frailty. The swing of her smooth hips was tempting but the erected cobra head, tattooed adjacent to her left hipbone, looked anything but inviting. Her black pubic hair was sparse and short, the lips of her sex soft and bare; vulnerability guarding a treasure vault – or hiding a pitfall. Jabbit thought of many things as he watched Evanis; a million different answers to her question, each of them true but altogether a lie. He picked an easy one.

“You are beautiful,” he said.

Evanis dropped her pose and her smile was gone as she turned and strode into the shallow water.

“I am Evanis Danjala, my name and reputation as a mercenary is well known in the north, and it’s spreading. No matter though, I’ll never become as famous as my mother. In all of Aloria and all the lands along the Ewu, even in Ibanee across the Garossa Sea, everyone has heard tales of Inandrey Danjala, the Queen of Whores.” She paused her tale and looked back over her shoulder.

“Don’t just stand there,” she said and bent forward to soak a rag in the water of the creek. “Undress and then come here and wash my back.”

“I was twelve years old when I started growing tits. I prayed to Mantia, Erodina, Walena and even Koserco. For more than a year I prayed to every bloody Alorian god I knew but my tits became bigger and bigger. I stopped praying when my hips and ass grew too. Two weeks after my thirteenth birthday, I killed a man. It was the first time.” She handed the wet rag to Jabbit when he walked up behind her.

“I have a little sister; she’s a year younger than I. We shared a small room in my mother’s palace, the Banyan Dream. It still is the most notorious whorehouse in Katerra. One day I opened the door to our room and there was a man inside. My little sister sat on his lap and he had his hand beneath her dress. Even before I grew tits, I always had a small knife at my belt. I cut the man’s throat. His blood ruined my sister’s dress. It had been her favorite and she was furious for quite some time but she finally forgave me.”

She looked over her shoulder at Jabbit washing her lower back. “Don’t be shy scrubbing my ass. Isn’t it beautiful too?” She asked smirking.

“When I was fourteen, I heard a man offering my mother a gold piece to fuck me. She told him I was a virgin and he offered five. It was a very wealthy merchant. For two days and nights, I hid in an old, wrecked fishing boat down by the harbor. It was my secret hideout and I thought no one knew of it. I was wrong. My little sister came to the wreck on the third day. She was smiling brightly and had a present for me. She thought with a bigger knife I wouldn’t need to hide anymore and so she had bought one for me. It was an iron falcata, the best she could buy in Katerra, and she had paid three gold pieces for it. She told me that was all the merchant had paid for her virginity because her tits and ass were much smaller. I still use the falcata she gave me that day and as far as men are concerned, I’m also still a virgin. No man will ever have me,” she said while Jabbit used the washrag to scrub her shapely ass and thighs.

When he was done, she turned around and looked at him from head to toe.

“Since I was fourteen, every man who ever looked at me, wanted to fuck me. I’m twenty-three now, and you’re the first who doesn’t,” she said, pointedly looking at the limp hanging cock between his legs. “A half-wit I found naked in the woods, and who had never seen a naked woman in his life. Go and get a dry cloth from my bundle and then towel me off,” she said and smiled.

They had been walking silently but halfway back to the camp Evanis abruptly stopped and stared at Jabbit. Her eyes searched his face and she blinked when she could not find anything but peaceful serenity in his expression. Suddenly she broke out laughing.

“It’ll break Kuwasi’s heart to find out you are not nearly as perfect as he thought you are. A beautiful gelding – but no stallion.”