Chapter 6

She opened her eyes to find that she was in the cave with the others of her people. 'I was dreaming, ' she realized, 'reliving the change – the 'transformation' – as the red-haired Queen calls it.'

Looking down at her naked body, she could see that her breasts were enhanced and almost pendulous in size. Her slender belly swelled into supple hips, while her thighs looked strange and bare. In fact, her whole body looked strange and bare. And the way the males kept looking at her – not directly, but from the corners of their eyes as they pretended to be gazing at something else – that was unnerving. She felt like she was the receptacle of a new kind of power, and that excited her.

"Hello, Cela," a friendly, female voice said from nearby. "I'm glad to see you're awake."

"Hel-lo," Cela said, the words of this new language feeling strange on her tongue. "You are here, great queen. For why?"

"I wanted to find out what the dragon was doing," Alana replied, smiling innocently. "I had no idea there was more than one, or that the dragon here was the God I worshiped when I was first born here."

"You seek ... look for, Wind God? Enchi?" Cela asked. "You find, but not leave. Why?"

Alana's grin grew wider. This young, newly-human girl certainly had the spunk it took to be among the first of her kind ever created. The girl certainly wasn't afraid of a mere queen, but she didn't seem arrogant in her newfound status, either.

"Well, I did want to see where the dragon led me," Alana replied, "but I also was hoping to find out what happened to some children another dragon, and a tribe similar to yours, took from us a week ago."

"A dragon, not Enchi?" Cela asked, frowning in her consternation. "And it took your young ones?" Alana nodded, then hoped the cave girl understood what a 'nod' was. She evidently did, as she continued to speak. "There is dragon, Wind God. Dragon, Fire God. Dragon of Land. Dragon, Rain. More."

"There is a dragon of the land?" Alana asked, interested because she was once called the Goddess of the Land. "Can I meet him?"

"You ... feet on Dragon of Land," Cela explained. "Land ... big." She held out her arms as wide as she could, then quickly covered herself when she heard an excited reaction from several nearby males.

Alana didn't try to convince Cela that there was nothing about her nakedness that should shame her. Mankind – womankind, rather, would be fighting that battle from now until the extinction of the species. At least in New Eden, nudity was more accepted now that the Goddesses had arrived. But Cela would never see that day. She lived at the beginning of civilization, not the end.

"What about the dragon who helped to steal our children?" she asked, instead.

"Fire God," Cela replied. "Protect people, young ones. You have ... young, like mine ... like me. Fire God take. Need for ours. You ... not need. You have..." she paused, then rubbed her arm to indicate her bare skin.

"Hairless," Alana determined. "You need hairless children so you can evolve."

"Eve?" Cela asked, not understanding. "All young, we take. Need. Grow. Not hurt. Feed, hold, make strong. Make ... more..." she paused again, then tapped the side of her head.

"Smart," Alana supplied the word. "The new children make you smarter."

Cela nodded, grateful that the great queen understood. "We keep. We hold. Feed. You go," she informed Alana, making a shooing motion with her hands.

"I believe she doesn't want to give them back," Sibilius called out from behind Alana. "She seems to think they're important to the continued well-being of their tribe."

Cela frowned, trying to determine the meaning of the words the young male was using. She shook her head, giving up to the complexity of the words these strangers used.

"Also," Jeff surmised, "from what this girl says, the tribe that took the children is probably an extension of these people here. She certainly seems to know who did it, and agrees with them."

Alana looked at Tabatha with questions on her face, hoping for some new insight that might help solve the present dilemma. Tabatha shrugged her shoulders and said, "As far as I can see, my queen," which caused Alana to flinch, "There really isn't a problem. Those children were too powerful in our society, mostly because they could use the power of a Goddess against men. That's the main reason they were sent back to this period in time – to separate them from the hybrids.

"That's been accomplished," she continued, "so I think our responsibility for them ends as soon as we determine that the children are safe, and being well cared for."

Alana sighed in relief at Tabatha's suggestion. "I like that idea. Those kids can grow up here, and probably teach the Trogs a lot. Plus, give humankind a big evolutionary boost with their own children when they grow up."

She turned back to Cela, who had backed away and was chattering with a couple of the males. It looked like they might be preparing for aggression from Alana's group.

Alana spread her hands wide and low, hopefully a gesture to indicate she wanted peace between the two groups. Cela stared for a moment, then with a curt nod, stepped forward to hear what the great queen wanted to say.

"If we can see the children – the young ones – and see that they are safe, and not hungry," Alana suggested, "we will leave them with you, in peace, and go."

Not fully trusting the red-haired queen, Cela frowned, then turned to discuss something with the nearer of the two men. The man quarreled with Cela for a moment, then she seemed to pull rank on him, which surprised Alana, because the tribesmen didn't seem to show her much respect when they had first appeared after Cela's transformation. Evidently, her ability to learn the strange words of the hairless group added a great deal to her standing in the tribe.

"Take ... female to children," Cela informed Alana. "Males not see."

In response, Daphne, Holly and Haley began to walk forward. Immediately Cela held up both hands to stop them. "No!" she commanded. "Who ... not all." She stepped past Alana and gestured toward Tabatha. "Come. You see young ones. You tell ... great queen."

Tabatha looked at Alana, knowing that she was the one chosen because Cela had determined, somehow, it was her idea. Alana nodded, then said, "I'll dream walk with you."

Tabatha smiled, then went with Cela. As they left, Alana took her group to the edge of the trees, then lay down in the stiff grass. "Try to keep the bugs off me, will you?" she asked jokingly, then closed her eyes.

"Well, now, we wait," Frank murmured as he made himself comfortable. Tanya sank down beside him in the lush grass and grinned.

"Some trip, huh?" she asked.

"Yeah," Frank replied. "We're just glad we found you."

"Yeah, we had to go hunt up some Phoenix girls to generate a new wormhole." Jake added. "Where's Annalisa, anyway?"

"Tabatha said she remained with the colony," Alana answered. "She had to stay so that the colonists felt they had some protection in case the fire dragon attacked again."

"Huh. I missed her when we were there before, I guess. She must have been asleep. I'll be glad to see her when we get back, then," Jake said, then grinned as he watched Frank and Tanya wandering off toward the tree line. "Well, I think somebody's decided on a pleasant way to pass the time..." he said to himself, wishing he had somebody to help pass the time.

Alana didn't reply. She was already gone; dream walking with Tabatha.

"This looks like a good spot," Frank grinned as he indicated a tightly packed grove of trees.

"Yeah," Tanya agreed, "looks like we could get up off the ground pretty easily – away from predators and what-nots," she smiled as she thought of herself in the jaws of some toothy beast. She hugged herself, squeezing her breasts together in anticipation and looked around.

"Here," she said, reaching up into a thorny mass of leaves. She ignored the deep scratch that appeared on her arm as she pulled a branch loose. Holding it up, she examined it, her eyes glowing with newfound excitement. "This'll do nicely!"

Frank turned at the sound of her voice and saw what she was holding in her bloodied hand. "That's pretty wicked, darling. Those thorns could tear the flesh right off you."

"Yeah, they could, couldn't they?" Tanya agreed, then gently swatted the branch across her bare breasts. Instant welts wept droplets of rich, dark blood across her smooth, tightly-stretched skin.

Laughing, Tanya swatted herself several times across her stomach, then bent over and swatted herself on her voluptuous rump. Everywhere the branch touched her, tiny welts of blood erupted and dribbled down her well-tanned flesh.

"Easy there, girl," Frank laughed as he watched his wife's antics with a growing hard-on. "Save some for me!"

"Okay," Tanya agreed and happily handed him the branch, which now dripped blood from several thorns.

"Ow!" Frank grumbled as he pulled one hand free from a tiny thorn that had pierced the palm of his hand. Repositioning his grasp so that his own skin was safe from further damage, he stared lustfully at Tanya. "Okay, babe, where d'ya want it?"

He already knew, of course, and he laughed at her expected move as she bent over to display her lovely, already bleeding buttocks for him to whip.

The first few swats were light and easy as Frank determined just how much damage this thorny branch was causing her. Each swat drew new rivulets of blood as thorns scoured Tanya's soft flesh, just as each new swat drew a soft sigh of pleasure from Tanya's throat.

"Spread 'em, babe," Frank commanded, his voice tightly controlled as his blood-lust became less controllable. "You're gonna take a couple between your legs!"