Ch: 281 Honeymoon Suite

Otho and Naiomi woke under unfamiliar blankets on the couch by the fireplace, surrounded by similar lumps of bedding in singles and pairs. Angie, Kermal and the three tiny terrors were sacked out in a heap on the stage, surrounded by pillows of every imaginable shape, color and size. Tallum and Ivy were in the kitchen brewing a samovar of coffee large enough to drown a grown man in.

 

“Bless you, children…” He croaked in a creaky falsetto, while adjusting his wife’s robes. “As high priestess of Dana you have my gratitude… blessings of saint Drogo on you.” He finished his bullshit benediction and drew a pair of mugs out of the cupboard with an eager smile. “Otho is useless without his coffee!” He chided the sleeping lump in green robes.

 

“Shrill harridan! Never a moment’s peace in man’s days or nights, once a woman’s shadow falls on him!” She groaned in elaborate misery. “Blahh, blahh, blahh! Naked statuary!” 

 

“Just another morning in Gary and Shai’s house…” The new minted god of Death and Vengeance muttered, with a mug of his own in hand.

#

 

“The Imperial navy has sacked Port Burndown… completely. They’ve carried away every human and simply abandoned the beastkin and otherfolks.” Sir Irving Kline reported soberly. “We encountered a small group they’d just dumped from a captured pirate vessel, Salty Kiss. They’ve been taken in at the local orphanage temporarily.”

 

“How many have we recovered from the ruins of Burndown?” Jaspreet asked softly.

 

“Not many, your grace… the beastfolk are skittish at the best of times… they fled into the marshes… and vanished among the spiders.” He shuddered at some dark memory and bowed to his duke and duchess. “I will be available at my lord’s command.” He bowed again and departed, as ever, the model of a loyal country lord.

 

“Gotta get him a slice of that new territory…” Mubarak muttered, as Jaspreet curled up in his lap with a sad sigh.

 

“Yes, I’ve sent an embassy to the spiders…” He sighed and shook his head sadly. “The Arachnean Council… has received my embassy and agreed to assist with… can we still say humanitarian aid?”

 

“Let’s say ‘assisting our neighbors’.” She cooed.

 

“Regardless, My grandfather nearly soiled his britches when I told him he would be responsible for transporting the material and personnel… Supervised closely by his duchess.” Abed replied smugly.

“I told him to personally captain his personal barge… personally.” He sighed. 

 

“Felt good, didn’t it?” She asked, with her hands inside his shirt and roaming freely.

 

“I wouldn’t compare it to what you’re doing right now…” He whispered in her ear. “But yes, it felt damn good.”

 

“Well I should hope…” She giggled. “Mmm, in this case abusing your elders deserves a special treat… for me!” She sang… until she started humming a merry tune on the ducal instrument.

#

 

“Mubarak reports it was a total annihilation…” Leopold murmured to Celeste. “Everyone who raised arms was taken or slain. Every human that they found collared was freed and taken away on naval vessels…”

 

“Every human… Leo?” Celeste asked coldly.

 

“The bastards abandoned everyone else in the swamp… at least they only abandoned them. Mubarak is mobilizing something… with the spiders…” He sighed.

“I’d almost forgotten about the spiders, Celeste…”

 

“Big baby…” She cooed and chucked him under the chin with delight. Poking one of her husband’s few weak spots was her only revenge for the horrid things he’d done to her once slim body! That thought got her hands wandering around… 

Just to make certain ‘It’ wasn’t up to mischief… 

“Leopold!” She squealed in feigned outrage. “I’m currently bloated beyond endurance with your child, you beast!”

 

“Well then it can’t do any more harm… can it?” He purred, as his strong, warm hands took her by the waist.

 

“Unhand me you brute!” She moaned, while tugging on his trouser ties desperately.

#

 

Gabbie’s small army behaved with such rigid decorum and quiet, humble obedience, it was easy to forget they were there, encamped on the edge of his meadow. What was harder to forget was the constant thrum of vital energies, swirling between Gabbie, her twelve senior Whispers and the rest of her nearly two hundred member ‘household’.

 

Potent Contract bonds entangled the young empress with the souls of her retainers, all enacted through some kind of blood ritual and Contract artifact… He would need to study whatever the object was, in order to truly understand the spellworks involved. 

Taking it apart was easy. Encamped on his own territory, in the shadow of his home and under the moonlight every night…they had no chance. The compulsion and constraints had dissolved into stray magic under his shadow’s touch by the first dawn. The rest he left intact, giving them the unspoken option to slip free or bind themselves tighter. 

To a man and woman they had chosen to pull themselves closer to her soul… Instinctively, like a child huddling close to a trusted caregiver, they had each embraced her more fully.

She had responded instinctively. Drawing them to her in some ways that Gary failed to fully grasp, but felt some jealousy over. 

Her ‘radiance’ was a title Gabbie’s soul really lived up to. When she visited his other house, she literally made it brighter… just like Ward and his toothpaste commercial smile.

 

Gary only thought about these matters because he and Shai were still snug together on Seahorse. Gabbie and Jocomo had found themselves in the master suite as the celebration wound down. Being the special guests of the absent bride and groom had certain benefits. 

 

The feeling of a good friend, or friends waking up in their home and realizing for the first time what welcome really meant in the Ward household, was a pretty special moment.

They enjoyed the feeling of waking together, while those two damaged creatures experienced true, pure mutual acceptance and comfort from each other and the souls scattered around them… for the first time.

Wild and unfamiliar energies thrummed across the mysterious bonds Gabbie’s people all shared, shaking the air on subtle and almost imperceptible levels.

 

“Ohh, wow!” Gary muttered, withdrawing his occult senses back inside his aura’s perimeter. “That’s a lot of hornyness!” Gary whispered softly in Shai’s ear. 

 

“Aye… best we cleanse our auras… ‘ere we sail fer home.” She muttered hungrily, as she pounced on him.

 

The day slipped away without much further excitement, as the little family came together in a warm, golden afternoon and spent some quiet time getting to know the new members a little better until bedtime.

#

 

Marduk, god of man’s Knowledge was lurking by his bedside when Gary landed in the world of dreams. 

“Can we talk a little, like we used to, Gary?” He sighed sadly. “I miss you.”

 

“You really hurt me, Ducks… I understand… but I need some time and space.” He looked out at the madness inducing sky above and smiled “Yeah… I see the irony.” 

That smile shed a little light on the woebegone deity, easing his burden a bit. 

 

“I really do love you, Gary…” He whispered.

 

“Love you too, Ducky. I just need a little perspective… and to heal.” He sighed, hugging the tiny god close and mussing his divine ringlets.

“I have to meet with Beast… my gift from him needs to change.” He pulled open his shirt revealing the honeycomb tattoo and the queen sugar wasp guarding her treasure… Her comb now covered all of his right arm and her stinger rested on the pulsing vein at his throat.

“She’s getting restless.”

 

The musician departed, while Marduk considered things in the plush master bedroom overlooking the sea and the roiling sky of madness beyond. 

#

 

The musician roamed out into his darkest tanglewoods, beyond the dryad’s groves and settled in to whistle away some time ‘til Beast appeared… 

“Gary…” The jackalope purred softly, down by his ankles a scant few heartbeats later.

 

“Oh! Hi Beast!” He chirped happily at the tiny antlered bunny. “I need a little help with your gift… it’s getting out of hand.”

 

“No, she wants you to take her in hand…” Beast muttered “She’s a potent and vital spirit being… not like your silly spear. She may become a few different things… a familiar, watching over you… An internal helper, assisting you with regulating certain powers you currently have no access to… or something entirely new.” He sighed.

 

“I don’t think a scary sugar wasp queen familiar will help my current troubles, Beast… That sounds awesome though.”

 

“Something subtle, then?” He purred. “Rub my ears… it’s required for me to do what’s needed.” Beast lied transparently.

It took a few minutes of ear rubbing, antler scritches and a tummy rub to get things solved. 

“I’m off for a romp in your meadow, lad… see you around.” The god of Beasts hippity hopped away, pausing to nibble anything that caught his fancy in passing.

 

The Hive: Might, Animus, Will, Resilience. 

Macroscopic manna molecules manifest, managing magical matrices, meditation maintains Mana mobility.

 

Effect: Sweet Dreams, manifest a swarm of ephemeral shadow wasp familiars. Intangible and incorporeal they may singly, or as a swarm, provide remote sensory information and or communication. Very low ongoing Mana cost, increasing as the familiars’ distance from the Hive and or dispersal increases. Ten minute cooldown if swarm is disrupted or unable to return.

 

Effect: Honeybee, temporarily manifest Kreesha’itch, the sugar wasp princess, into physical reality. Ten minute cooldown, ten minute ritual, high Mana cost to summon initially, very low cost to manifest summoned familiar after recall into your Ka.

 

Effect: Tupelo Honey, internal Mana distribution and conversion cooldowns and costs are greatly reduced. No Mana cost no cooldown.

 

With a little effort of will, a golden and black striped wasp  as big as a pigeon came darting out of the brush, summoned from the hive under his eaves. She was accompanied by a hummingbird sized companion, who swooped and dodged behind her nervously. 

 

They zoomed in together and hovered, a few inches from his face. The larger individual buzzed irritably and waved a distressingly large stinger around, while the little one hung back and hovered nearby.

“Took bloody long enough, mammal!” She rattled her carapace at him in annoyance. “My daughter and I take the time to nest in your eaves and you don’t even bother to call her out…”

 

“Uhh…” He mumbled.

 

“Sting me for a soft shelled moltling, I’m a sucker for the dumb ones…” She murmured. “I am Kirririn’ith, Queen sugar wasp and your distant… very distant relation. In a distant past life I was you… or you were me… we are we…” She buzzed in annoyance and swooped closer, nearly landing on his nose. “Wretchedly complicated, this whole situation… Now I’ve come back to help you manage the Hive, since you are going to be helpless without guidance.” She sighed. 

“Otherwise, you’d need to dedicate a fair bit of time to learning how to fly, manage a hive mind and interpret insect sensory data.” She preened her antenna in satisfaction, when he seemed suitably impressed.

“I’ll be handling all that, while helping DJ manage your internal processes.”

 

“Thanks…” He mumbled.

 

“Yes, you should be humbled by my largesse… I am royalty, after all.” She buzzed happily. “My Daughter, Kree will help you in the physical world, until she is ready to create her own hive… My child’s sting in the corporeal world will be dangerous to mortals, so be judicious… You are responsible for her safety and education, young male. Listen to the women in your life, they will invariably be smarter than you.”

 

“Right… are you going to bust my chops like this all the time?” He asked, not really expecting an answer.

 

“We will speak infrequently… communicating with mammals is exhausting work.” She sighed. “Especially males.” Without another word, she buzzed off to her hive under his eaves and vanished inside.

 

“Hi…” The small golden and black insect squeaked “I’m Kree…” She flittered back a few yards when he turned to face her more directly. “Eeew! Did you just molt? You’re all squishy!”

 

“Sweetie…” He sighed in exhaustion. “You and my kids are gonna get along great.”

 

“Where are you going?” She buzzed in irritation as he became misty and slowly sank into the thirsty soil of his dream realm. “I wasn’t done with you!” She buzzed at the place where he’d just been.

 

“He’s pretty tired and sad right now, Honeypie.” Ward said softly, once his brother was back in the real world. “Come on. I’ll show you how to get home.”

 

“I like you better… he was cranky and smelled scary!” She buzzed as they headed to the house together.

 

“He’s hurt, Honeybee, hurt deep inside. He will call you to him soon… please be patient with him…. He’s only a mortal man.”

 

“Aww…” She sighed wistfully, the way a flying power drill would. “I wanned ta see tha realworld…” She landed in a gerber daisy and kicked some pollen out onto the soil below, to vent her pique.

 

“You will… For now, I can show you how to look through his senses… it’s really fun!” He giggled and flashed a smile that dazzled her eyes just a little.

#

 

“Gabbie…” Becky said quietly to the ebony skinned empress. “Gabbie, wake up.” She slowly opened her bleary eyes and moaned.

 

“It’s not morning yet…” She whined softly.

 

“Yes it is… it’s workout time.” She insisted most ridiculously. The hateful she-beast had the nerve to actually yank the covers from her radiance! 

 

“I’m the empress… I have people to work out for me!”  She whined.

 

“I’ll send the little ones in to get you in five minutes.” Becky whispered with a cruel smile.

 

“You wouldn’t!” She gasped in horror.

 

“Five minutes, Gabbs.” She sighed happily. “Then you have to face the three Pillowknights of Garysland.”

 

Gabbie made it downstairs in three minutes, while the kids were still suiting up. Their pillowmail armor and cushionarms clashed with fluffy fury all over their section of the garden training grounds. 

Rio and Amy teamed up to try and get Wilf for once, since neither had a great record in matchups against their quiet little brother. 

Amy came in low, trying to gut him with a tasseled Brocadesword, while Rio leapt at his little brother with an overhand velour bolster with a double welted, piped edge.

Wilf got his trusty pillowsheild up in time, but he burst a few stitches and lost a lot of the batting from his cushionclub in the exchange. Stuffing leaking from his shield, Wilf dashed for the armoire of upholstery, seeking a new weapon.

 

Amy’s flashing weapon of tasseled tapestry caught him behind the knee, sending the sturdy lad for a tumble… right into the linen cupboard. 

“Ohhh…” Amy gasped. “No fair Wilf… no full sized pillows…” With a soft and deeply percussive’ Whoomph’, Amy went ragdolling across the lawn, nearly engulfed in a massive bed pillow. Rio dove for a nearby camellia bush, but was too slow. Wilf barreled into him behind a rolled up duvet like a charging lancer, driving the young warrior to the earth.

 

“He’s already better than me…” Gary moaned from a bench nearby, where Shai was patching him up after another sparring session with sir Rolf.

 

“That you recognise the fact now, is a sign you are improving… slowly.” Liam muttered. “He’s been better than you for a few weeks.”

 

“Mean, Liam. True… but still mean.” He sighed.

 

Wilf came ambling over, still armored in upholstered panoply and flopped down in his lap with a happy sigh. “I whomped ‘em good.” He murmured with satisfaction. “Teamups are no fair.”

 

“Wilf, you still clobbered them both… again.” Gary hugged his boy tight and rocked him a little, despite his protests. 

 

“I’m not a baby!” He grumbled.

 

“That’s ok, I am!” Amy chirped as she wriggled into the mix for some cuddles. Rio flopped down, back to back with Gary on the lawn and settled in with his bongos for a little while. 

As the warm morning sunshine eased them into lunchtime, then naptime, Gary found himself with fewer excuses to avoid seeing Thirp. Finally he crawled in among the kids, settled back in bed and put himself into Thirp’s little patch of his dreamworld.

 

Dark, tangled and moist, the low underbrush was filled with shadowed nooks and dim overhangs. Beneath the canopy of vine shrouded foliage, shadow monkeys with Gary’s face and bright red round asses cavorted among the boughs and drooping mosses. 

He found thirp scuttling happily around the cocooned form of one of the monkeys, as it slowly evaporated into mist with a pitiful squeal.

 

“Thirp?” He asked softly in surprise. She turned around and smiled the most sweetly human spider smile he’d ever seen. The four legged, four armed boob spider hybrid he’d seen a few nights ago had been transformed again. She was larger, less furry overall and far more feminine… While having much more manageable boobies.

 

Now she stood nearly five and a half feet, with a greatly diminished abdomen and a more erect, human stance. Her body now was mostly smooth, pale, milky human skin, with velvety fur on her upper arms and lower abdomen. She’d donned a spider silk bikini top and a long trailing silk loincloth, creating a spiderkini situation that was objectively, pretty hot.

“Wow…” He mumbled in surprise.

 

“Your brother is…” She coughed softly into one of her hands and smiled again. “You’ve come to talk to me at last, my friend. Please...” She waved to a pair of silken hammocks strung between the trees. “Step into my parlor.”

#

 

“I’ll see you again tonight, Gary. Please stop avoiding us.” Thirp sighed, when her patient slowly stumbled away to rejoin the waking world and dig through some old emotional baggage.

 

He slipped out of bed and into the garden without waking anyone, reveling in the quiet, late afternoon sunshine. In a private little courtyard, tucked behind the house and near the waterside, he settled down on the lawn, unclothed and holding his Contract weapon in the form of a small bronze knife. 

He winced as the point pierced one of the dark amber cells of ink tattooed on his forearm. Instead of blood, thick, sticky, golden honey dripped slowly onto a shallow, unfired clay bowl. 

It was a wet, wobbly, crooked and uneven thing, but he’d shaped it himself, of clay dug from the riverbank nearby. Natural clay, worked by his own unskilled hands, drenched in his essence, as well as the sweet summertime vibes of Wheatford in the sunshine. 

 

The golden droplets slowly soaked into the damp white disk, drop by drop, coloring the stuff. He began to knead it until the small handful shone like molten gold. From nowhere at all, he produced a tiny bronze rapier, intricately crafted and styled as a swept hilted insect stinger. He carefully thrust the miniature sword into the ball of clay; until the needle point of the weapon struck the palm of his hand, drawing a single tiny drop of blood. He placed the mass on the lawn, produced his recorder, Forest’s Breath and began to play.

‘The Bee’ was just the right mood… Schubert really had something going on there… Fast flying fingers and a storm of high, sweet music started the little wad of goo boiling on the lawn.

 

The golden ball began to undulate and writhe, moving with liquid shimmies and viscous jiggles until, with a soft ‘Pop’ a slender, black and gold wasp appeared. 

“Ooo!” She gasped, looking up at the towering pink mammal that had called her to this place. “I’m hungry!”

 

“Ok, honey… Can you fly?” He asked gently. Instead of an answer, she buzzed her wings and zipped up and hid behind his ear without a word. 

 

Her tiny, pointy feet scritched and scratched gently on his neck, as she settled into his hair and got comfy. “Ok, get me something sweet!” She demanded.

 

“Yes, princess Kree.” He mumbled with a smile.

 

“Maybe you are alright…” She sighed tiredly as he strolled back to the house.

 

“I have some maple candy…” He whispered.

 

“Yeah… you’ll do.” She yawned in his ear.

#

 

“Eglund Fallon sent a bunch of excuses for how a shipload of foreign warriors wound up on my doorstep without so much as a squeak from Port Fallon’s coast watchers.” Leopold grumbled over dinner. “Startlingly bad performance…” He complained, while murdering his roast chicken with a deadly fork.

 

“Now Leo…” Celeste murmured warmly, across the table. “It all worked out fine… what are the chances something like that would happen again?” Leo grumbled something again, but she was rubbing her foot up and down his leg and rubbing her ‘vast’ and ‘embarrassing’ tummy while smiling that way… 

 

“I suppose it couldn’t have been predicted… I gave him a chewing out anyway.” Leo rumbled and growled like a big, sleepy dog disturbed from his sleep.

“I’m for bed early…” He mumbled and yawned theatrically, with significant glances and a hopeful smile for the duchess.

 

“I’d best go supervise… lest your poor wife be left clinging to a scant few inches of the bed when she comes to finally rest from her labors…” Celeste complained entirely too eagerly.

#

 

Becky sighed at her softly weeping deity and patted his shoulder, while he got her dream shirt all soggy and snotty. “Stop trying to force it… just be there and be honest with him. He’s not angry at you anymore… He’ll forgive you if you really ask him.”

 

“I… I’m not sure how to begin…” He sputtered, unloading a fresh torrent of divine tears.

 

“It begins where it always begins… he loves you.” She murmured softly. “Now dry yourself off… and remember that you are an ancient and wise deity… who made a mistake. Go talk to him, he’s meditating by the bath, I think.”

 

Gary was by the bath in the world of dreams, but he was working some occult art on a stone slab table nearby instead. In a circle of pollen on the rough table top, sat a fair sized glass apothecarie’s jar, tightly lidded and sealed with a ring of bronze, which dripped like wax down the sides of the vessel, frozen in shiny, metallic dribbles. 

Inside, a green and silky diaphanous cloud of fabric drifted, floating in a clear liquid that swirled and churned the cloth constantly. 

A soft, lambent glow of green and gold light washed out in a circle of brighter illumination around his project, lighting the area with a warm feeling of radiant sunshine.

 

“Gary… can we talk? Can I talk with you, just for a little while… please?” He asked softly, from just outside the ring of light.

 

“Yeah… lemme just put this away first… it’s a little unstable.” He sighed softly. “I was finished anyway. Bringing physical objects here is a real strain…”

 

“I’m sure… it should be impossible, but then… so are you, my friend.” Marduk murmured. “My first real friend…”

 

“Ducks… You hung me out to dry with no warning… The pantheon wanted to sniff my butt and you bent me over and dropped my trousers for them. I would never have done that to you.” He didn’t sound angry anymore, just tired and sad.

“I’m going to make those three very unhappy before I’m done… If you can’t be on my side… at least don’t join theirs. You’re part of my family, Ducks. That means a lot to me, think about what that means to you.” With that, he vanished, becoming misty, before sinking into the soil and soaking in silently.

 

The golden radiance from his mysterious ‘project’ lingered for a good long while, after both the jar and Gary had disappeared, warming the little patch of garden and drawing more of the jewel toned insects to the flowers in that section. Marduk lingered as well, basking in the strange feeling he’d left behind. 

“What is that sensation?” He asked Dj, up in the booth on the balcony today, laying down the soundtrack with his wheels of steel.

The man in huge shades and massive headphones nodded sagely and dropped one of those black disks on the ‘turntable’ altar he worshiped.

 

Now you found the secret code I use

To wash away my lonely blues … well,

So I can't deny or lie, 'cause you're there…

 

Only want to make me fly

You know what you are, you are!

 

Sexbomb, sexbomb, yeah you're a sexbomb…

You can give it to me when I need to come along 

*give it to me*

 

Sexbomb, sexbomb, you're my sexbomb…

And baby, you can turn me on!

Baby, you can turn me on!

 

You know what you're doing to me, don't you?

I know you do…!

 

“Really, that’s hardly an answer!” Ducky pouted up at the enigmatic Notgary.

 

The strange being just smiled… and refused to elaborate.

#