“Every herd has its alpha. At the top of every flock and pride and school is a single animal.” Ungeist met her eyes and much as she hated to admit it, part of her wanted to rut him beneath the stars. “It’s natural,” he said. “It’s right.” He tilted his head to one side and offered the slightest shrug of apology as if to soften his words. “But you are not that animal.”
“The earth speaks to me, tells me of its need. My work leaves no room for following a man.”
“And Morgen?”
“He’s a god.” She couldn’t quite explain how the Geborene godling was different. His purpose was hers. Though it never said as much, somehow she was sure the earth wanted her to follow him. Or had he told her that?
Shuffling closer, Ungeist reached for her thigh.
He never listens. Everything she said went through him like a fish through water. “Squish,” she said, pinching thumb to forefinger. “Like a bug.”
The earth beneath him heaved and Ungeist ceased his advance, frowning in petulant annoyance. He glanced at the horses tethered nearby. Their eyes rolled as they looked skyward.
“Drache must be up there,” he said. “She scares them.”
She scares me too. Drache was the perfect animal, a flawless killer. In her dragon form, no hint of morality or human emotion tainted her.
“I’ll mount you like a stallion,” Ungeist said. “You know how much you enjoy that. We’ll rut like animals in the filth. We’ll bite and scream and claw.” He shuffled closer. “Drache can watch.”
A terrible wind flattened them both to the earth and scattered Erdbehüter’s fire, blowing bright embers everywhere. One of the horses screamed as claws the length of short swords sank into its flank and dragged it kicking and thrashing into the sky. The two remaining horses tore their tethers free and bolted into the night.
“Shite,” whispered Ungeist from where he curled in a desperate attempt to make himself a smaller target.
A fine mist of warm blood rained down upon them, staining their white Geborene robes red. Chunks of something sodden fell nearby.
Ungeist tore his gaze from the sky. “We’ll find the other horses in the morning,” he said, pawing at his eyes to wipe them clean. It sounded like an order rather than a suggestion.
“No,” she said. “Drache would only eat them.” A trickle of horse gore ran from her hairline and past her right eye like a sanguine tear. She touched her face and found it slick. Her fingers came away crimson and warm with spilled life.
The embers Drache’s wings scattered about their camp caught and Ungeist’s tent went up with a roar.
The man flinched, suddenly lit orange in flickering flames. “Shite!” Attention jumping from the inky sky above to the inferno of his tent, he looked lost. Scared.
I like him better this way.
It wasn’t an urge to protect or mother, but rather the desire to take advantage of him in his weakened state. Could she keep him like this, keep him in a state of nervous terror? With Drache above, it shouldn’t be too difficult.
“I’ve changed my mind,” Erdbehüter told Ungeist. “I am going to rut you.”
He glanced at her, lips moving as if struggling to make words. “Are you mad?” He gestured at the sky. “She’s up there. She might…she could…at any time…” He waved his hands miming being torn from the earth, “Whoosh! You’re gone!”
There are worse ways to die than feeding the perfect predator. Erdbehüter smacked the ground at her side and found it a bloody mud. “I’m going to rut you in the muck. I’ll be on top.”
Desire got the better of him and he moved closer, his eyes already taking on that measuring look he wore when trying to decide how to win.
“And if you try and control this,” she said. “Squish. Like a bug. You’ll do what I want when I want.”
He swallowed and nodded and she knew he was trying to convince himself he won. She didn’t care. This wasn’t about him.
Later, as Erdbehüter rode Ungeist like only a woman from the GrasMeer can ride a man, grinding and screaming and clawing at his chest, Drache dropped the remains of the horse close enough to shower them with steaming guts. It wasn’t until morning that Erdbehüter wondered whether the Therianthrope tried to kill them.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The philosophers study this responsive reality, muse at its underpinnings, admire the laws governing insanity. They don’t dig deep enough. If reality is delusion, everything is an illusion. We are not what we think we are.
Flesh and bone are myths, constructs of delusion. Are they our constructs, or the products of the reality in which we exist? Is this it, or is there something beyond, some greater truth?
What all seem to ignore is the laws which aren’t laws, those axioms which define our world and yet are mutable, susceptible to delusion. Objects fall downward, drawn toward the centre of the universe, their natural place. Everyone knows this. And yet, a single powerful Geisteskranken can change this fact, if just for a moment. When the Geisteskranken dies, or leaves the area, objects return to their natural behaviour. Is this a reality reasserting itself, or the beliefs of the masses once again defining local laws? I have attempted to study the phenomenon but my own existence taints the very reality I wish to study.
It’s circular.
We are doomed to ignorance.
—Vorstellung - Natural Philosopher