Lesbia Chronicles: Over Witch's Knee

by Ther Renard

  But the Blood Witch would not let their bones rest. In a ritual most foul they were born a second time. Not from maternal womb but from the earth itself. When the moon was high and the Blood Witch's call rolled through their old bones, eyes opened that were never meant to open again. The Blood Witch had soaked the ground above their graves with the essence of her enemies and through that bloodied earth rose fresh followers. Their eyes were sunken and their cheeks were hollow and their flesh hung in tatters, but that mattered naught. Animated by her power, they battled without regard for their own lives. They possessed no fear, no heart and no soul. There was no camaraderie in their ranks. They had no camp sites, for they did not sleep. Day and night they roamed the countryside, relentlessly consuming every little bit of life that crossed their path. Motivated by a hunger they could not satiate, by a thirst for blood they could not quench, the Blood Witch's armies turned the landscape of Lesbia into dark, dead wasteland. No grasses or crops would grow where they had walked. They left a blackened swathe in their wake, a creeping shadow o'er the lands growing by the day.

  The situation was dire, but all Ayla could do was tend to the brave men and women who had come to be under her care. Most of the soldiers in the stretchers lay completely still, sedated with strong herbal medicines. Herbs relaxed the body, relieved pain and dulled memory, which was important given the horrors many of her patients had witnessed.

  Ayla mused on all these things as she paced the tent – until she caught a movement in one of the beds. She moved toward it immediately. Movement usually meant pain. With her trusty flask of potent tincture on hand, she prepared to tend to her charge.

  When she reached the patient's bed, she saw dark hair and bright green eyes peeking out from under the white sheet. The last time she'd seen this patient the woman had been entirely unconscious and deathly pale, bleeding profusely from a terrible leg wound. Now she had some color back, enough for Ayla to see that she was actually quite pretty with dark lashes surrounding her bright eyes and freckles sprinkled liberally across her nose and cheeks. Her face was quite round and good natured, but with a pointy chin and ears that suggested some Impish racial mixing somewhere in her heritage.

  "How are you feeling?" Ayla inquired gently.

  "My toes are itchy," the soldier replied. "On my left foot. My left foot is very itchy."

  "Oh my dear," Ayla said, crouching next to the soldier's bed. "You don't have a left foot anymore, remember?"

  "Will you check?" The soldier whimpered plaintively. "It feels itchy. Will you look?"

  Playing along, Ayla lifted up the bed sheet and prepared to pretend to check the itchy phantom limb. It was as good an excuse as any to check the bandages and make sure there was no infection setting in. She expected to see a carefully covered stump. What she found instead was a large green toad staring up at her with a vaguely offended expression.

  "I call him my left foot," the soldier grinned from above. "And I reckon he's itchy."

  Ayla straightened and raised a brow. "Do you find this amusing?"

  "Clearly," the soldier said. "And obviously."

  Ayla frowned slightly. This was not the usual reaction to the partial loss of a limb. She had been ready to offer sympathy and a shoulder to cry on, but the plucky soldier didn't seem to need any of that.

  "What is your name?"

  "Eustacia."

  "Who put the toad in your bed, Eustacia?"

  "I did?"

  Ayla folded her arms over her chest and gave Eustacia a very firm look. "I don't think you did."

  "I don't think I can say who did," Eustacia evaded.

  Ayla looked about the room. Most of the patients were in no condition whatsoever to be going around catching toads and slipping them into beds. She certainly couldn't go about interrogating seriously ill people to find out if they were responsible. Then she saw movement from the bed next to Eustacia, just the slight movement of a little toe. It was enough.

  "Excuse me," she said, turning to the patient in the next bed. "Are you missing a toad?"

  There was a rumbling, hacking, forced cough and the patient rolled over. Green eyes met Ayla's with a gaze that made her do a double take. The second patient was identical to the first right down to the placement of the freckles splashed across their snub noses.

  "Twins," she said.

  "Yes," Eustacia's twin said. "Nobody can tell us apart."

  "They'll be able to now," Eustacia said. "On account of only one of us has two legs."

  "We'll tie ourselves together and be the three legged lady," Eustacia's twin said encouragingly. "You won't even miss it. I promise."

  "What is your name?" Ayla inquired, interrupting their plans.

  "Normine," the twin replied, nodding.

  "Eustacia and Normine," Ayla sighed. "I never could follow Northern names."

  "You can call me Norm," Normine said. "I like Norm."

  "Well," Ayla said, hiding her smile. "I don't like toads being slipped into patient beds. You could introduce an infection that way."

  "It's okay," Normine replied. "I licked it clean first."

  "You... licked it?"

  "I licked it to see if it was a princess," Normine explained, sitting up in her bed. "But it's not a princess. It's just a toad. So I gave it to Eustacia. For company."

  Ayla looked hard at the twins, who looked back at her with wide green eyes of complete innocence. "How old are you two, precisely?"

  "Precisely?" Normine cocked her head to the side. "412 months old. I'm a minute older than Eustacia though. She's the baby of the family."

  "Aren't you a little old to be licking toads?"

  "You're never too old to lick a toad," Normine said confidently.

  "Coincidentally, you're never too old to be spanked for misbehaving in my ward," Ayla informed her.

  Normine and Eustacia looked at one another and burst into laughter.

  "You can't spank me," Eustacia pointed out, still giggling with high amusement. "I am missing a limb."

  "Part of a limb," Ayla corrected her. "And you still have a bottom."

  "So do you," Normine said. "Does that mean we can spank you?" She made a swatting motion toward Ayla's behind.

  "It does not," Ayla informed her very firmly. "Now you, what's wrong with you, precisely?"

  "I'm wounded," Normine said.

  Ayla flicked back the covers, noting that Normine had gone so far as to don one of the thin cotton garments reserved for patients. "I see no wounds."

  "It's on the inside," Normine nodded. "Very hard to see. Even harder to fix."

  "Get out of the bed," Ayla ordered.

  Normine sighed and got out of bed. She stood surprisingly tall, almost as tall as Ayla. The witch was quite taken aback, she was so accustomed to most people's heads coming somewhere near her breast. In spite of her surprise, she fixed the soldier with her sternest look and inquired in dry tones as to whether or not Normine was actually wounded.

  "Okay," Normine said, winking conspiratorially. "Between you, me and the bedpost, I'm not wounded. I'm here for Eustacia."

  "You have been taking up a bed whilst there were many wounded who could use it."

  "No problem," Normine said, missing the point entirely. "I'll just squeeze in with Eustacia."

  "You will not. You will have to vacate the tent."

  Normine's fine brow furrowed and her green gaze glinted with anger. "Let's talk about this outside," she suggested.

  Ayla agreed, even though there was a hint of bar brawl about Normine's suggestion. The set of her jaw and thick roughened knuckles were strongly indicative of someone who settled her problems with her fists.

  Outside the medicine tent, Ayla and Normine went behind a tree to talk so their conversation might be kept private from the many soldiers and lesser wounded camped outside.

  "Now you see here," Normine said, getting the first word in. "Her and me came into this world together and we've never been apart, not for more than a minute. We never will be either. You got
that?"

  "You've never been apart?" Ayla was skeptical of that claim. "What about when one of you wanted to be intimate with someone?"

  Normine snorted derisively at the idea of romantic intimacy. "That kind of relationship is for people who don't know where their other halves are. I know where mine is. I was born with her. We're two sides of the same coin. Peas in a pod."

  Ayla did not have time to engage in a deeper conversation, so she cut to the heart of the matter. "Eustacia needs rest and quiet, as do the other patients. Some are breathing their last. There is no place for pranks in my medicine tent, understand?"

  "No pranks in the medicine tent," Normine agreed. "I'll be quiet. I'll let her rest."

  "Very well." Having come to an agreement, Ayla turned and walked back toward the tent. Almost immediately her thoughts turned away from the troublesome twins and back towards the care of her charges. She was very concerned about several of her patients who had been bitten by the twice lived. Their necrotizing infections were almost impossible to stop, though she was managing to hold them at bay with salves of high potency. Perhaps a little more Lifebloom might do the trick...

  SWAT!

  Ayla jolted as a hefty smack was laid against her ample derriere. It was given with sufficient force to leave a significant afterburn in the shape of the smacker's palm. She turned, quite aghast, to see Normine smirking.

  "Like I said," the soldier drawled. "Your bottom is ripe for the spanking too, lady witch."

  "That was not wise," Ayla said, gathering her skirts up and moving back toward the tent.

  "I disagree," Normine called after her. "I think you needed that. In fact, I reckon it'd be better if I cut a switch off this tree and gave you a little more right now."

  Ayla turned and gave Normine her most imperious look. It hit Normine and slid off her. She stayed right where she was, watching Ayla with a shrewd expression on her face. With a sigh of annoyance, Ayla turned and went back into the medicine tent. There were patients needing attention. There was work to be done. She did not have the time to deal with some bratty soldier.

  Returning to her work, she began putting herbs into a mortar and crushing them with her favorite pestle. There were so many salves to be made... and then there were the bandages to wash... so much to do and so little time.

  "How long have you been looking after everyone here?"

  Normine had followed her back inside.

  "A matter of weeks," Ayla replied, barely paying attention to the conversation.

  "I bet it gets tiring, huh? Tending to everyone else's needs? Watching some get better, some get worse. Worrying about loved ones back at home. I bet you look after them too, don't you?"

  Looking up sharply from the mortar, Ayla glared at Normine. "Is there a point to all this questioning?"

  "Of course there is. The point that's making you all prickly right now," Normine said wisely. "I don't have to say it, do I?"

  Ayla turned back to her work, letting her golden hair fall like a curtain between herself and Normine. "I don't know what you mean," she said. "Please, go sit with your sister or leave the tent now. I cannot be distracted in this moment."

  A hand touched her arm lightly, drawing her away from the mortar. Ayla still held the pestle as she turned to look into Normine's face.

  "I wouldn't usually be this forward," Normine said. "I mean we don't know each other, not really. But you opened the door, so I'm walking through it. If anyone needs a spanking in this place - it's you."

  Ayla stared at her for a long moment, then laughed. "I hardly think that someone who puts toads in beds is in a position to tell me I need discipline."

  "It's not discipline you need," Normine said. "It's a spanking. A good long one. Long enough to make you forget about all this. Long enough to remind you that you're just a woman like the rest of us."

  "I am well aware of what I am," Ayla said stiffly.

  "I haven't seen you stop for food or rest all day," Normine pressed the point.

  "I am not tired..."

  "Liar," Normine said, cutting Ayla off.

  Ayla fixed Normine with her most fierce look. "Do not call..."

  "Hush." Normine reached out and slapped the side of Ayla's thigh. It was a swift correction, not given hard enough to hurt, but certainly hard enough to get Ayla's attention.

  The witch's eyes grew wide with disbelief. "How dare..."

  "I dare the same way you were going to dare," Normine replied, answering the question before Ayla finished asking it. "Do you really think you can threaten people with spankings and not get one of your own once in a while?"

  Stunned by Normine's question, Ayla did not have a response.

  "I'm going to go get changed," Normine said. "And then you and me are going to go for a little walk in the woods."

  Before Ayla could tell her that was certainly not going to happen, Normine was gone. Ayla turned back to her mortar, trying to act as if everything were normal. She crushed and ground herbs until there was a huge pile of them before her, until there were no more herbs to crush or grind.

  "Come."

  Ayla turned to see Normine wearing standard soldiering gear. Dark leather pants clung tightly to her shapely thighs and were overlaid with mail. She also wore a matching vest, which was likewise mailed across the breast. Her upper arms were bare and muscular, on the sinewy side. She was tall and fairly slim, but very athletic. Ayla no longer saw the bratty twin sneaking small animals into patient beds. She saw a capable and attractive woman who met her gaze openly and evenly.

  As Ayla looked at Normine, the soldier lifted her hand and crooked her finger. "Come along, little witch."

  A faint blush rose to Ayla's cheeks. It had been a very, very long time since anyone had referred to her as little. She knew that she was not little. She was ample of bust and ample of bosom and taller and older than most everyone she met. And yet the words rang true from Normine's lips.

  Normine stretched out her hand and Ayla, succumbing to the madness that comes from being entirely out of one's element and away from one's peers, took it. She allowed herself to be drawn away from the encampment towards the thicket of woods nearby. She watched Normine's feet as the soldier marched ahead of her, thick leather and steel reinforced boots making light of the terrain.

  In the thicket there was a fallen tree which Normine sat upon, drawing Ayla between her thighs with casual grace. Ayla felt the soldier's hands settle on her hips, holding her still.

  "You're beautiful. And you're strong. And you let everyone lean on you," Normine said. "You bear the weight of the world on your shoulders. But nobody can carry that much of a burden, and one day it will crush you if you don't learn to let it go."

  "Who are you?" Ayla asked the question softly. "How do you know me?"

  "I laid in that bed and watched you," Normine said, her hands gently running up and down Ayla's hips and thighs in a slow caress. "I watched you work tirelessly day and night. I watched you comfort the dying and heal the ill. I watched you take on the fears and the pain of every person that came before you. You did it without hesitation. You did it as if doing it were second nature, as if their burdens were yours to bear. I know you by your actions, lady witch."

  She let her hands run around Ayla's waist and spread her caress down to Ayla's cheeks, eliciting a soft sound of relaxation from the witch. She did that for long minutes, then she reached up to Ayla's arms with her warm stroking hands and drew her down slowly across her thigh and across the log until the witch was settled in a prone position, her body supported by the soldier and the tree.

  Normine began to rub her palm over Ayla's buttocks and thighs, leaving her thin robe in place. It was light enough that it clung naturally to her curves, settling into the crevice of her witchly thighs and draping across the mound at the apex of her legs.

  "You must have done this for other people hundreds of times," Normine said, her voice soft. "To have suggested it so casually, to have been so certain that it was your place to impart
discipline. You must have seen this view so many times, curved cheeks waiting to be stung red..."

  Normine looked down at the prone witch, her hand continuing its caressing path. "Oh and don't worry," she said, wrinkling her freckled nose. "When this is over, we'll go back and nobody has to know. I'll yes ma'am, no ma'am you all day long." She tapped Ayla's bottom lightly. "Are you ready?"

  Ayla made a sound, but it was too soft to hear.

  "What was that?" Normine leaned down. "I can't hear you."

  There was another quiet sound, one that made Normine reach down and nudge Ayla up a little higher.

  "Oh no..." the soldier said when she saw what the problem was. "Don't cry. Why are you crying?" There was a chattering of chainmail as she gathered Ayla up and wrapped her arms around the witch's waist.

  Sitting on Normine's knee, Ayla dabbed at her eyes with the corner of her sleeve. Her hair had come completely loose, floating about her face in a golden halo. "It's nothing," she said, "you're very sweet."

  "Sweet? I was about to smack you silly," Normine said with a little half smile. "I'm sorry I scared you."

  "You didn't scare me," Ayla said. "You reminded me of someone, that's all."

  "Someone who has been gone too damn long, for you to be in this kind of state."

  "Much too long and yet nothing compared to how long she will be gone," Ayla said, her eyes brimming with fresh tears. "This world will not see her like again."

  Normine ran her nails along the length of Ayla's outer thigh in a slow caress. "So you decided to be a martyr, taking nothing from no-one and giving everyone everything?"

  "I am hundreds of years old," Ayla said. "Few live as long as I. Even the oldest humans seem young to me. Their lives are lived in the blink of an eye, barely are they in their prime than that prime has gone. I heal, but I know that soon enough a time will come when I can heal no more. How can I allow myself depend upon that which is so transitory?"

  "The same way we all do," Normine said. "A solider knows that the comrade she loves might be cut down in front of her on any given day. But she also knows that when one falls, another will come in her place."