by Tamryn Tamer
“Make a reasonable request,” Frost smirked as the flustered harpy regained her composure. “I can get you beautiful gowns.”
“I need a temple,” Ka said while pointing her wing at Lysandra. “That partner is allowed a massive temple. I deserve a temple, yes!”
“If I start allowing temples of other gods and goddesses to be built it’s going to create arguments,” Frost groaned. “Everybody is allowed to worship who they want but I really don’t want my village to look like a pantheon.”
“There’s a temple of Sthilinna in Linna,” Brynn argued. “And pretty soon Pluma’s going to combine with Linna. There are small temples to Riliandra in Kald, Serino, and Mawth. Don’t forget the temple of Ziralia in Filan.”
“I see your point,” Frost sighed. “Fine. Brynn, come up with some prerequisites that make sense before permitting a temple to be built. Match them to the stipulations required for guild registrations and building construction. Also, I can ban any god or goddess I want.”
“Absolutely not!” Cassia objected. “We should not be encouraging the villagers to worship false gods and goddesses!”
“Twi is not false!” Ka said as she moved to challenge Cassia. “She is the goddess of beauty, yes!”
“Cassia,” Frost glared at the violet-eyed prophet. “Do you think Shalia is afraid of competition? Is she so weak that a temple to Twi would frighten her?”
“Absolutely not!” Cassia said. “Fine, build your temple. It’s not as though anybody is going to join when they can choose to follow the most perfect goddess in all of the universe.”
“It might not be a bad idea to build a temple to Ziralia as well,” Brynn said. “A lot of the arrivals from Zira still follow her.”
“Why are you advocating for that false goddess?” Cassia asked while pouting at Brynn. “You should be a follower of Shalia, my perfect little herald killer. If you followed Shalia I would officially adopt you and give you all of the love you could ever want.”
“If you adopted me then nights with you and Renna would get really weird really fast,” Brynn chuckled.
“You know,” Frost glanced at the bard. “I definitely recall you saying that you’d be willing to become a follower of Shalia when we first met.”
“I am not really practicing. Have you ever seen me actually enter a temple? I’m willing to worship any of them but there has to be something in it for me,” Brynn said. Her ring emitted an orangish brown glow as if it were confused as to how to classify the statement. “Maybe not any of them. Followers of Movodos and Tarr could be wiped out for all I care.”
“That’s my amazingly wonderful little herald killer!” Cassia said as she grabbed Brynn and squeezed her. “Just as long as you worship Shalia in the end! Not some ridiculous fake goddess like Twi!”
“Twi is real, yes!” Ka snapped while swatting Cassia several times with her wings. “Twi is the goddess of beauty! The flapping of her wings created the night sparkles and her smile makes the flowers bloom, yes!”
“Night sparkles?” Brynn asked.
“Stars,” Frost said while nodding his head upward.
“Ah,” Brynn said while trying to shimmy from Cassia’s grasp.
“Fine,” Frost said as he realized Ka wasn’t likely to budge on her demands. “Fancy dresses and a temple for Twi. But it’s going to be small and it’s going to be located near wherever we end up building homes for the harpies.”
“Don’t forget about the dances, yes,” Ka said.
“I’ll dance with you at some point,” Frost answered. “That’s not something you need to ask for. I’m sure that I’ll take you out dancing somewhere on a date or something.”
“And…”
“No more ands,” Frost said sternly. “You’re getting fancy clothing, a temple, and I’m going to take you out dancing. That’s enough to deliver the messages.”
“I wish for an Ayoyou for the dancing,” Ka said, her eyes narrowing as she stared at him. “Then I will deliver the messages, yes.”
“She’s shrewd for a harpy,” Madam Gardenia said while taking a sip of tea.
“She is,” Frost sighed. “Haru, do you mind working with Ka to take care of everything and letting me know when the arrangements are made?”
“Absolutely,” Madam Gardenia said while nodding at the harpy priestess. “I’ll write everything up and draw pictures so Ka knows what to look for. She can probably leave before the end of the day as long as there are tailors available for the outfits and banners.”
“Lishri’s in Linna as part of the village exchange program this week but we can snag Mira for help,” Frost said. “Anyway, let’s get everything in motion. The sooner we leave for Nir, the sooner I’m back home.”
CHAPTER 19
Over the next several days Frost made arrangements for leaving while packing for the long trip.
Lysandra would be officially in charge and Desdemona would be in charge of the day to day operations while Brynn acted as her assistant. Brynn wasn’t fond of the arrangement but previous attempts to put her in charge resulted in villagers purposely sabotaging her, mostly Ena and whoever she could convince to join her mutiny.
It was never escalated to anything overtly mean. It was things like pretending to be confused in order to make meetings run long or gathering the wrong types of flowers while insisting that Brynn hadn’t made her requests clear.
Frost supposed he should be thankful that the villager’s primary form of aggression was passive.
In order to make sure the village could handle an assault, Frost requested that everybody over level forty remain in the territory until he returned. Slade pretended to be irritated with the request but Frost imagined he was secretly happy that he’d have an excuse to stay in Hestia’s cabin with her. Everybody else took the news well since they rarely left the territory to begin with.
Frost also worked with Ka and her followers to organize patrol routes while she was delivering messages with her handmaidens. He talked to them for several hours in order to gauge their abilities and planned the routes afterward to ensure they could handle them. Most of them could fly much further and faster than Ke, Kie, and Ki so the routes were fairly easy to plan.
Chasa and Slakka were in charge of monitoring the forest and the immediately surrounding areas. The two Arachne already had constant patrols running across the treetops so it wasn’t different from their normal activities. They were also in charge of the village defenses in the event of an attack.
Organizing everything went more smoothly than anticipated, as did Ka’s hunt for a captain that would take them to Nir.
By the time Ka returned with news of when the ship would arrive at the port of Kald to pick them up, everything was in place and he was able to spend the remaining days before leaving with his wives, as well as various persistent women that caught him during the brief moments that he was unattended.
As Madam Gardenia predicted, Jasmine, Zinnia, and Iris would be accompanying them to Nir and the trio was surprisingly excited about the trip.
Strangely, the three beastwomen had mostly good things to say about the country. Apparently, it was expected that young men and women would sign slave contracts in exchange for paying off their families’ debts, so they had no hard feelings about it. Although, it probably helped that they were purchased by Madam Gardenia.
In preparation for the trip, all three of the women spent almost a full day at the tailor’s guild getting new clothing made. It was obvious that the animal-eared trio intended to show off how successful they’d become.
Zinnia recently reached level twenty-seven as a knight and was one of the most reliable tanks in the village. While she wasn’t particularly interested in hunting large monsters or increasing her power further, she was extremely passionate about hunting delicious monsters.
Iris reached level twenty as a monk which was respectable given how much time she spent taking care of children in the village. She was one of the favorite babysitters for the demihumans and
was the one that insisted that Jasmine start showing kid-friendly plays at her theater in the mornings. She also volunteered to help with the younger children at the academy.
Jasmine was the lowest level of the three women at nineteen, but that didn’t bother her. She was excited to tell all of her old friends and family about opening up a theater, although Frost imagined that she had no intention of telling them about her financial worries.
While Frost was pleased with how the women’s preparations were going, Cassia was another story.
Renna wanted to join him on the trip and immediately started guilting Cassia about it. In turn, Cassia tried to convince him to bring Renna along, and nearly succeeded when she started talking about all of the things that he and Renna could do to her. Unfortunately, Madam Gardenia was insistent that bringing more people would raise red flags with the port authorities and make things difficult. In the end, he gave Renna two Ayoyous to get her to drop it.
Once they were all packed up and ready to go, Frost bid farewell to his wives and villagers. He also made a special stop at the stable to let Witch know he was leaving and leave her a pile of apples. Frost figured it was best to take a coach to Kald since they were going to be sailing to Nir.
Sumina and Rania volunteered to drive them to the port town since they hadn’t ever been to it and the trip was relatively quiet. Thanks to the skilled coach women, they arrived in the small port town the following afternoon.
“Finally,” Jasmine said, jumping out of the coach the moment it stopped in the central square. “That carriage is not big enough for all of us!”
“I thought it was comfy,” Zinnia said, stretching as she climbed out.
“You would,” Jasmine snapped back. “You always crowd everybody. How the hell does your body get so damn hot?”
“You could have ridden on the top with the luggage,” Frost joked as he climbed out. Madam Gardenia, Cassia, and Iris followed behind. “It wasn’t that bad.”
The coach was larger so fitting the six of them wasn’t difficult but the animal-eared women’s garment choices weren’t the smartest.
“That’s because you were sitting between Madam Gardenia and Cassia,” Jasmine said while pointing to the sweat marks on her gown. “You didn’t have to deal with Zinnia pressing her body up against you for nine hours.”
“Sounds like something I would have enjoyed,” Frost teased.
“She’s talking about how hot Zinnia gets when she’s sleeping,” Iris said. “It was getting rather warm.”
“You three are the ones that wore layered gowns for a carriage ride,” Madam Gardenia said while stretching. The fox-eared woman was dressed down in a yellow sundress with green leaf print and a short skirt. The material was just barely thick enough to not qualify as negligee.
“We wanted to look nice,” Zinnia pouted as she adjusted her orange gown. The dog-eared woman practically popped out of her top as she tugged on it.
“We’ve never been here before and wanted to make a good impression,” Iris said, smiling timidly in her blue dress as she looked at the people walking around the central square.
“That’s right!” Jasmine sighed while grimacing at an enormous sweat spot running down the side of her red dress. “You only have one chance at a first impression!”
The three beast girls were dressed in ball gowns more suitable for a dinner party than traveling, the type with layered ruffled skirts and corsets. While Frost appreciated the effort, it was largely wasted in the coach.
Zinnia’s dress was orange with golden leaves covering the skirt and a striped corset that pulled in her waist while supporting her breasts. Zinnia’s chest was too large for a standard corset so she wore one that just slightly supported the bottom of her large breasts while covering absolutely nothing. A shiny emerald blouse beneath the corset kept her massive unbound chest covered.
Jasmine wore a red gown that looked almost metallic when the sun landed on it. The skirt was solid colored but the corset was covered in small golden stars. The corset was only present for aesthetic reasons because Jasmine’s athletic waist wasn’t about to be pulled in any further and despite the best efforts of the tailor, there wasn’t much a piece of clothing could do to enhance her petite chest.
Iris was the showstopper of the three in a powder blue ball gown with white lace accents all over it. The bunny-eared woman’s curves were already impressive but the addition of the corset gave her a profoundly unfair advantage. Florenne had naturally wide hips, fair sized breasts, and long thick legs. Tapering in her waist even an inch while enhancing her chest and hips was really just unfair.
“Stop ogling,” Madam Gardenia playfully brushed her tail against his face. “You might make me jealous.”
“Jealous? Of what?” Cassia chuckled. The white-haired elf walked up to Frost and before he realized what was happening, she’d grabbed one of his hands, lifted it to her mouth, and was sensuously sucking on two of his fingers. “Goddess…I can’t believe I’m going to get you all to myself for this entire trip…”
“Excuse me?” the beastwomen said in unison.
“Why do you all look so surprised?” Cassia asked as she hooked her fingers in his. “You’re forcing me to come on this ridiculous trip to capture the prophet of an insect that claims to be a goddess. It’s only natural that Herald Frost would be required to reward me for such a sacrifice.”
“Hmm,” Frost smirked while staring at the violet-eyed elf. He admittedly loved the way she was looking in her nearly transparent white priestess robes. The top of Cassia’s robes opened just enough for him to see her white lace brassiere. While in the village he had to be careful about how much time he spent with her since it made Lysandra jealous but on a ship, he could do whatever he wanted with her. “I suppose I will have to find a way to thank you, but I never promised exclusivity.”
“Herald Frost,” Cassia moaned while briefly deepthroating his fingers. “Before you make a decision, I should tell you that Renna packed up a special bag for us. We could lock ourselves in a cabin for the entire trip with that bag.”
“She makes a compelling argument,” Frost said, grinning as the other women stared at him, completely unamused.
“Herald Frost,” Hansel interrupted the group. He glared at Cassia taking his fingers all the way down for the fourth time. “If you could keep your displays of affection private it would be much appreciated.”
The young nobleman walked down the steps of the town hall with his maid. Two large guards followed close behind. Hansel was dressed in a blue formal coat with a ruffled white shirt layered beneath it and black leather boots. More noticeable than his outfit was his face, he appeared to be well-rested and in a good mood, which suggested something positive had happened since he normally looked irritated and exhausted.
“You’re in a good mood,” Frost said while scanning him. He had gained a couple levels and was now a level thirty elementalist but nothing was out of the ordinary. “Any particular reason?”
“Word has arrived that my treason investigation has ended,” Hansel answered. “I am free to inherit my father’s estate and reclaim my family position as a Duke.”
“Fuck,” Frost groaned. “Is this a shakedown or a notice?”
“Neither,” Hansel said in an uncharacteristically cheerful manner. “Although I do need something from you.”
“So, it is a shakedown. Before you begin asking for things, I know you’re not an idiot,” Frost said. “Valencia orchestrated your pardon in hopes of enticing you back and weakening my territory but the other nobles in Zira are never going to trust you and neither will King Leaucault. The knights that ran back home all regret it and while they may be offering you your title and lands, that’s all they’re offering. You’re smart enough to know that.”
“Well,” Hansel smirked. “I am a Duke with over ten thousand acres of land to claim. If I return home, I will be able to live the rest of my days in the lap of luxury without a care in the world. The moment I step foot in my estate
I will have at least a dozen marriage proposals waiting for me. Unlike those knights, I’m a noble. You’re smart enough to know that.”
Frost smirked at the woman in a maid uniform standing right behind Hansel. Her brown hair was thick, wavy, and reached the center of her back. Her face was marred with a couple mild scars that had healed enough to look like scratches from a cat. She also had an eyepatch over her right eye but Frost wasn’t sure what was behind it. It could have been an empty cavity or something else. Her unique appearance caught his attention during previous visits but her dissatisfied expression when Hansel mentioned marriage proposals was what caught it this time.
“How long have you been sleeping with your maid?” Frost asked the young nobleman. The young woman’s face turned red as she ducked behind Hansel.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
“Miss Lauran is an upstanding woman,” Hansel replied without flinching.
“I’d wager she’s a significant part of the discussion,” Frost said. “I thought you were in a good mood when I arrived. Now I know the real reason why.”
“Can you please just drop that?” Hansel asked with an exhausted sigh.
“What I don’t get is what she sees in you,” Frost said with a wicked grin. “You’re so serious all of the time and as far as looks, you kind of look like every other sleazy noble.”
“Hansel is not sleazy,” the girl said sternly. “He’s a kind and honest man and he’s always working so hard to make this town better! He does so much to help everybody and he never asks for anything! You should show more appreciation for everything he does for you!”
“Lauren,” Hansel groaned while shaking his head. “Don’t fall prey to his tricks. The herald likes to throw people off balance by changing subjects. You need to keep him on topic. In this case, the topic of conversation is a land and title grant in Pluma.”
“Land and title grant?” Frost asked. “You know I don’t do either of those things. I lease land but I certainly don’t grant it. And as for titles, I haven’t granted any.”