As per nester custom, BillSong didn't feel at all uncomfortable with removing his pants and hanging them up. As he prepared to use the facilities that were traditionally located on the ‘front porch’ of all properly constructed nester homes. Which were usually clustered along the edges of the thinly foliaged area surrounding one of the great trunks.
He didn't even need to consider that this porch was so far from NesterVille as to make unannounced guests unlikely to drop in. Public nudity during the use of such facilities, that were expressly built on the front porches where it was easiest to avoid splattering the foliage below, was as customarily expected a behavior as was publicly taking a sponge bath at the nearest suitable TreeWell. Though otherwise, nesters tended to consider public nudity to be somewhat rude.
Since he was using the facilities on his front porch however, he wasn't overly distressed at being intruded on while he sat so exposed. When a shapely pair of legs descended the steps from above. The legs were followed by the rest of a strikingly beautiful woman. Who was dressed in the traditional garb of a WildRunner.
“Would there be a guildsman within?” she casually asked him in a warm melodious voice.
BillSong nodded and unconcernedly plucked a few leaves from the tethered vine tendril. The newcomer politely waited for him to wipe his posterior. Before she introduced herself.
“I'm MoonCloud,” she said. “Mind if I go inside, to talk with him?”
BillSong retrieved one of the SpongeFruit from his sack and washed his hands with it before he extended one of them.
“I'm BillSong,” he said. “And you certainly may enter to talk with Questor.”
MoonCloud had taken the offered hand in a traditional handshake as he spoke. Two things seamed to happen at once when he referred to the guildsman within as ‘Questor’. MoonCloud's green eyes popped wide open with surprise and Questor quickly stepped outside.
“Hello I'm Questor,” he said. “You must be MoonCloud. Did you have any trouble finding us?”
“Not at all,” she said somewhat stiffly. “The coordinates NesterVille's guild agent supplied, were most precise.” Then with a slight edge in her voice she continued, “Unlike his description of you. He entirely failed to mention your title.”
Questor grinned slightly.
“Well, I'm sure he wanted to avoid calling attention to my presence on XenDar,” he replied. “I'm afraid I didn't tell him that I was going to tell you. Nor for that matter, that BillSong here knows it. But in any case, please do come on in.”
With that Questor stepped back inside followed by MoonCloud. Leaving BillSong to politely don his pants before following them in
Questor and MoonCloud stood facing each other as Questor added a thin mixture of nut paste to the stew to thicken the broth. Then he shut down the bio-stove's cooking element. MoonCloud looked around for portable protean converting equipment.
“That does smell delicious,” she said. “I've got that item you requested stashed in a somewhat inconvenient place. Mind if I disrobe to more easily reach it? Or should I step back out on the porch first? Ah, is that really unprocessed local proteins you got there?”
“Sure is,” Questor said. “Would you like some?”
BillSong answered her other question with a traditional nester expression.
“Feel free within, our nest is as yours,” he said.
MoonCloud slipped off her poncho, revealing that it was the only garment she was wearing. She casually turned it inside out and opened a concealed pocket that had been between her shoulder blades. Taking a thin pouch from the pocket she followed up on Questor's offer.
“I'd love to partake of your feast,” MoonCloud asserted. “But I must ask how you expect to safely digest it?” As she spoke MoonCloud proceeded to hand the pouch to Questor before slipping the poncho back on in a fluid motion.
“Well actually we use asulrod laced with some rather potent nano-meds for that,” BillSong informed her. “It's quick acting so you really could have some stew if you like.”
MoonCloud thought about it for a moment. The stew really did smell inviting. She was hungry. She prided herself on being a quick judge of character and her first impression of these two was OK.
“Well nano-meds would do it I suppose, she said. “Though I've never much liked the way blue asulrod makes me think so deeply about things I'd rather forget. And I'm in no mood for the hyperactive reaction I get on the red. So unless you've got some blossom, I'm afraid I'll have to pass on that great smelling stew.”
“Well now I'm afraid ‘I’ don't have any blossom,” Questor said. “Though I dare say that I could work up another way to get you a dose of nano-meds. But if you'd prefer asulrod blossom, you could ask BillSong here if he'd like to share the one in his stash.”
BillSong looked at Questor, then at MoonCloud who was looking right back at him.
“Well how about it,” she asked. “Do you want to share that blossom?”
BillSong turned to face Questor.
“You said there was another way?” he asked.
“Yes, I could work up a pill or something if she likes,” Questor replied.
Her voice sounded icy as MoonCloud interjected.
“Well if he doesn't want to share the blossom with me,” MoonCloud interjected in an icy voice. “Then I guess I'll settle for a pill if it'll get me some of that stew.”
“It's not that I wouldn't share a blossom with you MoonCloud,” BillSong explained. “I'm just not so comfortable with the idea of sharing such a strong aphrodisiac with Questor here.”
She laughed.
“Oh you're so silly,” she said in her usual melodious voice. “You wouldn't be sharing the effects with him. Both of you would be sharing them with me! It's been so long since I've done anything so wild. Are you sure you won't share?”
Without another word BillSong opened up the bio-stove and he soon had a nano-meds laced blossom in his hand.
“If you're sure,” he said. “You can pack the bowl.”
Then he handed it to her, along with Questors bowl. MoonCloud smiled. She sat in one of the chairs and placed the pipe on the table. As she gently smelled the pungent aroma of the blossom. Which, like all hydroponically grown asulrod, began rapidly drying out the moment it had been taken out into the open air. In less than a cyclet it would be ready to crumble and burn. MoonCloud reached into one of her poncho's many pockets and produced a thin sheet of synthetic paper. Which she unfolded and placed on the table by the pipe. She sniffed again at the blossom as she held it over the paper and crushed it between her fingers. Half a subcyclet later she repeated the process. The third time it began to crumble and fell onto the paper. A couple subcyclets later all that was left was a small black resinous pile on the paper. Next MoonCloud curled the edges of the sheet. Twisting them until she could use it like a funnel to pour the crushed blossom into the pipe.
“If this blossom is half as potent as it smells,” she said. “Then that stew needs to be ready to eat when I spark this. Otherwise I'll never get around to eating any of it.”
Then she turned to face BillSong.
“Are those nano-meds really fast enough for that?” she asked.
BillSong looked at Questor.
“I'm thinking you're the nano-everything expert, so?” he prompted.
Questor smiled.
“If they weren't I never would have suggested she ask you to share them,” he said. Then he turning towards MoonCloud. “Yes, they are fast enough,” he explained. “That you would even survive if you didn't smoke it until after you ate a bowlful of the stew.
But if you smoke first you won't even feel the discomfort you usually get with converted local proteins. And you're right. You do need to really be ready to eat. Or you'll lose interest in the stew.
BillSong, I suggest you take the other chair. I can make a stool, of my stick. I'll set up the tableware. But I'm not pouring stew till the pipes out.
MoonCloud, did you say you planned to spark that up?”
As he spoke he pulled a few spoons and bowls out of his pack.
MoonCloud chuckled and flipped the front corner of her poncho up over her shoulder. This reexposed one of her breasts. Revealing that at least one nipple was already excited. She reached into an inside pocket that was now easy to reach and pulled out an ‘old guild’ style palm sized multi-tool unit.
“Dad-auto-ignite,” she said as she flipped her poncho closed.
Then she pointed it's directional antenna at the bowl. Whereupon a high intensity spark leaped from the antenna, igniting the crumbled blossom petals.
“Ladies privilege!” she said as she sucked the first intoxicating hit into her body.
She held the hit in for a moment. Then she slowly exhaled and passed the pipe to BillSong.
“OK then,” BillSong said.
He wasn't surprised to discover that the fire in the still slightly moist petals had already extinguished. Yet even as he noticed that, MoonCloud pointed her multi-tool at the bowl end of the pipe. Which was about three inches from his lips when a spark jumped from the antenna, accurately targeting the asulrod. His first hit from the pipe filled his lungs with blossom smoke. BillSong held in the smoke savoring the arousing sensations. That had immediately started to seep into his body. He absently passed the pipe to Questor as he stared into the deep wells of MoonCloud's green eyes.
“May I?” Questor spoke with his hand poised just above the multi-tool.
With an effort, MoonCloud tore her attention from the mirror deep pools of BillSong's own green eyes. She turned to look instead into Questor's eyes.
“Promise me,” she said. “You won't disable or otherwise damage it. And I'll even let you inspect it more closely Questor. But before you bind yourself to that promise, you should know that it was my fathers own personal multi-tool. And that he was once indeed, an actual Spacer of the old guild.”
For the second time while he attempted to savor a hit of the excellent and surprisingly smooth asulrod, that Questor brought with him to XenDar, BillSong found himself so distracted by something he had just heard that he choked on the smoke in his lungs. Though this time it only took him about half as long to stop coughing.
“Well if you're quite done with that M'boy,” Questor said. “I'll answer the lady. Yes! MoonCloud you do have my word. And indeed even my life bond as a questor of the new guild. That as long as your father's multi-tool doesn't attack me first, I will do nothing to harm it.”
Questor hesitated but he made up his mind and continued speaking so quickly that he alone was aware of the pause in his words.
“Even as I once promised an old Spacer who wouldn't report for upgrading,” Questor said as he looked deeply into MoonCloud's eyes. “And neither would he risk converting his core implants to the new experimental ‘nanite network’ based system. ‘That I wouldn't ever try to find him.’ And I didn't! Though I long knew where he went.
It wasn't like the kind of life bond that can now be invoked by a nanosymbiont. As part of the code of conduct embedded in our nanites themselves under the terms of the nanosymbiotic pact. It was just a simple promise from one old Spacer to another.”
He might have found the expression that suddenly crossed BillSong's face when he acknowledged that he was once a spacer of the old guild to be laughable. If he wasn't so intent on the effect his words were having on MoonCloud and so far she hadn't reacted to his words. So he prevented BillSong from interrupting by rudely placing his finger firmly against his lips even as they opened to voice his protest. Then Questor continued speaking to MoonCloud.
“It pains me greatly to know that if I had only broken faith with my word bond to him your father might still be alive. Your father was once a dear friend of mine. And I could have saved him. So think well girl. It's up to you whether I spark up that bowl again and share this blossom with you. In which case I'd love to see how your father kept his communication systems safely hid from the old guild. For all the long years it took for us nanosymbionts to reform it.
That should be enough to hold my interest. Until BillSong here runs out of steam. Otherwise, say the word now and I'll put away my pipe as neither of you will need any more of it tonight. But in that case I would still ask. If I may spend some time looking at your fathers ingenuity.”
There were tears forming in MoonCloud's eyes as she finally reacted to his words.
“You?!?” she exclaimed. “You were the one he used to talk about?
He said that you alone knew him well enough to figure out where he was. But he was always so sure you wouldn't ever come here. Unless first he was dead.”
She hesitated for a moment.
“He also left a message for me,” she continued in a much softer voice. “That this multi-tool gave me after his passing. It said, among other things, that should I ever meet you, I should consider how well you had honored your promise to him. For all of my life and all the long years he lived among the trees before he met my mother.
Then, he said, I should make up my own mind about you. So I will tell you. You're wrong to think that you could have saved him by breaking faith with your promise.
The thing that kept him alive, through all those long years of hiding, was the knowledge that the one man who could have tracked him down, for one guild or the other, simply wouldn't. He took great solace from that knowledge.”
She paused to halfheartedly wipe some of the tears from her eyes before she continued.
“Had you ever broken faith with your promise, he would have lost his belief in honor itself,” she said with conviction. “And that I believe, would have ripped his very being apart, far more than that damn SnarlClaw ever did to his body. You didn't ‘let him die’. You ‘saved him’! And for that I thank you.
Now please do spark up. Lets eat, then I'll open the command center to your inspection. That should provide you with enough distraction from your growing ah...” She glanced at Questor's crotch as she finished, “anticipation as you wait for your turn.”
MoonCloud found the stew to be even better than she had hoped. As did BillSong, though he wasn't as surprised by the lack of the bitter aftertaste that converted proteins always left in his throat. It was delicious... Still he wasn't sorry to see the bowls become empty. By then he had other things on his mind.
“I seem to have an itch in an inconvenient place,” MoonCloud asked BillSong. “Mind if I disrobe that you might more easily scratch it for me?”
“No need to ask,” he replied. “I already told you that our nest was as yours. I don't remember either of us telling you otherwise.”
It was the next afternoon by the time they said farewell to MoonCloud who had been sleeping for the last couple of hours partially entwined with BillSong while she lay at at an angle with her head resting on Questor's stomach. BillSong had awoken to see Questor gently stroking the hair on the back of her head. Then as she slowly began to wake, MoonCloud impaled herself again on BillSong's manhood while she leaned forward and once again tried to swallow Questors oversized tool.
It took BillSong a few moments to decide that he didn't mind sharing her attentions with Questor anymore. It didn't even bother him that she wasn't exactly taking turns this time.
“I understand you two are planning on going someplace tonight,” MoonCloud asked, when they were all once again satisfied. “I got the impression that you might be gone awhile. Would you mind if I stayed here in your nest for a few days?”
BillSong was getting dressed as she spoke.
“Oh MoonCloud,” he replied. “Of course you may. Did I not say our nest was as yours? You may feel free here as long as you like and return to it as your own place anytime you like.
It is my hope that someday soon, when Questor's business is done, I might find you here again. And I do not speak thus because of the blossom's influence. Though I'd not object to a repeat performance, should you so choose. But what I'd really like, is to get to know you better. I offer my friendship. With or without the lure of the sex play tha
t I hope you enjoyed as much as I did.”
“You do know I'm a WildRunner, do you not?” MoonCloud asked with a chuckle. “Let me assure you that our reputation as a bunch of free spirits who are generally willing to bed anyone who's company we can stand for more than a couple of cyclets is entirely well earned. And trust me, I ‘like’ your company. It would take me much more than two cyclets to ever tire of it.
I'll never promise monogamy to any one man but I'd gladly welcome you or your friend's company any time. Funny thing though, I think I'd like to spend some time alone with just you BillSong. So please do look for me here or anywhere else in the forest that I might find you. To be sure my friend, I'll be looking for you.”
“OK my horny little lovebirds,” Questor interrupted them. “That's enough of that kind of talk or we'll never make it to a TreeWell to clean up before BillSong and I must go.” As he spoke, he pulled on his clothing that today resembled an elongated version of MoonCloud's poncho. Except that he clinched the lower corner sections to his waist with a belt that had once looked like a hideaway backpack. “I think I like your style of dress girl. I'll probably model my own after it every time I'm on XenDar. And perhaps a few other places as well. I think we should all go find a TreeWell. But first I've a couple of tokens to give.
First to you MoonCloud I'd like to give you the pipe we smoked from last night. I've given your multi-tool sufficient command authority over the nanotech within it that any smoking material you use your multi-tool to ignite in it will become laced with sufficient nano-meds to keep you happily eating all the unprocessed local proteins you want. The pipe will use of itself to do this. But it should last you for many years before it becomes uncomfortably small. When it does, have the local guild agent ask me or indeed any questor and they will most likely replenish it for you without charge.
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