The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

Rys hadn’t slept since she met her skein.

Her hunter-father, Tyk, had always used that phrase: ‘so excited I couldn’t sleep.’ He’d been so excited that he couldn’t sleep, the night before his first hunt. He’d been so excited that he couldn’t sleep, the night before he joined her warrior-father and seer-father in their own skein. He’d been so excited he couldn’t sleep, the night before her birth.

Rys had always smiled and nodded, because Tyk didn’t know, and really, he couldn’t know. He wasn’t a seer.

Rys hadn’t slept for ten whole nights.

Her seer-mother, Paq, had told her on that last night that it would be the very last time she helped Rys to sleep, because in a week’s time she would be a woman grown, and she would have to take responsibility for herself so that such a burden would not be put on others.

Rys had always smiled and nodded, because Paq had always said this. She had said it many, many times since Rys first put her seer-stone around her neck. She had always relented. Rys hadn’t really believed that she was able to stop. She’d thought that Paq wasn’t serious.

Paq was, as Rys soon realized. She had begged her seer-mother for her aid, but Paq would not hear it, and Rys was chastised for her childishness. She felt ashamed, then, and she felt ashamed, now, lying on her furs with her back to the fire and her closed eyes as near to the ground as they could go.

Rys had spent that next night weeping, as silently as she could manage, and she didn’t know for how long she did. Until the tears stopped coming. The next night was the same, and the night after that, and after that, and with each, she cried less and less, because there was only so much her crying could do, and there were only so many tears to spill.

But she still didn’t sleep. Still couldn’t sleep. There were times when she was not awake, of course, there were always those, even during the day. Her eyes would close and open, and she wouldn’t know how long it’d been. The nights became a blur, and the days nearly the same. For six nights, she’d laid awake solely because she could not do anything else.

On the seventh night, though, the night before Rys would join her skein, she knew that she wouldn’t have been able to sleep, even if she had had the ability to.

Rys couldn’t sleep because they had finally told her what was wrong with the sky.

She wasn’t sure if she might’ve been able to sleep, otherwise, these past three nights in her new tent with her new skeinmates. Having the information, having the knowledge that she had to hide but also had to share, would’ve been bad enough to keep anyone from resting. But Rys had more burdens still. Her new responsibilities. Her condition, and just how much it impaired those responsibilities. If she couldn’t sleep, she couldn’t dream. And if she couldn’t dream, she couldn’t have visions, real visions, from the ancestors—the ones she would need to safely guide the skein through all the troubles to come. Being unable to sleep wasn’t any good for her health or wits, either.

Perhaps even worse, though, was the skein itself. Kez and Tel seemed determined to writhe and fray and twist their fledgling braid apart. She didn’t know how to help them, not really. Maybe the enrapturing was enough. Maybe in the waking sleep, she could make them come together.

But that felt wrong. That wasn’t what it was meant for. It was meant as a sacred ritual, a way to strengthen and steel the bonds they already had, to soothe their small bruises and cauterize little cuts. And here she was, fumbling her way through it, using it for reconciling two utterly incompatible individuals, and worse, using it for...

Something moved behind her, and Rys’ thoughts fell silent. She tried to make herself breathe deep, tried to make her posture and shut eyes seem relaxed instead of as full of tension as they truly were. By the sound of it, and the pattern thus far, it was Tel waking up, or at least standing up. The warrior was large enough to make more sound than any of them, and her waking breaths were far different than the soft, sighing ones Kez was giving off. But when they were both breathing in time and staring into the flames on either side of her...

No, no, no. Rys shoved the thoughts away again. She wouldn’t think like that. She couldn’t see them like that. She put her mind just on the darkness behind her eyes, though, she did allow herself to imagine the sight of what she was hearing. Tel was getting naked. It wasn’t like that was unusual. Rys had been naked with her family before; it was much better than sitting in layers after spending the daylight hours bundled to the point of constriction. But Tel wasn’t part of her family. Or maybe she was, now that they were skeinmates, but, Tel wasn’t one of her parents or her brothers. She was new. She was strange. She was nice, too, though, in a way that made Rys’ guts twitch, and she had been nurturing a knowledge of just what that meant. And Tel was... certainly large. Rys spent more of her time with seers than any others, and to a number they were all slight of frame. The warrior was imposing, tall, strong... but she didn’t seem like she would be too rough. She looked soft, somehow, despite the hard angles of her face and cut of her muscles. It was probably her breasts. That sounded right.

So Rys allowed herself to imagine, a little, as she did not hear the sounds of dressing, and instead listened to the opening and shutting of the tent flap. She wondered how long the warrior could stand to be naked in the pre-morning cold. Seconds? Minutes? And in the cold, with her breath making foggy shapes, how would her body react? Would the hairs on her skin all rise with the breeze? And on her breasts while she breathed the cold, breathed the ice and exhaled warmth, how would those rise? Would she touch them? How would they feel in her hands, slipping between her fingers...

And then Rys’ eyes were open. She cursed herself, now hearing only the sharpening stone grinding across Tel’s blade. And she cursed herself, again, at the tingling in her chest while she tried to imagine how the warrior’s dressing might have sounded. She’d missed it. But that had to be better than fantasizing about...

Another blink, another gap. Kez was up, pacing around the tent with her light and easy tread. The seer closed her eyes tighter, and tried to focus on the sound. Was that the whisper of pant-legs, or of bare feet shifting over soil? A quiet breath, or the rustling of a loose shirt? She wondered how the huntress’ body might look, without her coat or shirt or boots or anything in the way. Her shape wasn’t as obvious as Tel’s, nor as lean as Rys’ own, which put her somewhere in the middle. How would her deep crimson braid fall, how would it look down the line of her back? Slung over her front? Was her body thicker here? Muscular? Rounder there? Softer? She wondered how that might feel, or this part, or...

“Rys.” Tel’s voice startled the seer awake, or at least, startled her out of the empty stupor. If she had been asleep, truly asleep, she would not have felt so exhausted. She rolled over, and it took a few moments for her eyes to properly focus on the warrior’s face and her dark braid looming overhead. “Are we still to travel south?”

Of course they were. There was nowhere else to go, and the reason why was painted on the sky like a bleeding gash. Through Tel’s eyes, behind her head, above the tent and above the earth, Rys could see it even then. Only because she could see the magic, the ancestors’ lights churning overhead, even as night was dying. She could tell the sun was soon to rise, because the space through Tel’s expression was a ghostly, rippling thing, something like purple. It’d fade more during the day, and it’d grow stronger again at night, and again, she wouldn’t be able to sleep.

The only upside was that the lights hadn’t shone on the world for more than two weeks.

“Rys.”

She blinked awake again. “I-I’m sorry?”

The warrior smiled softly, and knelt down to Rys’ side. The seer could feel her closeness, the warmth of her breath and body given off by all her layers. “It seems the ancestors may have more words for you than I do.” Tel chuckled. Rys had never heard her do so, and it made her stomach feel a wholly different, but similarly terrible tremor. She didn’t want to admit that it was an enjoyable feeling, and an enjoyable laugh.

“Should I let you rest? The sun will be up soon, and...” The seer just watched, until Tel sighed and shook her head. “I am sorry, Rys. Twice now, I have tried to control the duties that I cannot. I fear it may become habit.”

Rys had to smile, and she heard herself giving a short, girlish, and entirely embarrassing giggle. “Tel,” she said, once her composure returned, “you probably saved our lives yesterday, and you’re right that we should get moving today. The first may have been a mistake, but that second is nothing at all. You can’t break tradition simply by speaking your mind.”

Tel nodded, smiling.

“We have to trust each other,” Rys said, and on impulse, her hand found Tel’s. She saw the warrior’s eyes widen, and heard how her very next breath was deeper than the last, even if she didn’t seem to notice it at all. The seer swallowed, and it took all that she had not to squeeze the large woman’s larger hand. “That means speaking our minds honestly, like we did last night, and like you should do with any of your concerns, just like I do. And like you know Kez does.”

Tel chuckled again at this, the caution (or was it curiosity?) in her eyes fading quickly. “The rabbit has larger lungs than any I’ve known, it is true.” She was silent a moment, and Rys noticed that it wasn’t the usual silence the warrior gave off, that complete lack of anything more that needed saying. This silence was quieter than that one. More hesitant. As though those words which needed saying were just waiting to burst forth from her lips.

And burst they did, with that same hesitance in the warrior’s speech, “And will every airing of concerns be as it was last night?” It wasn’t as accusatory as it could have been, but it was said with the slowness of one choosing each word very specifically. Tel’s eyebrow had just barely risen.

“Would you enjoy it?” Rys asked, in an equally measured reply.

“Enjoy.” Tel glanced upward, as though she might be able to read the same dangerous portents written in the sky. “It is a strange thing to decide, enjoyment.”

“Of course it won’t be,” the seer quickly added, “but...” With just the barest squeeze of her hand, Tel’s bright, wide green eyes snapped down to Rys’ waiting stare. “I wonder if you would be upset, if it were always like that?”

“I would not,” Tel answered, with a sureness that seemed to surprise her.

It surprised Rys, too. The tingling warmth that had been growing on each of her cheeks seemed to blossom into her awareness all at once. “A-ah. That’s good, then.”

The warrior’s smile grew. Was it a knowing one? Could she see the flush and, through it, read the even deeper secrets in Rys’ mind?

“It is.” Tel squeezed her hand, and the seer felt a rush of shivering through her spine. “Will we perform the rite again, this evening?”

Ancestors above, if the blush hadn’t been bright enough then... Rys gulped, and tried to hold the stare, even if it was nowhere close to the captivating impression she probably should have been cultivating. “Is there some reason that we should?”

“To better our companionship and strengthen our trust, of course,” Tel answered.

“O-of course.”

“But...” That ponderous, quivering silence again. “I am also curious.”

“You are. About...?”

“About this waking sleep,” Tel said, and Rys wasn’t sure if she’d imagined her skeinmate’s voice dropping lower, but whichever way, the hairs on her forearm surely felt that it had. “About these words that I can scarcely recall, and the... way that I felt, and feel, after. About its possibilities.”

Rys nodded, trying to conceal her eagerness while trying too to smother it into nothingness. “I would be happy to show you more, Tel.”

“Good.” The warrior smiled, and released her hand, standing up and breaking the impossibly tense moment. “Dress, then, and we will pack the tent.” She drew her polearm off the ground, and Rys watched as she ducked toward the entrance flap, and paused. “We still move south?” she asked, without looking back.

“South,” the seer managed, over the tightness in her chest. She saw the warrior nod.

The flap was opened, and then it was shut.

She was alone.

Her very first impulse was to thrust her fingers beneath the band of her trousers. But she thought better of it. She wriggled out of her shirt, first. And then her second thought was to tease her hardened nipples for as long a length of time as she could reasonably disguise as readying herself for the day. She settled for just a touch, just a whisper of a touch, pinky fingers breathing across both at once, sending two waves of chill across both halves of her body, before she forced her hands to her sides and forced her mind to think about anything but the light in the sky, the bodies of her companions, the sounds of their breath and words, and the thought of them both, deep in the waking sleep.

This resolution didn’t last very long.

But she did not seek release. The Trial was about endurance, and she would last through these tormenting thoughts and feelings and impulses until they were all gone, and they would eventually go. They had to. They weren’t good thoughts, they weren’t the thoughts a seer should be having toward her skeinmates, and they certainly weren’t the thoughts a seer should be having toward the waking sleep itself. It was sacred, and it was ancient, and it certainly wasn’t... that.

The day’s trek, at least, allowed her some distraction. Tel and Kez bickered endlessly, because of course they would, but each seemed to at least take it in some stride. Kez would come out on top of an argument, and Tel would sulk. Then Tel would come out on top, and Kez would sulk. Eventually, the two seemed to have bounced back and forth so much that they got tired of it.

Which... was good? Rys thought that it was good. They weren’t at each other’s throats, and at any given moment neither seemed ready to stab the other, but they weren’t yet on friendly terms. Had she helped that at all? Was what she was doing worth doing?

It helped with the bear, she reminded herself. Maybe a few more resolutions and compromises will be all they need.

Rys stood with her back to a tree, her arms crossed, and her head nodding so heavily that even she thought that she might fall asleep. She didn’t, of course, but between her long and delayed blinks, she saw a rather animated discussion playing out.

Tel was standing with her weapon behind her neck, hands holding the pole flat across her shoulders while its blade pointed down and its spike at the far end jutted off to the south. “Glaive,” she enunciated, for what must have been the seventh time that day.

Kez looked annoyed. Sounded it too. “Glaeve.”

“No.” Tel shook her head. “You are saying it incorrectly, rabbit.”

“I’m saying exactly what you just said. Glaeve.”

“You are putting too much weight on it. Glaive.”

The huntress’ face scrunched up. “Glayv.”

Tel laughed aloud, and Rys was momentarily stirred by the feeling of the noise. “I do not think you will ever grasp it, rabbit, and that is no shame. You have a great many more words at your disposal.”

“Oh, I do, huh?” Kez walked to the warrior’s side and tapped a finger on the pole, dangerously close to the finely polished point of the spike. “What’s this?”

The seer saw Tel’s smile.

“What? Come on, Tel, tell me what it’s called, I know it’s got some name.”

The warrior cleared her throat.

“Mmhm?”

She opened her mouth...

“Spit it out, damnit!”

“Rabbit-killer.”

The huntress stood there, her mind clearly working. “Sorry?”

“Rabbit-killer,” Tel repeated.

“You can’t be serious.”

“I am.”

“But you don’t even hunt!”

“You are right, I do not.”

“Yeah, I fucking figured that out when you massacred a bear, put this thing through its skull.”

“I did.”

“Could’ve used that skull, Tel, could’ve drank beer out of it...”

“You did not seem inclined to stop me from ending its life.”

“Yeah well—” Kez faltered. “Is that what this is for?”

Tel said nothing.

“Ending a life? Making a clean kill?”

“You object?”

“I think it’s sick.”

“Tell me, rabbit, have you never done the same? Do you kill every caribou and goose that you shoot with one single arrow?”

“Of course not. But I don’t go around with a fucking spike just to do it with, and a named spike too. You’re glorifying death that way.”

“Does your hunter’s prayer not do the same?”

“Oh don’t you even start.”

“Merely a question, rabbit. What is the difference?”

“Difference is, there’s no honor or goodness in driving a spike through something’s brain. When I hunt, and when I say the prayer for something, it’s about treating it like an equal, giving it a clean way to move on, not just... just brutalizing it!”

The warrior shrugged, moving the glaive’s pole up and down with the motion. Glaive. Huh. Rys saw the confusion. “It is a cleaner end than suffering,” Tel said, unperturbed, “and it is merciful. And before you speak, I do not think that you are not merciful, Kez. I cannot claim to know you and your practices. It is only that we both have our own ways to show this mercy.” Tel shifted her weight and arms, hefting the weapon off her back and putting its spike, the rabbit-killer, down into the snow. “This is mine.”

“You can keep it,” Kez scoffed, and from the tone, Rys could tell she’d had enough. “You going to go get some branches for tonight, or what?”

The larger woman began to smile. “I was going to, and then...”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, just do it already.”

The seer heard a grunt from both, and then they split apart. Tel trudged over the snow to a small copse of trees, eyeing them for cutting, while Kez came up toward Rys, fiddling with her hood as one hand adjusted the bow slung over her shoulder.

“You’re not going to hunt?” Rys asked.

“Nah.” The huntress sighed, crossing her arms to match the seer’s as she leaned back into a tree, right across from the seer. “Might get sick of it, but we’ve got enough bear left for another couple nights.”

Rys nodded. “Are you still...?”

“Upset?” Kez looked like she had to think about it, then smiled. “Nah. A bit, maybe. It doesn’t feel good, y’know, someone coming in and trying to do for you what you’ve been raised to do your whole life. And I know she didn’t mean anything by it, but, it’s still not great.”

“I know,” the seer said. “It really is my fault, Kez, I’m the one who had the vision, and we both just rushed without even thinking.”

The huntress shook her head. “Rys. Please. It’s nobody’s fault. You had a vision, you made a judgement call, and I’d have rathered that than being in danger and you thinking I’m just fine, and anyway, that’s kind of your job description, right? You see things, you help us out.”

Rys watched Tel picking through the trees as she spoke, “If it’s none of our faults, then it’s the least yours. You were doing your duty, we interfered, and everything turned out okay, but...”

“These are hard things.”

“They are,” Rys nodded. And harder than you know.

The huntress must have seen her looking ahead distantly, because she swung her head around her tree to spy as well. “You worried or something?” she asked.

“Always,” the seer said, reflexively.

Kez turned back, eyes narrowed. “About Tel.”

“O-oh.” Rys gulped. “No, I...” Again, her eyes strayed. “Maybe.”

“She’s just over there, though, and... And you’re worried the same thing that happened to me might happen to her, too.”

The seer nodded bashfully.

“Rys... I know it’s literally your responsibility to see things,” she smiled, “but you don’t have to be looking at everything all at once. It’s not good for you, not good for any of us, and we’ve all got a lot to handle out here.”

That was certainly true. “But if I’m not watching, and something happens...”

“Then Tel can do what Tel does and slice anything she sees to death.” Both of them laughed, and for now at least, Rys allowed her eyes to settle onto Kez’s brown gaze. “Seriously, she spins around with that thing faster than a deer stuck on the ice. More deadly, too.”

The seer giggled. “I’ve never seen a deer on ice.”

“It’s their legs, y’know? One of them slips, the rest go down, thing just goes spinning and scrambling all over the place. Like an old drunk on a lake only they have twice as many legs to trip them up...” More laughter still. Rys could feel the load lightening, some, and she was glad for it. “Tel’s Tel. She can handle herself.”

“I know,” Rys nodded.

“As for me,” Kez grinned, “I’m with our seer. Anything comes after us, pow, you can make these trees come to life and kick the crap out of it, right?”

The seer smiled. “That’s not really how our magic works...” They had all heard great tales of the seers of southern realms, beyond the mountains, conjuring great gouts of flame or storms of lightning with the wave of a hand. Rys wondered if they spoke the same words to the ancestors as she.

“I know, I know, I’m just teasing... but you seers can do some amazing things. How did you even find me? I thought you had to dream to have a vision like that.”

Rys shook her head. “Our dreams are different. Bigger. More of what might be, rather than what is, right now.”

“And that’s what’s telling us where we’re headed, yeah? To finish the Trial?”

Another lie. The seer felt like they’d one day outnumber her truths. “That’s exactly right, Kez.”

“Knew it,” she grinned, and Rys didn’t have the heart or the sadness not to at least smile. The huntress’ face was slimmer, but when her eyes narrowed, either in anger, thought, or focus, it became intense. Never intense enough for Rys to stop watching it, though. “So... where are we going?”

“You know that I shouldn’t tell you that...”

“But you’ve already told me about how your visions work.” Another flash of a grin. Rys felt her face fall, felt a pit open up in her stomach. She’d broken her oaths and she hadn’t even noticed it? “Hey, hey, hey, no,” Kez was saying, “no, you stop that right now, don’t you frown.” And then the huntress was in her face, hands on her shoulders, staring her down. “Look at me, Rys, hey, look at me?”

She nodded. Felt herself trembling, felt her chest starting to cave in. “I-I wasn’t thinking, I shouldn’t have told you that.”

“It’s okay.”

“It’s not.”

“Fuck that.” Rys blinked with some shock. “Fuck making yourself sad for that. Is anybody else around? Does anybody know what you did?”

She shook her head.

“No, that’s right. Just me. And I’m not telling anybody, and in fact, I forgive you. Yes, really. My generosity knows no bounds.” Rys caught herself starting to giggle, and Kez’s smile sprouted up again. “Truly, I bequeath you this, I absolve thee of thine qualms, I forgive thee of thy woes, and—” Kez coughed, as though the accent were lodged in her throat, and Rys’ face felt wet with her sudden laughter. “That’s better, yeah?”

“Yeah. Yes,” the seer nodded, and moved her hand to wipe at her eyes... but Kez was still close. Very close. Rys felt the tightness in her chest immediately trade away for another feeling, one no less worrisome.

“Plus,” the huntress went on, “we’ve all been telling each other some of these secret things. It’s not like I’m teaching you to shoot, though, or Tel’s teaching me to spin ’round like a dancer while cutting people open, or you’re teaching us to do magic. Just talking about some’s okay, right?”

“I don’t really know,” Rys admitted.

“Me either,” Kez shrugged. “Better than not okay, and... hey,” she said, as her eyes narrowed and her bright look turned shadowed, focused, “you’ve told us plenty about waking sleep already, right?”

Ancestors above. This was the last thing she needed to be thinking about while Kez’s hands were on her body. “... I suppose that I have...?”

“I mean, a lot of it goes over my head. You talk a lot about it, during the whole ritual.”

“Th-that’s part of the process, yes.”

Kez tilted her head. “You make us feel all warm like that, just by talking?”

“It’s a little more complicated than that.” Rys chuckled nervously.

“Let me guess,” the huntress smiled, looking wolfish with her dark stare, “magic that you can’t tell me about?”

Rys nodded. “And a lot of it is just hard to describe.”

“But it all sounds so... so simple when you do it with me, though,” she sighed.

“What do you mean?” The seer cursed herself for having to ask. But Paq had always impressed it onto her. The more ideas they would give her, the more ideas she could use. Like with Tel, and the ice, Rys was making up almost all of it as she went. She’d been taught the essentials, the different patterns and ways to make the ritual work, but such a personal experience had to be personally made. Even with her magic, and even with the essentials, not everyone could be drawn deep in the same way.

“It feels like so much of it is just... not thinking, instead of thinking?”

“And by that you mean...” Rys already knew exactly what the huntress meant, but she wanted Kez to think it and speak it on her own.

She chuckled, and averted her gaze for a few moments to the forest around them. Rys saw her take a long, slow breath before speaking. “It’s going to sound strange.”

“Kez.” Barely thinking, Rys had moved her hand, and now it found and squeezed Kez’s while it sat on her left shoulder. The huntress’ eyes drifted onto the seer’s, looking focused, and not only through her own will. “Tell me,” the seer said.

“Like you’re the one thinking, and I’m just...”

“Feeling?”

“Yes,” Kez whispered to her.

And that was enough. She could use those words and that idea to pull the huntress down and relax her even more effectively. That was all she needed. But their hands were still together, and Rys wanted to hear more of that soft, whispering voice. “And how does it feel, Kez?”

“Really good.”

The seer felt her stomach churning, and her legs shifting, but she still held the hand and the huntress’ gaze. “Go on,” she said.

“Relaxed.” Kez breathed deep. “Warm.”

Her heart pounded in her ears. “Warm, smoky air, isn’t that right, Kez?”

“Yes,” Kez answered, giving what was barely a nod.

She fought to keep her voice level. She could’ve stopped, and she didn’t. “You can smell the smoke now, can’t you?”

“Yes.”

“You’ve let the warm, smoky air all inside you, Kez?”

“Yes.” Another deep, heavy breath, and she felt its warmth against her face, against her blush.

“How much of you has it filled, Kez? How much of you is smoky and warm and sleepy?”

The huntress blinked heavily. “Arms... my legs...” Another breath. “... neck...”

“Now breathe... and let it into your head, Kez. Let it all in. Smoke and warm and sleep, let them braid around and...” The huntress was quiet. She was staring, or blinking sleepily. Her breaths were deep and even. Her body seemed immobile. Rys realized it all, and held the heat in her lungs, then released her hand, watching as Kez’s eyes closed, and as she fell into sleep.

The seer drew a shuddering breath. This was bad. Or was it? She hadn’t even needed her magic, Kez had just... dropped like a stone, and here she was, held in sleep, standing on two feet, her hands on Rys’ shoulders, and even with all those layers they felt so warm...

But she hadn’t even been thinking. She just did it. Didn’t ask. Didn’t have a reason. Just saw the moment and... did it.

But Kez had fallen so easily. She must have wanted it, or at least, not not wanted it. But this wasn’t a ritual, it wasn’t bonding, it was just indulgent. She hadn’t done it for Kez, she had done it for her own selfish wants, to satisfy her own curiosity. Her own hunger. And it hadn’t ever been like that before, with her mothers, it’d never even come into her mind. Only now...

No. She couldn’t use it like this. She resolved herself, as she started squeezing Kez’s hands and bringing her up with words of waking, to tell the huntress she was carried away, that when she saw how relaxed Kez had gotten, she just had to see, and it would never happen again.

“... and you’re wide awake, Kez, wide awake now.”

She watched the huntress blink the sleep from her eyes. “... Rys?”

“Yes,” she nodded, feeling the flush of her humiliation all over. She had given in so easily. She’d let herself be tempted, and now what trust she’d earned was broken.

“Th-that was...”

“Waking sleep,” Rys blurted, “I know, I didn’t mean to and it happened so fast that I—”

“That was so much fun.”

Somehow, Rys’ heart sank and soared in the same moment. “Wh-what?”

Kez looked positively dazzled. “It was... it was amazing! One second we were talking, and I was right here and then just,” she snapped her fingers, withdrawing her hands and the closeness away from Rys, “gone, just like that I was just right back in it... how did you even do that?”

“... well you’d started thinking about it, I just encouraged it and reminded you about...”

“About the smoke,” Kez said slowly. “I smelled smoke. I thought there was a fire going. I was just about to look around, because I could smell pine on the fire, and... and it was warm like a fire, like it was on my skin, and... Rys, it’s...” Kez’s gaze grew distant, more and more distracted with each passing word as the seer just marveled, until it cleared with a rapid blink. “I mean, ancestors’ dicks, I don’t even know how to...”

“Y-you’re not mad?”

“Mad?” The huntress was incredulous. “How could I be mad about that? I mean I barely even know why it’s so exciting, but I barely even know anything about it at all, and... can we do it again?”

“Yes,” Rys said instantly. “Later,” she corrected. “If you want.”

“I want to.”

“Th-then we will?”

“Perfect!” The huntress grinned, but before long, the focus came back to her face as she thought her way back through it. “We... probably shouldn’t tell Tel about that?”

“I probably shouldn’t have done it at all, Kez...”

“Why? Just because you use it for the ritual? It’s not just meant for that, is it?”

Was it?

“... anyway, let’s just keep it to us for now, yeah?”

Rys nodded, because she didn’t know what else to do. Whatever that had been, she wanted it again, and somehow, Kez wanted it, too. And Tel’s words from that morning echoed still. Did she want it, too? And her heart was loud in her ears as she walked and talked of small things with Kez, to help Tel with their branches and to set the tent. But louder than that, she kept asking herself.

It was a sacred rite. It couldn’t be anything more, could it?

By the time night was falling, Rys had worked herself up into something nearing optimism. She was beginning to feel hopeful, not for her skein and her journey, no, she still felt paralyzed there and desperate for relief, but about the waking sleep. Tel and Kez both welcomed it. More than welcomed it; Tel was at once both ravenously and timidly curious toward it (something Rys had never thought possible), while Kez thought it was... fun? And that did make a bit of sense; it was a unique sensation and experience (her seer-mother had had Rys feel it firsthand), but... to see it as fun?

It was a sacred rite, after all. It wasn’t some game the seer was playing. She was taking her skeinmates’ minds and bodies into her hands, and she had to be careful, not playful, not fun.

But she couldn’t stop Kez from feeling it, could she? And she couldn’t stop Tel from being curious. And maybe, just maybe, there was the chance that she could use it as ritual, and as bonding, and as... distraction.

Not like that sort of distraction, of course, she was still suppressing those thoughts whenever they cropped up. She knew the others would never feel that way, and it made no sense to think on it more than that. To force it on them would be the greatest betrayal, and she didn’t even know if she could force it on them; they had to be willing, of course, but wills could bend...

No. Rys shook her head, undoing the blunted animal fangs that held shut the front of her warm coat. Those thoughts would need to go, but it wasn’t like she planned to act on them, or to do anything with them at all. Kez and Tel wanted something more, more than just a tool to reconcile and bond and understand. And Rys felt that she did, too.

And it would make them all happier, she decided. Tel’s curiosity could be stoked and satisfied, Kez’s endless need for something new and exciting could easily be dealt with that way. Rys was practically brimming with ideas, of the words she could use, of the feelings she could incite, and of the actions she could encourage. Maybe it would feel like the strange perversion that she felt it should be, or maybe it wouldn’t. She hoped that it wouldn’t.

They’d set up the tent and eaten their meal early. All three of them seemed somewhat on edge; where there was laughter, there was a hint of strain, where there was inquiry, there was reluctance. No one talked about the sacred practice that each knew they would perform—Tel didn’t know that Kez would want it, and Kez didn’t know that Tel would want it. And Rys, well, she could quite easily keep all her thoughts inside.

She’d grown so used to keeping her thoughts inside that she almost couldn’t feel the guilt of it anymore. Almost.

The tent’s flap opened, and Tel crawled through, rejoining the seer and huntress after the scouting sweep she had insisted on. “We are safe here,” the large woman said.

“Great.” Kez rolled her eyes. “I told you there’d be nothing. Did you see anything alive out there?”

“No,” the warrior said as she unshouldered her coat, “I did not. Except for the sky.”

Rys’ eyes shot open, and she nearly choked on the water she was drinking, forcing her gaze to the ground as both women gave her a strange look. Don’t say it, don’t say it, don’t say it, don’t—

“The aurora?” the huntress asked with some surprise.

“What else?” the warrior grunted.

Anything else. Please, ancestors, anything else. Why did it have to come tonight, of all nights? Couldn’t the lights have waited until their journey was through? Couldn’t she have just had more time?

The seer was panicked. Tel had seen the ancestors’ lights, yes, but how much of them? Rys didn’t want to look up, but more than that, she didn’t want her skeinmates to see the fear that she would have, when she did. And it was a gift, then, as she turned her eyes forward, that both Tel and Kez had moved to opposite ends of the tent to undress. Rys scrambled up to do the same.

She put her feet toward the tent’s hide wall, staring out through it and feeling the magic beyond. It was so obvious, now that she’d been told of it. Either consciously or not, she’d been avoiding the sky all day; but even just looking at the world below, it was so very obvious. Rys closed a hand around her seer-stone, and blinking her eyes open, she was able to feel the colors and flow of the magic within everything: how pale was the snow, how steady and dim were the trunks of trees and how bright were the tips of their branches and needles. It was all so much brighter, now that the lights were growing. Now that the ancestors were calling.

Rys took a deep breath, and looked up. The sky blinded her, so much light and so many colors and so much magic screaming into her mind all at once, and she made herself look down at once. But the afterimage remained, and clear as day, right in the middle of it all...

She couldn’t let them see it. She hadn’t told them yet, and they couldn’t find out on their own. But others would. They would have to move quickly; it was a gift to have been so close when it happened.

But now it was no gift. It would only be dim now, to anyone but her. Tel wouldn’t have seen the signs yet. But once the ancestors’ lights flared to life and coated the sky with ribbons of color, if either woman gazed up, the reality of their journey would be scrawled above the landscape. If they looked, what feeble bonds of companionship they had would snap in an instant. Without trust, her skein would become hopeless, and fragile, and surely break before they even reached the object of their Trial... but something was dawning on Rys.

They wouldn’t be looking up, would they?

No. They’d be looking deep, deep into the fire. Or so lost in smoke or ice that neither could tell darkness from the brightest light.

The seer suppressed a shiver, and remembered to start undressing. Hands removed her boots, her outer shirt, her stockings and outer trousers and socks, and she thought.

It was a gift. They both wanted to spend the night with the waking sleep, and they would have to. She would have to keep them occupied, and entertained, and keep them from thinking of looking anywhere besides the fire and the faces around the tent. Could she risk urging them to ignore it, while they were so deep? Or would that breed a deeper suspicion?

She only knew that she had to move quickly. She pulled on a new inner shirt and trousers, and turned back to the others.

Tel was half naked.

Or almost half naked.

She was getting half naked. Rys felt her mouth gaping as she stared toward the warrior’s back, following Tel’s hand as it guided a loop of red cloth off of her chest in slow, wide circles, her breasts coming more and more free with each twist of the binding being undone. The warrior wasn’t looking, so Rys just stared, and stared, until she saw the naked swell of Tel’s breasts on either side of her back.

The seer shoved her head and eyes forward, and listened. She heard footsteps. Not the sound of dressing, at least, not from Tel. Kez seemed to finish, then there was quiet, as Rys imagined the huntress looking back to take in a similar sight...

“Oh, so we’re finally allowed to get our tits out?” Not just fluttering, her gut was doing backflips.

“No one was stopping you before, rabbit,” the warrior answered Kez.

“Yeah, except, like... fine, whatever.”

Rys heard a shirt moving, Kez’s. She also realized that she was standing there, doing nothing, and was still wearing one of her own. She gulped, and pulled the large, warm garment over her head, wiggling her arms and torso out of it in a quick motion. Tel was right to bare her own body; they’d finally set the tent and fire that night in such a way that the whole space was warm, too much so for too many clothes. Especially, Rys imagined, for Tel, her chest bound up tight all day, beneath so many layers, sweating through the cloth and...

No. No no no no. They were all just new friends in a new skein, and they were all just going to sit around the fire, half-naked. And then they would be half-naked, and staring at the fire. And then they would be half-naked, and staring at the fire, and enraptured by her words and magic, and falling deep into...

... into the waking sleep. She swallowed hard, turned around, marched to the fire and sat herself on top of her discarded coat. Eyes kept forward, at and through the fire, trying to ignore the dazzling light of magic in it that kept creeping through her senses, even as she was unable to ignore the weight and power bearing down on her from above. And, she realized, as she couldn’t quite ignore the heat and tension throughout her body. Even without looking, the huntress and warrior were in her periphery, and she could see the way the light cast over their naked flesh, the shadows between and around Tel’s breast, the way Kez’s contours moved as she shifted and gnawed on a leftover piece of their dinner. And between both their breasts, held by cords of leather, a stone, shining bright in Rys’ mind, even as she tried to shut all the magic out from her senses.

Rys glanced toward their faces, not toward their naked bodies or their magical artifacts. The warrior looked contemplative. The huntress looked awkward, as if she was only eating to keep herself from speaking, and by extension, from blurting out what she wasn’t sure she wanted to say. Both wanted to go under, the seer realized, but neither had a reason to bring it up. Both had their pride, they were alike in that, and neither seemed to want the other to know of their curiosity. What if they did?

It would probably be teased, and mocked, and fought and argued over, and one or both would end up hurt. Rys didn’t want that, and neither did they. So she cleared her throat, and spoke past the heat growing behind her cheeks. “I was hoping I might induce the waking sleep in you both again, tonight.”

The two women looked over, sparing brief glances to each other. “We haven’t fought about anything,” Kez said cautiously.

“Nor have our emotions risen too far out of turn,” Tel put in.

Neither wanted to bend. Rys drew a sigh. “Well, it’s true, though, that the more we practice the ritual, the closer we can become,” she informed them. It wasn’t a lie, but it wasn’t really her motive, either. It was, in the sense that the shared experience would satisfy both, and possibly bring them closer, but they were right. There was nothing that needed mending, only strengthening. And more than that, she just needed them asleep, and not thinking about the sky.

“Can it?” Tel questioned.

“You mean I’ll like her more just by doing this every night?” Kez asked, with some suspicion.

“I-it doesn’t have to be every night,” Rys said quickly, though both of them looked as though they were considering the possibility. “With frequency, though, you both will be able to feel it more strongly, and more quickly, and more deeply.”

Kez raised an eyebrow. “And that would mean...?”

“It would mean that I... that we,” the seer corrected herself, “we could do more.”

“More than just the tempering of our emotions and the changing of our actions?” Tel looked equally intrigued.

Kez’s eyes darted away. “I don’t know if I want my emotions getting tampered with.”

Rys almost reached for the huntress’ hand, just then, but she kept her patience. “It’s not tampering, Kez.”

“Making me like her sure sounds like tampering, Rys.”

“It’s not,” the seer said again. “I can’t make you do anything.”

Kez’s brown eyes flicked towards hers. “Then last night, why’d I just start saying all that stuff? Why’d I start apologizing? Why couldn’t I stop myself?”

“Did you want to stop yourself?” Rys asked softly.

The huntress thought about it, glancing to Tel, who was looking and listening on with clear focus. “... probably not,” Kez decided, “but maybe I might’ve wanted to.”

“You only did those things because you wanted to do them, Kez. If you’d wanted to do anything else, you would have. And I think you know that, deep down, don’t you?”

She nodded slowly. “I might...”

“Tell me,” Rys said, as she squeezed the huntress’ hand left hand and took in the recognition behind her dark gaze. “Tell me what you feel, Kez.”

She swallowed. “I feel like I could’ve stopped it... like I would’ve stopped it if I wanted to, but,” she swallowed again, and Rys saw a hint of blush as the dark eyes momentarily twitched toward the warrior, “but I didn’t feel like I could.”

Rys squeezed her calloused fingers. “And it’s okay not to feel that, because you know you always can, and you always will if you want to, right?”

The huntress nodded, slow as her breath. “Right,” she exhaled.

The seer ignored the stirring between her legs. “And so if I asked to do the ritual tonight, you’d say...?”

“Yes,” Kez whispered.

She squeezed again, seeing Kez’s eyes widen just before drooping. “Would you look into the fire for me then, Kez?”

“Yes.” The eyes flicked away, and Rys let herself breathe.

She looked over to Tel. The warrior’s green gaze jumped between the seer and huntress, and locking eyes with the woman was all Rys could do not to leer at her chest. “Tel?”

“Yes, Rys?”

“Would you like to take my hand?” Tel looked to Kez, who was looking to the flames, and gave a hint of a nod. The seer’s hand moved slowly, but Rys made the trembling stop as she closed her fingers around the warrior’s. “Like that?” she asked Tel.

“Yes,” the warrior murmured.

Rys squeezed both hands at once. “And you like that?”

“Yes,” both women spoke in unison, startling each other as their eyes darted off the fire and onto each other’s faces.

Startling Rys, too, but she had to keep calm. “Very good, both of you, and your eyes can return to the fire...” Both pairs did. “... and your thoughts can return to my words, while you take a nice, big breath...” Both mouths did. “... and feel the smoke inside you, and the warmth cast on your face, and isn’t that nice?”

“Yes.”

“Yeah.”

Neither looked away, this time.

“So good, so nice and easy. And it’s easy to just nod along or shake your head when I ask a question, isn’t it?” Both nodded. “And when your heads nod, just like that, you can feel how heavy your neck’s gotten, can’t you?” Both nodded. “And when you feel that, you know it’s from how heavy your head’s gotten, don’t you?” Both nodded. “And you know why that is, don’t you?”

Both nodded. Rys shivered, and swallowed, and reached with her mind for the stone around her neck. The flash of light as magic shone in everything was dizzying, but there were only three things she needed to focus on. The lights in the fire, the glow within Tel’s body, and the shimmering within Kez’s. Carefully, she thought toward the fire, strengthening its otherworldly, invisible glow, focusing its heat into light and sense for the two bodies whose hands she held. It was already captivating, and the magic she bent inside it only made it moreso.

“Looking so deep into the fire, aren’t you?” Rys asked, and watched both nod, the swirls of power in her vision shifting, rippling in response. It was difficult to read the magic, to know which shapes of it were causes and which were effects, but she knew how to grow the ones she wanted.

She squeezed Tel’s hand, and watched the magic twist and dance up her arm, threading over and in like a thousand spiders’ webs as warmth arced through her being. “Tel,” she said, and watched the woman’s magic stir, flickering for a moment with the bright, deep, distinctive glare of the stone she wore at her breast. Rys figured that she was looking through the warrior, not leering at her, so she excused her subtle glances. “Tel,” Rys said again, watched the pulse of power again, “when I speak your name like so, with that lovely squeeze, you know these words are meant for you, and only you, and you won’t have to listen to words that start with any other name, yes?”

The warrior nodded. Good. She turned to Kez, who took her own instruction just the same, albeit with a nod that drooped even farther. “Kez,” Rys spoke with a squeeze, “is the fire making you sleepy already?”

The huntress nodded. She turned to the warrior and squeezed. “Tel, are my words making you cloudy already?”

The warrior nodded. And back and forth she went, shifting the magic inside them with each squeeze and each word, drawing their focus and bringing their minds nearer to that deep ensnarement. “Kez, are you feeling the smoke welling up in your feet?” “Tel, are you focused on my words and how they cloud inside your head?” “Kez, are you feeling the warmth filling up your arms?” “Tel, are you letting feeling fade, and following just my voice?” “Kez, don’t you just want to feel the braid, instead of thinking so much?” “Tel, don’t you just want to get lost in the clouds and fog, instead of thinking so much?”

Both heads nodded. “Wouldn’t you like to just be deep, deep down, Kez, in the braid, Tel, in the ice?”

Both heads nodded. “Wouldn’t you like to feel, even before that, the waking sleep and the clear, calming fullness of it all?”

Both heads nodded. “Wouldn’t you like to feel that right now?”

Both heads nodded.

Rys drew a breath, and squeezed both hands.

“Then drop.”

Squeezing with each repetition, warping magic and quieting minds, “Drop, and drop, and drop, falling, and falling, and falling, feeling warm and wonderful, all over and everywhere, sinking, sinking, and sinking, down and down and down...” The colors seemed right, the magic felt correct, only one thing remained. “And you know what happens when I let go?”

Both heads nodded. Tel’s was sharp. Kez’s lolled. Rys’ breath shook, and with a final squeeze, she let go.

Both hands dropped, limp. A rush of feeling and magic swept through both, as their minds dropped; Tel, into her warm, foggy place in the ice, Kez, into her warm, smoky, sleepy enclosure in the thick, binding braids. Four eyes, all shut—Tel had held her watchful vigil admirably, while Kez had struggled to keep the sleep contained. And now they slept, and their ears were shut, too. And their minds. And their bodies.

Rys shuddered. They were asleep. They wouldn’t be able to see her looking... they wouldn’t even be able to feel if she touched. She ached, and she longed to whet the appetite of her eyes. She could feel the heat rising in her own body, and she didn’t dare to look and see what her own magic would show her. But she couldn’t. If she indulged, even a moment, it would all fall apart. She reached for both women’s hands... then paused. They wanted to know more, and she needed them occupied. Why not this?

“Kez,” she whispered into the huntress’ ear, squeezing her hand, “you are in the waking sleep now, and soon you will not be.” She had sidled up close, almost unbearably so. Rys cleared her throat quietly. “You will rise soon, out of your braid of smoke and warm and sleep, out of this becalming, and it will feel so nice. You will feel so comfortable and so relaxed, as if you’ve kept all this lovely energy in your body, just lurking inside, doesn’t that sound nice?”

“Yes,” the huntress mumbled.

“And you will wake and have this energy and life, but when I squeeze your hand again, the braid will unfurl and twist around your body and mind again, and you will be held enraptured, so quickly, so surprisingly, so wonderfully, won’t you Kez?”

“Yes,” she whispered again.

“Very good, Kez, and you are feeling your body now as I squeeze, feeling with each the movement in your body, the life returning, that’s right, stretching and wiggling your toes, Kez, feeling it in your legs and chest with this squeeze, into your arms and hands, flex your fingers now, and squeezing the last away, clearing your mind, opening your eyes...” Rys gulped, and watched as the huntress’ lids fluttered up. She released her hand. “Hi there, Kez.”

“Hey...” she smiled, turning to face the seer.

“How do you feel?” Rys asked.

“Really good,” Kez said, breathily, echoing the same sentiment from the forest hours before.

“I-I’m glad,” the seer managed, hoping her smile would hide her blush. “And now that you’re awake...”

Kez followed the gesture of her hand, and looked across the flames. “Oh, fuck.” The huntress’ face lit with a grin as she scrambled up, and Rys watched her steps sway just slightly as she walked around the blaze, and knelt down at Tel’s side.

Rys did the same. The warrior was deep down, and aside from her breathing, not a muscle moved on her. She didn’t look toward that steadily moving chest, though she saw Kez taking a glance.

“Is she... wrapped up in the braid?”

“In her way,” Rys answered.

“What does that mean?” Kez asked, canting her head to the side, looking past the warrior’s closed eyes.

“She feels much the same as you do, when you’re deep. Bound up, not thinking or seeing or sensing, just floating, adrift until we talk to her.”

“Bound up in... wait, we?”

Rys let herself smirk, and winked, as she took the warrior’s hand and squeezed it.

Tel’s eyes opened wide, instantly, making the huntress jump back. Rys put her other hand up, and beckoned Kez closer, as she leaned toward Tel’s ear. “The murk has turned to muddle, Tel, and you are floating in the waking sleep, floating above the ice that you were within, yes?”

“Yes,” she said, and Kez looked amazed at the emptiness in a voice that was still so strong.

“And you know that whenever your hand is held, just like this, that the words you hear are my words, and you hear them in my voice inside your mind, as your thoughts twist around them, no matter how they might sound to your ears, yes? Not hearing anything but my words?”

“Yes.”

Rys let go, and the warrior’s arm dropped down with her eyelids. “Back into the ice, Tel, right back into the fog, deeper and deeper...” She waited ’til Tel’s next breath came, deep and quiet, before looking to Kez.

Her eyebrow was up inquisitively. “Ice?”

Rys shrugged her shoulders. “Everyone responds differently. Now if you’d like to touch her arm...?”

“Oh, she’d get pissed about that.”

Rys’ smirk returned, and she chased it away. “She can’t hear us, Kez, and can’t feel us either.”

With the same care that the seer imagined her approach toward a sleeping bear, Kez brought her hands closer and closer, until one settled around the warrior’s wrist, and the other at her bicep. She looked even more surprised when Tel didn’t react. Rys saw her slowly squeezing the warrior’s muscled flesh, “She really can’t feel it...?”

“Well, she can feel it, some, but she isn’t thinking about it at all, and if you were to... ah, yes,” the seer nodded, as Kez manipulated Tel’s left arm up, and up, then... she let go, and it dropped down limp with a thud as her fist hit the ground. No movement. No awareness. Rys shivered.

“That’s so... weird,” the huntress marveled, “but not like the bad weird, it’s just... weird...” Kez looked up. “And did you just make it so I could...?”

“Give her hand a squeeze, gentle.”

Kez’s palm found the warrior’s, and slowly laced fingers together. Both took a deep breath at once, and Kez squeezed—eyes shot open, and Rys couldn’t block out the flare of magic in Tel’s body as her mind awoke, if only halfway. “T-Tel, can you hear me?” Kez murmured cautiously.

“Yes,” the warrior uttered.

The seer and huntress’ eyes met, and Kez grinned. “Who am I?” she asked.

“You are Rys. You are our seer and you are my friend.”

Rys looked away, feeling herself blushing furiously, as Kez continued. “How do you feel right now?”

“Relaxed,” the warrior said after a pause. “At ease. Strange.”

“Strange how?”

A longer pause. “As though I could wake. But I do not desire to.”

“What do you desire to do?”

“Listen. Watch the fire.” Another pause, and just as Kez was opening her mouth, “Fall through the ice.”

The seer’s legs closed together tightly, but thankfully, Kez didn’t press the point. “Do that, then.” Rys heard the thump of a falling fist, and Tel was deep again. The huntress was smiling wide from across the warrior’s lap. “So weird,” she said.

“And fun?”

“So fun.”

Rys started to smile. She was beginning to understand why Kez was feeling that way. And so, caught up in the moment, she latched onto a passing idea. “You know what else would be fun?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you remember what will happen if I squeeze your hand?”

The huntress’ brow furrowed. “I... don’t?”

“But that’s okay,” Rys said.

“Yeah,” Kez nodded slowly.

“Stand up for me?” Kez did, and Rys followed, both of them standing askant of the warrior on the ground. “Do you want to know, or do you just want it to happen?”

“You’re saying it like it’s going to happen either way,” the huntress chuckled, smothering a hint of her nervousness.

“It is, Kez,” Rys said, holding her stare, “because you want it to, don’t you? You don’t even know what it is, but you know that it will feel good, and it will feel fun, and so...?”

The huntress swallowed. “Just do it already, Rys.”

She gladly obliged. Her hand darted to Kez’s, and the look of shock and recognition flashed across the red-braided woman’s face, before the squeeze came, and the magic pulsed through, and her eyes shut tight. She started to tumble, but Rys was already whispering, “Locked in place, Kez, stuck in place and stuck in sleep, your body does not move, your mind does not move, you are down in the waking sleep, in your braid, steady yourself now by that smoke and warm and sleep, that’s right, Kez, and now...” She drew her hand away. And just as in the forest, the huntress slept on her feet. Unmoving, except for her breath, her arm half bent to where Rys had been holding it.

The seer turned away before her eyes could take too much in of the sight. She came down to her knees again before Tel, and took the warrior’s hand. She whispered the same thoughts, received the same nods and affirmations, and then she was squeezing and murmuring and enlivening, and Tel’s eyes blinked, turned, and focused on hers. “Hi,” Rys said.

“Hello,” Tel said, and then her eyes were past the seer’s head, and looking up. “That is Kez,” she observed.

“Y-yes, it is.”

“I... do not remember her standing.”

“No, you wouldn’t, you were very deep, and very foggy.”

The warrior nodded slowly, while Rys watched her gaze move up and down the huntress’ immobile body. “She is... within the ice?”

“S-something like that,” the seer smiled.

They stood together, and Rys explained the huntress’ sleeping state. When Tel took her turn to touch, feeling along Kez’s arm, she began to smile. “Rys, could we possibly...”

“Hm?”

Tel cleared her throat. “Last night, you had us sharing our thoughts. Speaking our minds. And it was not merely a request that I felt obliged to honor, from you, it was... it was something more, wasn’t it?”

Rys noticed the slightest quaver in the warrior’s tone, and had to keep herself from grinning as her heart beat faster. “Yes, it was, and what of it?” If she played dumb enough, and Tel was enough of a quick study...

“Would it not be possible to create... other such impulses, while one is awake?”

The seer chewed her lower lip. A very quick study. “I... suppose it would be, er, depending on what one wanted to do, and so long as one wanted to act on it, like the two of you did before.”

For the briefest moment, the blade of a grin flashed across Tel’s lips. “Then might I try something?”

Rys nodded all too quickly, then she paused. “W-well, she’ll have to be ready for it, first.”

“Could I see how it is done?”

“Yes. O-of course.”

It only took a few minutes for Tel to get a hang of the process. Rys led first, bringing Kez up halfway from her bed of smoke before squeezing and sending her falling hard back down, then again, high enough that her eyelids nearly fluttered open, before she dropped her all the way down, even faster and even lower than before. The rhythmic flow of the ritual came easily to her, even with Tel watching intently from the corner of her eye.

Once the warrior signaled her readiness with a nod, Rys handed over Kez’s wrists, which Tel took into a gentle, near reverent grip, slipping her fingers to lace with the huntress’, both sets just as firm and rough with ridged callouses. Tel began to speak, haltingly, taking many of Rys’ words for her own as if she’d memorized them like the words of a song. Tel couldn’t twist the magic as she did, nor could she weave patterns of words that were wholly her own... but she did find a rhythm. With soft touches, and softer words, almost sung on her whispering, the warrior led the huntress up, and down, up, and down, up...

Rys blinked, felt the hotness of her breath and the tightness in her chest, and saw that Tel had come even closer to Kez’s side, murmuring right into her ear, too low for the seer to hear. For a moment, for a very long moment, she watched, she stared, and she thought that the wise thing to do would be to take back control. Tel knew nothing of the ritual, she could cause harm and it was not entirely safe... but she looked so focused, her green stare intent on the side of Kez’s face. And Kez, she looked serene, the magic in her mind lit with beautiful shades, her breath so soft and sweet.

And Rys’ breath was loud. Hard. She had to fight to keep it under control, fight to focus on the sound and shape of Tel’s words instead of the words themselves, fight to keep her eyes somewhere else, not the fire, too calming, not the eyes, too beautiful, not the chest, too...

She blinked. And again. And Tel was watching her, expectantly, with a satisfied smile. Rys glanced down, and... ah, of course. A quick study.

“... and wide awake now, Kez, wide awake.”

Rys and Tel stood on opposite sides of the huntress, whose eyes flicked left and right with each moment. “You let her play with me,” Kez said to the seer.

Rys blushed. “Well, you played with her first.”

“Played with me?” Tel said, and the look on her face betrayed her shock.

“N-no, she only talked to you while you were in the waking sleep, Tel.”

“Ah. In that case,” the warrior grinned, “yes, rabbit, I have played with you.”

Kez’s eyes narrowed. “What did you do, then?”

“Can you not tell?”

“No, I can’t, and stop with the stupid grin.”

Tel laughed. “Your hands, rabbit, look at your hands.”

Kez did, and Rys watched the huntress look to her hands, which were stretched out in front of her, and laced tightly together. Her arms struggled feebly, and Rys felt herself trembling with each one. “Oh, what the fuck.”

“Having trouble, rabbit?” Tel chuckled.

Kez’s lips writhed in frustration, as she tried and tried to wrench her fingers apart. “Y-yes, Rys, what did she...”

“She didn’t do anything, Kez,” Rys assured, “it is in your mind, and it’s you that wants this to be happening.”

“I want to fucking let go of my hands,” the huntress growled.

“Clearly, rabbit, you do not.”

“Piss off, Tel, or I’ll do worse when I get a chance.”

“Oh?” the warrior looked amused. “What might you do?”

“See how you like your hands stuck someplace.”

“And where would that be?”

“Oh, you know where.”

“I do not, rabbit.”

“Oh yes you do.”

“You will have to be more clear.”

“There’s two great, big, obvious places stuck right on the front of you, where do you think?”

Rys flushed bright red.

“What are you implying, rabbit?” Tel demanded.

“I’m implying that it’s a wonder you can even walk with those things.”

“Mind your tongue, Kez.”

“You should mind yourself. Warriors aren’t even supposed to bind, Tel, everybody knows that, so how come you get on us for flaunting tradition when you do it every day?”

“Quiet.”

“Hey, I’m not judging, I’d do it all the time with tits like those, but if anybody should be doing it, it’s Rys, she’s the seer; not like she’d ever need to though, right Rys?”

“Leave her out of this.”

“She’s supposed to be the one guiding us with the traditions, shouldn’t we be having this talk with her? And, plus, she’s—”

“This is not a talk. You are insulting me.”

“You’d know if I were insulting you. I’d do worse than this.”

“As would I, girl.”

“You trying to take this outside?” Kez’s hands separated, balled to fists. Neither woman seemed to notice that the spell had been broken.

“It would be one way to close your lips.” Tel was clenching her knuckles.

“How about we go fucking settle this, then?”

They were in each other’s faces, their stares were locked, expressions contorted in anger. Their hands were clenched in fists at their sides. They were turning toward the flap. Rys felt hot all over, and panicked, and the aurora above was blazing so bright that it was hard to think, and the world was flashing like fire, and she shut her eyes, she grabbed two fists, she spoke,

”Drop.”

She felt the wave of magic rock through both, twisted it to hold them in place, touched the power, with her eyes closed tight, still seeing the magic beyond them, caressed it and whispered to it with her thoughts, and sent both minds falling hard, and stopping in the waking sleep.

She forced her eyes to open. Tel’s breasts were right before her eyes. They were large, larger than any she’d seen before, and her nipples were a shade deeper than the rest of her flesh. Helpless, now, she looked to her right. Kez’s breasts were there, smaller but rounder, looking more firm than soft, just as beautiful, just as enticing. She couldn’t stop staring, glancing to their eyes, wide and half-lidded, both of them seeing nothing, hearing nothing, feeling nothing but the magic inside them, the warmth and comfort of waking sleep, the deep and spellbinding power she held over their thoughts. Her face was hot, everything was hot, her thoughts were a blur, the magic was strong, stronger than she could control, trying so hard to keep both women in check, and her lips forced out the first thought that came to mind, “Why can’t you two just love each other?”

As soon as she felt and saw the flood of magic, she knew she had made a mistake. Their bodies grew brighter within, magic and thoughts and ideas and emotion twisting in their minds, and she tried to adjust, to shift and wrest control away from that chaos, but she couldn’t. Deep, deep in that bewitched state, their bodies reacted. She could only watch.

Kez stepped forward. So did Tel. Their breasts pushed together. Their necks craned. Their lips pressed close. She watched them kiss, long and slow, feeling across each other’s mouths. They kissed again. And again. And she couldn’t stop hearing the sound, couldn’t stop feeling and seeing the patterns of magic she knew as lust trace and dance beneath their skin, and she watched their breasts pressing, watched their lips move faster, hungrier, needier, more and more and

”Stop!”

Both women froze, in the midst of their kiss.

“Step back.”

Both did. She held both their hands, squeezing them harder than anything.

She had failed. She had given in. And now she had to say the first things that came to mind, yet again, before it became even worse.

“You will not remember anything of this waking sleep. It is too cloudy, too smoky to see in your minds.”

She knew she couldn’t get rid of it. She saw the flowing within each that signaled its presence.

“This moment will be deep, deep in the fog and smoke. The only time you can think of it, is when you are asleep. A-as a dream. “

Light and power flushing outward from her hands, pushing through their bodies, correcting and altering their minds.

“You can dream of it. But that does not make it real, a-and you will not act on it or feel its being there while you are awake.”

She hoped. The magic was too intense, everything was too bright and too loud, she could scarcely tell if her words had an effect at all. Even without looking up, she felt the aurora, she felt it empowering and assaulting her and her senses.

“Y-you don’t need to recall the fight you had, either, that can hide in the smoke and clouds, too. In the morning, you’ll just remember your play, your fun and comfortable play, and the fun and relaxing moments that you had, in waking sleep.”

She hoped it would be enough. Neither Tel nor Kez had fully glimpsed the lights, or seen what was wrong with them. She only had to make sure they wouldn’t look now.

“But now you are sleepy. You are so very sleepy now, and aside from my words, the only thing you can think to do is to lie down on your furs by the fire and sleep until morning. And if you awaken at night, you can look into the fire again, and feel sleep return, until day comes, and you can awaken, and you can remember the play and fun that we’ve had.”

She felt so guilty. She felt so wrong. She felt so aroused.

“When I let go of your hands, this time, you won’t fall into ice or braids. You’ll keep your eyes open, you’ll find your furs, and you’ll lie down, and then you will sleep.”

She let them go.

Kez and Tel both turned, their arms swinging loosely as they did. They took one, two, three, four steps each, crouched, knelt, sat, and laid down.

Their eyes shut.

Rys let out her breath. She was shaking, torn between a desire to wake them, and weep and confess, and a want to watch them, to touch and to stare.

She could not sleep. And so she laid down, huddled close on her coat, and watched the rise and fall of magic inside them, lightened to a brightness like the sun from the power of the ancestors’ lights, rising and falling with the steady, rhythmic movement of their breasts. She stared until she felt like crying, then, rolled over, and pressed her face toward the ground.

Her eyes blinked heavily. She lost moments and minutes.

But she did not sleep.