SataiRolePlayingGuy

It was a quiet march before they finally got back to the city. Picking up the guards, a few other men and talking with Sarnia about which and how much of the women to leave behind. After that was figured out it was a brief talk with the priest, probably the closest thing to a leader. He was a little uneasy with the Lanarin, but listened to the prince’s plan. He understood it was probably for the best, the easiest way to find temporary female companionship for the men. Leaving those Lanarin with the priest, they made their way out of the city. If Maxim had his way, the next time he was in the city would be as king. But now they were marching to finally begin the second battle, though it would take some time and a few nights camping.

It took sometime for everyone to gather. Much of the tribe had been pulled from the camp. Almost everyone in their prime. Some would be left in the city, but the majority would be the core of their army, along with Maxim’s guard and the few men they could recruit from the city. They began their march. “We won’t stay long in the city.” Maxim observed. “We won’t spend another night there. We will be camping tonight. Might be several nights of camping before our next target.” ”Fine with us. We would feel weird sleeping in your city. The few who stay behind will have to adjust.” Sarnia answered. She was the unofficial leader here as far as the others were concerned, though there were no formal ranks or anything like that. She was sticking to the front of the crowd, would be the one doing most of the planning with Maxim and Anahel.

Maxim knew it would be too difficult to try to force them to do anything they did not. The Lanarin had been on the losing side in their wars over time. Their territory slowly chipped away at. But the Vanorians had no experience with them. Combined with Anahel’s power, if they struck fast they might make good progress. “Hopefully we can keep moving fast. Not give them time to adjust…as long as that is the case, this may work.” As he said it, the figures began leaving the camp. A wide variety but all young women, some armed, some not. The Lanarin strength advantage might work out for the unarmed ones.

Sarnia still did not really believe all that sent by gods stuff, but there was little reason to argue about it at this point. It would not be long before they moved, a brief stop at the city, them marching towards the first battle. “If you did your homework on our history, I don’t have to tell you this.” She was speaking to Maxim. “We don’t fight like your armies. Won’t get into formations and all that. We will fight in our way. We will follow your orders deciding the next target, maybe some of the big picture strategy, but for the actual fighting we will do things our way.”

Mirina of course, as usual, showed no reaction, even as the talk was semi-about her. Were there others who might not have been broken yet? It was hard to say. She was one of the who were not taken away and had the process done locally. She had no idea how much the length of the process varied from person to person, or how long it was taking to move others around before starting. Maybe there were some like that, it was hard to guess. Before Maxim could say anything else, Sarnia was back in sight, did not ask anything about what they had been talking about. Instead reporting what she saw. "Good news, the elders were impressed by the boy's fighting ability. They also see your enemy as worse than his family. Let me just say again, to be 'enslaved', 'tamed', probably no concept disgusts us more than that. Honestly I wish one of them was hear right now, so I could rip him apart with my own hands." She said it with a vicious smile. She was not fond of humans for the most part, but the Vanorians had disgusted them on a new level. "The girls are being gathered up as we speak. Should not take much longer."

Maxim had to consider next steps. They were on his mind as they waited. "If we get this army, it is probably time to take the next step. After drop some of them off in the city, maybe bring a few extra men with us, it is finally time to move to the next target. We have to move faster, especially if we want to find women who might not have been broken yet by the enslavement process." That Mirina was already the way she was was not a good sign, in the last city to temporarily fall to Vanoria. But maybe some took longer, especially if they were being moved around the kingdom. Maybe there were some who had not been broken yet.

Maxim was not going to try to guess a god's motivations. Whether this was part of a larger plan or not. It was not his place. He had never interacted with any directly, the way Anahel had. She could guess better, but he did not want to encourage negative feelings that might be misplaced. "We can only do what we feel is right. There is nothing wrong with our war, and I don't intend to abandon you, or ignore your feelings." That was the only thing he could do. Push forward. Make Anahel happy as he could. They would just have to deal with Sarnia. He probably could not avoid more sex with Sarnia. It had felt good, but he treated it more like a duty. What he might do if he had married some random princess instead of Anahel.

There was a lingering tension in the air, though not one Sarnia had a problem with, she decided to help ease things a little. "Will be back in a little while. Going to go check on the elders, see if they have gathered and how their talks are going. Should not take too long." She walked off towards the camp, to let Anahel and Maxim have some time alone. Well, Mirina would be there, but would stay out of things, unless Anahel talked to her. Maxim realized the chance he had and tried to calm things down a little. "I understand you are not pleased with this. I would try to get out of it, but we need their help and rejecting Sarnia at this point might offend them too much. She is trying to provoke you some, but you don't have to worry about her taking your place." He tried to resolve one of the earlier issues as well. "Ideally she won't have my child, though we have to live with a chance of that happening. She is not my wife though, if she does have any they won't be rivals to our children...It's possible we won't even see them, since it sounds like they don't involve fathers with their children." That would be a difficult issue. He did not want to have a child with Sarnia, would not acknowledge them as heirs, if he did. But they would still be his children, and not having any contact with them would be a different sort of problem.

Sarnia knew better than to push too far. She did not know how powerful Anahel was. Did this girl free that town on her own. She was not looking for a physical fight either, that was not the right way to do this. She would drop that subject for now. ”You will have another advantage with our army. You won’t have to worry about feeding us. We are quite good at finding our own food. Though I might recommend none of you watching us eat…we are…messy eaters.” It was another area they compared more to animals. They did not have human ‘table manners’, among other things.

Sarnia was not entirely convinced. The girl, her we rival, was sent by some god? She did not feel like she was in the presence of such a being. “It’s true.” Maxim backed it up, making it slightly more convincing, but there was still skepticism in her eyes. “Reclaim your kingdom too?” She asked Anahel, the girl already considering herself Maxim’s wife. “Well, that doesn’t bother me. You won’t be my queen. You can give him something more refined, and deal with all that royal nonsense, I’ll give him a taste of the wild side.”

“We know all about him.” Sarnia glanced at Maxim, prince of the kingdom on their borders. They had quite the history with that royal family. Though Sarnia was giving Maxim the benefit of the doubt. Acting like a Lanarin princess of sorts, maybe screwing with her would warm things up eventually. Mirinia was a bit of an oddity as well, not acting like most human women women she had seen. But Sarnia did care about that, there was a bigger mystery. “Okay. What are you? Some magic experiment? A human-monster hybrid? Something from across the ocean?” The Lanarin had no experience with angels. Sarnia really had no idea exactly what Anahel was.

Sarnia was just making an offer to try to help them, and give some of the girls some fun between fighting. Of course they could have fun with each other too, but it was good to get a little variety and there was little reason to tell the outsiders about that part of their culture yet without reason. She decided to try returning to the previous subject of conversation. "Since we got distracted before. Is there anything you want to know while we wait? About my people, rather than me specifically. Though if you are really that interested in me, you can ask about that as well." There were a few things that were forbidden to discuss with outsiders, but other than that, she intended to be open and blunt. Tell them whatever they wanted to know. It would be useful if they were going to fight together.

The point Sarnia was making was the fathers generally had no involvement. The men in the city probably would not care, assuming they knew, either. Between the casualness of it and the mothers being Lanarin. There would also probably be uncertainty over exactly who the fathers were, with the system being set up. Now, if she had a child with Maxim, well they would have to see what happened there. There was the other question. What if anything the Lanarin in the would be army would be doing. “So, is the idea it is just you two and my people for your army. Your enemy killed every single man who would fight for you?” That was unfortunately closer to the truth than Maxim like to admit. “I have a few personal guards, left behind in the city, since it was better not to bring additional men to meet you. But that is it. As we go, we might pick up a little bit of man power from each freed city, from those who could still fight.” ”Well some of the others will probably take care of your guards. We’ll see what happens when you start getting more men.” It was a little risky for an army to do that sort of thing. But Sarnia was optimistic they could do most or all of the fighting before that potentially made things difficult for any of the Lanarin.

Maxim kept his mouth shut for now, speaking up at the moment was too troublesome. He could guess what Anahel was worried about, he could ease her concerns later, when they were alone. Yes, if Sarnia had a child of his, that could be a very complicated issue. An illegitimate, half-Lanarin child. It would be a big deal if word got out, though as long as the Lanarin helped save the kingdom, he could probably prevent it from being too negative. They would not be in line for the throne though, not rivals in that sense for whatever children Anahel gave him. Though he did ask Sarnia one question that hopefully help things a little and that he was curious about now. "What do you mean by 'you will take care of it'?" "The fathers won't be involved." Sarnia put it bluntly. "A mother raises her child on her own, or with the help of her sisters, mother, such family. You call us the 'wild women'. You see any men here? Don't ask why you don't. None of us will tell you." She answered her own question with a tone that was more serious than anything else she said yet. It was a subject forbidden to talk about with outsiders. She would say anything else about that. The camp was all women, and they would not get an explanation why.

Sarnia got an amused smile. That was not the implication she was going for. She would spell it out momentarily. "We won't be hanging around the city, it will be up to whoever is left behind in charge to figure that stuff out. Make it fair, everyone gets a turn, sometimes in bed sometimes shorter." Yeah, in a way the men might see them as closer to whores that they did not have to pay for, but they would not mind. They just looked at sex differently from humans. "But of course not, dear rival. Our competition will not be so formal. What will happen in the city is different from our situation. Let me clarify 'long term consequences', since you were probably wondering this, both for me and those we will leave in the city. Yes, we can have children with humans. If that happens, we will take care of them." That was what she hinted at before. It was possible, and Lanarin handled child raising differently from humans in a key way.

They could get along when they were not fighting over a particular man, it appeared. Sarnia would not needlessly provoke her. There would be times they would fight over Maxim, but it was important to save that for when one or both of them wanted his personal attention. There were some sensitive subjects they were getting close to, but for now she let the conversation flow. "Of course there are not enough of us to leave one for every man. Especially if you want an army. But this would be a shorter term arrangement, I'm sure your men can learn to share." It would not be a tiny number, but a system would have to be talked out, who gets who when. "We will take care of any...longer term consequences on our own. We are used to that." She was curious if Anahel picked up exactly what she was implying. Something certainly possible with this arrangement.

It was natural she was not going to be thrilled by it, but Sarnia was not going to be bothered. Since there was not a follow up question, she went on the explain the situation. "So, we are led by our elders. The woman you saw before, Anina, well that's her title. The head and eldest living member of my family. She is gathering the heads of the other families. All the leaders of the tribe. They are going to have a talk about this idea of yours. Whether we fight with you. If they agree. The tribe will move, fight with you." Maxim spoke up. He avoided the subject of him and Sarnia for now. He had no intention of makings things easy for her, but putting his foot down too hard was dangerous. They needed help. "We have another need. The Vanorians have taken nearly all the women of my kingdom. We need to get them back Until then, I was hoping your people would help them." Sarnia picked up the obvious implication. "Companionship? Mating? Look, there is bad blood between us. Many of us aren't fond of humans. But it isn't unheard of for one of us to go into your towns, find a man for a night or two. I'm sure a few people in that town have already done it." It was good to clarify this. "Fighting a would be mate. It's in our blood, we love it. Makes it better with someone who is strong enough to beat us. It isn't a requirement though. Especially with humans or others." Well there really were not 'others' besides humans and Lanarin in this area. But there were stories of Lanarin getting involved with others long ago. "I'm sure we can spare some to help the men over there."

So it was about her then? Well that was a fair question from her rival. This was going to be fun. She had only done this sort of thing with other Lanarin before. “Of course you would want to know that.” Sarnia said with an understanding nod. “Unless he fights me again, and wins again, I won’t feel the instinct. But you want to know if we pick one mate for life? Like your marriage? Well, not exactly. If someone else challenges me and wins, I will feel the same…but…”. It was not going to be as simple as simple as many animals of course. ”I’m not going anywhere, unless the talks to join you go badly. You want your army, I’m coming with you and well, he is good, though I don’t have to tell you that. Sorry, but we are competing over the same man, and I intend to put up a good fight.” She intended to give serious competition too, though she was sure Anahel had the advantage and it was not going to be easy.

Mirina did wonder whether the fighting would always be necessary. It happened to be the case here, but maybe it would be different in other circumstances. It was only a moment before they were rejoined, by a dressed Maxim, Sarnia behind behind him. Maxim kept his expression blank, while Sarnia looked quite pleased. She stepped ahead and stood between the others and the camp. “Alight, now that we have reached this point. Any of you have questions, might as well answer them. We’re going to probably be together for a while. With an ‘army’ of my people. So you might as well get to know us. Can’t promise I will answer everything, there are some things we keep to ourselves. But I will answer what I can.” Maxim hoped this would be a more pleasant conversation, talking about the Lanarin as a people, rather than Sarnia specifically.

There was the old issue. What, if anything Mirina wanted. There was probably nothing. Especially nothing that could be done in the few minutes that it would likely take for them to finish. Mirina was sure Maxim would just do what he needed to here, less focused on pleasing Sarnia. Though maybe that would be good enough for her. It was just open field around them, other than the camp in the distance. A few figures moved around. Mirina an observation, rather than answer a question that was going to get the same answer as before. "...The prince wishes to bring these women back to the town. At least temporarily replace our lost women. The men may not get what they expect." No wives here. At least some may pleased by what they had found, others might get more than they expected.

There was probably some sort of plan. That was what Mirina thought at least. It would probably work out. But now Anahel had conflicting priorities to work out. To help Maxim in his war and also to give him one or children. Her mind was still in a state to not be too concerned, except that she wanted her mistress to feel better. ”What do you wish to do now? Wait here until they are done?” It was probably dangerous to wander into the Lanarin camp, without either Sarnia or the older woman. Though the two of them were not likely to take much longer than Maxim and Anahel did. Sarnia was looking to mate, not make love.

Mirina was sure the children would be different, but she had no idea in what way. Which they would be closer to. She could imagine the differences between if they had boys and/or girls though. Any princess born from Anahel would be sought by nearly every royal family in the world as a bride, a son being the sort of king that would not soon be forgotten. Did she look different? “Your halo is not quite as bright as it used to be.” That was the obvious change. She considered the rest of what her mistress said. “If you still have a connection to the god or gods that sent you. You should ask for clarity, if they will give it to you.” No human could guess with any certainty what was going to happen to her as this continued. If she asked soon enough, she might get an answer.

Could they have children? That was an interesting question, human and angel. Human was another question too. But Sarnia at least probably already knew the answer. If such a pair could have children, Sarnia would not be the first. “A child of human and Angel will probably have long ends told of them for years.” If they could have children, they would probably be considered a holy family. Their children being more than human. “Even the Vanorian emperor might be worried about a child of the prince and an Angel.” It would not be long before he heard about Anahel fighting for Maxim. Later finding out she was his wife and mother of his children would probably be worse.

Mirina decided not to say anything about the chance of both her mistress and Sarnia being mothers of Maxim’s children. She was sure Maxim would not try with Sarnia, but there was always a chance, especially if it kept happening. That would just bother her. “He asked you to be his wife?” The two of them had started to plan that sort of thing. But Mirina doubted her mistress would say that at this point, unless the offer was already made.

As they approached Sarnia was already undressed, Mirina still standing where she had been, not paying attention to the woman. Sarnia smiled at the girl who had become a rival, serious one, but not something to get violent over. No they would compete differently. But she spoke to Maxim. “Know how to keep a girl waiting.” She dropped to her hands and knees, gesturing Maxim to take her as Mirina turned and followed Anahel away. ”It’s not her fault, mistress. She is an animal that feels the need to breed.” She did not say it insultingly. Sarnia simply did remind her of the animals back home, but one that could think and speak on a human level. “She does not think of these like we do. The prince is her mate, not lover or husband. Though I do not know if Lanarin only have one mate for life, or if this is temporary.” She was sure they would learn much more about such things over time.