BAD CROW MOUNTAIN (Lesbian)

CHAPTER 17 Ferus and vulgaris creatures

The hand of the bog kikimora reaches out for my leg. Zil and elfia recoil in horror, each in their own direction. The boy slips on the wet moss and falls against the branches of an old pine tree, while elfia got tangled in some bushes with her sheepskin. She begins to struggle fiercely, thinking someone has grabbed her from behind.

"Alright, everyone calm down!" I bark. Honestly, if I didn't know it was the bog kikimora's hand, a rather rare creature, I would have thought it was a water spirit, a mara barbaric (not the sweetheart Zil carried in a sack).

If I had told them it was a kikimora, the boy would have wet his pants. Many, especially inexperienced mages, confuse kikimora vulgaris with bog kikimora ferus. They are closely related species, but the difference is huge: kikimora vulgaris is a terrifying and bloodthirsty creature the size of a brown bear, but very thin, with long arms and legs and a long dog-like snout resembling a wooden mask. What's worse, it has a some kind of intellect that allows it to stalk its prey, camouflage well, and even steal small children and infants if mothers let their guard down for a moment and leave windows or doors of their palisades open.

You can't imagine how many scary stories I and other village children told each other before I escaped from the village and was accepted into the academy. When I tried to tell something like that at the academy, I was laughed at. But every fairytale has a grain of truth. Of course, in big cities, people have nothing to fear, but for villages located in the most remote and secluded places, especially coniferous ones, this problem is always acute. You can't imagine how much money I could earn from killing ordinary kikimoras during their mating season just by moving from one village to another.

Everything always followed a roughly similar pattern. In the last couple of summers, when grief was replaced by indifference and painful irony, after the triumphant victory over the kikimora, I would end up in bed with a local peasant woman, an earthy farmerette, or, if I was lucky, the daughter of a wealthy farmer (the latter had beds with feather mattresses and soft pillows). It's amusing that they threw themselves at me, while I made no effort. I would just return to the village with kikimora's head smeared with blood, all sweaty, with my one-handed sword strapped to my belt (which everyone is given at the academy, even the dull herbalists, for self-defense before being sent on internships or scientific expeditions).

Perhaps I looked like a young man at that moment when I returned triumphantly to the village: a noble mage defender, and the fact that this mage was a girl was even better, because after you thank a male mage, you might end up alone and pregnant, but a woman — that's another story.

I didn't care that they didn't like me; I just wanted to have a good time, caressing tender female bodies, showing them how much better same-sex love and finger tricks could be than sex with males after a honey ale. If I were to go back, they would most likely pretend they didn't know me, already having a couple of squeaky children and an indifferent husband, possibly a stableman, blacksmith, or another equally dull laborer in the fields. Do they think of me when they make love with their husbands? I doubt it. Maybe only Alenna, she was one of the first after Malva's death. I should have taken her with me, taken her to Westlandia at least, where she could work as a tailor in fashionable boutiques or bake pastries in cafes. There's none of that in poor, narrow-minded Woodland, oppressed by prejudice and religious pressure. How is she doing now? Did she go to the capital or move south to the sea as she always dreamed, or did she stay to rot in her little village in the far north of the country? I won't find out. And why should I? I don't think she wants to talk to me.

Usually, I stayed in the village for a while. Most often until the general joy of the villagers gradually subsided, after the euphoria of being saved from the inevitable doom of the kikimora, the peasants returned to their daily chores, no one wanted to treat the witch to dinner and ale anymore. So, I understood that it was time to move on and go elsewhere. And so, I wandered for ten years.

***

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