“Remind me why I agreed to this?” Avani said as she peered into the entrance of the black cave before her.

I grinned at her. “Because you love adventure and excitement and danger?”

“Oh. Yeah, that’s right,” she said, grinning back at me. She sighed and hoisted her pack up onto her shoulders. Then she turned to me with a mock scowl. “And I know all about you and caves. So none of your funny business, mister—we’ve no idea what we might find in there, and we need to keep on our toes.”

My grin broadened as I replied, “Does ‘on our toes’ include…”

“No. It does not,” she interrupted firmly before slowly edging into the opening, giving her eyes time to adjust from the bright sunlight to the dim interior of the cavern.

Waiting my turn, I looked down the path we’d taken here, back towards the lake where we’d set up camp. From our perch high up on the side of the mountain, the large lake looked like a brilliant gem sparkling in the sunlight. We’d ridden Thor up to the cave opening, and left him to graze while he waited for us. Baldur, Fenrir, and Charmie all had remained on guard at our camp.

“Leo? Are you coming?” I turned and saw that she had vanished into the mouth of the cave, her voice echoing faintly as she called to me. Since I had the keen vision of a fox, I didn’t need to allow time for them to adjust as she had—I just hurried to catch up to her.

Since I could see better in the darkness, I led the way through the caverns as we explored. There was a little light in some of the caves from small openings in the walls—most too small to let anything but light, air, and insects to pass through. The caves were fascinating, full of stalactites, stalagmites, and other, more peculiar, rock formations.

Deep into the system of caverns, we found a large cave containing a deep pool of water. A great number of fissures along one side of the thick stone wall provided more than the usual amount of light, so we decided it was as good a place as any to stop for a rest and a quick meal. We lit a pair of lanterns, and while I rummaged around for the food we’d brought in the light of one lantern, Avani strolled over to inspect the pool, carrying the other lantern with her.

I had just started to unwrap the sandwiches we’d packed when suddenly I heard Avani scream, and then as I whirled around, dropping the packet in my hands, I heard a loud splash. I rushed to the pool and found her lantern placed atop a nearby rock, but there was no sign of her. The glow from the lantern reflecting on the water revealed ripples on the surface, so I quickly shed my sandals and clothing, except for my belt and belt knife, and dove down, thinking that she’d only fallen in.

At least, I hoped that was all it was.

Swimming down into the frigid, dark water was incredibly disorienting, even with my heightened senses. Fortunately, the lantern I’d left on the rock above shone a little ray of light into the water and provided some sense of direction. Just ahead of me, I could barely make out a peculiar form, not quite human and not quite piscine, swimming swiftly away from me. Flung over the creature’s shoulder—if indeed it was a shoulder—I could see Avani, struggling to free herself as the creature swam ever deeper.

Enraged and frantic, I forced my half-numb limbs to their limit, swimming as rapidly as I could after them. Although the creature had an advantage with its fish tail, Avani’s struggles seemed to counter some of that advantage, and I began to gain on them. The fish-man dove down into an underground cavern and vanished from sight, and I followed, desperately hoping to find a pocket of air within.

The cavern was completely dark aside from some faintly luminescent fungi, but I slowed only a little, not wanting to be ambushed but also in dire need of air. My keen vision quickly adapted, and I was able to make out dim shapes above me. I swam up towards them, and discovered that the shapes were several of these fish creatures, surrounding a rocky island.

I broke the surface, gasping for air, and saw Avani sprawled on the rocks. I shouted to her, and she lifted her head, to my great relief, but every one of the fish-men turned towards me. I tugged my belt knife free and prepared to defend myself and my wife… or at least die trying. They slowly swam towards me, and I raised my knife, which gave them pause. As they hesitated, Avani shouted out to me, “No! Leo, don’t!”

Startled, I nearly dropped my knife. Taking advantage of my momentary distraction, two of the creatures dove at me and grasped my arms, pulling me towards the circle. To my surprise, though, they merely flung me up onto the tiny island next to Avani, who threw her arms around me.

“What in the name of all dragon kind is going on here?” I exclaimed, utterly baffled by this point.

“It’s all right, Leo. They don’t mean us any harm. They only want our help.”

“You… they can talk?” I asked incredulously. So far they hadn’t seem very conversational.

“Y-yes… in a manner of speaking. They don’t speak anything at all like our language, but somehow I’m still able to understand them. Maybe because I’m an Earthmate? I don’t know. But I know that they need our help. They need something that only a land-dweller can get, and they need it very badly. That’s as far as I’d gotten when you arrived.”

“In that case, My Lady, pray continue, before we freeze to death in this wretched hole,” I said, more acerbically than I’d intended.

Overlooking my sharp tone, she turned again to the largest of the aquatic folk, who began to emit a sequence of peculiar, high-pitched, jabbering sounds. Several minutes later, she nodded and held out a hand to… him? If the broad shoulders and powerful arms were any indication, they were all males. The creature—apparently a leader of some sort—held a paw up and placed it against hers, palm to palm, then all but two of the strange creatures disappeared, diving back down into the deep water.

Turning to me, she said, “As best I can tell, they are a tribe of some half-human, half-fish, similar to merfolk—no, not quite a fish… I don’t recognize the word they used, but it seems to mean something fish-like. Anyway, their princess is dreadfully sick and dying a slow, painful death. According to their lore, there is a cure—but it requires a flower that can only be obtained near the peak of these mountains. And because they are half fish, they can’t leave the water to find it.

“These mountains are full of interconnected lakes and pools in which they live, so they posted a guard at each and every one, hoping against hope that someone would come along that was willing and able to help. But of course, in this unpopulated area….”

“Just how long have they been waiting?” I asked, astonished by her story so far.

“Well, they don’t have a way to mark time as we do, but as far as I can estimate, it’s been many, many decades. Possibly a century or more.”

“How long do they live?”

“Again, the time issue… but it sounds like they can live to be several centuries old.”

I shook my head in amazement. “And all this time, no one has known of them, living in the deep waters in the roots of the mountains?”

She shrugged. “I guess—it seems that way. Or if anyone did know of them, they’ve long since been forgotten or possibly relegated to mere myths. Anyway, regardless of all that, they need help—help that only you and I can give them, Leo. The princess… she’s very ill, and she won’t last much longer. I think we’re her last hope.”

“Well, then, my love, we can hardly turn our backs on them in their hour of need, can we?”

I could feel her smile as she leaned against my chest. “I knew you’d feel the same way.” She rose, and dove into the water. One of the two remaining fish-men swam to her, and she took a deep breath as she clung to his back—then he dove down, carrying her with him. Sheathing my belt knife, I followed suit, clinging to the back of the second fish-man.

When we resurfaced, I found myself in the same cavern where we’d first encountered the creatures. Avani was already there, shivering as she stood waiting for me. I threw on my clothes, then we grabbed our supplies and headed back out into the warm sunshine as quickly as we could, wolfing our sandwiches as we ran. Since we weren’t equipped to go in search of this flower immediately, we mounted Thor and returned to camp as quickly as he could take us.

Our teeth were chattering and our lips turning blue from cold by the time we arrived, so I hurried to build up the fire while Avani went to change into dry clothing. By the time she emerged from the tent, I had a roaring fire going and the coffeepot was just reaching a boil. She sat on one of the collapsible chairs we’d brought with us, and tended to the coffeepot and the fire while I, too, changed into drier clothing. I brought a couple of the smaller blankets from our bed back out with me, draping one over her shoulders and tucking the other in around her lap.

Not liking how peaked she still looked despite the hot fire and the coffee, nor how her teeth continued chattering and how her shivering seemed to have become almost convulsive, I returned to the tent to dig some medicine out of our packs. I made her swallow one of the bitter tablets, and although she grimaced and made faces at me as she gulped her coffee to mask the foul aftertaste, I noticed that she improved almost immediately. I followed suit, likewise swallowing a tablet and washing it down with hot coffee.

Leaving her by the fire to get warm, I dug out a selection of vegetables and herbs from our supplies to make a soup. I wasn’t much of a cook, admittedly, except for grilling fish of course. But I’d learned a little from helping her prepare meals and from watching her in the kitchen, and I thought I could manage to produce a simple vegetable soup. I felt that would be the very thing to both warm and nourish us after our escapade.

While the soup simmered, we discussed the fish-people’s request. She said the flower they’d described to her was a tall spike of small, royal purple flowers that grew in the alpine meadows above the tree line near the peaks. It was also supposed to be mainly a mid-summer bloom, so it was questionable if we’d be able to find it at all—though certainly we’d try.   

The next day, we reached the tree line just before noon. We had ridden the wolves up the mountain, since they were both fast and sure-footed over all manner of terrain. Dismounting, we  looked across the alpine meadows before us. It was a beautiful sight—large expanses of colorful, low-growing plants spreading like a massive patchwork quilt across the landscape. A small lake occupied a depression on the far side of the meadow, and boulders dotted the field at irregular intervals. A herd of wild animals similar to woolies, only shaggy rather than fluffy and with great curved horns, grazed alongside the lake, and smaller creatures that reminded me of furbies scampered through the colorful groundcover. A variety of birds flitted through the air or scurried along the ground.

We immediately began to search for spikes of purple flowers, but neither of us spotted any purple flowers at all. Autumn appeared to have arrived early at that altitude. We searched other meadows on other mountains, but after two days of hunting to no avail, it was plain that whatever this flower’s season was, we’d missed it entirely. Returning to camp on the evening of the second day, tired and frustrated by our fruitless endeavors, Avani started preparing a stew while I built the fire back up again.

As I sat and tended the fire, I pondered our dilemma. “I wonder if anyone in town would have an alternative to this plant?” I thought aloud after several minutes.

Avani looked up at me, pausing in her preparations as she thought. “Well, Jones or Nancy seem the most likely to know about that. But I really doubt that they know the physiology of fish-people. Maybe medicines and plants that are fine for humans aren’t safe for them. But….” she trailed off into silence as she meditatively sliced some carrots.

“But?” I prompted her, a few minutes later.

She started, apparently absorbed in thought. “Oh, well… I was just wondering if anyone might cultivate this flower. I mean, if it has some medicinal use… maybe someone somewhere grows it. I was just thinking I could pop back to Selphia to make some quick inquiries. Arthur might know of someone—he knows so many different people in so many different areas of commerce all around the world.”

“But if its season has passed….”

She shook her head. “Its season is based on the weather at high altitudes. If it’s cultivated at lower altitudes, that would extend its season. Plus there’s always greenhouses, too.”

“Yes, good point. Well, My Lady, perhaps that would be a worthwhile effort. Do you want to go in the morning? And shall I accompany you?”

“Yes, I thought I’d leave right after breakfast. I should be able to use escape to return to town—though it’ll be a little draining to go so far that way. Then I think I’ll ride Marina back—she’ll enjoy a swim in the lake before she returns, since even Dragon Lake is a little small for her. As for whether you come with me or not, it’s up to you. I don’t really need any help asking around, so if you’d prefer to stay and fish or something….”

With a grin, I rose and strolled over to her, wrapping my arms around her waist and kissing her ear. “I think I would rather stay and fish—the fishing here is fantastic. But as for ‘something’… the only ‘something’ that comes to my mind, I just can’t do as enjoyably without you.” I returned to tending the fire and let her get back to her preparations, but after our meal was finished and the mess cleaned up, I pulled her smilingly along to our tent to remind her—lest she’d forgotten since early that morning—just exactly which things were so much more enjoyable with her participation.

Once inside our tent, I ran my fingers through her long hair as she reached up and traced the marks on my face. I didn’t know if the marked skin was just especially sensitive, or if the markings themselves somehow caused a heightened sensitivity, like a charm of some sort, or if it was nothing more than my response to her touch in particular—all I knew was that every time she ran a delicate fingertip along my tattoos, it sent electric shocks exploding through me.

Shivering with pleasure at her touch, I leaned down and nibbled from her ear along her jaw and to her neck as I slid my hands beneath her shirt. I lifted it over her head and off, then reached behind her, caressing her back before unfastening her bra and letting it fall to the ground. She gave a brief shudder as the cool night air rushed over her warm skin, causing her nipples to harden into erect points. Pressing herself into my warmth, she slipped my vest off as she leaned up to invite a kiss—which I was more than happy to give.

Slipping my turban off and dropping it to the ground, she wove her fingers through my hair, pulling me closer to her. “Tell me again how you love me,” she whispered into my ear.

Smiling to myself, I slid her trousers and panties to the ground before lifting her up and laying her down on the soft featherbed that took up most of the tent floor. Removing my belt and sliding my trousers and boxers past my hips until they fell alongside her clothing, I stretched out next to her and halfway across her, caressing her shivering skin until her inner heat warmed her.

I kissed her neck and cheek, murmuring throatily, “I love you as the flowers love the sun, as the stars love the moon. I love you as the birds love the sky and the fish love the sea, as the dying love life and as the living love the dying. I love you with a love that puts every other love to shame, with a love that is greater than the sum of all other loves in the history of the world. I love you with every inch and fiber and grain of my being, with all my heart and mind and spirit. I love you as I love the air that I breathe, and I love you forever and for all time. The moon and the sun and the stars in the sky will grow cold and die before my love for you cools. That is how I love you: as only Leon can love Avani.”

She reached her arms around my neck, pulling me closer to her. Her lips met mine, and our tongues caressed in a sensual kiss. She held me tightly, one hand tangled in my hair while she lightly ran the nails of her other hand up and down my spine, sending my pulse racing. As my erection pressed more and more insistently into the softness of her thigh, her breathing became increasingly ragged until, at last, she broke free of our kiss and began to urgently kiss and nip at my neck.

Groaning as a wave of heat washed over me, I covered her body with mine and buried my face in her neck, nipping and sucking and tasting her saltiness. Opening herself to me, she entwined her legs with mine as she reached down to guide me. As I pushed into the wetness and heat awaiting me, she grabbed my hips with a gasp, gripping me tightly in her need.

My senses overwhelmed with the intensity of the pleasure she gave to me, I nipped and then bit the tender skin where her neck and shoulder met as I began to thrust, and she cried out my name breathlessly. Desire built upon desire until at last she arched her back, her cries matching the rhythmic convulsions wrapping around me, squeezing me as I thrust deeper and faster into her until I, too, cried out as I issued my release deep into her warm, slippery embrace.

We lay like that for some time, catching our breath, entwined in each other’s arms and legs and lips and hair, until the sweat on my back cooled enough to chill me. I reached over to grab the blankets we’d shoved out of the way and pulled them over us before we fell asleep, still tangled together.

Before drifting into slumber, she reached a still-trembling hand up to caress my cheek. “I love you, too, as only Avani can love Leo,” she whispered drowsily, then sleep overtook us both.