A gentle tap on the door woke me from a sound slumber, then a voice called softly. “Avani? Leon? Are you awake? Breakfast will be ready shortly, if you wish to join us.” Then the sound of footsteps fading away.

Avani and I lay on our sides, curling into each other as we lay face to face with my arms around her. She didn’t quite awaken, I could see, but her sleep was disturbed enough that she curled up even more tightly, nestling her head under my chin and drawing her knees up between my own. I was hesitant to wake her, since I was sure she needed the rest, but I was equally certain that she needed food. So it was with mixed feelings that I caressed her cheek and whispered into her hair, “Avani? My Lady, it’s time to wake up. The others are waiting for us to join them for breakfast.”

She burrowed down a little deeper into my embrace, then she sighed. “Must we? I’m so comfortable like this, I don’t want to move.”

I gave her a gentle squeeze, and said, “I’m afraid so, love. You need to eat something. Perhaps we can find time for a nap this afternoon, though, before the meeting tonight.”

She sat up and stretched, and I rolled out of bed and grabbed the bag I’d packed. Rummaging around, I found one of the outfits I’d packed for her—a pretty, loose dress that slipped easily over her round belly—and brought it to her. She looked up at me and smiled in gratitude before slipping out of bed. We both dressed, then we went to join the others.

With the exception of a spat between Chanda and Dylas, breakfast was an enjoyable affair. Afterwards, Rishi reminded us that there would be a meeting that night. “I’ll call the tribe to gather this evening,” he said as we rose from the table. “Leon and Dylas, you will be welcome there, though I would suggest you attend merely as observers, for now at least, as you are unfamiliar with our ways. The meeting will include the evening meal and will be held on the village green. Avani and Chanda will know what time to be ready. I will be busy all day preparing for the meeting, and Sharmila will be busy overseeing the cooks and servants. Even though every family brings food to share, there seems to never be enough—most of us are farmers, and we have hearty appetites. So she will see to it that there is plenty for all who come.”

“How do you get word out?” I asked, curious about communications. Within the village would be no problem, I imagined, but what about all those who lived on the farms scattered across the adjacent hills?

Rishi smiled and gestured for us to follow him. Once inside, he said, “Go on out to the green. I’ll join you in a moment.”

The four of us—Dylas, Chanda, Avani, and I—headed out to the lawn in front of the house, and a few minutes later, Rishi rejoined us, guided by Sharmila. Behind him, a servant carried a massive, curved horn as from some gigantic beast. Rishi took the horn from the man, lifted the narrow end to his lips and, taking a deep breath, he blew, just as Avani clapped her hands over my ears, flattening them down. Covered as they were, though, I still heard the deep, resonant tone blasting from the horn in a series of short and long notes. When he lowered the horn, Avani removed her hands, and I could hear the echoes resounding through the hills all around us.

“The pattern of notes indicates the message,” Rishi said as he turned towards us, “while the tempo indicates the urgency or importance. The notes gave the message that I was calling the tribe to a meeting tonight at the evening meal, while the tempo indicated that the entire tribe should come—or at least all those who are able. In half an hour, I’ll repeat the message, then once more after that. Those who hear it will pass it along to any they meet, so if any somehow miss all three messages, they’ll still learn of it from a neighbor or relative.”

I thought that was a fairly clever way to communicate a message across such a wide area. In my youth, we had used runners to distribute urgent messages to those who live farther from the center of our town, or for delivering any urgent messages at all. But in a community such as this, and in such a climate and terrain, runners would have had great difficulty in travelling swiftly to deliver their messages in a timely fashion. They could teleport, but as that particular spell evidently required a lot of energy to cast even once, that seemed like an inefficient means of communication—especially in an emergency, when one might need that energy for other uses.

Turning to my wife with a smile, I said, “Well, My Lady, what would you like to do today?”

She tapped a fingertip on her pursed lips as she thought, scowling a little. “I really should take a look at both houses. Sundara’s must be a mess by now, if it’s been abandoned all this time.”

Rishi, halfway up the steps to the house already with Sharmila at his side, turned to call back to her. “No need to worry, my love. Although father wouldn’t let you know of it, he did at least see to it that it was cared for. It should be in good condition still.” Then they continued on into the house to begin their day’s work.

Avani hesitated, uncertain, and I reached for her hand. “You should rest, beloved,” I said, gently. “The houses will keep. Why don’t we do something fun today? I’m wholly unfamiliar with this part of the country, and I’m sure Dylas is, too. So perhaps you ladies can show us around the area a little? Nothing too strenuous—I really don’t want you to push yourself any further.”

The women looked at each other somewhat blankly for a moment, then Dylas spoke up. “One thing I don’t get. You know, when we were together, I always figured you must have come from the coast or something. I mean, you loved fishing, and you swam so well—you were almost like a fish yourself, in the water. So how the hell did you learn to swim and fish like that here in the forest?”

Avani looked at him and grinned, and I could see Chanda rolling her eyes as she turned slightly away. “You want to know? Then I’ll show you. Let’s go ask the cooks for a picnic lunch, and I’ll take you two there.”

Half an hour later, we were following her along a winding path. I couldn’t even tell if we were going up or down—we did so much of both that I lost track of our net gain or loss in altitude. After perhaps an hour of clambering over roots and under branches and through curtains of vines, we arrived at a slight precipice. Looking down, I saw below us a beautiful lake, shining in the mid-morning sunlight like a brilliant mirror, reflecting the sky and the emerald hills all around it in its glasslike surface.

That was where Avani led us, down a steep path to its shore. The shoreline was grassy and rounded, not flat and sandy or rocky as were most the of the lakes I knew well. We found a shady spot near the edge of the forest, and Dylas and I placed the hampers of food there before we strolled to the water’s edge. Looking over at us, Avani said, “Well? Do you want to go for a swim? The water here is lovely—clear and cool, but not frigid. It’s so refreshing to swim here when the weather is hot and humid.”

Dylas frowned at her. “I suppose a swim might be nice, though I’d rather go fishing. But we don’t have swimsuits or fishing poles.”

Chanda gave him a look of pure disdain, and Avani threw her head back and laughed—a good, hearty laugh such as I hadn’t heard from her in days, and I smiled at the sound. Shaking her head, she said, “Dylas… we don’t wear swimsuits. Who here would waste time and energy and materials on something that you use just to get wet? We have no compunctions about bathing together or about nudity, so there’s no point in covering up. In Selphia, your home, I wore a swimsuit—partly because I didn’t remember my own people or our traditions, but also partly out of respect for your sense of propriety. But you’re in my world now, and here, we swim naked. Just try it—once you get over your shyness, you’ll find it’s far more refreshing.”

With that, she began to strip her clothing off, to Dylas’s obvious discomfiture. Chanda frowned, obviously not wanting anyone to see her friend undressing, local custom notwithstanding. I shrugged and grinned at Dylas and likewise began to remove my clothing. Soon after, Chanda joined us, though she still looked out of sorts.

Once we were stripped, Chanda exclaimed as she looked up and down at Avani. “You’re far too thin!,” she scolded, giving her a closer examination. “Look at you, I can count your ribs! Dammit, I can see your spine, even! Aren’t you eating?” Turning to me with a scowl, she said, “You—you did this to her. You have to take better care of her than this—she looks awful!”

With a grimace, Avani pushed her friend away. “Oh, shut it, Chanda. I’m fine, really I am. Leo takes wonderful care of me—I’ve just been through a lot lately, and it’s drained my reserves more than usual. Give me a few days, and I’m sure you’ll see some improvement. But don’t you dare blame him for my appearance—I’m my own woman.”

Chanda huffed in annoyance. “Well, I guess at least you’ve gotten some of your spirit back. You’re more like your old self, before… before you married that monster.” Then she glanced over to Dylas, who was hanging back, still dressed and his cheeks red as he averted his eyes from us. “And what’s with you? Too good to swim with a redeye like me?”

“Huh? Wha…?” Dylas said, startled into looking up at her before turning even more crimson and looking quickly away again. “N-no, it’s not… I’m just….”

Avani walked up to him and put a hand on his arm. “Listen, Dylas. We’ve seen each other naked many times. You and Leon have bathed together, too, I know. Chanda doesn’t care—this is normal for us. So that really just leaves you being uncomfortable with her, doesn’t it? But there’s no real reason for you to be. I know that you’ve been self-conscious ever since you awakened with some equine features, and while I couldn’t truthfully say that everyone in my tribe would accept someone who looked different—obviously, from Chanda’s story, you know that already anyway. But many of us wouldn’t care, any more than I did when we first met or later when we first became lovers. When you’re self-conscious like this, when you assume others will judge you… well, you’re judging them, too, aren’t you? So while you’re here among my people, try not to judge us for our differences. Give our customs a chance before rejecting them. You needn’t adopt them, you know, as you aren’t planning to live here.”

Dylas looked up at her then, though obviously still uncomfortable. She sighed and turned to walk towards the water, grabbing my arm and pulling me with her. She called back over her shoulder, “Well, take your time, then. And when you’re ready, join us. I guarantee the water will be lovely—positively divine by mid-afternoon!”

Chanda started to follow us, then she turned and looked back again at Dylas, who again blushed at the sight of her unclothed. By no means was she an unattractive woman, though she wasn’t as shapely as Avani. Her breasts were smaller and her hips narrower, but she was nonetheless well proportioned and sleekly muscled.

“Well, are you coming, or not?” she said, impatiently.

“I, uhh… I’m just not sure I like the idea of… you know. Taking my clothes off in front of a strange woman.”

“Hah! Don’t flatter yourself,” she said, scornfully. “There’s plenty of handsome men in our village—and besides, I hate men.” She turned back to stroll down to the lake, calling back as she walked away from him, “I didn’t figure you to be such a coward.”

I grinned to myself as Dylas began to sputter angrily, and when I glanced back, he was rapidly shedding his clothing.

Striding down to join us in the water, he glared defiantly at Chanda, who just raised an eyebrow as if to say, ‘Yeah? So what?’.

“See? I told you he was good-looking,” Avani said to Chanda with a mischievous sparkle in her eyes.

Chanda shrugged again, saying, “Yeah, I guess he’s not bad. Neither’s your husband. But I still think some of our men are better looking. I mean, if you just go by looks alone, you gotta admit Bhima was pretty impressive. He was just so… so revolting inside. But I still hate men. They’ve never brought me anything but trouble.”

**************

We swam far out into the lake, which was huge and deep, and as Avani had assured us, delightfully refreshing. When the sun was high overhead, we returned to shore. Dylas and I fetched the hampers of food and we all ate, au naturel, on the lake shore, stretching out on the lush grass to sun ourselves afterwards. However, it didn’t take long at all for us to feel too warm in the intensity of the afternoon sun, and the humidity soon began to affect us, too. So we went back to the lake for another swim before returning to the village.

While we were swimming, Chanda spotted something farther down the shore that attracted her attention, and she swam over to investigate it. Before she could call out her discovery to us, though, she suddenly screamed and dropped down out of sight. Startled, we all stared, looking for her in astonishment. A moment later, Dylas shouted, and then I saw her being dragged feet first into the water. "Mukara!" she screamed, and glancing at Avani in bewilderment, I saw her turn white before starting to swim as fast as she could towards her friend. I followed her, but Dylas was the nearest to Chanda and reached her first. He gave another yell as he began to climb up the shore near her, then he dove down and grabbed at something in the water. As we reached shallower water where we could stand and wade up to the shore, he pulled a huge reptilian beast out of the water by its long, thick tail. Avani shrieked when we saw that it still held Chanda by her leg, firmly gripped in its massive jaws as she screamed in pain.

Dylas dragged the beast onto land and then delivered a powerful blow to its skull, stunning it enough that it released its grip, allowing Chanda to roll away. We’d reached them by then, and I ran to pick her up and carry her away, Avani close behind, as the monster turned its snapping jaws towards his assailant. I left Avani to heal her friend’s leg and returned to help Dylas.

He had no need of my assistance, however, as by the time I reached him, he had already picked up the monster by its tail. Despite its considerable length—it was at least half again as long as Dylas was tall—he swung it by its tail, battering it against the trunks of the trees nearby with such force that the trees cracked and one even splintered. When it had been stunned nearly senseless, he flung it down and picked it up beneath its front legs and squeezed it, crushing it in his powerful arms. It revived enough to fight for its life, flailing its legs, whipping its tail, and swinging its massive head side to side as it struggled to free itself. I heard the cracking of bones as I reached them, and then Dylas flung it down into the shallow water and hit it with a strong bolt of electricity. It gave a final, agonized roar of pain and rage, then it convulsed and finally lay still, slowly sliding down into the water where it gradually disappeared from sight.

We ran back to where Avani knelt over Chanda, who was by then unconscious with shock, casting a second healing spell on her. Her leg had been pretty badly mutilated, and the heavy bleeding from her wounds left her unnaturally pale. I took over, as Avani had not yet replenished her reserves and wasn’t strong enough for more than the two spells she’d already cast. I was able, of course, to heal her wounds, but I couldn’t give her back the blood she’d lost, and she remained unconscious. Teleporting back to the village would be the best thing to do, but unfortunately neither of the women were up to the task. Instead, Dylas gently lifted her in his arms, his discomfort with their nudity forgotten, and he followed the shoreline to the forest path and began the long hike back to the village, traveling as fast as he could go without disturbing Chanda too badly. Avani and I looked at each other, startled, then we quickly gathered all our clothing and the hampers before hurrying to catch up to him as he quickly and carefully carried her all the way back to the village.

Our arrival caused a bit of a stir, as it was apparently unusual for a group to come rushing into the village from the woods, unclothed and carrying a naked, bloody, unconscious woman. By the time we reached Rishi’s home, we had more than a few curious villagers following in our wake.

Avani ran ahead, bursting into the house and shouting for Sharmila, who came running to see what the matter was. When she saw Chanda in Dylas’s arms, she cried out in dismay and turned to hurry back inside, calling for us to follow her. One of the servants, who had accompanied her mistress, shooed away the small crowd, and closed the door behind us.

Sharmila led us to a room near the entry, and asked Dylas to lay Chanda on a low, cushioned chaise. We stood around as Sharmila knelt next to Chanda and examined her. She looked up with relief a few moments later, saying, “She’ll be all right. She looks as though she has lost some blood, but her pulse is sufficient, if not as strong as it should be, and she feels neither dangerously hot nor cold. What in the name of Ventu happened?”

Avani knelt next to her sister-in-law, and told her all about the creature that attacked her and how Dylas came to her rescue, killing the beast and carrying her all the way back to town. A slight movement from the chaise caught their attention, and they saw that Chanda had regained consciousness and was watching them.

“How do you feel, dear?” Avani asked, reaching a hand out to stroke her hair.

“Is… is that true? What you said?” she replied feebly. “Did he really kill the mukara and carry me all the way back here?”

“He did,” Avani assured her, glancing up at Dylas with a smile as he turned red with embarrassment.

Chanda looked over at him, then glancing up and down at him, she raised herself up and looked down at herself, apparently just realizing that both were still naked. She fell back against the cushions and looked up at him again. “Pervert,” she said, but she said it now without rancor—perhaps even fondly—and with a weak smile.

As she closed her eyes and began to drift into sleep, Dylas snorted. “Idiot,” he said softly, and there was no mistaking the tenderness in his voice.