Planning sessions

	Capricorn woke slowly.  She felt oddly cold, and her skin puckered up from the chill as wind blew across her bare body.  She opened her multihued eyes to see Gillint rubbing the neck of the stag that Stibium had left her.  “Mmm... Dance Lord?” she asked blearily.  “What happened?”

	Gillint smiled.  “Dear Countess, I overwhelmed you and I am sorry for it, you asked me to rut with you, and I gave you more than a bit.”

	The Eladrin slowly rose to her feet and rubbed her womanhood idly.  “I'm so sore,” she muttered.

	“Ah, but do forgive this humble, modest satyr wretch; for your elegant pussy, my manhood is a stretch,” Gillint quipped with a lascivious wiggle of the eyebrows.

	Capricorn giggled.  She looked around and saw her clothes neatly stacked beside a tree.  “Well, I do feel... better,” she said.  She knelt and collected her things.  “Mmm... I do feel so relaxed,” she said.  She stretched and arched her back, popping her shoulders.  “Thanks.”

	“Of course,” Gillint said with a triumphal smirk at her butt.  To think, he had never tried to exert his control like this.  Keeping a stupid little thing like her pliable was turning out to remarkably easy.  “Perhaps my graceful Capricorn, before she is by clothes bedecked, would for a few minutes more, like to bounce upon my cock erect?”

	Capricorn giggled.  “No, no, not yet.  We should get moving,” she said, though she felt a strange tug in her heart as she said it.  It was a good idea.

	Gillint hid a frown.  Not totally under his control, then, part of her soul was her own.  For now.  “As you wish, my dear Countess fair,” he said instead.  “Let us go, and find our home there.”  He gave her pert little backside a hearty slap as he passed it, she squeaked and blushed, but scrambled up on the stag regardless, and they took off at a lope together.


	Linus was used to the rushing wind from the back of his Pegasus, but Primp was not, and the short wizard clung to Linus' pauldrons with desperate strength.  “Primp!” Linus called over his shoulder.  “Where the hell is Neverember?”

	“I don't know!” Primp shouted back.  “He's out of town!  Up north!”

	Linus scoffed.  “Who do I have to kill to get a damn team out here?”

	“Knight, please!  Just let me work!” Primp said.  “I can convince the Lord's Regent of the need, just don't go storming about the place!”

	Linus rolled his eyes, but nodded.  “Fine.  I'm sure you can convince the old fool of the need to secure a site with a thousand troops on it.”

	“It's not like we knew this would happen!” Primp protested.

	“No, I suppose not,” Linus grumbled.  “But, you know, I did have remit to explore and secure the road between the two cities.  I don’t understand why the Regent’s office would even consider not giving me the assets I need to get the damn job done.”

	Linus sighted the far-off walls of Neverwinter and urged Noble down, and the Celestial Pegasus dove towards the City of Skilled Hands.  The Pegasus soared over the outer walls and circled Castle Never once, before coming in for a landing on the flattened soil outside the castle's outer wall.  Linus clambered down and helped Primp dismount, then dismissed Noble with a thought.  “Primp, what are you going to say to these people?” he asked.

	“I'm going to tell the truth, sir, and nothing less,” Primp said.  “Goodness me, that was a thrilling ride.  How did you learn to steer such a beast?”

	“I don't, I just give him requests in my mind,” Linus said impatiently.  “How long will it take to convince the Regency Office that we need backup?”

	“Now, now, Knight, we must take this at a proper pace,” Primp chastened.  “I shall ask for the aid of a few representatives, and let them decide.  Recall that this Rupture may be a temporary one; the Feywilders almost certainly won't leave a thousand troops here forever.”

	“Unless they think there's no chance of them being stranded,” Linus pointed out.

	“True.  I shall speak to the Regency Office, and we shall see what we see,” Primp said, and bustled into the castle without another word.

	Linus stared at the closing door and scoffed.  Ever since the incident with the damn genie a few years ago, trust didn’t come easily for him, not if he wasn’t surrounded by allies.  He leaned back against a building wall and waited, finger tapping on his thigh.


	Capricorn and Flock Mother stared down into the huge hole below, watching the Rupture oscillate and glitter.  “That... is something,” Flock Mother said.  “And Knight Stibium says that we may go there soon?”

	“Yes,” Capricorn said.  “They just need to craft a ladder on this side, and a platform on the other.”

	Flock Mother sighed eagerly.  “I want to go home,” she whispered.  “I want to see my baby boy.”

	“I know you do, dear,” Capricorn soothed.

	The air behind them popped, and another Eladrin soldier emerged from the air.  He righted himself on the primitive wooden platform the others had erected and quickly climbed down, with a large burlap bag over his shoulder.  He spotted the Countess and quickly made his way over, then bowed deeply.

	“Countess Capricorn of the Wildercourt, I am Knight Commander Tumnal, of the Household of Duke Severus,” he said.  “I am in command of the troops stationed here.”

	Capricorn regally accepted his bow.  “Hello, Knight Commander.  I am the Countess, and this is the Flock Mother of the Oldest Flock.  I understand your intent is to establish commerce in this place?”

	“A market, yes, to help fund the attempt to close the Rupture from the other side,” Tumnal explained.  “The Duke cannot find the source of this Rupture.”

	“Nor have the locals,” Capricorn said.  Her mind fogged up pleasantly as Gillint wandered over.  “Oh, Dance Lord,” she said.

	Gillint bowed to Tumnal.  “Knight of our Duke master's Court, why a market, not a fort?”

	Tumnal chuckled.  “Because a fort wouldn't pay for itself.  Also, there are questions of permanence,” he explained.  “After all, our desire is to seal off the Rupture, not make it permanent.  If we took the money, the time, and the magic to create a fort here, then the Rupture were to close; our army would be trapped here.  It is not our intent to form a colony here; building a military installation would be provocative to the locals.”

	Gillint scoffed.  “And what if our flock wishes to stay?  'Tis not a poor place for us to play.”

	Tumnal blinked.  Flock Mother turned, looking scandalized.  Neither saw Capricorn nod vacantly.  “Well... I suppose I don't know,” Tumnal admitted.  “I would ask each individual member of the flock, were that the case.  That and the Countess has obligations and responsibilities back home.”

	Gillint hid his displeasure.  He had forgotten that... but if it came to it, he was confident he could arrange her more permanent departure.  “I have come to like these green Prime lands.  I could find home among these tree stands.  Are you making our departure an order, here to cross our sunken, transplanar border?”

	“No.  I suppose you may stay.  So long as you understand that you will, Dance Lord, forfeit your title to another satyr in the flock, and shall be placed beyond our jurisdiction and our protection.”  Tumnal shrugged.  “It is your call.”

	Gillint grinned.  “Thank you, noble Knight Commander, I appreciate your candor.”  He walked away again, back to the flock, where he had work to do.