Deep in the Green (Visna and Geil)
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		<h2 id="linktree">Play-By-Post: Bondage, D/s, S&amp;M =&gt; Bondage: Exotic Solos =&gt; Topic started by: Geil on 18-09-2012, 00:58:27</h2>
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				Title: <strong>Deep in the Green (Visna and Geil)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Geil</strong> on <strong>18-09-2012, 00:58:27</strong>
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				This day hadn't come anywhere close to the promise of surprise and excitement that had been in the seer's reading. Dara remembered his words as she tuned out the egocentric monotone drawl of the earl of Tarnbeck, sitting next to her at the table. Before she set out for the city a few days ago, the seer had been sitting on a log chair in Dara's grove as he cast the runes into the short, lush, dew-glistening grass the two of them were squeezing between their toes. "I see an odd opportunity. Far from the green, it will present itself to you before the next dark of the moon and if you seize it, it will visit upon you ecstasy of a kind you've not know before." 'Far from the green' was his way of saying 'in the city' without it leaving too bad an aftertaste on the druid diviner's tongue. Here she was, in the city. There were still a few days until the moon was new again, but this was her last night in town. She would have to set off tomorrow to make it back to her grove for the ritual of lunar rebirth, otherwise the Goddess would not he happy with her.<br><br>She hadn't really expected the earl, or his portly wife, to be able to teach her, a priestess Dryath, the Goddess of Fertility, anything about ecstasy, and that expectation had been fully, and depressingly, borne out. If anything, the whole point of her being here was for her to teach them; well, here - as in the city. What the point of her being <em>here</em> at this banquet and dance was, she didn't really know. The earl had invited her to this festival, commemorating the three hundredth anniversary of the founding of the city, and not listened to any reply (negative or otherwise;) as was his way. Still, she may be able to have a little fun by shocking the socks off some of the more stuffed up and pompous high society types that were attending, but that would be after dinner, during the dancing and mingling later. She hadn't eaten properly since breakfast and wasn't going to risk being ejected from the event until she had a full stomach.<br><br>Dara looked around the hall for distraction, inspiration, <em>anything</em>. Although she missed the green of the deep forest, she was nowhere near as out of her depth here as most other druids would have been. She'd been born here, in this city, and initially trained as a mage of the jade college of magic. They had sympathies in common with the druids and other nature worshippers, but were not truly devout, as Dara had discovered the hard way; but there had been plenty of water under the bridge since she'd converted to be a true devotee. Whole spring floods of water, probably wouldn't be overstating it. A couple of decades had passed since then, not that one would know it by looking at her though, as the Goddess of life itself was kind to her priests and priestesses. As long as they did her work and lived life to the full in the process, they could expect somewhat more of it than the average human. She still looked to be somewhere in her late twenties or early thirties, until one looked into the deep green of her eyes.<br><br>Those eyes came to rest on the floral display at her end of their table. It was pretty and elegant, but far too formal for her tastes, and worse still, it, and all its identical siblings - three per table with at least a dozen tables, had obviously been prepared early that morning. They were now flagging somewhat, just like her own spirits, and she suspected that her morale would drop further very soon. When she had returned to her room less than an hour ago to freshen up for this festival, she had found a letter waiting for her. It was from the Baron of Coris. The estates of Coris bordered the forest near where she lived and he employed her each spring as crops were being sewn to visit his tenant farmers and invoke the Goddess's blessing. That was a lot more than most nobles would do, and she respected him for that, but for the last decade or two he had spent most of his time in residence at his town house here and she hadn't actually met him in a very long time. Not since she'd <em>changed</em>. This note from him, however, was highly unusual to say the least. Preposterous in some ways. He had explained that he had a problem with his succession. This was the only reason that a noble would pay through the nose to get a druid priest or priestess specialised in fertility rites to come into the city. It was, in fact, why the earl had first employed her ten years ago. They'd had no issue at that time, but now had three heirs.<br><br>The baron's problem was different. He <em>had</em> an heir, but only one, a daughter called Tamara, and he and his wife were past the age where the possibility of more was still on the cards. He had written that he was now convinced that his daughter was a lesbian, and, as a result, the family line would, eventually, fail. He was asking her, Dara Astria, if she would woo his daughter. He'd spelt it 'woo' but she rather suspected that it was pronounced 'seduce.' He was old enough to remember her from when she was a mage apprentice in the jade college here, a young, somewhat arrogant, <em>male</em> apprentice. The college was specialised in the magic of agriculture, animal husbandry, growth, health and the like, and mages often made a pilgrimage to sites holy to the Goddess of nature to consult, trade and gain insights and components necessary to cast the more powerful spells. In his arrogance, the young Dara had made this trip alone, without his mater's knowledge. He soon discovered that his self confidence was really ignorance in disguise. He thoroughly messed up the ceremony of introduction, nullifying one of their sacred rituals, really pissing off the druids gathered there. The Goddess, fortunately, had been in a playful mood that day and had punished him with a curse of gender transformation. He thought he'd got off lightly as he/she stumbled out of the forest, back to town, but looking back on it all, Dara remembered the effort of explaining himself to his master, persuading him who he really was, and the coming to terms with living as a female over the following months and years, and she couldn't think of any better way that the Goddess could have taught the young 'him' humility.<br><br>She returned to the green to make her peace when she was confident of knowing the rites, and over the years was drawn to the Goddess and the druidic ways. She'd become an acolyte of the Goddess, slowly dropping her aetheric studies and eventually been invested a priestess. A few years ago she had attained the rank of anointed priestess, and at that ceremony the Goddess had restored her masculinity, but Dara had shocked everyone (even herself) by praying openly to Dryath and politely refusing the gift of restoration, claiming that the original punishment was the correct one, reversing it now would belittle that, and that she felt closer to the Goddess as a female. Also, she'd accepted the punishment, ... and she'd got used to being a girl and quite liked it that way. That seemed to surprise everyone but Dryath herself. A new transformation had overcome Daria and she was female again. It took her a while to discover the depth of it though, she had been gifted the ability to change, or even part transform, between her male and female forms at will. She preferred to live as a female, but had a lot of catching up to do on expressing her male sexuality, and so rumours of, for want of a better title, the 'druid girl with a dick' had started to spread. She had to assume that Baron Coris had remembered her as the male youth and put two and two together; or maybe the rumours were more advanced than she thought. It didn't really bother her though. She wasn't even the tiniest bit embarrassed by this divine gift, although it wasn't precisely the kind of thing that people walked up to her in the street to ask about.<br><br>What did bother her was the presumptuousness of the remainder of the letter. What he'd asked was quite simple, and it had been phrased as politely as one could, but basically it boiled down to him wanting Dara to impregnate his daughter, and not just a one off, he wanted as many grandchildren as possible. He gave his consent to marry and to convert her to the druidic ways, if necessary. She'd very nearly burnt the letter in a fit and gone straight home, but Coris <em>was</em> one of the nobles most considerate to nature. She even occasionally used his name as an example to others, plus the letter was polite. She read it again, trying to achieve the point of view of a noble whose line was about to fail. She knew that it was terribly important to them, and reading between the lines she realised that he knew how much he was asking, but he was truly desperate. She had heard of rumours, that in other similar situations, another lord had had his daughter forcibly married off due to already being pregnant. The implication was that he'd had her raped. That Coris had described this letter as his last option reassured her that that blasphemous alternative was not on his mind. She also noted that he seemed aware of the difference between personal and professional attachments. A priest or priestess of Dryath's advice or magical and religious services could cost a pretty penny, but what they did in their spare time was completely free (although it could sometimes be hard to tel the difference.) However, if you ever tried to get into bed with one by offering to pay, as if they were a whore, there would be big, <em>big</em> trouble. Dara had realised that the baron understood that what he was asking was, despite the magnitude of it, personal; <em>and</em> that he had correctly not offered to pay her anything. He was basically a good man, and knew at least the basics of how to negotiate with 'her kind.' (Which was more than she could say for her own first interactions with the druids.) She felt rather sorry for him; if only he'd sought help when conceiving was an issue. Then she stopped and read the last part again. In a way, he had offered to pay her, but not with money, not with anything offensive (quite the opposite when she thought about it properly,) but with the single most valuable thing he had to give - his only daughter's hand. <br><br>By the time she'd finished thinking about it she was feeling quite sympathetic towards him, and had resolved not to chew him up and embarrass the pants off of him. Still, no matter how politely he'd asked; persuading a priestess like her to 'settle down' was ludicrous. Her remaining problem was how to let him down nicely. The note had finished by saying he would introduce his daughter to her at dinner that evening, and she'd only read that letter half an hour earlier as she was washing and changing. There had been no time to send a reply. Worse still, she'd discovered that it wasn't just a case of having a brief chat whilst mingling before the dance. As the earl's party was lead to their places by one of the waiters, she'd noticed that the name places opposite herself and the earl had read Tamar Naylor-Thristrum of Coris (the double barrelled family surname did now ring a bell with Dara) and Baron Coris. His daughter was to be directly opposite Dara at the end of the table, the baron opposite the earl, ... but didn't quite see if there were any more in the Coris party before being seated. She'd been going over her thoughts about Baron Coris again and again in her head and was just starting to wonder what the girl might think of the whole thing, but didn't get chance to think that through for any time at all as she had just heard the Coris party being announced at the door.<br><br>Sometimes even seers got it wrong.
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