Chapter 4
Lord Avhonari seated Z’sharan in a chair and then took his own behind his desk. “If you don’t mind,” he said to the wereleopard. “I’d like to begin with some background questions about you, then move on to the history of your folk. Feel free not to answer any of my questions that you feel that you can’t or shouldn’t.” he set a piece of clean parchment paper down in front of him and picked up his quill pen out of the holder on the desktop.
Z’sharan waited warily to find out what kind of questions that Lord Avhonari would have for him. At last the human said: “Tell me a bit about yourself, Z’sharan. How old are you, for example?”
The golden eyes blinked at this question. Then the wereleopard replied: “I have fifty summers.”
Lord Avhonari looked startled. “You are fifty years old? But you resemble a boy of eighteen!”
Z’sharan tilted his head a bit to the side. “My kind live longer than yours, I think,” he murmured.
“Ah, of course. The Elven people live for thousands of years. Do your folk have that long a lifespan, Z’sharan?”
“No. We live for perhaps two hundred summers all told. But we also don’t begin to really age until the last twenty summers of our lives.”
“Fascinating,” Lord Avhonari remarked, writing on the parchment. “So you will look like this until you are at the end of your life?”
“Yes. Which is why you humans confuse us a bit. We see those with grey hairs and the crinkled skin…” he reached up to pinch the skin of his face lightly to create artificial wrinkles in its smoothness, “And we think that you are very elderly and will soon die. But that is not the case.”
“Very true. We begin to get wrinkles and grey hairs sometime past the fortieth year of our lives, usually. But a human can live to be over a hundred years before they die.”
“How many summers have you, Lord Avhonari?” Z’sharan asked curiously.
“I am in my mid-thirties. It won’t be more than a decade before I begin to get my own grey hairs and wrinkles,” the human replied with a wry smile. “And it’s been some time since I had skin as smooth as yours. Ah, my lost youth. Still, I don’t really miss it. I was wild and callow boy when I was my nephew’s age. I prefer maturity.”
He paused, and then continued with his questions. “Tell me, Z’sharan, do you have a wife and children?”
The wereleopard shook his head. “No, I have no mate or cubs yet. Up until a few summers ago, I was too busy studying to be a Speaker to look for a mate.”
“A Speaker?” Lord Avhonari said, hearing the capitalization of the S clearly in his voice.
“What is that?”
“A Speaker is one who…remembers our past and tells it back again,” the wereleopard said hesitantly. “I learned of our history, and I tell tales of it to those who ask. It took me any years to do so, to become a Master Speaker rather than an apprentice. But now,” he reached up to pull his tunic away and display the small tattoo at the base of his throat, “I have this mark. It tells others that I am a Speaker so that they may request a story of me and learn our history.”
“I see. That is quite interesting,” Lord Avhonari replied. “You seem to be a combination scribe/bard. Do you know all of the history of your tribe?”
Z’sharan shook his head. “None of us can learn it all,” he said ruefully. “It would take ten lifetimes to do so. I only learned the part that my master knew. Others learn different parts from THEIR masters. Together the Speakers of my people can tell you the whole history of them, but it would take many summers for them to do so.”
“Do you enjoy telling these stories?” the human asked curiously.
Z’sharan’s golden eyes lit up. “Oh, yes!” he cried. “Especially to the little ones. Children are always so eager and interested. I love to spin tales for them.”
“Did you inherit this position?” Lord Avhonari questioned, thinking of how he had come into his own title and position when he was no older than Z’sharan (or at least no older than the eighteen years that the wereleopard looked to be, anyway).
“No, I was chosen when I was a cub because I could remember things very well for a long time. My parents gave me over to my master to be trained as a Speaker. At first I was unhappy and wanted to return to them, but over time I came to love my craft.”
Lord Avhonari folded his fingers together in front of him. “I think that I would have been satisfied to be a scribe and historian,” he said quietly. “But unfortunately, I was groomed to be the heir to my father’s title and duties since I was a baby. As the oldest boy in my family, I had no choice but to accept my position.”
Z’sharan’s brows drew down a little. “You wanted to be a Speaker for your people?” he asked in bewilderment. “Why did you not do it, then?”
Lord Avhonari sighed. “I think that human society is a bit more complex than your own, Z’sharan,” he said. “Tell me, have you nobles and kings? Those who rule and perhaps hold titles?”
The wereleopard frowned. “No,” he said. “I did not know what a king was until I was brought to this place. My Tribe has chiefs and a council, but they are not like your kings or noblemen. All the members of the Council are chosen by the people, as are the Chiefs. Just because you happen to be a cub of one of them does not mean that you will be chosen. Especially if you have some other skill that it is better that you turn your attention to. You would not have been forced into being a ‘ruler’ if you had been born among my kind.”
“Well as I was not, it hardly matters,” Lord Avhonari replied with a sigh. “But I believe that I like the sound of your society’s ways better, just the same. Tell me – do you have any religious systems?”
Z’sharan looked puzzled. Lord Avhonari went on: “Do you worship any Gods at all?”
“Oh. We have the Spirits,” the wereleopard said promptly. “They are everywhere and in everything, and they watch over us all the time.”
“Do you have temples?”
“No, not exactly. We have shrines and altars to them, but they are not in buildings. We build them in shades glens and beside streams. We would not want to trap the Spirits inside structures.”
“Curious. I would like to see one of these shrines when I take you home, Z’sharan. If it would be allowed?”
“I think that it would be all right. But I will ask permission of the Council before I show you one,” the wereman told him.
“That is fine. If it is not allowed I will respect that. My curiosity is simply very strong. That’s gotten me into trouble more than once,” he added with a twist of his lips.
“It is good to be curious. The little ones are the most curious creatures in the world, because they are learning all that they must know. I don’t think that we should ever lose that curiosity and sense of wonder about the world,” Z’sharan said earnestly.
Lord Avhonari’s eyes rested on his face. “Perhaps you are right. I am certainly indulging it right now,” he murmured. Then he went on: “You said that your people wear clothing when in this form,” he said as he lifted a hand to indicate Z’sharan’s humanoid body. “What kind of clothing? Do you make textiles and other fabrics? Or do you wear furs and leather?”
“We make fabric as well as leather,” the wereman told him, making Lord Avhonari look surprised.
“What do you weave this fabric from?” he asked.
“There are plants that grow wild beside some of the streams that we pick. Then we soak them in water and pound them with rocks to soften them, and weave them on small hand looms. We use the fabric mostly to make the breechcloths we wear in the summer. It’s too hot to wear fur and leather then.”
“Yes, I’m sure it must be,” Lord Avhonari said. “Do you wear any other types of ornamentation - such as jewelry?”
“We carve ornaments out of wood or string small polished stones to wear as necklaces. And we dye our skin and hair with certain roots and leaves during the time of the solstice festivals. This is to show respect for the Spirits when we dance for them under the light of the solstice moons.”
“You dance? I would love to see that,” Lord Avhonari remarked.
Z’sharan shook his head. “I cannot show you the ceremonial dances. It is forbidden.”
“Ah, well. Perhaps I will teach you some human dances while you are here. Ours are not sacred in any way, so anyone can do them who have learned.”
Now it was Z’sharan’s turn to look fascinated. “You humans…dance just to dance?” he asked in puzzlement.
Lord Avhonari nodded. “That is correct. We enjoy the movements and watching others dance. Everyone in the noble families is expected to learn, although not all are very good at it.”
“Are you?”
He shrugged. “I am proficient at best. My nephew is far more graceful and energetic than I am. I’m afraid that I spent far more time at Court discussing politics with other like-minded people than I did out on the dance floor.”
“Pol-i-tics? What is that?” Z’sharan asked, rolling the unfamiliar word around in his mouth. Clearly his people had no such word in their language, since he was saying it in Lord Avhonari’s tongue instead.
“Err…that is an extremely complex subject, Z’sharan. I wouldn’t mind explaining it to you when we have a free afternoon, but for now…”
The wereleopard accepted this equinimically. “Are you thirsty?” Lord Avhonari asked him. “I’ll have servants bring us some refreshments.”
He was. He nodded, and the human rose to his feet and went to the door. He spoke to the guard outside, telling the man to have someone bring them water and some fruit juices. Then he returned to his desk and sat down once more. “I’m sure than our summer is not as hot and humid as yours is,” he remarked to Z’sharan, “But it still gets quite muggy and hot sometimes. I’ll have the tailor make you some summer clothing to wear when he comes.”
“You wear breechcloths in the summers too?” the wereleopard asked.
His lips twitched. “No. Those do sound quite comfortable, but I’m afraid that fashion hasn’t quite reached our lands yet. We simply wear clothing similar to our normal garb, but just made of lighter fabrics and with less layers.”
“Couldn’t I wear a breechcloth if I wanted to?” Z’sharan asked hesitantly.
A sudden vision of that beautiful body garbed only in a small breechcloth nearly took Lord Avhonari’s breath away. “I suppose…that you could wear one in private,” he said. “I have no objection to that.”
The golden eyes lit up, and the human nobleman had to struggle with himself yet again. What had he just gotten himself into? He’d told Z’sharan that the lovely creature could run around his house wearing nothing but a scrap of cloth, for the heaven’s sake! He was going to be in torment every time that he saw the wereleopard dressed like that. He might as well have given Z’sharan permission to go around his house naked. Dear Gods.
Z’sharan’s nostrils flared. He’d been so upset about his plight and so uneasy in these strange surroundings that he hadn’t noticed before how the human’s smell changed sometimes. That musky odor was unmistakable – Lord Avhonari was sexually exited. Z’sharan realized that the reason for this must be HIM. Who else was in the room, after all? He felt a stirring deep inside of himself, as the tantalizing scent of Lord Avhonari’s pheromones made his body react. He was young, after all, at least by his people’s standards; moreover, while he’d been training to be a Speaker he’d been too busy to find a lover. So he’d only recently discovered the pleasures to be had in mating, and his body was reminding him of what they felt like.
But still…he pulled himself up sharply. It would not be a good idea to mate with this human. He had to keep a distance between himself and Lord Avhonari, because if he came to care for this human at all it would be more difficult for him to leave when it was time for him to go home. The intimacy found in a mating pair could only hasten feelings building up between them. He already respected and rather liked Lord Avhonari; he didn’t want to take it any further than that.
So he stayed silent about what he smelled, and Lord Avhonari said nothing about it either. A servant came in with a tray loaded down with several chilled pitchers of fruit juice and another of water, as well as glasses for both of them. He set it on the desk, and Lord Avhonari poured a glass full of water for Z’sharan and handed it to him. The wereleopard drank it gratefully; glad to have something to do with his mouth and hands. The human poured himself a glass of some kind of pale-yellow juice and sat back down behind his desk to drink it.
The silence that fell between them was surprisingly comfortable considering the desire being felt on both sides. Both men were working hard to suppress those needs and to just act as friends and companions to one another. If that wasn’t quite working – well, they would simply have to pretend that it was. There was nothing else for it.
Lord Avhonari continued to ask the wereleopard questions about his home and his people for awhile, but at last he set his pen in its holder and looked at the golden-eyed man sitting across from him. “That will be all for now,” he told Z’sharan. “We can continue this another day. I’m afraid that I’m due at Court in less than an hour, so I’ll have to leave you here by yourself. Feel free to roam about the house and gardens. I’ll inform the servants that you can have the run of the house and that they’re not to disturb you. Please don’t feel nervous or frightened. My home is now your home – at least until you return to your own home that is.”
“You have my thanks, Lord Avhonari,” the wereman replied gratefully. “You have been very kind to me. I don’t know how to repay you.”
The nobleman shook his head as he rose to his feet. “It is not necessary for you to try to repay me. Your company and these records,” he waved at the scroll on his desk, “Are all that I require from you in return. Can you find your way back to your room by yourself? If not, ask one of the guards or servants to help you.”
“I’m sure I can find my way there when I need to,” Z’sharan said as he got to his own feet. “For now I will look around some more. Your house is so large…”
The human laughed a bit. “Yes, I know,” he replied ruefully as he started for the door of his study. “It is my family’s seat, so I have no choice but to live here. There are times when I have wished for a house that was smaller and cozier; but I know my duties and I carry them out.” he opened the door and stepped back to allow the wereleopard to proceed him. “Most likely I will not see you again today, as I will probably be at Court until midnight. The King is having a party that I have to attend. So until tomorrow, Z’sharan…sleep well and I will see you then.”
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Lord Avhonari seated Z’sharan in a chair and then took his own behind his desk. “If you don’t mind,” he said to the wereleopard. “I’d like to begin with some background questions about you, then move on to the history of your folk. Feel free not to answer any of my questions that you feel that you can’t or shouldn’t.” he set a piece of clean parchment paper down in front of him and picked up his quill pen out of the holder on the desktop.
Z’sharan waited warily to find out what kind of questions that Lord Avhonari would have for him. At last the human said: “Tell me a bit about yourself, Z’sharan. How old are you, for example?”
The golden eyes blinked at this question. Then the wereleopard replied: “I have fifty summers.”
Lord Avhonari looked startled. “You are fifty years old? But you resemble a boy of eighteen!”
Z’sharan tilted his head a bit to the side. “My kind live longer than yours, I think,” he murmured.
“Ah, of course. The Elven people live for thousands of years. Do your folk have that long a lifespan, Z’sharan?”
“No. We live for perhaps two hundred summers all told. But we also don’t begin to really age until the last twenty summers of our lives.”
“Fascinating,” Lord Avhonari remarked, writing on the parchment. “So you will look like this until you are at the end of your life?”
“Yes. Which is why you humans confuse us a bit. We see those with grey hairs and the crinkled skin…” he reached up to pinch the skin of his face lightly to create artificial wrinkles in its smoothness, “And we think that you are very elderly and will soon die. But that is not the case.”
“Very true. We begin to get wrinkles and grey hairs sometime past the fortieth year of our lives, usually. But a human can live to be over a hundred years before they die.”
“How many summers have you, Lord Avhonari?” Z’sharan asked curiously.
“I am in my mid-thirties. It won’t be more than a decade before I begin to get my own grey hairs and wrinkles,” the human replied with a wry smile. “And it’s been some time since I had skin as smooth as yours. Ah, my lost youth. Still, I don’t really miss it. I was wild and callow boy when I was my nephew’s age. I prefer maturity.”
He paused, and then continued with his questions. “Tell me, Z’sharan, do you have a wife and children?”
The wereleopard shook his head. “No, I have no mate or cubs yet. Up until a few summers ago, I was too busy studying to be a Speaker to look for a mate.”
“A Speaker?” Lord Avhonari said, hearing the capitalization of the S clearly in his voice.
“What is that?”
“A Speaker is one who…remembers our past and tells it back again,” the wereleopard said hesitantly. “I learned of our history, and I tell tales of it to those who ask. It took me any years to do so, to become a Master Speaker rather than an apprentice. But now,” he reached up to pull his tunic away and display the small tattoo at the base of his throat, “I have this mark. It tells others that I am a Speaker so that they may request a story of me and learn our history.”
“I see. That is quite interesting,” Lord Avhonari replied. “You seem to be a combination scribe/bard. Do you know all of the history of your tribe?”
Z’sharan shook his head. “None of us can learn it all,” he said ruefully. “It would take ten lifetimes to do so. I only learned the part that my master knew. Others learn different parts from THEIR masters. Together the Speakers of my people can tell you the whole history of them, but it would take many summers for them to do so.”
“Do you enjoy telling these stories?” the human asked curiously.
Z’sharan’s golden eyes lit up. “Oh, yes!” he cried. “Especially to the little ones. Children are always so eager and interested. I love to spin tales for them.”
“Did you inherit this position?” Lord Avhonari questioned, thinking of how he had come into his own title and position when he was no older than Z’sharan (or at least no older than the eighteen years that the wereleopard looked to be, anyway).
“No, I was chosen when I was a cub because I could remember things very well for a long time. My parents gave me over to my master to be trained as a Speaker. At first I was unhappy and wanted to return to them, but over time I came to love my craft.”
Lord Avhonari folded his fingers together in front of him. “I think that I would have been satisfied to be a scribe and historian,” he said quietly. “But unfortunately, I was groomed to be the heir to my father’s title and duties since I was a baby. As the oldest boy in my family, I had no choice but to accept my position.”
Z’sharan’s brows drew down a little. “You wanted to be a Speaker for your people?” he asked in bewilderment. “Why did you not do it, then?”
Lord Avhonari sighed. “I think that human society is a bit more complex than your own, Z’sharan,” he said. “Tell me, have you nobles and kings? Those who rule and perhaps hold titles?”
The wereleopard frowned. “No,” he said. “I did not know what a king was until I was brought to this place. My Tribe has chiefs and a council, but they are not like your kings or noblemen. All the members of the Council are chosen by the people, as are the Chiefs. Just because you happen to be a cub of one of them does not mean that you will be chosen. Especially if you have some other skill that it is better that you turn your attention to. You would not have been forced into being a ‘ruler’ if you had been born among my kind.”
“Well as I was not, it hardly matters,” Lord Avhonari replied with a sigh. “But I believe that I like the sound of your society’s ways better, just the same. Tell me – do you have any religious systems?”
Z’sharan looked puzzled. Lord Avhonari went on: “Do you worship any Gods at all?”
“Oh. We have the Spirits,” the wereleopard said promptly. “They are everywhere and in everything, and they watch over us all the time.”
“Do you have temples?”
“No, not exactly. We have shrines and altars to them, but they are not in buildings. We build them in shades glens and beside streams. We would not want to trap the Spirits inside structures.”
“Curious. I would like to see one of these shrines when I take you home, Z’sharan. If it would be allowed?”
“I think that it would be all right. But I will ask permission of the Council before I show you one,” the wereman told him.
“That is fine. If it is not allowed I will respect that. My curiosity is simply very strong. That’s gotten me into trouble more than once,” he added with a twist of his lips.
“It is good to be curious. The little ones are the most curious creatures in the world, because they are learning all that they must know. I don’t think that we should ever lose that curiosity and sense of wonder about the world,” Z’sharan said earnestly.
Lord Avhonari’s eyes rested on his face. “Perhaps you are right. I am certainly indulging it right now,” he murmured. Then he went on: “You said that your people wear clothing when in this form,” he said as he lifted a hand to indicate Z’sharan’s humanoid body. “What kind of clothing? Do you make textiles and other fabrics? Or do you wear furs and leather?”
“We make fabric as well as leather,” the wereman told him, making Lord Avhonari look surprised.
“What do you weave this fabric from?” he asked.
“There are plants that grow wild beside some of the streams that we pick. Then we soak them in water and pound them with rocks to soften them, and weave them on small hand looms. We use the fabric mostly to make the breechcloths we wear in the summer. It’s too hot to wear fur and leather then.”
“Yes, I’m sure it must be,” Lord Avhonari said. “Do you wear any other types of ornamentation - such as jewelry?”
“We carve ornaments out of wood or string small polished stones to wear as necklaces. And we dye our skin and hair with certain roots and leaves during the time of the solstice festivals. This is to show respect for the Spirits when we dance for them under the light of the solstice moons.”
“You dance? I would love to see that,” Lord Avhonari remarked.
Z’sharan shook his head. “I cannot show you the ceremonial dances. It is forbidden.”
“Ah, well. Perhaps I will teach you some human dances while you are here. Ours are not sacred in any way, so anyone can do them who have learned.”
Now it was Z’sharan’s turn to look fascinated. “You humans…dance just to dance?” he asked in puzzlement.
Lord Avhonari nodded. “That is correct. We enjoy the movements and watching others dance. Everyone in the noble families is expected to learn, although not all are very good at it.”
“Are you?”
He shrugged. “I am proficient at best. My nephew is far more graceful and energetic than I am. I’m afraid that I spent far more time at Court discussing politics with other like-minded people than I did out on the dance floor.”
“Pol-i-tics? What is that?” Z’sharan asked, rolling the unfamiliar word around in his mouth. Clearly his people had no such word in their language, since he was saying it in Lord Avhonari’s tongue instead.
“Err…that is an extremely complex subject, Z’sharan. I wouldn’t mind explaining it to you when we have a free afternoon, but for now…”
The wereleopard accepted this equinimically. “Are you thirsty?” Lord Avhonari asked him. “I’ll have servants bring us some refreshments.”
He was. He nodded, and the human rose to his feet and went to the door. He spoke to the guard outside, telling the man to have someone bring them water and some fruit juices. Then he returned to his desk and sat down once more. “I’m sure than our summer is not as hot and humid as yours is,” he remarked to Z’sharan, “But it still gets quite muggy and hot sometimes. I’ll have the tailor make you some summer clothing to wear when he comes.”
“You wear breechcloths in the summers too?” the wereleopard asked.
His lips twitched. “No. Those do sound quite comfortable, but I’m afraid that fashion hasn’t quite reached our lands yet. We simply wear clothing similar to our normal garb, but just made of lighter fabrics and with less layers.”
“Couldn’t I wear a breechcloth if I wanted to?” Z’sharan asked hesitantly.
A sudden vision of that beautiful body garbed only in a small breechcloth nearly took Lord Avhonari’s breath away. “I suppose…that you could wear one in private,” he said. “I have no objection to that.”
The golden eyes lit up, and the human nobleman had to struggle with himself yet again. What had he just gotten himself into? He’d told Z’sharan that the lovely creature could run around his house wearing nothing but a scrap of cloth, for the heaven’s sake! He was going to be in torment every time that he saw the wereleopard dressed like that. He might as well have given Z’sharan permission to go around his house naked. Dear Gods.
Z’sharan’s nostrils flared. He’d been so upset about his plight and so uneasy in these strange surroundings that he hadn’t noticed before how the human’s smell changed sometimes. That musky odor was unmistakable – Lord Avhonari was sexually exited. Z’sharan realized that the reason for this must be HIM. Who else was in the room, after all? He felt a stirring deep inside of himself, as the tantalizing scent of Lord Avhonari’s pheromones made his body react. He was young, after all, at least by his people’s standards; moreover, while he’d been training to be a Speaker he’d been too busy to find a lover. So he’d only recently discovered the pleasures to be had in mating, and his body was reminding him of what they felt like.
But still…he pulled himself up sharply. It would not be a good idea to mate with this human. He had to keep a distance between himself and Lord Avhonari, because if he came to care for this human at all it would be more difficult for him to leave when it was time for him to go home. The intimacy found in a mating pair could only hasten feelings building up between them. He already respected and rather liked Lord Avhonari; he didn’t want to take it any further than that.
So he stayed silent about what he smelled, and Lord Avhonari said nothing about it either. A servant came in with a tray loaded down with several chilled pitchers of fruit juice and another of water, as well as glasses for both of them. He set it on the desk, and Lord Avhonari poured a glass full of water for Z’sharan and handed it to him. The wereleopard drank it gratefully; glad to have something to do with his mouth and hands. The human poured himself a glass of some kind of pale-yellow juice and sat back down behind his desk to drink it.
The silence that fell between them was surprisingly comfortable considering the desire being felt on both sides. Both men were working hard to suppress those needs and to just act as friends and companions to one another. If that wasn’t quite working – well, they would simply have to pretend that it was. There was nothing else for it.
Lord Avhonari continued to ask the wereleopard questions about his home and his people for awhile, but at last he set his pen in its holder and looked at the golden-eyed man sitting across from him. “That will be all for now,” he told Z’sharan. “We can continue this another day. I’m afraid that I’m due at Court in less than an hour, so I’ll have to leave you here by yourself. Feel free to roam about the house and gardens. I’ll inform the servants that you can have the run of the house and that they’re not to disturb you. Please don’t feel nervous or frightened. My home is now your home – at least until you return to your own home that is.”
“You have my thanks, Lord Avhonari,” the wereman replied gratefully. “You have been very kind to me. I don’t know how to repay you.”
The nobleman shook his head as he rose to his feet. “It is not necessary for you to try to repay me. Your company and these records,” he waved at the scroll on his desk, “Are all that I require from you in return. Can you find your way back to your room by yourself? If not, ask one of the guards or servants to help you.”
“I’m sure I can find my way there when I need to,” Z’sharan said as he got to his own feet. “For now I will look around some more. Your house is so large…”
The human laughed a bit. “Yes, I know,” he replied ruefully as he started for the door of his study. “It is my family’s seat, so I have no choice but to live here. There are times when I have wished for a house that was smaller and cozier; but I know my duties and I carry them out.” he opened the door and stepped back to allow the wereleopard to proceed him. “Most likely I will not see you again today, as I will probably be at Court until midnight. The King is having a party that I have to attend. So until tomorrow, Z’sharan…sleep well and I will see you then.”
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