[Veltzeh]: 39.The Heritage of Humankind.Tales from Kyerrion.30

Availon and Tegafel traveled around Gaoranola for nearly two weeks, trying to come up with something to do. Having investigated issues enough, Availon figured that Gaoranola's ruling council and the main generals were sympathetic toward the alliance, so something needed to be done. They settled in the main city of the nation. There were a few jinhaliare ambassadors and advisors around, and Availon soon figured out what to do with them. Ey spied some information about their schedules and the places of visiting.

Availon conditioned one of the not-so-well protected generals to attack one jinhaliare visitor. The general attacked, the jinhaliare killed em and the femehan soldiers killed the jinhaliare. Ey screwed two more femehans similarly and created quite a bit of chaos around the big city. One femehan diplomat survived the attack and was thoroughly questioned and mind-probed. Availon, then again, tried to find out more ways to screw the interracial relations over.

One thing to do would be to modify the minds of the people in the ruling council, but they were nearly constantly guarded by femehan far-walkers, and if Availon came close to them, ey would be uncovered instantly. However, there was a way and Availon took the chance.

Ey searched for any person who would need to repay a favor to the chairperson of the ruling council and then sent Tegafel to the chairperson as the repayment. Slavery was was a well-fueled institution in Gaoranola, and even Availon figured that a good-looking whore who could perform bodyguard duties would be a fairly good asset. Ey had to have Tegafel learn to walk without limping, though, and try to hide the huge scars that distracted from eir beauty. Ey then slapped another made-up set of memories on Tegafel's mind—it was very crude, but would do in this situation, since Tegafel would very likely only be scanned enough to find out that ey was not a traitor or far-walker. Availon conditioned em to sneak around the chairperson's residence in the night and let em in.

One definite problem was Availon's far-walker abilities—nearly any far-walker might be able to sense em sneaking around. Therefore, Availon stole a certain device from a far-walker prison; it was constructed in a way that it blocked a far-walker's abilities. Availon felt extremely uncomfortable wearing it, but did not have any other choice.

The night came, Tegafel let Availon in and they sneaked around. Tegafel was fairly mindless and did not give cues even to far-walkers. As expected, the chairperson summoned Tegafel into eir bedroom to have sex with em. Availon could not get in so easily since the place was guarded, though most of the guards were of course outside preventing people from getting in in the first place. Eventually Availon made it in, however, and spent some time in hiding and shadows while trying to think up what to do and watching how Tegafel and the chairperson conducted their complicated mating ritual.

Having sex did not require any rituals or much anything, but people of high caste liked to have them whenever possible. Tegafel had not been raised in higher castes and certainly had not ever taken part in any such ritual, but ey knew about them nevertheless, having heard stories about them and been taught about them.

Eventually Availon crept up to the bed while the two femehans were distracted and then touched both Tegafel and the chairperson and made them stop their actions. Ey could still use eir far-walker abilities via touching, though it was very inconvenient and weird. Ey started feeding their minds with more ritualistic love-making while trying to modify the chairperson's views about jinhaliares and the alliance.

After a long time and when Availon was nearly done, the door was kicked in, soldiers rushed in with three far-walkers and started threatening Availon. Tegafel was quickly subdued and restrained. Availon removed the device on eir head and was immediately attacked by more than three far-walkers. Ey lost consciousness.



When Tegafel woke up, eir head ached terribly. Ey felt ridiculously violated and humiliated, even much more so than when the homehans had raped em. Still, eir body was fine; nothing had happened to it. Ey was very disturbed and started crying. Two persons came to em soon and consoled em. One of them was a far-walker who apologized and asked if ey could remove the disturbing feelings, since they had been caused by far-walkers poking eir mind anyway. Tegafel did not want eir mind poked anymore, but could not resist consenting. The far-walker took away the pain and the feelings of violation. Tegafel still cried a little and the other person hugged and consoled em.

After Tegafel was done with eir crying, ey looked around. Ey seemed to be in a hospital of sorts, but it was a private room. Everything was clean and neat. Tegafel's body had been washed and ey had some substance covering eir scars. The substance felt nice and cooling. The far-walker was a niwacod clad in vaguely hospital-like clothes. The other person was a gecod, and ey seemed to be a nurse or a doctor.

"Are you alright now?" asked the gecod.

Tegafel took a bit of time to reply. "I... I guess. I'm confused..."

"Yes, I'm sure. We'll explain everything if you think you're ready to hear it. My name is Vimmoal Neehinneder, and I'm a doctor at this hospital. We are in Korrankola, the capital of Gaoranola."

The far-walker spoke next: "I'm Skarre Terekiler, and I'm a specialized nurse here."

"I'm... Tegafel Darrelter." The two smiled and offered Tegafel some water before they started explaining Tegafel what had happened, starting from the very beginning.

According to them, Tegafel had been saved from execution by Availon back when ey was in Kervanela and imprisoned by homehans. Tegafel had been so shocked and startled that ey could not think rationally. Availon had helped em to regain eir sanity and had then started to sweet-talk em into joining eir dangerous and immoral mission. Tegafel had of course considered it, mostly to keep an eye, any eye, on Availon—eir thoughts were expected and certainly not punishable. Tegafel had not agreed with Availon, so the galanfetzcan had modified eir mind to make em accept eir mission by enhancing Tegafel's agreeable thoughts about it.

Then Tegafel and Availon had sailed to Trarikkola and traveled through a couple of nations to Gaoranola. Tegafel remembered the trip on the seaship and riverboat and the walking across the meadows, jungle and mountains. What ey did not remember was Availon's nightmares, the sex they had had and the surprise attack and sex with the jinhaliares—and of course the mind-modification.

They also explained what Availon had done to em and others in Korrankola, which was what Tegafel was mostly clueless on. Tegafel grew very angry at Availon and Skarre had to restrain em a bit to stop em from getting up and going on a rampage to find the treacherous galanfetzcan. Tegafel calmed down and the two people left em alone for a moment to eat and think about the issues.

Tegafel was extremely angry at Availon. Ey remembered treating em like a friend, like a companion, trusting eir advice and helping em. Tegafel grew furious and ey cried again. Skarre came in later and helped Tegafel overcome eir anger and other feelings. Ey also explained what would be done to Availon.

Trained far-walkers would dig as deep into Availon's mind as they could and reveal everything ey had done. They would mentally torture, trick and break em. They were also going to do some physical damage, but only superficial, and they did not want to even consider killing em because they were afraid that the other galanfetzcans would not like that. They also did not want to cause any serious physical damage because Availon seemed to be pregnant and the torturer had flat out refused to torture em when ey had first seen em. Tegafel wondered about the pregnancy, but could not make any more sense of it, so ey let the issue be.

Tegafel went once to see Availon in the prison and was fairly happy to see a mistreated, naked and huddled body restrained and crying on the filthy floor of a cell. Availon's hair had been cut off and ey had an X-shaped wound on eir face. Tegafel shouted out some insults that made Availon cry worse. Ey left then, but the image of Availon's slightly grown belly haunted em for a long, long time.



Tegafel spent a couple of days at the hospital being treated, mostly for eir mental injuries. The gecod doctor insisted on treating eir scars as well, covering them with the cooling substance that was supposed to make them better and less visible. Tegafel did not resist.

One of the people in the ruling council decided ey would shelter Tegafel at least for as long as would be required for the judges to decide on the matter with em and Availon. Tegafel did not really care about the issues and instead did something quite radical for em: ey played around and along with the councilor's genicodda who was well on eir way into adolescence and was rather interested in Tegafel. The councilor had originally planned to seduce Tegafel emself, but agreed that the wacod was a more fitting companion for eir children, what with being still quite young and all, so ey did not object and was instead happy for eir genicodda whose virginity Tegafel took in a dark room after a few glasses of wine.

The following day they all celebrated the young genicod's passage into adulthood.



Two weeks after Availon and Tegafel had been caught red-handed, the investigators of the case concluded their job. Availon was considered a traitor on all sides though the definition of "traitor" barely fit em, what with em not being affiliated with anything that could really be betrayed from the femehans' perspective. Ey would have been further tortured and executed, but the femehans did not want to anger other galanfetzcans and killing a pregnant person was a bit over the top even for them. Therefore, Availon would be swiftly exiled and marked with the traitor's marks that included the X-shaped wound on eir face and altogether six cuts on eir chest and forearms.

Tegafel was effectively pardoned since whatever ey had done was quite clearly the result of Availon's brainwashing. Nevertheless, the judges and the ruling council could not be sure that all of Availon's conditioning was gone, so they wanted to exile Tegafel as well. Tegafel did not even want to stay in Gaoranola, so ey had no problem with the decision, especially since ey was promised an escort to take em to the border of Fetormana and the Flowing Passages.

Tegafel was given all the things that ey and Availon had had with them, and whatever ey did not need, ey gave to Availon. The tent ey kept for emself. Tegafel and the escort left soon. A far-walker came along and set a few triggers in Tegafel's mind that would make Availon flinch in disgust if ey tried to use eir far-walker abilities on the wacod. They took Availon along as well, planning to send em off into the Jungle Mountains when they would reach them. Tegafel, the far-walker and the carriage driver sat comfortably in the wagon that was pulled by a horse-like animal, and Availon had to walk, jog or run. Ey was only pulled barely inside the wagon the few times when ey collapsed while walking.

They reached the mountainous area in a few days. The carriage driver knew where ey was going and they stopped at the edge of a steep cliff that continued as far as their eyes could see. All the femehans felt fairly evil as they tied Availon to one end of a rope and started lowering em down the edge. It took a bit more rope than they had thought, but when Availon finally touched the ground on some ledge, they threw the rope over the edge, laughed and left. Availon would not be coming up from there again, and according to the carriage driver, ey could go nowhere except away from Gaoranola that way.

The carriage continued on its way and the three people reached the river that separated Gaoranola from the nation of Fetormana. Tegafel was told that ey could go east to Fetormana and spend the winter there, or ey could go west and cross the Flowing Passages. The trip should be easy along the river, and Tegafel should make it to the other side before winter. Tegafel waved the two goodbye and headed west.