Gifts

"It is settled," Friezen announced as he sat down with his third plate of the venison, a second helping of the rabbit, and another mound of the vegetables that Orien had cooked while he had enchanted the deer hide into the magic cloak for the little winged chef.

 "And what would you have settled, other than your growing stomach and rump to eat more of tomorrow's luncheon tonight?" Chrijo asked with a smirk.

"You did not just call me fat," the sorcerer gasped.  "How dare you, you foul, smelly, grouchy, old...."

"Father is never grouchy," Orien defended.  "And I'm the only one of our camp that is a fowl."

"Tell me he did not speak those words," Chrijo groaned at the grinning cherub's joke.

"I notice he chose not to defend your smell or your age," Friezen smirked.

"By the powers, you're right," Chrijo blurted in a wounded tone.  "Where is the respect for the one you call father, little hummingbird?"

"I can only defend that which isn't true, Father," Orien answered with a giggle and then rushed to hide behind his lion.

"Tarel, will you stand by and see your father maliciously ridiculed thus?" Chrijo implored.

"Well, ummm.... You aren't as old as that mountain yonder."

"I'm surrounded by ingrates and infidels," Chrijo pouted.  He took a sniff of his armpit though and flinched.  "Well, perhaps I am a touch less fresh than the morning dew."

"I saw a stream just through the trees that way when I flew from camp, Father," Orien piped up eagerly.  "There was a small pool in the bend of it as it flows away south.  I have the soap that Mother made just last week in my pack in the wagon."

"Am I that ripe that you push me so fiercely?"

"YES!" three voices answered him.

"A curse upon me for defiling my family with my stench, then," Chrijo laughed along with them.  "Fetch the soap, my little sparrow."

"Not to offend, but the cleaning would do no harm to your sons, either," Friezen pointed out.

"So it's to be the seventh night washing for all of us, is it?  Will you join us, fair wizard, that the whole family be cleansed at once?"

"Father, that's twice you have mentioned family while not excluding Uncle Friezen," Orien pointed out.

"Well, our mighty sorcerer must know that now I have him in my eyes and heart once more, I'll not let him out of my arm's reach ever again," Chrijo said as he knelt in front of Friezen and took the man's hands in his own.  "You never answered what was settled earlier, love," he said softly as he looked up into the face of his old friend.

"I'll not say it," Friezen denied as his face flushed a bright red.  "By the Giver of All Good, you have always been able to melt me with that silver tongue of yours, Chri."

"Please Papa, tell us what you have settled?" Orien begged as he ran up to them holding the soap and fresh clothes for them to put on after they clean.

"Papa?" Friezen whispered as tears formed in the corners of his eyes.  "Never did I think to hear such a name for myself."

"Well we can scarce call you both father," Tarel smiled as he joined them as well.

"You will think it vanity and jest, which it was meant to be, but now it is even more so," Friezen tried to object, but the looks on their faces encouraged him to speak the words anyway.  "I was going to say that it is settled that I will travel never more than a few hours away from this wizard of the cooking fires, now that I have tasted his skills."

"It was a truly pleasant meal?" Orien whispered as he blushed and squirmed shyly.

"Pleasant is no word for such a treat, my son," Chrijo told him.

"You surpass even our mother in the kitchen, my hummingbird," Tarel vowed seriously.

"You are my family, you must say such things," Orien complained.

"I have traveled to a great many fine cities and dined with kings and emperors, but never have I had such a tasty meal, young eagle," Friezen informed the increasingly blushing boy.

"There is but one thing left for such a night," Chrijo announced.  "Come, let us find this pool and soak our wearied bones before we sleep this night."

"I sleep not tonight, Father," Tarel said firmly.  "I will keep watch.  It is my duty and honor for my family."

"When you grow weary, do not fail to rouse me, son.  I will take my turn at the watch as well," Chrijo urged.

"I can keep watch, as well," Orien offered eagerly, but just at that moment, he would have walked into a tree had it not been for Tarel pulling him to the side.  "Well, I can listen if I cannot see," he added a little sadly.

"You will sleep, my hummingbird," Tarel said firmly, and then softly added, "I will depend upon your eyes to watch our safe travels on the morrow as I sleep in the wagon."

"Yes, my lion," Orien agreed with a huge smile.

The four of them splashed about and played for a while in the stream before settling down to scrubbing themselves clean and fresh.  After that, Tarel saw that the two men were looking at each other the way that he had seen the boys and girls in the village look at one another.  He also saw his hummingbird yawning.  "Come back to the camp with me, Orien," I will help you with your hair by the fire before you sleep.

"Father?  Papa?  Are you not coming with us?" Orien asked, but the men never heard him.  "They're kissing," Orien giggled.

"Yes and I'm sure they will wish for you not to watch them, hummingbird," Tarel scolded.   "Let us return to the camp."  A little while later, Tarel was tucking his charge into the blankets near the fire.  "Sleep my eagle.  I will protect you tonight."

"And I you on the morrow," Orien vowed with a yawn.  "Tarel, Father and Papa have not returned from the stream.  What could take them so long to bathe?"

"We will discuss that when you are older, little hummingbird," the older male replied.  "For now you should rest.... and be glad that birds' eyesight is not matched by their hearing as with cats."  Fortunately Orien already slept or Tarel was sure he would have been nagged about what he had meant by that.

"Our mighty eagle sleeps?" Chrijo asked softly as he and Friezen returned to camp.  He sat beside Tarel while Friezen took a seat next to the sleeping Orien.

"Yes, Father, fortunately his young ears have not the range of his eyes, so his rest came easily and well," the teen smirked.

"Yes, well, you see... We had so much to speak of after so many years apart," Chrijo replied as he looked pointedly into the fire and away from his oldest son.

"I am astounded, Father," the feline teen replied with a smile.  "For you both to speak of so many years while using so few words, and such choice words they were as well."  The teen laughed as his father blushed and stood quickly, mumbling about seeing to the firewood for the night as he walked away into the forest again.

"So you have the ears of the cat as well as the eyes?" Friezen asked with a bit of a blush.

"It would seem so, Papa," Taren shrugged.

"I will make provision for that in future, lion," the wizard assured him.  "If I may say, though, you seem not overly concerned by what you heard."

"Is it not good for a child to know that his parents love one another?" Tarel teased.

"When the time comes, you may ask of me anything you must know," Friezen whispered.  "I would not have you hurt our eagle, nor would I suppose you wish it."

"Thank you, Papa, but that time is far off, no doubt," Tarel said quickly with an intense blush.

"Perhaps so, perhaps not," the wizard mused.  "Remember that he is not the first of his kind that I have known in my travels.  I will guard his virtue as well as his health as he has stolen all of my heart that does not lie in Chrijo's hand," he added as he stared down at the sleeping boy and brushed the hair from his face.

"Mayhaps there is some remnant for me as well?" Tarel whispered softly.  Friezen stood and coming closer, sat beside the cat boy.

"Indeed, my lion, indeed," the man said as he hugged his new older son.

Tarel spoke as he wiped a tear of happiness from his face.  "I will guard our camp tonight, Papa.  Old men should sleep after such exertions," he added with a tease.

"Old men?" the wizard gasped.  "You have a wicked tongue, son of my heart," he scolded with a smile.  "You speak truth in your jest, however.  Now that I have had that which I have dreamed of since my face was as hairless as yours, I am loathe to let it, or him, out of my grasp even for a moment."  He chuckled as the teen leapt up with an announcement that it was time to patrol the woods... away from the camp... for safety.

"A care with your words, love," Chrijo spoke up as he returned to the fire with arms loaded with quite unnecessary wood, given all that the lion form of Tarel had supplied earlier.  "Our sons are but young still.  Defile not their ears nor stir their loins until they are closer to age for such lessons."

"Your sons may be young in your eyes, my heart, but my sons are quite mature enough to speak of what they have already heard with their own ears."

"They heard?" Chrijo gasped with a blush.

"Tarel heard," Friezen confirmed.  "It is our own good fortune that while our little eagle can see far distant in the day, he cannot hear further than you or I."

"That is a relief," Chrijo sighed.  "Not that I do not wish to shout my love of you in the busiest of cities, of a truth it is a speech I dread to give the little hummingbird."

"Rest your mind, my war god," Friezen smiled teasingly.  "I will speak with him of his role when the time is upon us for it.  I do confess I hope to be wrong about how soon that will be."

"Speak, love," Chrijo said a little urgently.  "Is there aught we should know?  My little hummingbird is the first of his kind I have ever known, so I am at a loss as to what will come in his life."

"In my travels, I once met a young girl of his kind, a most beautiful and kind hearted soul, who turned the eyes, the heads, and the hearts of all, well almost all the men who beheld her, despite her tender years.  The daughter of a nobleman of their people, I was privileged for a time to befriend, and defend, this beauty as many men sought her affections, some more ardently than proper for her age.  Were he a she, Orien could be herself reborn.  The resemblance is that strong."

"His mother perhaps?" Chrijo pondered aloud.

"I would not doubt it, having seen both boy and maiden with my own eyes," Friezen nodded.  "Both with hair and wings the blackest of midnights, both with the most piercing of golden brown eyes.  Sadly, their likeness even extends to their circumstance," Friezen remembered as he produced a carved pipe from his garments and lit it with a tinder from the fire.  "I came to know the maiden through her father.  He had journeyed from their homeland on the islands across the Western Sea to seek trade with the great city of Sohsky.  Like his daughter and grandchild, he had a great and open heart, seeing first the good in all others."

"In what you are not saying, I see a sad tale," Chrijo mused.

"You have seen the truth of it," Friezen affirmed.  "An aging, but powerful man of the city beheld the girl and lost his reason in the beholding.  He swore to have her as his prize.  He sought first to charm the two of them and gain the girl in such a way, but the father and daughter had only each other, as her mother had been taken by illness just before his journey, and they were loath to be parted from each other.  Further the nobleman had no thought to make his only child the shamed scarlet concubine of a still married man.  When his noble advances were spurned, the wealthy merchant turned to darker means.  I was asked by the girl's father to protect her.  He refused my offers to guard himself as well, demanding only that I keep the girl from harm from any who would seek to claim her not out of love but greed and lust."

"This nobleman died then?"

"He did, giving his life in battle for his child's honor and virtue.  I had learned of their duel too late to stop or take the nobleman's cause.  I went to the appointed place and saw with my own eyes the wealthy merchant's own son strike him down.  He knelt before the body of the girl's father, then dropped to his knees and handed me his sword that I might plunge it through his heart for no more reason than being the son of the man who had brought the girl harm."

"An honorable spawn from a dishonorable sire," Chrijo noted.  "A great pity that he and she were not given to each other for a long and happy marriage."

"Yet that is precisely what took place," Friezen corrected.  "I witnessed the girl rush into the chamber and plead with me to spare the young man that had won her affections long before the ill-fated duel.  I served as chaperone for their courtship myself.   The young man taking over his father's businesses as most all in the city knew of the old man's wickedness, and this is where my tale comes to touch on our little eagle.  As their courtship progressed in weeks, so did the little one's maturity."

"What are you saying?"

"Simply this, as it was told to me by the girl herself," Friezen explained.  "When her people choose their mate, a power, or a gift if you will, of their race alters them that they are most suited to the chosen mate.  Though not the choosing alone, it is the return of the love that invokes the magic.  Had she chosen him, but he not returned her affection, she would have, in her words, gone to the beast, and been locked in her animal form till death.  When he professed his own love, however, the magic within her pushed her body to match his own.  If the mate be older, as was that case, the girl aged years in a matter of weeks.  Had her chosen been younger, she would have ceased aging until her love had grown to her."

"What you say is that if our lion does not return the affections of our eagle, we will lose our youngest to his eagle form forever," Chrijo confirmed.  "That I do not fear as much as the opposite.  I have spoken with Tarel about his feelings for Orien.  I know that in his heart he sees his mate.  It is his head that stops him because where his heart sees mate, his mind sees brother and younger at that.  He cannot fathom that our little bird could ever see in him aught but a brother."

"I do not believe Orien has yet realized that his devotion to Tarel is not that of a brother, but he is quite close.  I feel that the boy needs encouragement to see that his lion could regard him so before he will see it himself," Friezen thought out loud.  "They are both to be watched closely.  We cannot allow their youth to cloud their vision and in so doing harm the other."

"Back to your tale of the girl," Chrijo prompted.  "If they were happy together and safely wed, how came you to believe that the girl you knew is the woman that birthed Orien?"

"I left the city after their marriage, thinking them safe from harm, and wanting not to....  Well, I sought to travel and seek further adventures," Friezen explained with hesitation over his motives.  "Had I known there were still those that wished ill upon them, of my own blood no less...."

"Do you mean that kinsman you came seeking?"

"My ill spawned cousin has taken two mothers from our eagle," Friezen admitted brokenly.  "In his incessant greed, he attacked a caravan of goods.  My young friend and her new husband were traveling with it, having procured new trade relations with a city to the east.  When he saw the young woman, he made to have her, but the husband fought.  The young merchant was no match for a warrior and died quickly.  In her grief, did her wings burst forth and the blackguards that held her did cut them off in their horror.  Thankfully their repulsion at her inhumanity spared her their more vile advances, and she was left to die beside the body of her beloved."

"She must have made her way to the village and found our healer once she knew she was... with child.  Can one use such a term for a being that lays an egg?"

"I have no other term to use that does not disquiet my stomach, so it will do," Friezen spoke quickly as his nose wrinkled in distaste.

"You can face hordes of unhuman ogres and yet you grow ill at the thought of a pregnant woman?" Chrijo teased.

"Have you ever....  Do not speak of it if so.  I do not wish to know," Friezen snapped then continued sadly.

"My heart, and my loins have only ever known the one other, my sweet sorcerer, and he you knew yourself," Chrijo said as he hugged the blushing wizard.

"Chrijo, I should tell you...."

"I am not disappointed if you have had your dalliances, my love," Chrijo interrupted.  "I knew you in our youth, remember."

"You do not mock me as a trollop," Friezen blurted in a scandalized tone.

"I assure you I do not," Chrijo smiled.  "I regard you with the green eyes of jealousy if truth be told."

"Jealousy?"

"Would that I had been as open with my affections in our youth as you were, or even that open later in my life.  I hid my nature claiming injury as my reason for not taking a wife."

"I know that well," Friezen agreed.  "I dodged many a maiden and spinster through the excuse of my powers, the study they require, and the price they demand."

"Your magic does you harm?" Chrijo gasped.

"Certainly not," Friezen denied.  "Yet it never hurts that the females believe it to be so."

"You devious minx," Chrijo laughed.  "Come share the furs with me, love.  We should at least pretend to sleep so not to insult our protector this night."

"There is no need for the pretense," Friezen whispered.  "I have enclosed our camp within a spell.  None with ill intent may get within striking distance of us.  Pray, do not tell our lion, though.  He needs to guard his family.”

"And when do I protect you, love?"

"In the morrow, whilst I sleep beside our lion in the wagon," Friezen said haughtily.  "For your own protection and safety, pray do not wake me before noon."

"I remember well, my love," Chrijo smiled.  "I witnessed the fate of those who dared disturb you before noon.  We will wake you at our peril."

"If there is need...."

"If we are attacked, I will wake you that you may destroy our enemies entirely, then caress you back to sleep with my kisses.  You have my word," Chrijo smiled as he held his dear old friend and new lover in his arms and faded to sleep.