Sablesword
TMF Master
- Joined
- Jun 13, 2001
- Messages
- 810
- Points
- 18
And a direct sequel to "The Two Shrews of Chorio"
Jana sat in the stocks, waiting for the tickling to begin.
Oddly enough, she was there despite her monthly pass-tokens having another three weeks to run. In fact, she had wheedled, insisted, and made a pest of herself to be there. Not that she thought of herself as a pest – the pest was that young hussy Eurypette.
(Never mind that Eurypette was all of six months younger than Jana.)
A week ago, Jana and Eurypette had been exiled to the centaur Land. Before then, the pair were notorious as the Two Shrews of Chorio. Which was completely unfair, in Jana’s opinion. Eurypette was a shrew, but she wasn’t. She just kept getting provoked.
Jana wiggled her bare feet, on the far side of the stock-boards. The centaurs hadn’t tied her toes yet. But that would come. This time the stocks held her feet side-by-side, while last week – during her first tickle session – they’d been held a handspan apart.
At least she wasn’t sharing the stocks with Eurypette this time. That first tickle session was formally and officially a torment. It had to be, by the terms of the Prophesy. But it didn’t have to be a torture, and it hadn’t been. Not really. Not exactly. Not for Jana. She hoped it had been one for Eurypette, the way it hadn’t been for her. Except for the annoyance of having to share the stocks with that hussy.
For Jana, that first tickle session had been exciting and intense. Not a torture, just… intense. For Eurypette, well Jana had looked for signs that she had suffered, but didn’t see any. No doubt the hussy had been making an effort to hide it.
Jana could still hope that the hussy’s next tickle session would be a torture for her. She could wish for a gift of power to hex Eurypette, to make her next session a true torture. She took a moment to imagine the hussy in the stocks, begging and blubbering as the centaurs mercilessly attended to her feet. And running off screaming afterwards.
But that wasn’t going to happen unless… something happened.
The centauress Hecine the Patient had taken Jana in, at least temporarily. Hecine had told Jana that she needed to make a place for herself here in Hippochorio. Jana knew that. She knew that she couldn’t return to Chorio any time soon. Not after the ostracism. Still, Hecine had a point. Jana’s current position as a combination female stable-groom and lady’s maid provided food and a place to sleep, but wine and other little luxuries came from a dwindling purse of coins. She would have to do something. But she couldn’t yet. Not with that hussy still around.
Jana wiggled her feet again. She could hear the wild laughter of three amazons as they underwent the tickling of the centaurs. When Tomannie clan Ironowl had finished her session, Gedron Runeaxe – Hecine’s brother – would come to start Jana’s session.
Tomannie and Jana had shared wine during the past week. Eurypette seemed to be intimidated by the amazons in general and by Tomannie in particular. Which was a recommendation by itself in Jana’s eyes. But Tomannie also had stories, stories about the strange and wonderful things that could, sometimes, happen during a tickle session.
It could reverse transformations. It could lift compulsions and inhibitions imposed by supernatural powers. It could weaken the powers of a witch or sorceress.
And it could, sometimes, grant the gift of sorcery. Or at least awaken the gift in someone in which it was sleeping.
Jana didn’t think she had any sleeping gift. But she could wish. She wanted to be able to hex that hussy Eurypette. She wanted it badly, badly enough to step right into the tickle-stocks again for the chance of it happening.
For a moment, Jana smiled with smug confidence. It would happen. She would be gifted. And if it didn’t, the worst that could happen was that she’d be tickle-drunk. She certainly wouldn’t break down, begging and blubbering, and desperate for the tickles to end. She wouldn’t even feel tempted.
Jana even felt a craving for the tickling to come, and she told herself that that was a good omen.
Tomannie and one of the other two amazons had stopped laughing now. The third amazon continued to giggle as the third centaur continued to work on her feet. But Tomannie and her stock-mate were being released for the month. And now Gedron was stepping over to the single-place stocks holding Jana.
“Can we begin now?” Jana asked.
Gedron smiled without answering and tied Jana’s two big toes together with a leather thong. He checked the cords that tied Jana’s wrists behind her – behind the post at her back. He offered her a ladle of water.
Jana drank, and asked again, “Can we begin now?”
Gedron still didn’t answer. He splashed the rest of the water on Jana’s bound bare feet. Then, with a stiff brush, he began to scrub them.
Jana burst into laughter. It tickled! The touch of the brush-bristles tickled, and those bristles reached everywhere on Jana’s vulnerable soles. It tickled – and when it suddenly stopped, Jana had to hide a pang of disappointment. She wanted more, and she didn’t want to admit it.
Gedron clucked at Jana as he set the brush aside. “Always the same, with you flat-footers,” he said as he selected a new tickle implement. “That wasn’t a real tickling, only a preliminary.”
Jana stuck out her tongue at Gedron, in a deliberate attempt to provoke him. She told herself it was an Inspiration, an omen that this tickling to come would do something wonderful.
Gedron gave Jana a quelling look. “Now the real tickling begins,” he told her.
Jana felt the light touch of a vos-hawk feather on her feet. She began to giggle. She couldn’t help but giggle. The brush had tickled like a bucket of water dumped on her. The feather tickled like a smear of oil. The teasing tip produced a tickle that seemed to sink right through Jana’s soles. As it moved around, to tease the tops of her feet as well as her soles, the tickling sensations soaked in, so that her feet felt like they were bathed in tickle.
The feather wandered, touching and questing, wandering over Jana’s soles and between her toes in a pattern that seemed to chase down her most sensitive, ticklish spots. It lightly brushed the tops of her feet again before returning to the side-by-side arches, trapped by the stocks. Gedron expertly kept up the light touch, and where it touched, it tickled. Not a big tickle, but a steady, unending one that make Jana giggle and giggle and giggle.
Most centaurs believed that vos-hawks produced the best feathers for tickling. Most of the humans in the centaur Land agreed. The amazons had even nicknamed the vos-hawk as “The tickle-bird” for what it’s feathers could do. Jana would have agreed too, if she had been ask, and if she could stop giggling long enough to answer. That vos-hawk feather in Gedron’s hand didn’t just tickle, it kept tickling. It felt like it would keep tickling even if Gedron continued to apply it for hours.
Jana suddenly realized that the vos-hawk feather had repeated its tickle-pattern on her trapped feet. It had been a long pattern, and it would be a long time before the second cycle ended. And there was noting Jana could do about it but giggle and giggle and giggle. And then the tickle-cycle ended again – and she felt Gedron seamlessly begin a third round of that feathery tickle-cycle.
Jana began to squirm as she giggled. Squirming and giggling were all she could do, with her hands bound behind the pole at her back, and her ankles trapped in the stocks. Her big toes were not only tied together, but were secured to the upper stock-board, leaving her feet completely helpless before the unceasing tickle applied by the tip of the vos-hawk feather.
The third tickle-cycle ended at last. Jana could stop giggling; Gedron had set aside the vos-hawk feather. Now he held up a new tickle implement for Jana to see: A piece of stone, shaped and rounded, and polished smooth-slick.
“We didn’t have a name for this here,” Gedron said, “but in Minobex” – the northern province or ‘kingdom’ of the centaur Land – “they call it the Tongue of Amhunda. That’s a barbarian name of course, but with a little oil it works quite well.”
Jana squeaked as she felt the dab of oil applied to her arches. Then she howled as the stone tongue licked her soles. It tickled immensely, and her feet felt profoundly helpless – she felt profoundly helpless – as she waited for the next tickling lick.
The next lick came, and it tickled everywhere on Jana’s side-by-side soles, even on the parts where the stone tongue didn’t seem to touch. Again Jana howled at the overwhelming tickle-sensation that entered through her feet and ransacked her entire body. She couldn’t stand it, and she wanted another. But not yet, not yet. The craving grew, until not yet became now, and then Jana felt another overwhelming tickle-lick, smooth polished stone cool and slick on her helpless soles, and this time she squealed before bursting into laughter.
Another polished-stone tickle-lick came, and another, spaced well apart to make Jana crave each one before it arrived. And when each one arrived, Jana stiffened at the overwhelming tickle that ran through her.
Gedron didn’t apply very many of the stone tickle-licks, although Jana did lose count before they came to an end. She felt a pang of disappointment as she watched him set the Tongue of Amhunda aside.
Gedron told her, “You’re too new to properly appreciate the Stone Tongue; we’ll have to try it again later.” He picked up another tickle-device and set it down again. “Likewise the bullfeather. We’ll try this instead.”
Gedron reached out. Jana could half-see his hand as it took her two big toes. She could fully feel it as he delicately caressed them, however. His touch sent a teasing tickle into those big toes, and their being thonged together seemed to double the tickling sensation.
This wasn’t a tickle that provoked laughter. It didn’t even do much to provoke giggles. It was, however, a very squirmy tickle – and Jana squirmed at the teasing touch, unable to help herself. Jana saw Gedron smile as he kept her squirming and squirming with his tickle-massage of her two tied toes. Squirming in the stocks, with her ankles trapped and her wrists tied. Squirming with an occasional giggle, and with Gedron’s smile making Jana wonder what else he intended.
She found out. Gedron’s other hand reach out, and Jana felt his fingertips on her soles, hidden behind the stock-boards. This did make her giggle. Giggle and giggle, and then the fingertips paused. But his other hand was still tease-massaging her big toes. She could feel it, and it kept making her squirm.
Every so often Gedron’s finger-tickle would return to Jana’s soles. Running up and down. Moving back and forth. Dancing lightly, or moving in slow circles. And then they would withdraw for a time – but his hand on her two toes kept teasing without pause. Tickle-massaging to keep her squirming.
Both hands withdrew, and Jana found herself gasping. She took a deep breath, and another, and a third. Then she grinned foolishly at Gedron. She was thoroughly tickle-drunk now. She couldn’t have possibly stood this tickle session, if the stocks hadn’t held her in place for it. It had been almost too much tickling for her. Almost. But she still wanted more.
There was something else she wanted too. Oh, yes, to hex Eurypette. But that hussy wasn’t here to be hexed. Which mean that she was not here to be an annoyance.
Jana watched and waited to see what Gedron would do next. It was all she could do. The centaurs had built their stocks well, to hold humans in place for the tickle with no chance of getting loose. She was held in place until Gedron released her. Or until he gave her bare feet another round of tickling, first.
Instead of starting in on either of those, Gedron gave Jana another ladle of water. “Feeling better now?” he asked. “You still have a lesson you need to be taught.” He held up the stiff-bristled scrubbing brush. “Let me show you what this can really do. Tickle tickle tickle!”
He began to scrub her helpless soles.
Jana squealed and burst into helpless laughter. The scrubbing at the start of her session had tickled, but this scrubbing tickled more. This scrubbing was a tickle-hunt, tracking down every sensitive nerve between her heels and her toes Tracking them down and teasing them irresistibly. It was a much bigger tickle than the one at the start of the session. It was a longer tickle too; it didn’t stop after scrubbing down everywhere. Instead, Jana felt the stiff bristles tickling her bare soles all over again.
Then the tickle-scrub did stop. Jana saw and felt the cool water splashed on her feet again. Gedron grinned at her. “Tickle tickle tickle!” he said, and applied the scrubbing brush once more.
Once more Jana burst into laughter at the tickling of her vulnerable soles. Once more she felt the bristles run vigorously all over them. Once more she could neither resist nor escape; she could only sit there, trapped in the stocks, and let her feet be tickled. Tickled and tickled and briskly tickled.
It felt wonderful.
Then it seemed to Jana that her feet were growing. They still were secure in the stocks, side by side, but they felt as if they were each a yard long now. And the scrubbing brush kept tickling them. All over. Jana’s eyes were shedding tears of laughter now, so she couldn’t see if her feet were now as huge as they felt. But they did feel huge. They felt huge, and every finger-breadth of them was just as ticklish as before. Only there were so many more finger-breadths to be tickled. And Gedron was tickling them. All of them. Jana could feel his scrubbing brush everywhere. She could feel that stiff and enthusiastic ticking all over her big, trapped, and ticklish feet. And that tickling went on, and on, and on…
Jana lay on the grass beside the stocks. She vaguely remembered Gedron releasing her. She couldn’t remember just when the tickling had ended. She’d been completely tickle-drunk.
She still was tickle drunk. Her feet were their normal size again, but they tingled with the memory of that wonderful tickling. And it had been wonderful. It had left her tickle-drunk, after all.
It hadn’t given her any wonderful power, however. It had only exhausted her, taking away her strength. That strength was slowly returning, but for now she would just lie on the grass. Under the oak where the centaurs tickled those humans who came into their Land.
Female humans, under this oak. Jana felt pleased with the profundity of that thought. But then she felt pleased about everything, right now. Except maybe about having to see Eurypette again when she returned to Hippochoria.
Two more human women, one who was an amazon, and one who wasn’t, had arrived for their monthly tickle session, as required by the Prophesy. Jana overheard their gossip as the centaurs put them in a two-seat set of stocks.
“There’s only one of the two shrews here now. The other one left Hippochoria this morning. The younger one – Eurypette.”
“She wasn’t foolish enough to try to break the ostracism, was she?”
“No, she didn’t go back to Choria. She wasn’t that foolish. She joined a caravan that’s taking the ox-road to Naranos. I heard that she doesn’t intend to ever return here.”
(end)
Jana sat in the stocks, waiting for the tickling to begin.
Oddly enough, she was there despite her monthly pass-tokens having another three weeks to run. In fact, she had wheedled, insisted, and made a pest of herself to be there. Not that she thought of herself as a pest – the pest was that young hussy Eurypette.
(Never mind that Eurypette was all of six months younger than Jana.)
A week ago, Jana and Eurypette had been exiled to the centaur Land. Before then, the pair were notorious as the Two Shrews of Chorio. Which was completely unfair, in Jana’s opinion. Eurypette was a shrew, but she wasn’t. She just kept getting provoked.
Jana wiggled her bare feet, on the far side of the stock-boards. The centaurs hadn’t tied her toes yet. But that would come. This time the stocks held her feet side-by-side, while last week – during her first tickle session – they’d been held a handspan apart.
At least she wasn’t sharing the stocks with Eurypette this time. That first tickle session was formally and officially a torment. It had to be, by the terms of the Prophesy. But it didn’t have to be a torture, and it hadn’t been. Not really. Not exactly. Not for Jana. She hoped it had been one for Eurypette, the way it hadn’t been for her. Except for the annoyance of having to share the stocks with that hussy.
For Jana, that first tickle session had been exciting and intense. Not a torture, just… intense. For Eurypette, well Jana had looked for signs that she had suffered, but didn’t see any. No doubt the hussy had been making an effort to hide it.
Jana could still hope that the hussy’s next tickle session would be a torture for her. She could wish for a gift of power to hex Eurypette, to make her next session a true torture. She took a moment to imagine the hussy in the stocks, begging and blubbering as the centaurs mercilessly attended to her feet. And running off screaming afterwards.
But that wasn’t going to happen unless… something happened.
The centauress Hecine the Patient had taken Jana in, at least temporarily. Hecine had told Jana that she needed to make a place for herself here in Hippochorio. Jana knew that. She knew that she couldn’t return to Chorio any time soon. Not after the ostracism. Still, Hecine had a point. Jana’s current position as a combination female stable-groom and lady’s maid provided food and a place to sleep, but wine and other little luxuries came from a dwindling purse of coins. She would have to do something. But she couldn’t yet. Not with that hussy still around.
Jana wiggled her feet again. She could hear the wild laughter of three amazons as they underwent the tickling of the centaurs. When Tomannie clan Ironowl had finished her session, Gedron Runeaxe – Hecine’s brother – would come to start Jana’s session.
Tomannie and Jana had shared wine during the past week. Eurypette seemed to be intimidated by the amazons in general and by Tomannie in particular. Which was a recommendation by itself in Jana’s eyes. But Tomannie also had stories, stories about the strange and wonderful things that could, sometimes, happen during a tickle session.
It could reverse transformations. It could lift compulsions and inhibitions imposed by supernatural powers. It could weaken the powers of a witch or sorceress.
And it could, sometimes, grant the gift of sorcery. Or at least awaken the gift in someone in which it was sleeping.
Jana didn’t think she had any sleeping gift. But she could wish. She wanted to be able to hex that hussy Eurypette. She wanted it badly, badly enough to step right into the tickle-stocks again for the chance of it happening.
For a moment, Jana smiled with smug confidence. It would happen. She would be gifted. And if it didn’t, the worst that could happen was that she’d be tickle-drunk. She certainly wouldn’t break down, begging and blubbering, and desperate for the tickles to end. She wouldn’t even feel tempted.
Jana even felt a craving for the tickling to come, and she told herself that that was a good omen.
Tomannie and one of the other two amazons had stopped laughing now. The third amazon continued to giggle as the third centaur continued to work on her feet. But Tomannie and her stock-mate were being released for the month. And now Gedron was stepping over to the single-place stocks holding Jana.
“Can we begin now?” Jana asked.
Gedron smiled without answering and tied Jana’s two big toes together with a leather thong. He checked the cords that tied Jana’s wrists behind her – behind the post at her back. He offered her a ladle of water.
Jana drank, and asked again, “Can we begin now?”
Gedron still didn’t answer. He splashed the rest of the water on Jana’s bound bare feet. Then, with a stiff brush, he began to scrub them.
Jana burst into laughter. It tickled! The touch of the brush-bristles tickled, and those bristles reached everywhere on Jana’s vulnerable soles. It tickled – and when it suddenly stopped, Jana had to hide a pang of disappointment. She wanted more, and she didn’t want to admit it.
Gedron clucked at Jana as he set the brush aside. “Always the same, with you flat-footers,” he said as he selected a new tickle implement. “That wasn’t a real tickling, only a preliminary.”
Jana stuck out her tongue at Gedron, in a deliberate attempt to provoke him. She told herself it was an Inspiration, an omen that this tickling to come would do something wonderful.
Gedron gave Jana a quelling look. “Now the real tickling begins,” he told her.
Jana felt the light touch of a vos-hawk feather on her feet. She began to giggle. She couldn’t help but giggle. The brush had tickled like a bucket of water dumped on her. The feather tickled like a smear of oil. The teasing tip produced a tickle that seemed to sink right through Jana’s soles. As it moved around, to tease the tops of her feet as well as her soles, the tickling sensations soaked in, so that her feet felt like they were bathed in tickle.
The feather wandered, touching and questing, wandering over Jana’s soles and between her toes in a pattern that seemed to chase down her most sensitive, ticklish spots. It lightly brushed the tops of her feet again before returning to the side-by-side arches, trapped by the stocks. Gedron expertly kept up the light touch, and where it touched, it tickled. Not a big tickle, but a steady, unending one that make Jana giggle and giggle and giggle.
Most centaurs believed that vos-hawks produced the best feathers for tickling. Most of the humans in the centaur Land agreed. The amazons had even nicknamed the vos-hawk as “The tickle-bird” for what it’s feathers could do. Jana would have agreed too, if she had been ask, and if she could stop giggling long enough to answer. That vos-hawk feather in Gedron’s hand didn’t just tickle, it kept tickling. It felt like it would keep tickling even if Gedron continued to apply it for hours.
Jana suddenly realized that the vos-hawk feather had repeated its tickle-pattern on her trapped feet. It had been a long pattern, and it would be a long time before the second cycle ended. And there was noting Jana could do about it but giggle and giggle and giggle. And then the tickle-cycle ended again – and she felt Gedron seamlessly begin a third round of that feathery tickle-cycle.
Jana began to squirm as she giggled. Squirming and giggling were all she could do, with her hands bound behind the pole at her back, and her ankles trapped in the stocks. Her big toes were not only tied together, but were secured to the upper stock-board, leaving her feet completely helpless before the unceasing tickle applied by the tip of the vos-hawk feather.
The third tickle-cycle ended at last. Jana could stop giggling; Gedron had set aside the vos-hawk feather. Now he held up a new tickle implement for Jana to see: A piece of stone, shaped and rounded, and polished smooth-slick.
“We didn’t have a name for this here,” Gedron said, “but in Minobex” – the northern province or ‘kingdom’ of the centaur Land – “they call it the Tongue of Amhunda. That’s a barbarian name of course, but with a little oil it works quite well.”
Jana squeaked as she felt the dab of oil applied to her arches. Then she howled as the stone tongue licked her soles. It tickled immensely, and her feet felt profoundly helpless – she felt profoundly helpless – as she waited for the next tickling lick.
The next lick came, and it tickled everywhere on Jana’s side-by-side soles, even on the parts where the stone tongue didn’t seem to touch. Again Jana howled at the overwhelming tickle-sensation that entered through her feet and ransacked her entire body. She couldn’t stand it, and she wanted another. But not yet, not yet. The craving grew, until not yet became now, and then Jana felt another overwhelming tickle-lick, smooth polished stone cool and slick on her helpless soles, and this time she squealed before bursting into laughter.
Another polished-stone tickle-lick came, and another, spaced well apart to make Jana crave each one before it arrived. And when each one arrived, Jana stiffened at the overwhelming tickle that ran through her.
Gedron didn’t apply very many of the stone tickle-licks, although Jana did lose count before they came to an end. She felt a pang of disappointment as she watched him set the Tongue of Amhunda aside.
Gedron told her, “You’re too new to properly appreciate the Stone Tongue; we’ll have to try it again later.” He picked up another tickle-device and set it down again. “Likewise the bullfeather. We’ll try this instead.”
Gedron reached out. Jana could half-see his hand as it took her two big toes. She could fully feel it as he delicately caressed them, however. His touch sent a teasing tickle into those big toes, and their being thonged together seemed to double the tickling sensation.
This wasn’t a tickle that provoked laughter. It didn’t even do much to provoke giggles. It was, however, a very squirmy tickle – and Jana squirmed at the teasing touch, unable to help herself. Jana saw Gedron smile as he kept her squirming and squirming with his tickle-massage of her two tied toes. Squirming in the stocks, with her ankles trapped and her wrists tied. Squirming with an occasional giggle, and with Gedron’s smile making Jana wonder what else he intended.
She found out. Gedron’s other hand reach out, and Jana felt his fingertips on her soles, hidden behind the stock-boards. This did make her giggle. Giggle and giggle, and then the fingertips paused. But his other hand was still tease-massaging her big toes. She could feel it, and it kept making her squirm.
Every so often Gedron’s finger-tickle would return to Jana’s soles. Running up and down. Moving back and forth. Dancing lightly, or moving in slow circles. And then they would withdraw for a time – but his hand on her two toes kept teasing without pause. Tickle-massaging to keep her squirming.
Both hands withdrew, and Jana found herself gasping. She took a deep breath, and another, and a third. Then she grinned foolishly at Gedron. She was thoroughly tickle-drunk now. She couldn’t have possibly stood this tickle session, if the stocks hadn’t held her in place for it. It had been almost too much tickling for her. Almost. But she still wanted more.
There was something else she wanted too. Oh, yes, to hex Eurypette. But that hussy wasn’t here to be hexed. Which mean that she was not here to be an annoyance.
Jana watched and waited to see what Gedron would do next. It was all she could do. The centaurs had built their stocks well, to hold humans in place for the tickle with no chance of getting loose. She was held in place until Gedron released her. Or until he gave her bare feet another round of tickling, first.
Instead of starting in on either of those, Gedron gave Jana another ladle of water. “Feeling better now?” he asked. “You still have a lesson you need to be taught.” He held up the stiff-bristled scrubbing brush. “Let me show you what this can really do. Tickle tickle tickle!”
He began to scrub her helpless soles.
Jana squealed and burst into helpless laughter. The scrubbing at the start of her session had tickled, but this scrubbing tickled more. This scrubbing was a tickle-hunt, tracking down every sensitive nerve between her heels and her toes Tracking them down and teasing them irresistibly. It was a much bigger tickle than the one at the start of the session. It was a longer tickle too; it didn’t stop after scrubbing down everywhere. Instead, Jana felt the stiff bristles tickling her bare soles all over again.
Then the tickle-scrub did stop. Jana saw and felt the cool water splashed on her feet again. Gedron grinned at her. “Tickle tickle tickle!” he said, and applied the scrubbing brush once more.
Once more Jana burst into laughter at the tickling of her vulnerable soles. Once more she felt the bristles run vigorously all over them. Once more she could neither resist nor escape; she could only sit there, trapped in the stocks, and let her feet be tickled. Tickled and tickled and briskly tickled.
It felt wonderful.
Then it seemed to Jana that her feet were growing. They still were secure in the stocks, side by side, but they felt as if they were each a yard long now. And the scrubbing brush kept tickling them. All over. Jana’s eyes were shedding tears of laughter now, so she couldn’t see if her feet were now as huge as they felt. But they did feel huge. They felt huge, and every finger-breadth of them was just as ticklish as before. Only there were so many more finger-breadths to be tickled. And Gedron was tickling them. All of them. Jana could feel his scrubbing brush everywhere. She could feel that stiff and enthusiastic ticking all over her big, trapped, and ticklish feet. And that tickling went on, and on, and on…
------------------=O+O+O=------------------
Jana lay on the grass beside the stocks. She vaguely remembered Gedron releasing her. She couldn’t remember just when the tickling had ended. She’d been completely tickle-drunk.
She still was tickle drunk. Her feet were their normal size again, but they tingled with the memory of that wonderful tickling. And it had been wonderful. It had left her tickle-drunk, after all.
It hadn’t given her any wonderful power, however. It had only exhausted her, taking away her strength. That strength was slowly returning, but for now she would just lie on the grass. Under the oak where the centaurs tickled those humans who came into their Land.
Female humans, under this oak. Jana felt pleased with the profundity of that thought. But then she felt pleased about everything, right now. Except maybe about having to see Eurypette again when she returned to Hippochoria.
Two more human women, one who was an amazon, and one who wasn’t, had arrived for their monthly tickle session, as required by the Prophesy. Jana overheard their gossip as the centaurs put them in a two-seat set of stocks.
“There’s only one of the two shrews here now. The other one left Hippochoria this morning. The younger one – Eurypette.”
“She wasn’t foolish enough to try to break the ostracism, was she?”
“No, she didn’t go back to Choria. She wasn’t that foolish. She joined a caravan that’s taking the ox-road to Naranos. I heard that she doesn’t intend to ever return here.”
(end)
