Chapter 4 Part 5

Avery felt terribly defeated. For two and a half days since the others had left, Nikki and Calista had shamed him into doing all the chores as well as the laundry, cooking, and heating water for their baths. Every time he had protested, they made a big fuss about someone needing to care for Sam, and Nikki insisted that since he was not medically in need, she could see no reason why Calista should not be that someone.

Nikki herself, who had usually shared the chores with Avery, now seemed to find a million things that she needed to do. She of course blamed it all on the upcoming year long summer that was due to start soon. And to make matters worse, she had gotten very moody that morning. When he had offered to check her out, she had adamantly refused and in no uncertain terms told him that if he so much as touched her, that she would hack his hand off with a wooden knife.

Avery finished hanging Calista's freshly washed clothes on the makeshift line he had strung between the shack and the cabin when a breeze from the west brought the promise of rain to his woodland senses. "Wonderful," he muttered as he began to take the clothes back down. Wouldn't you just know it. As soon as the laundry was ready to be hung out, a shower starts blowing in. Now he would have to build a fire in the shack and dry the clothes by fire.

By the time he had the fire going and the clothes hung around the contained blaze, he was very tired and the rain was pouring down in sheets. He opened the shack's door and watched the cloudburst. The peaceful display cleaned the air of ambient scents and cooled the surrounding woodlands. The gentle patter of rain soothed his mind and body and seemed to drain the weariness from him altogether.

After about a quarter of an hour, he drew his cloak close about him and pulled the hood up over his head. Then he walked briskly to the cabin.

There he found Calista sitting by the fire stirring a bowl of stew. Well at least that night he would not have to cook. He was about to remove his cloak when Nikki came out of the old room with her own weather cloak on.

"Come with me, my love," she said. "We need to check on some things around about."

Avery sighed and opened the door for her. He glanced back at Calista as Nikki passed him by. Calista giggled and smiled back. What were they up to, he wondered.

"In case you haven't noticed," Avery said as he closed the door, "it's raining."

Nikki looked up and the raindrops splattered on her face. She held out a hand to catch a few drops and examined them most closely. Then she made an expression of sheer wonder. "Why, I think you are right," she declared triumphantly. "What an amazing thing."

She took his hand and lead him out into the forest. "There are some house calls I need to make, and you need to check for signs of intruders," she told him. Avery was certain there were no intruders, but it was best if they were overcautious than overly lax, so he followed along.

Their first stop was at an old pine. A bolt of lightning had injured the ancient plant and it was dying. Nikki placed her hands on it for a moment and then made a few gestures.

"So," he asked, "did you heal it?"

"No," she replied. "I comforted its fear of death by reminding it that death was a natural part of life. I assured it that its body would be put to good use by the living and then I gave it a quick and painless death."

Avery nodded. "Could you have saved it?"

Nikki looked at him long and hard. "That is not the point," she said. "You of all people should know that nature must take its course. To defy it is folly."

"But you could have saved it," he accused.

"Beloved, you know I could." She put up a hand to cut off his next statement. "I know, I know, you think that the preservation of life should be done whenever possible. But that is your belief, and you are a healer. I am a druid, and I believe that Nature is the great balancer. No balance of forces was upset by my comforting the dying tree, so I did. But had it been necessary for that tree to suffer, say for the sake of a malevolent parasite, then I would have allowed it."

"But..."

Nikki took his hand and smiled. They had been over that argument a thousand times. She squeezed his hand. "I do not want you to ever change," she said.

They visited several more places that afternoon as the rain slackened from a heavy downpour to a steady light drizzle. Nikki pulled some limbs together above a nest of eggs to keep the rain off on one occasion, and she showed a lost bear cub its way home on another. Avery followed and observed her with the starstruck sight of a man in love. Every move she made was arousing, even the little ones that she was unconscious of. They walked in the rain for hours until the sky grew dark as sunset approached beyond the mountains and above the clouds.

On the way back, they discovered a bee hive that had shaken loose from a tree during the storm. Nikki paused only long enough to urge the bees to build another nest a little closer to the trunk where the limbs did not move so much when swaying in the breeze. She also decided that to leave the comb on the ground would be a waste of good honey, so she picked it up and the two of them licked the sweet nectar from the comb.

When they approached the compound, Nikki asked Avery to check the laundry, and followed him to the shack. Once inside, she jumped into his arms and planted her honey coated lips against his. Her rain drenched body shivered from the cold and she pulled away long enough to ask him to get her a blanket.

Avery pulled a freshly washed and dried blanket from the drying rack and turned to offer it back to Nikki. When he turned around, she was totally nude. Her red hair was plastered to her back and thighs. Nikki had usually braided her hair into one long tail which she often wound up into a crown. Now she let it hang free and it captured the fire light and glowed like a horizon at sunset. Her body was pale, but in a beautiful sense. It was like fine porcelain. Her diamond like eyes glittered with nymph like hunger and Avery's hands trembled as he handed her the blanket.

"Aren't you going to get out of your clothes too? You don't want to catch cold." Her urgings needed no help. Avery was undressed within moments and the two shared the blanket as they battled the chill the rain had instilled in.

It was well after nightfall when Nikki and Avery returned to the cabin. Calista was well aware of what had recently transpired in the shack. Nikki had confided in her of her plans earlier. Now as they came back, Calista flashed Nikki a smile before offering the two of them some hot stew.

"Avery is positive that no one has been anywhere near here in the last two days, " Nikki informed her. "So we can sleep easy tonight."

"I’ll rest better knowing we are safe," Calista replied.

Avery watched this fiasco continue for several long moments before it dawned on him that he had been maneuvered again. He sat in his rocker and propped his feet up to the fire to warm them. Silently he wished Armegon and Ultrecht would return, not because he missed them, but because he wanted them to rescue him from the feminist conspiracy entrapping him.