"Vidi, Veni"

  - Ceasar meeting Cleopatra for the first time.

  "Are you sure you're all right?" Aurelia said to her Tauren friend as they walked back to the city proper. "I didn't even see any streams out there in the woods".

  "Ye-yes, I'm fine." mumbled Thessa, her head slightly downcast as she averted her gaze from her taller friend. After her "encounter" with Aurelia's rather potent biology, she had rushed out of sight before Aurelia could open her eyes. She had found a small brook filled with mostly clean water, and had quickly washed off the worst of the excess which had spttered all across the exposed parts of her body.

  The rest she had disposed... more tastefully.

  She ran her tongue along her teeth once more, searching for any glops of delicious glory she might have missed. She had returned to Aurelia as soon as she was presentable again, but she had had to lie about why she was sopping wet (in more ways than one). She hadn't felt good about it, but expining to her friend that she had accidentally spttered her with her seed would have mortified both her and Aurelia.

  She just hoped she could keep quiet long enough to get answers on her own before Aurelia could sniff her out.

  A quick deposit of squirming pntlife to a local apothecary ter, their coin-pouches were both heavier and their spirits higher.

  "So have you talked to Brann about it yet?" Thessa asked, her hands fidgeting with the hem of her light green sto.

  "About the whole adventuring more thing? Yeah, I have. He was a little miffed I wouldn't be working as much in the tavern, but he put up with the change without too much convincing." She paused, and Thessa could see her nose scrunch up as she thought hard. "I guess he must make a decent chunk of change from cuts of the jobs, or maybe he just thinks that I brought in enough new clientele with new beauty." She said with a smirk quirking the corner of her full lips.

  "Arrogant, much!" Thessa decred with an accusing gnce, and a nod of her head to herself.

  "You think I was talking about me?" Aurelia responded. her smirk growing into a wide grin as Thessa fell right into her trap. She reached over, and y her arm across Thessa's shoulders for a moment, lightly shaking the smaller woman to show her mirth. After she let her go, Thessa almost reached up to touch herself where Aurelia's arm had y. The affected area's seemed to tingle all on their own.

  Stupid! stupid! stupid! Thessa thought to herself. What was the point in getting all hot and bothered for another woman? Could someone even like another woman in that way? Her thoughts quickly turned to that moment in the woods, when she had been staring down the barrel of such a monstrous manhood. Did that count? Was Aurelia a woman or a man, or more?!

  She puzzled over these thoughts as Aurelia continued to babble about something or another for the rest of the journey back to the Sword and Scroll.

  It was rowdy in the main hall of the tavern. Booze and raucous ughter flowed in equal measure, and adventurers took turns recounting their day's activities, each becoming filled with a storytellers sense of drama.

  A drip of wine slowly meandered its way down from the lip of the cup whence it came. Thessa's tongue darted out to catch it before it made any further progress. Aurelia held a simir cup in her own hand, the pair were splitting a small amphora of wine between the two of them and she was giving the cy cup she held a quizzical look.

  "Brann! Why are the wine cups all shyte now?" She called over the cmor of the room towards where Brann sat reclined, arms crossed with his feet kicked up on the edge of the bar.

  "Yea, I can practically taste Tellus's blessings with every gulp!" came a slightly slurred voice from the crowd, corroborating Aurelia's compint.

  SpoilerTellus is the Roman god of dirt, or earth

  [colpse]Brann lifted his chin off his chest where he had been dozing off. "You lot broke all the nice pottery ones, so now we've got pin brown cy." He lifted an arm and wiped the sleep from his eyes. "This is why we can't have nice things."

  "I guess the st game of stack-cup was one too many for Brann." confided Aurelia to Thessa. Leaning in conspiratorially to utter the words.

  The rest of the evening passed in pleasant company, with Aurelia and Thessa stealing gnces at each other when they thought the other wasn't looking.

  Aurelia y in her bed the following morning. She groaned and stretched her limbs, feeling like a cat. Her feet dangled well off the edge of the bed. If she ever scrapped enough coin together to be able to call somewhere her own, she would have a bed made which could actually fit her.

  When she scrapped enough coin, she resolved. Not if, but when.

  Her thoughts turned to a certain Tauren. How her ears flicked cutely when the was thinking, how she would sometimes py with the ends of her brunette locks. How her cute little horns could poke out of her sto's hood if she wasn't paying attention. Plus the curves which might have been comparable to her own, if she was a couple feet taller.

  Aurelia had always taken care of her "needs" herself when she felt the urge, which was quite often all things considered. But as of te she was growing frustrated with her own hands and fingers. Being cooped up in the tavern much of the time meant that she no longer had as much solitude to take care of herself. She had been trying to make time when she was able. If she didn't she could feel a haze descend like a fog in her head, and she didn't want to think about what would happen if her dual nature became common knowledge while she was still small and insignificant in the grand scheme of things.

  She sighed, and finally got up from the retive comfort of her bnkets. She donned her pink sto this time, and then a light leather belt which she had picked up earlier in the week. She had arranged small pouches which now hung from it, holding her coin and some dried fruit and seeds. She had imagined herself having a dagger to dispy her status as a free-woman, but she hadn't yet found the time or the money to grab one, so part of her belt stayed empty.

  An added bonus was that it cinched her sto around her comparatively slight waist. It never hurt to look nice.

  Today was important to her, and she had to get it right. She would be acquiring supplies for a longer journey out of the city and into the wilderness. Some of the adventurers st night had spoken of a job further into the hinternds, where they would be hunting rare game. They had offered to take Aurelia (and Thessa by proxy) on her first big multi-day adventure. It was a sort of rite of passage, where newbies just starting out would have to opportunity to put some hair on their chest.

  She didn't really want a hairy chest as a woman, but she understood the sentiment.

  Ducking under the doorframe as she stepped out into the hallway, Aurelia knocked on Thessa's door. She had been pleased that her new friend had gotten a room so close to hers. The wooden door opened, revealing Thessa wearing a determined looking expression and a rge sack slung over her back.

  "You know we don't leave until tomorrow morning, right?" Aurelia said with a raised eyebrow.

  "Oh..." Crimson began to spread across Thessa's cheeks. She quickly shut the door, reemerging sans her sack shortly afterward.

  "Ready to go shopping?" Aurelia asked. Thessa nodded, and the pair began to descend the steps to the ground floor.

  Most of the supplies were pretty straightforward. Some waterskins, a few preservatives and herbs, leather strips for repairs, dried strips of meat. Aurelia anticipated that they would forage and hunt when able, but having a reserve seemed prudent. The big ticket item however, had given both of them pause.

  "It'd save money if we both use the same tent" Aurelia began. They had quickly passed by the normal, single person tents which some travelers might prefer. And Thessa had been staring at a rge tent on offer, intended for four people.

  "It might be a little tight with both of us, I'm pretty big, and neither of us are human." She continued, gesturing with her hands at their forms respectively. Thessa might have been smaller than Aurelia, but the Tauren was well above average size when compared to a normal Roman woman. Both in height, and curves.

  "Plus... I hear that the peoples of the north sometimes sleep together to conserve body heat. You never know when the weather will turn..."

  "Ye-Yeah" Thessa replied, eyes almost gzed over as she stood transfixed, staring at the tent. "That makes sense, I wouldn't want your wings to get cold."

  Aurelia had to pretend to look at something else so that she could turn her face away. The giddy little smile which had crept across her face would have given her sheer excitement away.

  "So, how many are joining us again?" Thessa asked Aurelia as they made their way down the stairs leading to the main floor of the S & S. Aurelia could see that the smaller woman was a bit apprehensive about being party to a longer job again so soon after her st excursion ended in disaster. She could see it in the tensing of her shoulders at times when she didn't think Aurelia was watching. Whenever prompted, she always responded with enthusiasm at the prospect of getting out of the city for a bit, but she could tell she was still allowing the past to colour her present.

  Aurelia could sympathize, but this time would be different. She had picked a good crew to go with.

  "You'll meet them in just a sec! They're regurs here, and have fostered younger adventurers a few times before from what I've gathered. And only one has died! But that was mostly his fault anyway."

  "Mostly?"

  "Don't even worry about it! Besides, there'll be a couple other newbies like us. So we won't be the only ones."

  She proceeded to lead Thessa through the tables which filled the majority of the floor-space. A few people called out in recognition of their most feathery bar-wench, and Aurelia greeted them back as they walked to a more secluded booth near the back of the room.

  Arranged in a semi-circle around the wide table was a motley-crew of half a dozen different faces. Most were human, but there was a dwarf too. It seemed that the other newbies had arrived before them, as it was easy to see which were the more experienced of the bunch. There was an aura of confidence surrounding the experienced adventurers, which marked them more clearly than even their more extensive gear and equipment. The newbies on the other hand were more tentative, it showed in the stitching of their packs, which wasn't as neat. It showed in the pristineness of their boots, which had never tread far from Rome's walls. And it showed in how they stood, slightly apart from the group as a whole.

  Aurelia and Thessa joined them, and the semi-circle closed around the table. Laying spread out across its surface was a rge map, a copy of the job contract, as well as some paraphernalia of the group.

  A grizzled looking man leaned in, the sun highlighting how his short brown locks had begun turning to grey. The man cleared his throat, with a gnce at the newcomers, and began to speak.

  "Right, now that we're all here. Let's begin. We leave tomorrow at dawn, and we've got a lot of shit to get through."

  They all introduced themselves, starting with the leader, Gregorios. He was looked to be the oldest of the bunch, and one his hands never strayed far from the pommel of the gdius he wore at his side. To his right was Tullius, a broad-shouldered man with eyes that never stopped moving, and a quiver slung over his shoulder. Then it was Comak, he had a square jaw, bck shaggy hair, and a short mace by his side. Aurelia hadn't seen as much of him as she had the others, but he seemed dependable enough. To his right was Gaius, a fair-haired man with a warm smile, and a wooden rod engraved with the image of a snake coiling around it's haft. Then it was the only other woman of the group. Junia wore robes of a deeper shade than the others, and kept her long brunette hair bound in a tight braid which rested against the small of her back. She had a short dagger which looked to be made of actual iron in a scabbard hanging from her belt, though the ck of any substantial equipment present led Aurelia to believe that she probably had a horse with more elsewhere.

  Then it was the other non-human in the group. Monin the dwarf stood on a small stool so he could be eye-level with the others (minus Aurelia), and his thick red beard was braided into intricate whorls which Aurelia was sure meant something to the dwarf. He was covered in the most armor of the lot of them, thick ptes around vital areas, and he carried a hefty looking hammer on his waist.

  Then of course there was Aurelia and Thessa, the seven foot woman with wings drew stares from those who hadn't frequented the tavern tely, but they introduced themselves all the same.

  The journey would be four days to get there, four days back, and five to get the job done.

  Surely it couldn't be that bad?

  SarcasticMisfit