Sacrifice

“Run, girl!” the cold man commanded.

Moly stood frozen with fear. She had been Moly daughter of Lars the Potter. Then, a week after she had celebrated her Score, her father had died of the black bile. The creditors, laughing, had descended on the household, selling her mother’s grave marker, selling her older sister to a dealer from the City, and selling Moly herself to one of the two soldiers who stood behind the cold man. The soldiers had arrows nocked. Arrows with gilt arrowheads and strange signs painted on them.

“We should have taken her, first,” one of the soldiers muttered. The cold man glared at him, then turned his glare to where Moly still stood.

Moly ran.

As she ran, Moly prayed. Please please please. Let me find a place where they can’t see me. Please please please. But the land here was flat, the turf short and sheep-nibbled.

Moly tripped and fell. An arrow whizzed through where she had stood an instant ago. But Moly couldn’t see it. Everything had gone black. A beat later, a second arrow whizzed past. Close, but missing.

Moly could hear the soldiers cursing. She could smell the grass. But she couldn’t see. “Enough,” the cold man said. “Either it worked, or it didn’t. But the he-horses are coming. We leave. Now.”

Moly heard the three men leaving. Then she heard the sound of hooves. But she still couldn’t see.

“Um, hello? Hello!” Moly said as the hooves came closer.

“Ho! Who is there?” a male voice called.

“I’m Moly. Please don’t hurt me. I’m harmless. I can’t see. Are you a centaur?”

“Well I can’t see you, either, so I guess that’s fair,” the voice answered cheerfully. “Yes, we’re centaurs. I’m Timon Greybeard. Now tell me what you look like when you can be seen.”

“Well, I’m a human woman. I just reached my Score two weeks ago. I’m sixty-two of the new merchant’s inches tall, twenty-two around the waist, and my feet are nine long. My chest is... not as good as my older sister’s.” Moly swallowed at the memory of her sister being led away in chains, and went on. “My hair is almost black, and it comes down almost to the small of my back when I let it down. My face is too square to be really beautiful, but I don’t think it’s ugly. My eyes are brown, dark brown, and my skin is, well, skin-colored. It’s not pale like an Amazon’s, or dark like in the South or the East. It’s just skin.”

“Well, you sound like you’re a flat-footer,” Timon said. “How did you come here?”

“The cold man brought me,” Moly answered. She went on to explain about the soldiers, and the cold man, and the arrows.

“Those two arrows are in the style of the Unpleasant One,” another centaur commented.

“So they are,” Timon said. “Take them, but use cloth. Don’t touch them directly. And you, Moly, keep talking so I can find you. You’re in the centaur Land, now, and I have to carry you off.”

Moly knew about the Prophesy, of course. The town she grew up in wasn’t near the border, exactly, but neither was it so far away as to make centaurs completely unknown. And even in towns further away, giggling girls found the story of centaur tickling too juicy not to tell to each other. “Alja Kentaros mor kental velator velex bartaros mel Uru, nor Kentaros yonvel morkap i patalos“ the Prophesy said. “If the Kentaros should ever fail to visit merciless torment on foreigners who enter the Land, then will the Kentaros suffer betrayal and ruination.” In response, the centaurs applied a tickle-torment to strangers, and so they had gained the reputation for being the most expert ticklers in all the world.

Now Moly was about to experience that expertise first hand – or first-foot. Timon had literally handed her over to a centaur named Kratos Shortmane, and he had placed her in the stocks. From the way they handled her, the centaurs still couldn’t see her. And she still couldn’t see anything at all. Everything was dark.

Moly could feel the masculine hands and arms of the centaurs however. She could feel the smooth-polished wood of the bench and the post behind her. She could feel the stocks themselves as they closed about her ankles, and could hear the latch as it closed, locking her in place. She could feel the leather straps that bound her arms and upper body in place. She could hear the splash, and taste the coolness of the water that Kratos gave her to drink. And she could feel the remains of the water as Kratos splashed it on her feet.

“Good,” Kratos said. “I still can’t see you, but at least I can see the water on your feet.”

“What– “ Moly began to ask, but then she felt a stiff brush scrub her feet. More than just felt: It tickled! Moly howled, squirming with laughter at the brush-brush-brush scrubbing her bare soles.

“Silly female!” Kratos chided. “You flatfooters always start laughing before the real tickling gets started.”

Moly didn’t dare answer, not even once the scrubbing tickle stopped, allowing her to speak again. She felt Kratos slip looped leather thongs around her toes, leashing them in place, holding her feet even more exposed and helpless for the tickling to come. Then the tickling came.

Moly felt the centaur apply his fingers to her soles. Long slow strokes wandering over both feet, from her heels to her toes and back down again. Then they returned to linger over her insteps, fingertips confidently sending tickle-sensations into her, making her squirm and squeal. On and on those fingers continued to tickle, occasionally venturing out to tease the balls of her feet, or her heels, or her toes, but always returning to the sensitive zone in the middle.

The tickling continued. Moly tried to hold in her laughter, sensing that her ticklishness would increase if she lost control. The tickling continued, Kratos applying a touch that was both firm and gentle, falling like rain on her soles. Each of the lazy fingerings fell in a slightly different place. Each one seemed to Moly to discover a new and newly ticklish spot on her soles. Tickle tickle tickle, and then the laughter fountained out as Moly could no longer contain it.

And Moly was right: Giving in to the giggles did increase her ticklishness. Moly laughed and laughed, unable to help herself as the soft and meandering tickle-strokes continued without letup. “This is different,” she heard Kratos say, “tickling feet that I can’t see. I’ve had to adjust my technique. Is it working?”

The only answer Moly could give was a bundle of giggles. She could feel Kratos’ fingers focusing on her tender insteps, with the occasional tickle-tease being applied to the other parts of her feet. Those other parts were ticklish as well, especially the base of her toes, but her insteps were the place that received the greatest attention from those swift, squirm-inducing fingertips.

The tickling stopped. Moly still couldn’t see, but she could smell the grass and the leather that bound her. She could hear her own breathing as she tried to recover, and she could hear Kratos rummaging among his tickle implements. “Maybe this one. Or maybe this one,” she heard him say. She could feel the straps binding her arms and her upper body, the thongs holding her toes, and the solid grip of the stocks on her ankles that made her feet completely vulnerable.

Then she could only feel the swift and solid tickle as knobby wood rolled up and down her soles. “Aaaee!” she cried, and then she giggled. For even when the roller had passed, the tickle-sensations lingered, sinking in to her feet. “Aaaee!” she cried again, as the roller made another pass, followed by another giggling echo.

“That’s not working,” Kratos muttered. Moly wondered at that, for it certainly seemed to be working to her. Then the felt the blunt teeth of a wooden comb run swiftly up and down her soles.

“Eeee!” Moly squealed. And giggled at a tickle-echo stronger than the one from the roller.

“That does it,” Moly heard Kratos say, and then she felt another combing of her soles, followed by another tingling tickle-echo that made her giggle once more.

Another tickle comb-stroke, followed by another giggle-echo. And another. And another. The tickle sensations lingered, so time when by between each stroke. Moly lost track of the number of combings. Kratos commented, “This is working well.” Then he applied another combing.

“Eeee!” Moly squealed once more, and once more giggled as the tickle-ripples bounced back and forth over her soles. They faded, and another stroke came. On and on the tickling went. Moly found herself both dreading and craving the next touch of the comb. On and on, with each stroke seeming to press solid tickle into Moly’s feet, making her squeal and laugh until she was gasping for breath.

The tickle-combing halted. Moly heard Kratos step away, and then return. “Not quite finished yet,” he told her. “Catch your breath while you can.”

Moly nodded, forgetting that Kratos couldn’t see her. She took deep breaths, wondering what the next tickle-assault would be.

“You haven’t begged,” Kratos commented. “That’s good.”

“Begging,” Moly gasped. “Begging just makes it worse. Everyone knows that.”

“Many flat-footers don’t,” Kratos said. “Or else they beg anyway.” He paused. “A moment longer. You can’t be tickled properly if you’re gasping too hard. Hmmm. Now.”

Laughter flowed out of Moly once more at the new assault. She felt a broad brush painting tickles over her soles. Fast fast soft brush strokes that covered all of her soles. That made her squirm in a desperate effort to escape. But she couldn’t escape, and her efforts only seemed to make her more sensitive to the tickle torment that Kratos applied. They were maddening, the strokes that teased her heels and insteps and toes. A honey-sweet tickling that she could not avoid. A remorseless, merciless tickling that she could not resist. An outpouring of tickle sensation that seemed to flow into her feet and through her whole body. A tickling that made Moly aware of each of her ten toes, and of the spaces between her toes. That made her aware of the balls of her feet, and the exact place where the balls ended and the insteps began. That made her aware of every sensitive nerve in her insteps, and her heels, and throughout her helpless soles. That seemed to be going on forever, until, finally, it stopped.

The next morning, Moly stood in the ceremonial circle and listened to the incantation. She still couldn’t see, but at least others could see her clothes. Moly herself was still invisible. The sorceress Nandi had given her ordinary clothes in exchange for her invisible ones, and had agreed to cast this divination for her.

By the sound of her voice, and the descriptions of the centaurs, Nandi was only a few years older than Moly herself. She was a human like Moly, rather than a centaur, a dark-skinned sorceress from the far south. She had jokingly described herself as a “black” sorceress, making Kratos groan.

The incantation ended. If the spell worked, it should tell them how Moly’s blessing-curse of invisibility could be lifted. “The mouth is forming,” Nandi whispered. “Good. Now listen!”

An inhumanly deep voice spoke. “From the deity rumble the blessing-curse came, and only rumble may lift it. At the shrine of rumble an hour’s walk away have Moly make sacrifice, and only then will the blessing-curse be fully lifted. I say no more.”

Nandi spoke three Words. “Huh,” she then said. “Kratos, did you understand which deity the mouth said?”

“Sorry,” Kratos said. Moly heard him step forward from where he had been watching the ritual.

Moly fingered the pass-tokens in her pocket, two ceramic coins marked with yesterday’s date. “I didn’t understand either. But what shrines are within an hour’s walk from here?”

“There’s a shrine to Apollo, and one to Athena,” Kratos answered.

“If I had to guess,” Nandi said, “my first guess would be that the mouth said ‘Apollo.’ But that is just a guess.”

“I’ll try there first, then,” Moly said. “Can you tell me– No, can you lead me there? I hate being blind.”

“I’ll take you there,” Kratos said.

The shrine of Apollo consisted of two carved pillars to act as a symbolic doorway and a sacred rock to act as an altar. There was no priest. Moly stood before the altar, a smaller stone in her hand.

“What will you sacrifice?” Kratos asked.

“My pass-tokens,” Moly answered. “They’re the only things I have.” She set the ceramic disks down on the altar, lifted the small stone, and smashed. “Ah!” she cried.

“So that’s what you look like,” Kratos said.

“Ah!” Moly turned around. “I still can’t see. But everything’s bright now, instead of dark. It hurts.”

“Uh oh,” Kratos said. “You’d better put on a blindfold. You are visible now, except for your eyes. I can see inside your head. Here.” Moly heard his hooves as he stepped forward. Crawling, she felt his legs, and then his arms were lifting her to her feet. “Here,” he repeated, tying a cloth around her head. “I’ll have to carry you back to the stocks, and you’ll have to wear this until you can make a new sacrifice.”

“‘Fully lifted,’” Moly said. “That’s what the Mouth said. I’ll have to make a sacrifice to Athena, next.”

“First I have to carry you back to the stocks,” Kratos repeated. “You don’t have your pass tokens, any more.”

At the stocks, Moly heard Nandi’s voice. “I told you so, Rodas.” Then to Moly, “did it work? No, I see it didn’t.”

“I can’t see that it didn’t,” Moly said bitterly.

“I’m sorry,” Nandi said, “I did say it was only a guess. But it’s an interesting question of philosophy. An invisible person shouldn’t be able to see, even though they normally can. So your invisibility was philosophically correct.”

“So why can’t she see now?” a male voice asked.

“Her eyes are still invisible,” Kratos explained.

“This is Rodas,” Nandi put in. “He’s a centaur like Kratos and Timon. He brought me here to renew my pass-tokens for the month. I figured we could be in the stocks together.”

“We have other restraints for little flatfooter sorceresses who presume too much,” Rodas said darkly. “However, we will use the twin stocks out of respect for – Moly is her name? – for Moly here.”

Shortly afterwards, Moly found herself secured in the stocks once more, this time in a two-human set, sitting beside Nandi. Both women howled with laughter at the preliminary foot-scrubbing, and were chided for it by the two centaurs. Then Rodas said, “Nandi, since Moly here is blindfolded, I want you to name our implements for her as we bring them into use.”

“All right, I can do that. Moly, Kratos is bringing up a vos-hawk feather, while Rodas is starting with his fing-heeheehee! Fingers! Heeheehahaheeheehee!”

Moly began giggling as well, as she felt the feather’s tip touch the especially ticklish spot where the ball of her right foot met the instep. The feather wiggled, pushing in penetrating tickle-sensation. Moly could not dodge, her feet were held in place, her ankles gripped by the stocks, her toes tied, her soles presented to Kratos, perfectly helpless and vulnerable. Nandi’s laughter beside her made Moly’s feet seem all the more sensitive as the feather wiggled and tickled that one small spot.

Moly felt the feather move to the corresponding tickle spot on her left foot. Her giggling renewed as the tip stroked and wiggled over the fresh patch of sole. Moly squirmed, and the straps held her in place just as they had the day before, forcing her to feel the centaur’s tickling. Beside her, Moly could hear Nandi’s giggles as the sorceress suffered her own tickle torment. Except that Nandi sounded like she was enjoying it. But whether she was or not, the sound of her laughter made Moly feel all the more aware of the tickle-sensations being applied to her own soles.

Now the feather tip wandered up and down, teasing all of Moly’s left sole a little bit at a time. She felt a second feather join the tickle-tease, wandering over her right sole. With her feet held and her toes tied, Moly could not avoid the gentle touch of the two feather-tips. She could only laugh and squirm at the soft tickle-sensation being inflicted on her.

The tickling paused. Moly caught her breath, and heard Nandi doing likewise. Then the sorceress said, “Now Kratos is bringing out the roller, and Rodas – Rodas is going to use the soft brush! Heeheeheeheehee!” Nandi burst into giggles.

Moly did likewise, for now she felt the knobby roller tickle-nibbling her feet. Like yesterday, except this time the tickle was much more effective. Kratos can see what he’s doing, Moly thought, before all thought dissolved into laughter, with Moly unable to think of anything except the sensations being inflicted on her soles. Up and down the roller ran, first over one foot, and then over the other. Then back and forth, and back and forth, broad-wise, applying a tickling that made Moly scream with laughter. Her overloaded nerves almost stopped feeling the tickle. Almost. But Kratos slowed the pace, and began to vary the tempo, and so the little wooden knobs began to apply a tickle once again.

Once more the tickling paused. “It’s not for mercy,” Rodas explained. “If we showed mercy, the session would be wasted. It’s to keep you from losing your sensitivity, so the tickle torment can last longer.”

“Except that Nandi, here, enjoys this torment,” Kratos added. “It’s a gift of the gods to her.” Moly then heard him step away.

“Kratos is going to check the sundial,” Nandi explained. “The session is set to a certain period of time, without exception. He’s returning now. He’s signaling that he’s going to use his fingers on you. And Rodas is going to use a bullfeather. It’s a device made of leather, and it tickles. Heeheehahaheeheehee! It tickles! Heeheehee!” Nandi dissolved into helpless laughter, while Moly herself whimper-giggled at the light tapping Kratos applied to her feet.

“You’ll have to see a bullfeather to really understand it,” Kratos said. “See it, or feel it. It’s exceptionally effective in the hands of an expert, but one has to have the knack for it. Rodas is an expert; I’m still learning.”

The expertise of Rodas was confirmed by the explosion of laughter he provoked from Nandi. Then Moly exploded as well, as Kratos applied a sudden skritch-skritch-skritch with his fingers. Moly felt it on both soles at once, a pure tickle that seemed to sink into her soles and run right up her legs. This was not the lazy finger-tickling that Kratos had applied yesterday. This was an enthusiastic tickle-assault that seemed to seek out all the most sensitive places for special attention.

And the tickling went on and on. Skritch-skritch-skritch-skritch-skritch, Moly felt the fingers working their way up and down her soles. Skritch-skritch-skritch-skritch-skritch, Moly was aware of nothing but the tickling fingers gently assaulting her soles, except for Kratos occasionally commenting, as if from a great distance, “There’s still quite a bit of time to go, yet.”

Yet another pass of those expert fingers, working their way up from her heels to her toes, and then back down again, and another pass, and another. Then it seemed to Moly that her feet grew, until they were as big as the rest of her, and still they received that skillful finger-ticking. Up and down, again and again, and the centaur’s fingers seemed to tickle every bit of sensitive skin, despite the huge size of her soles.

Moly knew that her feet couldn’t really be that big. But she couldn’t see them. She could only feel them, and they felt that big. And still they got tickled, up and down, up and down. Skritch-skritch-skritch-skritch-skritch, with the tickle-sensations pouring into her feet, and the laughter pouring out of her. Forever, and forever, and forever.

But at last the tickling ended. Moly’s feet now felt normal-sized, if red-hot and sensitive, as she received her new pass-tokens. She let Nandi guide her away, although the sorceress was as washed-out by the tickle-torment as Moly herself. “What will you do now?” Nandi asked her.

“I don’t know,” Moly answered. “Try another sacrifice, I guess. What else can I do?”

Moly waited two days before making her sacrifice. She hated being blind and helpless, but she also knew that she’d be in for yet another tickle-session after sacrificing her pass-tokens. She wasn’t ready for that, not at once. She didn’t notice that her thought wasn’t never again until Nandi pointed it out to her, the day afterwards.

“Where else can I go?” Moly asked. “You’ve been kind, and I bless you for it. And the centaurs have been kind, and I need to stay here at least until my blessing-curse gets lifted.”

The next morning, Moly went to the shrine of Athena. Like the shrine to Apollo, it was a simple affair, little more than a symbolic doorway and an altar-stone. Carefully, Moly set her new pass-tokens on the altar, and shattered them.

The curse remained. Moly was still blind. But she heard the voice of the goddess, whispering into her ear: Sit by the crossroads six stadia hence as a beggar-girl. There you will receive no charity, but good fortune nonetheless.

The sacrifice had failed. Weeping with frustration, Moly stumbled out of the shrine, and into the arms of Kratos, to be taken back to the centaurs’ place of tickle-torment.

This time Moly found herself lying on her back. Her feet were in stocks, her toes secured much as before, but her wrists were secured above her head. Her clothing had been taken as well, leaving only a strip around her waist, and a second one around her breasts. This time, the centaurs planned to tickle Moly’s whole body, not just her feet. “It’s the new forfeit for losing your pass-tokens,” Rodas explained. “Losing them once is one thing, but losing them twice...” Moly heard him cluck his disapproval.

“What happens if I lose them a third time?” Moly asked.

“Then you’re hopeless, and we just give you another foot-tickling. But we may ask why you keep losing your tokens.”

“But you already know– aieee! heehahahaha!” Moly squealed with laughter as Kratos applied the initial scrubbing to her helpless feet.

“Silly flatfooter,” Rodas made the usual comment. “Wait until the real tickling begins.”

Then the real tickling began.

Kratos applied a broad, soft-bristled brush to Moly’s upper body, while Rodas applied a bullfeather to her feet. Moly couldn’t see any of this, of course, but she could feel it. Oh yes, she could feel it. The brush tickled softly across her belly and along her sides. Then up and down her arms and legs before returning to tease her belly again. At the same time, the bullfeather teased her soles. Both soles, a little bit at a time, until every finger-width of them had been tickled.

Moly laughed and squirmed, helplessly, at the dual sources of tickling. The brush was a bigger tickle, covering a broader area, but the bullfeather tickled more than anything. It was a device that required and rewarded tickle-expertise, and Rodas had that expertise. It tickled like honey, sweet and suffocating, gently tormenting toes, and then insteps, and then the balls of her feet, and then her heels. And then repeating the process, again and again. Moly couldn’t have resisted that tickling, not even if Kratos hadn’t also been applying a soft tease to the rest of her body. But he was applying that soft tease, and the silken, squirm-inducing brushing of her belly and limbs did not distract Moly from the things being done to her feet. Instead it weakened her resistance, so that she had to squirm and struggle and giggle and laugh.

That’s what Moly did. She squirmed. She struggled, uselessly. She giggled and laughed, held helplessly in place, unable to avoid the expert tickle-torments being applied to her. Merciless torments, as required by the Prophesy, but – oddly – not agonizing torments. Everyone knew that begging the centaurs for mercy, begging them to stop, would only make things worse. Moly was able to keep herself from doing this, but that was all she could do. She couldn’t keep from writhing as the tickle-sensations sank into her skin. She couldn’t keep the mirth from fountaining out of her, laughing until she cried. She couldn’t see, due to the blessing-curse that had led her to this third tickle-session. She couldn’t make sense of the occasional comments that the centaurs made to each other, as they applied their demonically effective tickling to her. She couldn’t keep track of time as her feet were tickled and tickled and tickled, and as her arms and belly and sides and legs were tickled as well.

The tickling paused. Moly felt a cloth drying the sweat from her body. It’s touch didn’t tickle at all. Instead it left her skin feeling polished and extra-sensitive for more tickling yet to come. She managed to drink a little water during this brief break. It lasted just long enough for her to recover a little. Just long enough to make her vulnerable to the next bout of the Tickle.

Moly felt oil being smeared over her soles. She shivered, anticipating what was to come. Then the squealed in surprise, pulling hard against her bonds as the tip of a vos-hawk feather ran lightly across her belly and into her belly button.

“You weren’t expecting that, were you?” Kratos asked.

“No I wasnee heeheeheeheeheehee!” Moly’s answer broke apart into giggles, as Rodas rubbed a stream-smoothed pebble over her oil-slick soles.

Over and over that pebble ran its slick and squirmy path over Moly’s soles. As it did, Kratos touched her here and there with the tip of his feather. It inflicted different tickle sensations than the first part of the session, and also different from the earlier sessions. But it tickled just as well. It made Moly laugh just as much. It made her giggle just as uncontrollably. It made her squirm just as helplessly. It made her soles and belly and arms and legs feel just as vulnerable.

It seemed to last just as long. Smooth meandering tickles zig-zagging down Moly’s soles, first one, then the other, then both at once. Soft, sharp touches here and there on her sides and belly. Laughing and laughing, as Moly was unable to hold it in, as the tickle-touches deliciously assaulted her skin. It was impossible to hold it in, with the pebble – or was it two pebbles? – racing up and down her oily soles. It was impossible to resist the light and expert touches as that feather tickled her upper body.

And it went on, and on, and on. It seemed to go on forever.

It did eventually end, of course, but Moly was only half-aware of being released from her bonds. She did remember sitting on the grass, recovering, and the two centaurs helping her up. She remembered Kratos leading her away, taking her to the crossroads where the voice of Athena had whispered that she should wait.

There Moly had sat, waiting, for the rest of the day. Someone had left an old blanket there, and Moly sat upon it until the sun went down. Then she slept, huddled beneath it. Morning came, and she could feel the sun again. But she still couldn’t see, and she cursed her blindness.

The morning passed. A few centaurs trotted by as well. One asked to see her pass-tokens. The rest ignored her. Or they might have stared at her: Moly couldn’t tell, in her blindness.

Noon had come and gone when Moly heard footsteps. Human footsteps, two legs instead of four. And an odd wooden clacking. “Sir! Sir!” Moly called. The footsteps ignored her. No doubt the man thought she was a beggar girl. Well, she was, by command of the goddess.

The foot steps were receding now. “Sir! Sir!” Moly called after them. She felt a sudden burst of curiosity. “What are you carrying?”

The footsteps stopped, and the man burst into laughter.

“Sir, what are you carrying?” Moly repeated.

“Oars!” the man answered, and laughed again. “I’m not yet a day into the centaur Land, two days from the coast, and already I’m asked. I’m carrying oars, young woman, and this is where I will build a shrine to Herophilia, daughter of Poseidon. I was under a command to walk into the centaur Land until someone asked me what I was carrying. Now who are you, young woman? I am Galen son of Galinthias.”

As Moly told her story, Galen set the two oars as the symbolic doorway of the new shrine. He wrestled a rock into place to be the altar-stone, and had Moly lay her hands on it to hallow it. That evening, they dined on mutton, as Galen sacrificed a sheep to Herophilia on the new altar. Moly was disappointed that the sacrifice didn’t return her vision, but after all, it wasn’t her sacrifice. She fingered her pass-tokens, before falling asleep.

The next morning, Moly made her own sacrifice, shattering for the third time the pass-tokens she had been given. As they broke, light returned. She removed her blindfold. She could see again! She let her eyes drink in the green grass and rolling hills, the oars standing as a doorway, the altar stone, and the crossing roadways.

On the other hand, Moly was still a human without pass-tokens in the centaur Land. She had one more duty to perform. She saw a male centaur coming down the road, and when he called to her she knew from his voice that he was Kratos.

At the stocks, Moly found herself secured in place beside a woman just a few years older than her. She introduced herself as Adoria, the niece of the merchant Zorian. When Moly had given her own name and story, Adoria said, “Oh, I’ll have to check my records, but I think we owe your father money for some of his pottery we bought. Moly the daughter of Lars, you said? I’d rather pay you than your father’s creditors. And I can find work for you here, in my Uncle’s business.”

“No more gossip, you two,” Rodas told them. “It’s time for your tickle!”

The End