Writing begun: December 19, 1999
Completed on: January 14, 2000
This version is current as of: February 29, 2000
SETTING
This story takes place between the time when Iolair and Tigris were reunited.
The year is 2005 - before Phantom 6.
This is an original work, not associated with the Walt Disney Corporation. No copyright infringements intended. All rights to the elements of this work reserved by the author. None of this content is in anyway directly copied from any Disney publication. "Gargoyles" belongs to Walt Disney Studios.
This is not a G-rated fanfic! It contains some sexual innuendo, and one mild attempted rape. It contains a little language. It does contain transgendered themes, which means one or more characters may change gender. If you are offended by this idea, you may want to not read on. I would recommend a PG-13 rating.
NOTE: For those who are not familiar with the Mini~clan, let me explain in advance. Originally, MC was a Gargoyles online fan group where anyone from across the Internet could play a character they defined. This is a blending of that universe. Each of the characters from the MC represent a real Gargoyles fan. However, this story is a work of fiction, and has nothing to do with actual events transpiring in or around those people. Anything that is not readily known about them, I will explain in the context of the story.
Castle Gorebash, 2010
Iolair and Tigris reached the decision not to go home to the mountainous caves of the fay Christyne and Phantom, and so brother and sister went their separate ways - promising to visit occasionally. They felt it was time that they go and start lives of their own. Therefore, they flew to another clan of which Iolair had spent a long time with, but had left on accounts of how little they and he had gotten along. Tigris was hopeful that between Tigris and Iolair, it didn't matter what the other members of the clan thought of him - they could just be happy together.
Upon approaching the castle, buried deep within the woods of some country and fairy realm that Tigris could neither recognize nor name, stood the tall, proud parapets with banners and flags announcing it's occupants. Iolair gave a shrill cry, which was replied by several similar cries from the castle.
"We're in luck! The king is coming up to see us!"
"Is he a good king?"
"Would I have lived here if he were not? I will warn you though - the king of this castle is a dragon."
"How do they remain hidden from humans?"
"This is a Fairy Realm. There are enough spells around this castle to wet your talons in." Iolair smiled.
"Do you still have friends here?"
"Yes, and my teachers who taught me some battlecraft, and all that I know about magic."
Tigris nodded in her usual, succinct fashion of a young warrior.
Upon touching down upon the balustrade and folding his wings, two other gargoyles approached them. One was a tan and green colored gargoyle with double wings (the ordinary type). The other was a blue/tabby grey colored gargoyle who carried a stave in her paw.
"Have you made your peace? Or have you separated from the Clann Na Ochter Oidhche Bheithir?"
"I have separated myself, as has Christyne. Demona may... spread her hate and discontent elsewhere." he added, honestly.
Lysander held out her paw to them. "Then welcome back to our small clan, both of you! Welcome to the Miniclan, Tigris!"
Demeter, green colored gargoyle, hugged Iolair tightly. "We were worried! You were so sad after the battle - we were afraid you would never come back!"
"No," Iolair sighed. "This... has become home to me. I have only... learned some things, I think."
"...And gained some things." Tigris reminded him.
"A WEDDING! A WEDDING!" Lysander and Demeter announced to the castle, whooping and hollering. They rushed off in a flurry of wings, as others took up the cry.
"Whose wedding?"
"Ours, midear." Iolair smiled at his long-lost lover.
"But... they are so human! That is such a human ritual!"
"But...!" Iolair explained. "My love, I was born a human - as my genetic family all were. I will not let go of the traditions of my ancestors anymore than a gargoyle can stop protecting the ones we love."
"...and they?"
"As a rule, the Miniclan is based on a philosophy that we protect gargoyles - as a race. We do protect a castle, but in doing so we protect it's rookery. We are here to keep gargoyles from becoming extinct. In order to help us do this, we've adapted to the changes in the outside world by learning about it."
"Why?"
"You cannot fight a weapon you cannot understand."
Tigris nodded. That made sense to her. "This is why these gargoyles act like monkeys?"
Iolair guffawed a little at this remark, and smiled. "Yes, yes they do. Lovable monkeys too - ones that would lay down their life to save that of another gargoyle's for another day."
Tigris, hearing this, smiled approvingly. "They are not like my clan, but they are gargoyles. They share my values - they protect, as all gargoyles do. I shall roost here - with you."
The two gargoyles, deeply in love, nuzzled each other again.
Rows of trumpets blared, announcing the entrance of the bride. Iolair smiled - amazing what magic can do to make a wedding dress fit the most difficult of models. He noted with a detached fascination that she really hadn't done anything with her hair, but was still very attractive. No matter, he decided - he liked her exactly as she was.
There was a wide assortment of creatures in attendance. Many were fay, or human. Some were of races Tigris could not identify. Presiding was the king, only now Tigris met him in his real form, that of the dragon Gorebash. Hence, the playful name for the castle being "Castle Gorebash". Tigris recognized some of the fay - Christyne and her mate Arion, Sharm, her old clan leader Cassandra (having not minded her leaving - announcing that she had expected it). Sharm, of course, was already in tears. There were humans beside them, Mandy and Thom. Of course, there were all the children, gargoyle and human alike - nearly all, for some reason which could only be attributed to Sharm, nearly all were female. Iolair's mother Tutela - a dragon-like gargoyle - was here, as well as his other sister Keturah - a human with the wings of a falcon.
There were members of the Miniclan everywhere, hardly able to sit still in their seats, as the air around Tigris became very tense, waiting for the "big moment". Upon reaching the podium, Tigris took her lover's hand, and both knelt, facing the king.
There was some speech given about why the humans valued "marwage", but to Tigris it sounded exactly like a gargoyle's honorable promise of mating. This ceremony, she deduced, was only a formality.
Iolair expressed his token of love in poetry. He knelt at Tigris's feet, and looked deep into her eyes.
The Sea
roils, tosses, billows
soft and gentle swells of your hair
The sky
cloudless, soft, endless
with a single red rose
your lips
I stand by your side
my heart beating
your strength
and emotion
your love
and your laughter.
My best friend
from long ago.
I worship my God
and you.
A touch
our arms around each other
my fears fly away
the beating of your heart
the warmth of your breasts
I hold you close
beautiful
Little did Tigris know Iolair was panicking. Not that this is unusual for a potential mate at a wedding, but something was amiss that no one knew about. Deep within Iolair's thoughts, he was constantly attempting to reassure himself. "This will make me better. This will make me better..."
But how? The clan asked themselves - how could such a match made in heaven be so tainted with fighting so soon?
Everyone secretly had guesses, but they were seldom voiced aloud, and NEVER voiced around the mated pair. Some suspected that a true gargoyle - human union like theirs would never work. Others said that was nonsense, and that Iolair's past ties to the Clann Na Ochter Oidhche Bheithir were not yet dead and that he should be driven out as they had agreed. Still others thought there was a hidden love triangle going on - that Iolair was secretly in love with Demeter.
However, the answer was so immense, so frightening, that it shocked everyone. The day that answer finally came out, was the day that Demeter and Iolair had a long talk in the rookery. Iolair was just sitting there among the eggs, touching them tenderly, as if trying to crawl inside them. Demeter, the midwife and wisewoman of the clan, often checked on the eggs, but today, upon seeing Iolair here, deduced that she had come down to the rookery this night for another reason.
"Iolair?" she inquired.
The eagle-headed gargoyle just sighed, depressed. "Am I in your way?
"No, but it's usually an insult for a gargoyle to be forced to return to the rookery, let alone for him to come down here himself." she explained.
"I don't care about that." he replied. "I just... wanted to be with the eggs."
Demeter sighed, and laid down in the soft, cool earth before him, to talk to him. "Tell me what you feel."
Iolair laughed. "I... want to be happy."
"Why aren't you happy?"
"I don't know. I thought being mated would solve the problem."
"Problem?" Demeter asked, surprised, "What problem?"
Iolair blinked. "You mean you don't know? I thought the whole clan knew by now that our companionship is falling apart because of me."
"Why do you say that? How is it because of you?"
Iolair sighed, deeply, hanging his head back, looking at the ceiling. "Because I walk funny."
"Funny? You were born human, not gargoyle, that should be expected." Demeter tried to reassure him.
"No no no, you don't understand. Tigris says..." Demeter held her breath. He was trying to say something important, she realized. "...That I... kinda... swing my hips too much."
Demeter blinked. That was the last answer she had expected to come out of his mouth. "Y... Your hips?" Her expression was awash with puzzlement.
"...And I gesture too much with my paws and my talons." Iolair added. "...And my hips have always been just a little too wide."
Demeter, dumbfounded, blurted out "What difference should THAT make?"
Iolair looked at her. "Should it? Does Death Wing have that sixth sense that can tell exactly what you are feeling?"
Demeter wished such were a property of her current mate.
"That's a great quality to have!"
"Except for one thing."
"Which is?
"I can't... do it."
Demeter blinked for a second, confused.
Iolair looked around the rookery. "I've always wanted to be a parent... to see a little life in my hands, and know that I made it, and that I would raise him or her - (most likely a her if Sharm has anything to do with it). But I can't... do it."
"Do what?"
"Make her pregnant." Iolair sighed, referring to Tigris.
Demeter was silent for a very long time. When she finally spoke, she said "How can you know?"
"I just... know. I can't even... touch her."
"Well," Demeter tried to explain, "You used to be human, so that's unders..."
"No no no," Iolair interrupted her. "You don't understand."
Demeter blinked. "What then? Why can't you touch her?"
Another long silence from Iolair, looking down at the eggs. Water dripped in the distance, echoing. They could almost hear the earth itself - the trees growing, pushing their roots slowly deeper into the earth outside the castle walls. Iolair picked up one of the eggs, and gently caressed it in his arms, like he would a child, or Tigris herself.
"What's it like to be a mother, Demeter?"
Taken aback by the question, she sputtered she did not yet know, her time to become pregnant, unlike Tigris, had not yet come. "Why do you want to know?"
"I don't know, but I do."
"Iolair, what is it you are trying to say?" Demeter asked, deadly serious.
Iolair returned the egg, as though it were made of glass, back to it's resting spot. "I want one."
"We have magic that can help Tigris..." Demeter began.
"No." Iolair interrupted again. "You don't understand."
Another long silence. Demeter was almost ready to shout.
"I... want to have one." he managed to say.
Baffled again, Demeter sat next to Iolair as this statement slowly sank in. "You mean... YOU... want to become pregnant?"
Iolair nodded, solemnly, eyes looking fixedly at the ground.
"You want to be a female?"
Iolair closed his eyes, as if the remark was painful, and nodded again, never once raising his head.
Demeter touched her heart, gasping and sputtering. "I... I... don't know what to say."
"Tell me I'm a sick pervert who is going straight to hell." Iolair said bitterly.
Demeter sighed. "Gargoyles don't believe in hell."
Iolair did not reply.
Demeter swallowed hard, and asked one more question. "Do you... like boys?"
From where Iolair's face was turned towards the ground, sobbing began, and teardrops fell from Iolair's beak and facial feathers. "Yes."
"HE'S WHAT?!!!!" Tigris burst.
Shayde, the clan mother, and the one in whom Demeter confided the most, was a bright purple gargoyle, with very wise eyes. "Brother Iolair is gay."
Tigris paced the floor relentlessly, smashing her fist into a stone table to release her anger. "I thought I married a gargoyle, not a human! Only humans have these kinds of problems."
"That's not true." Demeter added. "It's as rare as gargoyle are rare, so you seldom hear about it among us, but we have one right here in our clan. Several, in fact."
"We are a clan of outcast gargoyles with a single goal, Tigris." Shayde explained. "Our current clan leader and Iolair's mentor Lysander is Bisexual. Lex's mate Kai is another female, and for a long time Kai crossdressed here as a male gargoyle."
Tigris sputtered angrily. "How can a GARGOYLE crossdress? Lysander... must have had some...effect on him."
"It is NOT a disease that can be transmitted." Shayde said with a cutting voice. "Lysander cannot give it to anyone. Lex has never said that she likes women, even though to this very day she still remains attracted to Kai. Do you feel you want to be a boy?"
"NO!" Tigris retorted angrily. "Why on earth would a female want to be a male?"
"Why would a male wish to be female?" Shayde countered pointedly. "And let's get one thing straight, he's not a Homosexual, he's a Transsexual - Native Indians called them 'Hirjas' and worshiped them as a goddess-like third sex. Native Americans, a whole continent away, call them 'Two-Spirits', or 'Berdaches', where they are looked up to as shamans and wise-women."
Tigris glared at Shayde, pointing a talon away from them, as if towards Iolair who was not present.. "Iolair is NO woman!"
"Really?" Demeter asked, calm and collected. "Then why does he have a woman's intuition?" Tigris blinked momentarily. "He knows exactly when you want to be touched and when you don't. He knows when you are faking a headache, and when you're not."
Tigris bristled at the personal remarks.
"Why do you complain he uses his hands so much?" Shayde asked, collected again, "Or that he swivels his hips when he walks? That he spends way too much time with females, but never touching them? Cooking? Cleaning? Sewing?" Demeter laughed. "Giving fashion advice to gargoyles?"
"Aren't these your own words to him?" Demeter inquired.
Tigris focused her anger on these two. "Yes, they are - but it's not MY fault he feels this way!"
"No, it's not." Demeter and Shayde both agreed.
"You had nothing to do with this. I'll bet my magic that it was there from the moment Iolair was born, as a human. He's said himself that he cannot remember a time - human or gargoyle - in which this secret was not back there, somewhere in his mind. Cassandra's spell bringing him back to life isn't going to take away something so intrinsic to his very nature as the sex he feels he is on the inside."
"So..." Tigris deduced. "He thinks he's some kind of... female trapped in the body of a male."
"That's exactly it." Shayde stated. "He has been trying everything he could think of to make this feeling in him go away. Joining the Clann Na Ochter Oidhche Bheithir was an attempt for him to 'BUTCH UP' and 'BE THE MAN' so-to-speak, hiding the truth that he was not only born human, but felt female inside. Even marrying you, he hoped that living the life of a mated gargoyle would solve the problem - which it hasn't. There's only one thing that will."
"Why?" Tigris demanded hotly, her blue face flushing dark violet with anger, "WHY CAN'T HE JUST - BE A MALE!"
"Because he doesn't know how to?" Demeter suggested.
"I'll show him!" Tigris spat back.
"You will?" Shayde asked. Tigris bristled again. "Maybe it's because he ISN'T one, therefore he can no more be a male than you or I could be human. We could try, but in the end it would be a lie, disguising who we really are. THAT is how Iolair feels now."
In their room, Tigris and Iolair faced each other from across the room. Neither had yet to say anything, and the silence was the only thing that spoke.
Iolair rocked nervously back and forth in his seat, waiting for her to speak.
"I'm not a lesbian." Tigris finally said, simply.
"I know your not." he replied, just as simply.
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"I was trying to find a way to do so without hurting you this way - obviously I've failed." Iolair said, in self-pity.
More, long silence.
"Is this all because of the pregnancy problem? You know we can fix that. It's not like it makes you any LESS of a male..."
"I don't care about being any more or less of a male." He stopped her. "I care about being a mate to you."
"Then what's the problem?" Tigris exclaimed.
"I.... Every time I look at you, I want to unzip your skin, step inside, and BE you! Not just you - ANY female!"
"You ought to feel ashamed of yourself." Tigris accused him.
"I do. Does that help? I'll do anything you want." Iolair was in tears now.
Tigris strode forward, standing over her mate. "Just... be a MALE!" she shouted.
Tigris violently grabbed Iolair by the shoulders, and slapped him. She picked him up, threw him on the ground, tore his loincloth off, and sat atop him. She tried to thrust herself onto him, but he would not respond. He did not fight back - he just continued to fitfully bawl, holding an arm protectively over his eyes. Tigris began to hit him, beat him in the chest and face, trying to get the gargoyle to respond, but Iolair just cried out in pain and did not respond, but instead begged her to stop. "Please! PLEASE!"
Shayde and Lysander heard the noise, and entered the chamber like streaks of purple lightening. They pried Tigris off of the still crying Iolair, who's loin cloth had been torn off, and was covered in bruises and talon cuts.
Tigris wrestled with them, but they were bigger than she. "I HATE YOU!" Tigris spat at Iolair. "DEMONA WAS RIGHT! YOU ARE WEAK!" With that, she turned around, and headed the other way, out the door. Shayde and Lysander watched her turn a corner, exit the castle's interior, leap from the balustrade, and scream mournfully into the night, finally disappearing in a magical portal - out of the Miniclan's realm.
Iolair had picked himself up and had followed his rookery siblings to the roof as they watched Tigris leave. Shayde sighed in disappointment. "I'm sorry, Iolair..."
Without a word, Iolair stepped to the balustrade himself, as if he were going to follow, but instead just stood there. Demeter came running up after hearing all the commotion.
"What's he doing?" Shayde whispered to her.
"I've got a really bad feeling about this..." Demeter answered. Shayde fidgeted, fingering the dagger she kept at her side.
Iolair leapt from the roof, but before the other's realized it - this was not a glide. Iolair plunged, back first off the parapet, some thousand feet to the ground below.
"IOLAIR!" Lysander exclaimed.
"NOOOOOOOOOO!" Shayde and Demeter shouted in chorus.
Hurriedly, two gargoyles, one green and one bright purple raced after the eagle-headed one. Using their wings to tease the very will of gravity itself, they plunged down, faster than the other - giving chase. Almost there... ALMOST there...
CAUGHT HIM! With only feet to spare! Demeter, ever agile, carried Iolair in her arms, as she and Shayde immediately leveled their flight only feet above the forest floor.
"WHAT..." began Demeter, out of breath, "WERE YOU... TRYING... TO DO?!!!"
Iolair twisted and rolled. There was a struggle as he wriggled free of her grasp. Lysander was not far behind them, suddenly shouting "Shayde!"
Shayde glanced down - Iolair had stolen her dagger! "Hey - I taught you that trick!"
Lysander tackled Iolair, going for the dagger. Iolair was not strong enough, and Lysander managed to knock it out of his talons and it came to rest in the pine needles a few inches away. Iolair reached for it, but suddenly a three-toed foot came down upon it, blocking his reach. Iolair looked up to see Demeter with a worried look on her face.
Iolair stopped struggling and lay in a heap on the forest floor where Lysander had tackled him, sobbing. "Just let me die, I beg you."
"We can't do that!" Demeter protested. "That would be abandoning a fellow gargoyle!"
Shayde, however, shushed her young prodigy, and motioned for her to step aside. Kneeling down by the weeping male, Shayde began.
"Okay, that's an option. You can leave everyone who still loves you, here, and back with your genetic clan, in misery. It's extremely selfish, but you have that choice."
Iolair looked at her, still crying.
"Actually, as I see it you have three choices at this point. The second is that you can keep on going like this -" Shayde gestured to Iolair's body. "And continue living in your own little world of hell and self-imposed misery."
"I didn't ask to feel this way." Iolair protested.
"No, but you can choose not to DO something about it." Shayde emphasized.
"And... three?" Iolair asked, quavering - as if he did not want to know the answer.
"Option three is to not follow anyone's else's damned advice, and do what your heart tells you to do. Find a man if you want, or you might seek out a spell of some kind to undergo a change of sex. This choice, at least, has a possibility of happiness for you and the others you love and that love you."
"It's your decision." Demeter added, conclusively. Lysander nodded.
"The decision is pretty much made, isn't it?" Demeter inquired, as Iolair leaned his feathered face against the pylons holding up the castle, covered in the moss of the rookery.
He was STILL crying, and did not reply.
"For what it's worth, though..." Demeter added. "I'm with you."
Iolair turned and looked at her.
"Whatever you decide, I will stand beside you."
Iolair smiled a little. "I have truly learned who are my real allies this day. They are coming from surprising places."
"I don't find it so surprising. I think if I wasn't already married to Death Wing, and you had asked me, I would have married you instead."
Iolair sat down, staring at her in a stunned fashion, on the ground. Demeter seated herself on the steps, looking at the other.
"But... what of... God?" Iolair asked. "Won't He be angry with me?" Demeter clasped her hands together. "Personally, I don't believe the masterful writer who composes our lives really cares about our genders. After all..." Demeter explained. "Some of us are born with both gender, some with neither. Some of us are born liking the wrong genders, too." she added, not referring to anyone in particular. "In the end, are these people inherently evil?"
"Am I?"
"Are gargoyles? Humans once said that of US, after all."
"Do gargoyles believe that?"
"No, we believe differently than the humans. We teach our hatchlings that the Goddess who created us all will some day gather us all back to her breasts, and because She is a woman, she will not care if we are male or female, human or gargoyle, or whatever." Demeter replied - passionately. She clearly believed her words. She went on. "Iolair... you've been raped, and the past few days have been hard for you in recovering from it. I understand that it is male nature that makes rape especially hard for them to bare, let alone a woman. Woman or no, this has only intensified your need to make a solid decision and stay by it."
Iolair sighed, hanging his head, and leaning forward. "Then maybe it's time that I get some new beliefs."
Demeter nodded. "This is your own personal journey. Only you can make that decision - only you know what you believe."
"But..." Iolair countered, his head rising, "How can I decide... if I don't know what the options are?" Demeter caught his obvious reference to Shayde's 'three choices'.
Demeter's left eyebrow rose in an inquisitive fashion.
"After recent events, I have decided to go away from you, this time for much longer than a day. I feel it is not yet time to tell you all why these things have happened, but suffice it to say, I must go on a quest." Iolair spoke to his rookery brothers and sisters that composed the smallish clan nicknamed the Miniclan.
"I have... a great many issues I must find answers to... and possibly seek help in answering them. I shall go alone..."
"The FERG you will!" came Demeter's voice from the crowd. She came to stand upon the parapet where Iolair stood, standing at his side. "After these past few weeks, you are not going to be left alone again until this thing has passed - if it take my whole life." she shouted to the clan.
A cry of "Honorable Gargoyles! Honorable Quest!" went up among them, rallying for their support. Iolair bitterly wondered if they would cheer them as honorable if they knew the whole situation.
Iolair spoke the spell words, and another magical portal appeared in the sky. With a final nod of farewell, the two gargoyles glided up through it's opening...
...and appeared just above Twin Peaks, just between Salt Lake City and Park City, Utah - exactly where Iolair wanted them to be.
"Where are we?" Demeter inquired.
"We are going to look in on my sister and her lover. She has a gift of prophesy, I learned, so I think she should know - at the very least - where we should start."
Demeter nodded in agreement, and the pair banked until they were near enough to land on the mountainside. They were standing by a slope, in a small clearing of trees. Demeter was about to ask "Now what?" when her question was suddenly answered. A ghosting shape appeared before them which materialized into Iolair's birth-sister Christyne, a strange combination of gargoyle and fay. She had brilliant fluorescent pink hair and eyes that always seemed to float in the air. In fact, Christyne herself did not even bother standing on the ground, and instead hung in the air over it. No one could mistake her long "parasail" ears, denoting her kinship to the third race.
"Matthew!" she exclaimed, arms open wide.
"Christine!" he replied, and the two hugged - even to the point of Christyne pulling her brother up into the air with her.
"Gah... leave off." he sighed, wanting to be put back down on the ground.
"It's been a few months, but I wasn't quite expecting to hear back from you quite this soon." she said.
"Then you have not heard?"
Christyne blinked. "I'm not omniscient. Besides, I never see anything I ever want to foresee."
"Tigris left me." Iolair swallowed hard.
There was silence for a moment. Christyne stroked her brother's feathers some more in their embrace. Iolair's eyes watered a little, and was about to say something else, but Christyne only shushed him, and continued to stroke his feathery hair in a gentle manner.
"Why?" was her only question after several long minutes.
"Christine... I'm... I'm a..."
"A Transsexual, yes I know. Why did she leave, though?" Christyne cut in.
Baffled, Iolair stopped. "How... How did you know?"
"I don't need prophesy to foresee that. I knew when I was in HIGH SCHOOL that you were an effeminate boy. I guessed you'd come out with it someday, before everything with the gargoyles began again." She paused for a moment, thinking. "I think it was when you could only make friends with girls, and showed more interest in things like cooking, cleaning, and sewing, than rough-and-tumble sports or computers that it became obvious to me you were more than homosexual - it was much deeper. When you saw my eggs a few months ago, I couldn't help but notice how you looked at them - and me - in envy."
Iolair nodded. "That's right."
Demeter added, "Tigris exploded in a fit of rage, shouting about 'making him BE a male' and things like this, and then sexually assaulted Iolair."
Christyne was visibly shocked at this. Iolair hung his head, but Christyne held it up again with one finger, by his chin. "No wonder the eagle-head spell never broke."
"Tigris was wrong for you from the beginning." Demeter sighed.
Iolair began weeping. "I don't understand how. We were so much in love..."
"Love can blind all of us." Demeter replied.
Christyne sighed. "No one can help erase the pain, Matthew."
"What should I do?"
Christyne began to say something, but stopped herself. Her eyes turned to Demeter, and for a minute, a long conversation took place between the two using nothing but their eyes. Demeter smiled, and nodded her approval. Christyne gave her a sly grin.
Turning back to her brother, she spun an arm in the air, creating a magical portal through which an image of an island on the sea appeared. "In the middle of the Mediterranean, not too far from the Aegean Sea lays a hidden island of which no man knows. One of the few remaining refuges for those who follow the ways of pure magic, among their midst is a great oracle. She is said to be a demi-god, or a great fay with powerful visions which can help you get the answers you seek."
"What is the name of the island?"
"Lesbos." she replied, with a sidelong glance at Demeter.
* Several Months later *
"Patron saint of Gargoyles, where is this island?" Iolair growled with frustration.
Demeter, losing patience also - but more with Iolair than with their quest. They had been traveling by the wing for some months now, across the world. It seemed to Demeter that if he were to gain any insight from this journey, it would take many long months of introspection and learning that would help him realize the truth. To date, he had wavered many times between all three of the solutions which Shayde had presented him with. Nobody could make this choice but him.
They had taken the chance and Demeter had cast a spell enabling them to glide across the Aegean Sea by day, as they might not be able to see it by night. It would only last for one day, but hopefully that would be all they would need.
"Just a little further to the south - oh there, it is! Right between us and the sun."
"I've heard of attackers flying out of the sun." Iolair commented. "But this is ridiculous. Doesn't the sun rise in the east in this country?"
"It's magic, I know it is." Demeter said. "That's the only way this could be so turned around. It's like we appeared on the western side of the island."
"Whatever." Iolair snapped. "Let's take a look!"
The island was thickly wooded with a variety of forest and jungle-like plants. Iolair immediately deduced several things about the isle's rainfall patterns. Demeter and he looked around for a minute.
"What's that...?" Demeter asked.
"I hear it." Iolair said, finely-attuned eagle-ears narrowing in on the sound. His head swivelled, and started climbing the mountain at the center of the isle on foot. "It's like... music."
"Very wonderful music." Demeter commented. "It's almost..."
"...Almost..." Iolair thought aloud, listening. It was soft and gentle, soothing and relaxing, magical and mysterious... "Feminine."
"Wait... how can MUSIC be feminine?" Demeter asked. "Music should be neutral."
"But it is!"
Demeter could not deny it, it stirred something distinctly feminine inside them both. Almost as if this music had been written for them.
There were insects and small animals in the woods around them. Demeter started to get nervous. "Livestock." Iolair said. "I can tell by the sounds they make."
"Livestock?"
"You know... Poulty? Pigs? That sort of thing?"
"What do you mean... their sounds?"
"A jungle bird doesn't go 'cluck-cluck-cluck'." Iolair smiled.
"Thank the Goddess for your ears." she commented.
"LOOK!" Iolair exclaimed, pointing.
There, nestled along the path in an out-of-the-way place, was an opening in the side of the mountain just the right size for a person to fit through. The two gargoyles paused.
"Wait." Demeter said. "We want to make a peaceful and non-threatening entrance, and our normal forms aren't very conducive to that."
"Disguises?" Iolair asked. "I love disguises."
Demeter sighed to herself. "Oh, how very much like a woman you are." The green gargoyle spun her hands around, chanting several phrases in Latin. There was a blur, and Iolair saw himself standing in front of a human woman of about 18, and guessed that he looked like a 21 year old human male.
"Non-threatening." Demeter said. "And it's only an illusion - for now."
"Works for me." Iolair said, listening to their new speaking voices.
Slightly smaller now, entering the stone cavern was simple. Each of the warriors produced flashlights in their hands, searching the darkness. A pair of bats flew overhead, and Iolair's head spin around. Demeter pressed on down the natural tunnels. Do birds eat bats, she wondered? Do bats eat birds? Was there a difference?
Some tunnels were too small for a person to fit through, but hid larger room behind them. Iolair grew nervous. "They're watching us."
"Who?" Demeter asked.
"I don't know. Someone. Human, I think."
"Where?"
Iolair indicated to the foxholes. "From the darkness beyond. I can hear their pulses. Five or ten of them. Fast and nervous."
Demeter pressed forward. "Now I see why you like the rookery - you can hear all their little hearts beat, can't you?"
Iolair nodded affirmatively. "And their movements."
They approached a large chamber, the stone here appearing to have been carved more than natural formations. Shining their beams about, they could hear a sound, when suddenly the room was filled with the light of flaming torches in the hands of several dozen humans surrounding them in a semi-circle.
Iolair turned around and found more of them closing on the from behind. Besides torches, they all carried staves with strange ornamentation that simply radiated intense magical power.
The two warriors, surrounded, turned off their flashlights, and set them, slowly on the ground before them, whereupon the magic that had created them ceased to exist and they disappeared.
"We mean you no hard." Iolair announced, arms raised.
No response. Demeter tried it in Latin. Still nothing.
Arms in the air, they looked at each other. "Notice anything odd about them?" Demeter whispered to Iolair.
"There's not a man among them."
"No that I can see - they're all women."
"Reminds me of a bad 1960's 'B' movie."
"Murg." Demeter muttered to herself, forcing herself not to swear.
At the point of their staves, they separated the two of them. Demeter, once separated from Iolair, was no longer escorted at stave point, but was given hugs and the admiring touches of as many of the women as could get close to her. Iolair, on the other hand, was forced forward at stavepoint.
"I... I really think they don't like me, Demeter." he protested to his compatriot.
"Don't provoke them! Try and find out what's going on! Try some universal linguistics spells or something!" she shouted before she was lead out of earshot into another cavern.
Iolair was lead to a small cavern which radiated a pleasant smell - like fresh cooking. He could not place the smell exactly, but it consisted of plant and vegetable matter, some kind of mushroom, and possibly a bit of pork meat. A large door was closed, and guards were posted outside, like a prison cell.
However, Iolair could hear someone moving about inside the room. Upon looking around, he saw a small but attractive woman of his age at a fire cooking the stew in a large cast-iron kettle. She also had a magical stave of her own, but it was leaning against one wall in a very non-threatening way. Iolair muttered a spell of linguistics so that only she could hear, pointing at her as he said it. Shocked, she hurriedly picked up her magical stave, to defend herself.
"Do you understand me?" Iolair asked.
The woman blinked a few times, taken aback by something. "Yes she replied in perfect English. "Since when do you speak the old Grecian tongue?"
"I don't. I simply cast a spell of language, so that I can speak, and you will hear old Greek." Iolair explained. "I, on the other hand, hear perfect modern English."
She visibly relaxed. "You know magic, then?"
"I know a lot of magic, from many different places."
"How is that possible? You are a man..."
"Men can do magic too." Iolair nearly laughed.
"But not on this island." she explained, turning back to her cooking. "This island is for women only, and only female magic works here."
"Would it help if I told you I learned much of my magic from women?" Iolair inquired, folding his arms.
No reply.
Iolair changed the subject. He did not wish to get into another gender debate with someone who didn't even know about his problem. "What's your name?"
"I am Lellwyn." she answered.
"Iolair."
Puzzled, she looked at him. "Iolair? I do not understand the meaning of that name. I have never heard it before."
"It is a Gaelic word, meaning 'eagle'."
She nodded and returned to her cooking, her back turned to him. "Of course. A bird of prey. Hunter, killer."
"Far seer, agile flyer, skilled listener." Iolair countered her cold remark. "Why do you and your people hate me so?"
Lellwyn blinked. "I do not hate you."
"You don't like me, otherwise you wouldn't be so cold to me."
Frustrated, she answered. "I am not ready to bear a child."
Taken aback by this answer, Iolair quickly replied. "Then, by my honor, I shall not touch you. I could not have helped you there in any case."
A little truth for truth, Lellwyn realized. She placed two bowls of stew before them. Lellwyn barely picked at hers, while Iolair just sat and watched her.
"You have no seed, then?" she asked.
"No..." Iolair began, but his voice trailed off, not willing to say more on that topic. "Where does the music come from?" Iolair inquired, changing the topic. The music was louder here in the caves.
"YOU can hear our music?" she asked, dumbfounded.
"Of course," Iolair replied.
"But that is the music of women... and their magic."
"I told you before," Iolair explained, "I was trained by women in magic."
"It is impossible." she replied. "You are a man, and men's magic is not allowed here."
"You can understand me, can you not? I cast the spell that allows us to talk, did I not?" Iolair pointed out.
"I do not understand it." she replied in frustration, picking at her stew.
Iolair took several large bites of it. It tasted sweet, but not overly so, and abounding with flavor. Iolair could not help but to say, "Mmmmm! It's delicious!"
Lellwyn smiled. "Thank you."
"What happens next?"
"We sleep together tonight in my bed."
Iolair blinked. "I'll... take the sofa, thank you." Iolair did not really know why he said this, as there was no sofa in sight - only a kitchen, a few chairs, and a bed.
She glared at him. "You MUST! Or else I would be dishonored!"
Iolair looked at her for a long minute, before motioning to the bed and saying, "Come lay down."
Nervously, she did so, disrobing. Iolair once again felt that sharp pain in his soul wishing that he could unzip her skin and step inside her. She was beautiful. Iolair, however, did not disrobe, but instead stood by the bedside.
"It's all about getting seed from men for childbearing, isn't it?" he asked.
"Yes." she replied. "Everything here is born female."
"Well, like you, I am not ready to have a baby either." he explained.
She nodded, understanding. "Then I shall be dishonored."
"Not necessarily. Is it the contact with a man you do not desire?"
"Yes." She admitted.
"Ah." Iolair sighed, smiling. Now it made sense. She was a lesbian, although apparently this was not true of most of her sisters. "Then you are like me."
"Hold still." he instructed her. "I will only touch you once, and it will only be with my hand."
She nodded, and closed her eyes.
Iolair closed his eyes, and drew himself inwards towards his center. He search for the earth, the heavens, and all the other sources of natural power he could grasp from within himself. He reached out and called his sister, his mother, his mentors back home, and then the spell began to be cast.
"Feather of phoenix, alicorn of unicorn, power of sisters fay, and of brothers human!" he called out.
Lellwyn opened her eyes momentarily, and saw Iolair's two hands positioned together, over her abdomen. He was glowing in what appeared to be white flames. Intermixed with his image, there appeared several other images, those of women she did not know, some human, some with strange colored hair and long parasail ears of fay. She watched in fascination as, out of nowhere, two objects landed upon her belly. One was a soft red feather that was hot to the touch, and the other a big of bone carved from some animal she could not place. These glowed as well... before Lellwyn finally realized that she two was enveloped by this white flame.
Then, Iolair touched a single finger, in a distinctly feminine gesture, to her abdomen. There was a bright light upon the touch, and then the flames, the feather, and the bit of bone all vanished, and Iolair said softly. "You are pregnant."
"You have the power of a midwife!" she exclaimed, sitting suddenly upright.
"Well, yes..." Iolair replied. "I learned it from the other that I came here with."
"But a man cannot know the power of a midwife...!" she protested.
In a sudden fit of anger of again having his gender insulted, he suddenly blurted out. "I'm NOT a man!"
The silence was deafening, as Iolair realized what he had just said. That was not what he had meant to say. Lellwyn just stared at him, mouth open.
Suddenly, she leapt to her feat, and slammed her stave into a brass gong that resounded with a clashing sound. The two guards outside the door entered. Lellwyn addressed them directly as they took Iolair physically into their custody. "He is not as he appears! Take them before judgement!" she declared.
All of the sudden, Demeter was there beside him again. "I take it you had more luck than I did?" she asked.
"One... Two..." Iolair began to count.
"Three!" both shouted at once, and the illusions fell away, and two adolescent gargoyles stood facing the native human women. Eagle crowed, and Demeter growled. But still they were surrounded on every side, and though they looked far more intimidating than before, they were still lead onwards by stavepoint.
A chant went up among them. "Judge-ment! Judge-ment! Judge-ment!"
Finally the two gargoyles were forcefully lead into a chamber with a pool, lots of armed guards, outside the opening, and a single occupant sitting by a fire.
"SILENCE!" said a loud, thundering, feminine voice.
The natives were immediately silent, and just watched as the two stood on the dais, within the chamber, by the woman who sat there.
Up looked a very beautiful seductress, who looked at them both with piercing eyes. Her gaze settled upon Iolair - she already knew the reason, it seemed that they were there.
"Do you know me?" she asked Iolair in a very human voice.
"You... you are fay." Iolair deduced from her long parasail ears.
"I am Circe, and these here are my children. By rights I ought to kill you for intruding upon my private realm, but a reason brought you here. A decision, for which you are seeking a sage."
"I am." he confirmed.
"You do realize, of course, that men are not allowed to leave here!" she added, threatening him.
"I... kinda figured that out." he replied, halfheartedly.
"However, you are an innocent, so therefore I will answer your question BEFORE I exact punishment upon you."
"Th... thank you." he stammered, nervously.
Circe paced the floor once of twice, before looking back up at him. "Lellwyn tells me that you can hear our music."
"Yes."
"It is the music of women - and their magic."
"Yes."
"...And you too?" Circe inquired, turning to Demeter. She nodded. "But you are a woman." The mystic turned back to Iolair. "You, however, are an enigma."
Circe sat back against the wall by her fire, and stared into it for several minutes, when suddenly another voice was heard.
"You Shelton women all have the same problem." Came the ghosting echoes of Sharm's voice. Iolair spun around to see Sharm standing behind him, staring off in no particular direction.
"Sharm?" he asked.
"You all run away from your problems - looser's way out." Sharm continued in a ghostly voice. Then, abruptly, she was gone,
Iolair looked around him. Demeter was gone, Circe was gone, the cave was gone - Iolair was alone in total darkness, except for a light around him which came for no easily determinable source.
"There's nothing wrong with being a girl." Lex's ghosting voice was heard. Iolair turned to see another mirage of Lex standing beside him - again looking off into the distance. She, like before, disappeared, and still more images appeared.
"You have three choices." Shayde reiterated. "One, you commit suicide, and cause pain for everyone involved. Two, you continue in this self-hatred, and still make everyone - including yourself miserable. Three..."
Iolair cut her off. "Isn't there some other way to be happy? For me to... be a male?"
Mandy - his sister Christyne's friend, appeared directly in front of him, and also spoke in a ghosting manner. "Science has proven that the brain's gender is determined at the twelfth week of gestation - for a human being of course - therefore trying to cure it is to try and cut a person's brain out. It's scientific fact."
Suddenly, she was gone, and his sister Christyne was right next to him, holding his face up. "If you are a duck, you cannot bark like a dog. If you are a woman, you cannot be a man."
"But... isn't it immoral?"
Then Demeter was to his right, also speaking in ghostly tones. "What kind of Goddess would create us, male and female alike, give us these kinds of problems, and then ask us to sit in the middle of the lake and do nothing? No, She expects us to pick up whatever She has placed in that boat, and expect us to use it, be it oars, outboard motor, or a child's canoe paddle. She will not abandon us or strand us."
Shayde was there again. "Your hips swivel like a woman, you are kind and gentle, cook, clean, and sew. You nuture the young, you have a desire to be a clan mother like any other female of your rookery, you express yourself wonderfully with words, and you use your hands. You don't cuss, your sensitive and gentle, you use whole words instead of contractions, you don't give in to Machismo, you treat women as equals, and you only seem to get along with females..."
"Then why take me to all this length? Why all the hoopla?"
The room reappeared, and Iolair spun back around to see Circe facing him. "Because you would not learn this lesson on your own."
Demeter glanced at him, and smirked in a self-satisfied way. "I told you so." her look said.
"There is one other option." Iolair said.
"Oh?" Circe inquired.
"You said no man may come to your island, therefore you must kill me." Iolair concluded.
"That is NOT what I said." Circe retorted, in a very Fay-like manner. The Fay were always so particular about how things are worded. Demeter suddenly tensed, realization opening her eyes.
"Uh oh..."
Iolair was suddenly thrown backwards against a wall with a sound like a hundred lightning crashes. Demeter reacted instantly, shouting her brother's name, and tried to reach out and help him, but she found herself frozen, unable to move, and trapped in one corner of the room.
Iolair's body was encased in light, and he began to thrash about and scream. His body was tense, energy coursed throughout his body. The sounds of cracking bones were heard, and the sickening sound of human flesh being torn apart. Demeter could only do one thing - she screamed in horror!
Then, all at once, as suddenly as it began, all was silent, and all light disappeared.
The room was dark, and so Demeter could not see anyone. Worst of all, it was silent - and that was what bothered Demeter the most when she found herself conscious once again. Using her magic she produced her flashlight once more, and began scanning the room for any sign of life. Even her other gargoyle senses did her no good.
Beyond the range of her lamp, she began to hear a sound - the soft muffled sound of a girl crying and sniffling in the cave. Bewildered, Demeter slowly turned her light to face the source of the sound.
A gargoyle lay there, one Demeter had never seen before, and was positive had not been there before. Her body seemed to have steam or smoke rising from it, as though it were cooling from being very hot. The female was soft green in color - the light green of a mint plant growing the forest, with golden blonde tresses that reached her waist. She was young - about 21 as a human reckons age. The other gargoyle raised her paw in the air, and a globe of light appeared, and Demeter could see the other fully. She was pretty. Demeter felt a tinge of feminine jealousy well up within her, but she quickly repressed it. The girl was well rounded and filled out in all the places a female should.
When she looked up at Demeter, her tears stopped. Demeter knelt down in front of her.
"D... Demeter?" she asked, uncertain. Her voice was a strong soprano, with a melodic quality.
Realization quickly dawned on Demeter.
"Iolair?" she asked.
The two companions hugged each other, the former Iolair sobbing some more. Demeter was at a lost for words.
"You... you finally got what you wanted, didn't you?"
"Yes." she replied.
"Wha... What do I call you now?"
The other was silent for a moment, thinking. She stood, and helped Demeter to her feet. "I shall take the name Tigris, after the lover that I lost. Tigris Euphrates. May I be the female I wish she could have been."
Demeter found it a very romantic gesture. "Okay... Tigris. How do you feel?"
Tigris, as she had chosen to be called, touched her healthy bosom, a little nervously. "My... breasts... they ache."
Demeter threw her head back and laugh uproariously. "Considering the fact you didn't have them a minute or two ago, that's to be expected!"
Up went a loud cheer. Light came on from some unknown place, as the two female gargoyles found themselves before the crowd of human natives once again. Circe was no where to be seen, but this was - after all - nothing unusual for a fay.
"SISTERS OF CIRCE! SISTERS OF CIRCE!" the cave-women chanted, forming an aisle for the two gargoyles to walk down, towards the exits, all chanting and waving excitedly,
"There's just one thing I don't understand." Tigris commented.
"What's that?"
"I half expected I would wind up as a pig."
"I don't think Circe's magic works that way." Demeter replied thoughtfully. "It's like the Eye of Odin. I think she makes people more like themselves. Even a demi-God can't make you something you're not."
Tigris blushed - in a distinctly feminine way. "Thank you - you are... very pretty too. No wonder - in the end - Tigris and I broke up."
"Deep down inside, you were both women." Demeter concluded. "Women looking for fulfillment..."
"...From a male." Tigris concluded her train of thought. "Do you know something? I always wanted to be your mate."
"Me? Why?"
"I don't know. You made me feel the most like a female, I think."
"I just respected you for who you were." Demeter replied. "But then I married Death Wing."
Tigris nodded. "But now, we've solved the problem."
Tigris and Demeter looked at each other for a long time. "Sometimes I remember wishing - selfishly to myself - that you would remain male, and that I could help you be a male. However, I knew in my heart it was hopeless. It is better we were friends, like this..." Demeter's voice trailed off.
Tigris reached over to his companion, offering a paw. "Sisters?"
Demeter smiled, and clasped her paw in Tigris's. "Sisters!"
It had been a year since their original departure from the clan, as their return trip had to be back to the stop they had originally left the realm of fairy, or else it would take years and years traveling across the realms of fairy which are so much larger, to return to the right place.
Christyne appeared and looked critically at the new female companion Demeter had. "We have GOT to do something with your hair."
Tigris smiled broadly, hugging her sister tightly. Christyne only smiled.
The minty green female was presented to her other sister Keturah and her mother Tutela. Keturah seemed to think her sibling had joined an elite club, and began filling her on all sorts of "finer points". Tutela picked up on this same thought, teaching her gargoyle daughter all the things she would have taught her if she were many years younger.
There was no fanfare when they returned to their home in the realm of the fairy. Upon hearing the calls of the two gargoyles returning home, most of them came out...
...to welcome Demeter back.
While crowds of friends gathered around the lovely green healer gargoyle, Tigris Euphrates simply stood on the outskirts of the merriment, happy for her. Demeter's mate, Death Wing, came rushing up to her, and they tightly embraced. A thousand emotions cascaded through Tigris's eyes at that moment, as a tear fell from her eye.
She turned, wordlessly, away from them all, folding her wings about her.
Walking down the tower steps, she heard someone rushing up the same steps towards her. The two gargoyles stopped, looking at one another.
"Oh!" the other exclaimed. "I... I know you, don't I?"
"...'Sid?" Tigris breathed. "Obsidiana?"
The other touched Tigris's golden lochs. The other's face was a mask of concentration. "Can... Can it be?"
Tigris smiled. "Yes, it can!"
Obsidiana giggled excitedly in her thick Latino accept. "It IS you! I'd know those blue eyes anywhere! Iolair! Mi amiga! Mi hermana!" Sisters fell into one another's arms, holding each other tight.
Leading her forward, Obsidiana nearly pulled Tigris out, back onto the roof of the tower. She raised both of their paws into the air and shouted a single word. "IOLAIR!"
Some of the others in the crowd milling about Demeter turned to each other, and as if remembering the name for the first time, asked each other. "Oh... yeah... where is - what's-his-name?" Their eyes would then fall upon Obsidiana and Tigris standing upon the tower. For a long minute, there was silence...
Which then turned to laughter. Demeter, Obsidiana, Lex, and a few other friends looked around at the others with contempt as they began to yell.
"Go back to the humans, pervert!"
"We're supposed to be setting an example for humanity!"
"Yeah - not stooping to their level!"
"If you wanted to have sex with males, why didn't you just be gay?"
"Can't you just deal with it and be a man?"
"It's a great thing to be a man."
"Why didn't you just ask Xanatos? I'm sure he would have given you a sex change!"
Wordlessly, shoulders slumped in defeat, Tigris Euphrates, turned, and with a mournful cry, glided away from the castle.
Five gargoyles gathered around Tigris, trying to comfort her and dry her tears. They were Obsidiana, Lex, Lysander, Demeter, and Jade. Tigris was telling her story amidst fits of tears.
"Do you feel better?"
Tigris smiled. "Yes! Not different... just... it's like a weight has been lifted off of me. I feel free! You know... like I've come home."
The girls all smiled. There was a knock on the door. "Come in!" One of the girls shouted.
One of the males, named Gate, opened the door.
"Hey girls!" He said cheerfully. "Am I interrupting?"
They all looked at each other. "No." they generally answered.
"Tigris?" He asked.
Everyone looked at her. She stood, dressed in a long tunic with a skirt. "Yes?"
"Look, I want to apologize for them... they have this idea that you... get off on being a girl or something. I wanted to tell you that I don't think so - I think your a pretty woman... and I think you're okay."
She giggled, "Thank you..."
Gate smiled, and left, closing the door behind her.
One of the girls leaned into the circle, giggling. "As if a lot of them haven't spent time as girls!"
Laughter filled the room.
Having sorted through the hundreds of outfits made for gargoyle girls, the small consortium of females had seen to it that Iolair's entire wardrobe had been exchanged for something more properly suiting a gargoyle girl's - citing their determination that no female would wear a male breechcloth if THEY could help it.
Climbing onto the balustrade, she prepared herself to sleep. The males clustered together on the other side of the castle, and she could hear a few of them snickering. The females, however, were silently supportive of her. She was dressed in a halter top and small breechcloth for the greatest freedom of movement in battle.
Although her greatest battles, it appeared, would be on the clanfront.
As Tigris turned to stone, however, she did not realize she was being watched from outside the castle. There among, the trees, two fay whispered to one another among the trees.
Several days later
"Let me bring you up to speed on some of the things that have occurred during your absence." The dragon-king of the Miniclan said, motioning to a map on one wall. "An encampment of what appears to be Demona's war-clan, and possibly others that we do not recognize. Recognizance has not been easy, as their spell-casters are very effective in keeping out intruders. What little we have learned has been through using science, instead."
"They are treating this like a siege." Satana - the queen - continued. "Just waiting for us to make one wrong move so that they can strike. It appears to me that Tigris is among them. The other Tigris."
Tigris Euphrates straightened, surprised. "It's revenge she's after, then?"
Lex stepped forward and spoke. "She accuses you of deceiving her."
Demeter humped. "Does one dishonor deserve another? Do two wrongs make a right?"
"I'm guessing she doesn't know I'm back yet, does she?" Tigris inquired.
"No, otherwise I expect we would have heard from her by now." Gorebash replied.
"Then, it's safe to assume that she doesn't know that Cassandra's spell has been broken, or that I'm now..." Tigris trailed off, making a circular motion with her talons.
"Our concern is how they are going to react if they DO find out - not that I plan on letting them know any time soon."
"They could attack at any time now, if they only knew..." One of the male clan leaders said.
"I disagree - I think Tigris's return gives us an ace-in-the-hole, if we play our cards correctly." Another said.
"Things being how they are, we can't possibly predict how they are going to react." Satana waved them off.
"What's the point to all this?" Tigris inquired.
"That's the one thing we HAVE learned about them." The dragon-king replied, "They're arming for war with the Miniclan."
Tigris's jaw dropped.
"I still don't see why we have to go to war for hi- her!"
"Yeah, we didn't do anything to make this clan mad at us, let Tigris fight her own battles."
Various clan members, male and female alike, disagreed on the intent of the malicious clan besieging their borders.
"Are we a clan, or a colony? When one of us is in danger, we all our! True gargoyles stand up for each other, and that's what we should do!" another protested!
"Yeah!" agreed yet another, "Mess with one of us, you mess with us all!"
"Listen to us!" Disagreed another, "We are squabbling like a bunch of humans! Can't we settle our problems more diplomatically? We are, after all, supposed to be setting an example for the humans, and we have plenty of humans right here in Castle Gorebash."
"Yeah! I say we put together an envoy to go talk to them! We can tell them this much of the truth, at least - that Iolair is never coming back!"
"Yes! Then they might leave us alone!"
"Who's with me?"
"I am!"
"I am!"
"I am!" The gargoyles exclaimed. Some flocked to the balustrade to carry out their plan, while others stayed behind, defending their home.
They Miniclan envoy stayed well outside the confines of the enemy camp, just waiting peacefully. The camp knew they were there of course, and after a minute or two, a few of the enemy camp welcomed the envoy forward into their midst.
"We have come to parlay. We should be above these human games, and have come to settle this before the blood of our own kind is spilt." The Miniclan envoy proclaimed.
"We have come for the blood of Iolair! He has dishonored one of ours, and has therefore dishonored our whole clan!" said the leader of the other clan.
One of the Miniclan, who had suggested the idea of a peace envoy in the first place, a skinny blue male named Deneb, stood forward, taking the lead. He was one of the clan leaders, so the envoy deferred to him. He was met with a bulkier looking male of about the same color, and they clasped each other's wrists in the Gargoyle way.
"I am Deneb, an elder of the Miniclan."
"I am Steve, a friend of Tigris. Come, sit around our fire."
In a circle around the fire, the gargoyles sat with one half being from the Miniclan, the other a clan watched over by a fay named Cassandra, and therefore called their clan after her. The others let Deneb do most of the talking - as he had the most experience at this sort of thing.
"As you can see, we are an honorable clan - we do not often go out seeking the blood of anyone unless one of ours was seriously offended." Steve said, motioning to his clan.
"I am not here to attempt to dissuade you either, Steve." Deneb said. "But to talk. We have news." He looked at the fire, stirring it slightly. "Demeter returned from her quest, and Iolair was not with her. It appears Iolair will never return here."
There was a stunned silence among Cassandra's clan.
"He probably knows the shame of his actions." One of Cassandra's clan spoke up.
"No! He runs from his responsibility!"
"Hear hear! Dishonor!"
Deneb allowed their shouts to die down a little before he said anything further.
"Take a message to your clan leader!" Steve ordered Deneb. "I find your clan's actions dishonorable! Was he, or was he not a member of your clan?"
"He was." Deneb said, holding his chin high.
"...And now you abandon him?"
"To prevent the shedding of blood? Yes!" Deneb countered.
"You have no honor! You abandon one of your own!" Steve turned to his warriors. "The Miniclan! The Miniclan! To war!"
"Dishonor! Dishonor!" their shouts went up.
Deneb turned. "I think we ought not to be here now. We may have just made things worse." With that, Deneb led them away.
A row of gargoyle stood with a variety of weapons under the waning crescent of a moon atop the balustrade, watching and waiting. They suspected their foe would know better than to attack from the direction of the camp - that was too obvious - and so guarded their home on every side. Some carried spears, some carried swords, some carried bows. Among them, Tigris carried her magical stave, and a bow slung across her back. At her side, Demeter stood with stave and dagger in paw, waiting.
"I shouldn't be putting the clan through this." Tigris Euphrates was sighing.
"It's not about you and your former mate Tigris anymore." The current clan leader, Lex, was saying. "It's about honor. They see us as responsible for you and your actions."
"Why don't I simply surrender myself to them?" Tigris offered.
"That will do absolutely no good." Demeter cut in. "They are looking for vengeance not justice, and then line between the two is hard to see and easy to cross. Besides, they won't recognize you anymore. They are blinded by this anger and hatred that some have for a person in your condition, just African Americans were hated by whites - before the enlightenment and the turning of the ages."
"How did they win respect?"
"By standing up for themselves." Lex replied. "That is what this battle is truly about. We stand by you as a clan, and as a clan we shall make a difference."
"Friend! Friend!" another gargoyle hollered, gliding in towards them. "I have grave news!" Lex stiffened. The messenger, a young silvery female, knelt once before Lex, before standing again. "Clan leader! Some of our warriors have joined the other side!"
"What?!!!" Lex asked, furious. Her small frame suddenly rigid. She was a short tan female with under-arm wings, but a fiery disposition. "Why?"
"They will not fight for our Tigris, accusing her of immorality."
Tigris wanted to melt into the spaces between the paving stones.
Lex held up a paw. "No! Let it be known - to everyone in this castle, gargoyle, fay, and human alike! The Castle Gorebash will stand for equal right for everyone! Anyone who cannot respect a person for who they are, leave here at once!"
The silvery female bowed again, and went racing into the bowels of the castle to inform the king.
Lex turned to Tigris and winked. "Don't worry - I suspected this was coming. After all - you aren't the only one here who has some different... tastes."
Demeter looked at Tigris and smiled. They shared a mischievous look.
The attack came from the other side of the castle, and the Miniclan was ready. Lex's first order was that Tigris Euphrates remain at the rear, by Lex and other figures of authority - which would be the goal of the attackers.
All of the gargoyles who supported them were at the front line - none of them showed any fear. Unfortunately, the same was also true of Cassandra's clan, and it became obvious early in the fight that the cost of victory would be very high for either side.
Tigris, with her trained eye, was able to sit in the background with her bow and pick off airborn gargoyles that would come within her range, and she was fairly quick on the trigger. Lex gave marching orders, reinforcing different parts of their front when she predicted they would be needed. Even the king, the dragon Gorebash, was involved in the battle. He supported Lex's position as an elder member of her clan, and was a formidable ally.
Tigris's friend Demeter was busy helping the wounded. Her expertise was in healing, and many of her young acolytes were at her side, helping tend for the injuries of war. Tigris was deeply upset at the hurt that was being inflicted on gargoyles of both sides on her behalf. She had to find a way to end this...
Suddenly Tigris looked away, turning to Lex. "I have an idea!"
In a field in the middle of the battle, Tigris Euphrates stood on the ground, stave in hand, raised up towards the enemy. "TIGRIS! CHARGE OF CASSANDRA! COME AND FACE ME!"
The battle was stilled - a challenge had been made to settle the battle with far less loss of life - that was quite enough for warriors on both sides.
All at once, Steve was before her. Tigris Euphrates recognized him instantly.
"Hello Steve, it's been a while, hasn't it?" she said cheerfully.
"Do I... know you, warrioress?"he inquired, baffled, sword in hand, ready to face her.
She raised her stave above her head, letting the magic spiral about it. It was a nice effect, actually, Lex thought, standing nearby. "I too am Tigris, named for the love I lost, and of which you are here today."
Steve stepped aside, as the blue female with arm-wings came running forward. A head or two taller than Lex, it was obvious that this was Iolair's former mate.
"IOLAIR! IS THAT YOU?" She demanded, shortsword in her paw, Steve standing at her side.
Chin held high, the former male replied, "Yes."
"And now you've taken MY name?"
"I take it in remembrance of the love we hav... had together. That love which I still have for you."
The old Tigris walked around her, examining her critically. "What mockery of nature is this?"
"It is none of my choosing, but the work of one far wiser than I." the other woman replied.
"You've simply indulged your fantasies!" the natural-born female replied, slapping the other Tigris across the face. Lines of blood were left behind on the former male's face.
"DON'T JUST STAND THERE!" Came Lex's voice, "STAND UP FOR YOURSELF."
Tigris Euphrates's eyes were aglow with red fire, as she brought her stave up to attack the other. The original Tigris sheathed her shortsword, and picked up another stave, to meet the other with her own weapon.
"Challenge me!"
Staves clashed with a snap, and the battle had begun. Without even trying, Tigris Euphrates's stave began to charge with magic at the angry contact, and as the two pressed together, their energy crackling. SNAP! SNAP! SNAP! The sticks made contact with each other as the two angry gargoyles fought for their clans.
"I loved you!" The former Iolair protested.
"You tricked me!"
Cassandra's Tigris snapped her tail underneath the other gargoyle's legs, but the other avoided it deftly.
"Is it deception when I, too, was not aware of it? It's not as if I didn't tell you!"
"You never told me you were gay!"
The other Tigris hissed in fury. "I am NOT gay!" Her spear crackled with energy, she slung her stave at the other and hit her. It was not a hard enough blow to really hurt her, but it was enough to cast her spell.
While the under-arm winged gargoyle was frozen in place by the other's spell, the Miniclan's Tigris circled her, talking.
"I wish I had the power to turn you into a male. Then you'd know exactly what it's like to feel like a female trapped in the body of a male, but the first thing a sorceress learns is what is beyond the reach of magic. You cannot create a 'y' chromosome out of nothing, so it would be impossible. You have to believe I never meant to harm you in any way, and for what I did there can be no recompense. I can stand here and say I'm sorry only so many times! What more would you have of me?"
"I will not rest until you are dead!"
"Then will you leave my clan alone?"
"I have no quarrel with them."
"Then we have a pact, then? I will not resist you, and you will retreat from this battle? I will lay down my life and you will spare theirs?"
"Yes." she agreed. With that, she found she could move again, and they grasped each other's wrists in the gargoyle way. Tigris Euphrates laid down her stave, and knelt before her former mate. In rage and fury, the other Tigris unsheathed her broadsword, prepared to smote off the head of her lover.
Suddenly, there was a thud, and a flash of light. However, when Tigris Euphrates looked up, finding herself perfectly intact still, she looked up in horror to see her lover's eyes wide with horror. An arrow protruded from her chest.
"I, HOWEVER, AM NOT BOUND BY YOUR PACT." Came a female voice that seemed to come from everywhere. Tigris Euphrates was stunned and petrified as her former mate fell to the ground, dead.
The gargoyles looked around, searching the night for the source of the voice and the arrow.
"YOUNG TIGRIS OF THE CLAN OF CASSANDRA, YOUR HEART HAS BEEN BLACKENED BY THE DARKNESS AND EVIL OF VENGEANCE. YOU HAVE BROKEN YOUR VOW OF LOVE TO MY SISTER, AND HAVE BROKEN YOUR VOW OF PROTECTION TO ALL GARGOYLES. FOR THAT, LAY YOU DEAD BY MY PAW - NEVER AGAIN TO REAWAKEN!"
Above the battlefield, a ghosting shape began to emerge. Three times her normal size, a pink female gargoyle wearing a crown and deer leathers hovered in the air, bow in hand, facing the young females at the center of the battle. Her voice still seemed to come from everywhere, reverberating in the bones of everyone present. Her body seemed to glow with white fire, and her hair seemed to fly in a non-existent wind.
"MY DEAR SISTER WHOM I LOVE, TIGRIS IS RIGHT, YOU DID DECEIVE HER BY NOT TELLING HER THE WHOLE TRUTH." the figure accused Tigris Euphrates, pointing a talon at her.
"Christine..." the mortal gargoyle whispered.
The enormous gargoyle turned to Cassandra's clan. "CASSANDRA MAY BE A FAVORED CHILD OF OBERON, BUT SHE IS NOT ABOVE THIS DISHONORABLE BEHAVIOR. YOU SHAME YOUR KEEPER, AND YOUR KEEPER SHAMES YOU ALL BEFORE HER FATHER. SEEK NO MORE TO MAKE WAR AGAINST MY SISTER."
Finally, Lady Christyne turned to the Miniclan, but said nothing. Instead, she just waved one paw in their direction. Instantly, injured, wounded, and deceased on both sides were healed or came to life, completely restored. That is, all but the other Tigris whom Christyne had slain.
In a brilliant light, the large gargoyle vanished, leaving behind only the cry of gargoyle warrior.
"Jalapeña!" Lex exclaimed.
With a totally unreadable expression on her face, Tigris Euphrates sat in the room that she and her lover had once shared, starting mindlessly at the floor, when a three-toed foot suddenly appeared in her range of sight. Following it up to it's owner, Tigris found herself face to face with her sister Christyne.
With a tear in Tigris's eyes, and without a word, they embraced. Tigris began to cry helplessly and uncontrollably. Christyne just stroked her sister's blonde curls, and making shushing noises. "I know, I know..."
"She... she wanted to kill me."
"I was hoping it would not end this way, but it seems that Tigris too had another side to her. She had a dark, vengeful streak in her that only had to be aggravated. Kind of like Demona." Looking her in the eyes, she continued. "You've been through enough, but it's always going to be a battle to make people accept you for who you are. You can't please all the people all the time. However, you will always be my sister. Just call for my help next time, and I'll be right here to defend you. You'll always be my younger sister, and my love for you is not dependent on what gender you are." Tigris leaned into her shoulder, bawling. Christine went on. "You WILL find a mate who will love you for you, and lay at least four eggs. Each of them will be female." she prophesied. "The blood of a true woman flows through your veins."
"Are you sure?" Tigris asked uncertainly.
"I have foreseen it." Chistyne explained.
The dreamer watched the sun rise over the forest beyond the castle walls. She could remember the sun from her youth, but missed seeing it waking, and wondered if she would ever see it again.
It was a moment before the dreamer realized she was not alone on the parapets. A hand touched her shoulder, and her body was suddenly filled with an electric fire she'd never felt in her entire life. She turned, to find a dark colored male holding her shoulders. She turned about to talk to him, thinking to herself how much he looked like her sister's mate in waking, Phantom. The dreamer then felt ashamed when she realized she lusted after her sister's mate.
The more she looked at him, though, she felt a desire building in her more intense and strange than anything she had every felt. There was a great emptiness inside her soul, and gaping hole that needed to be filled. She needed him to fill her. She felt him wrap his wings around her, protecting her. She loved the electric shocks that went through her skin the moment he touched her. His talons gently began to circle the tip of her breasts. Lights began to dance before her eyes. The sun began to fill her body with a searing heat. Her breathing became deep, as she felt herself falling, falling into his ministrations. Her senses were awash as his lips met hers...
Christyne smirked in satisfaction. She touched the stone figure next to her on the parapet, feeling the stone of her sister as it warmed with the rising dawn, and watched it turn to opaque white crystal under her touch.
She felt a twinge of anxiety - Tigris was alarmed. "Oh, sis... just relax. You're
about to experience one of the glories of being a young lady."