A/N: Rape warning, if only implied and only in a dream sequence.
As her mood turned from carefree to despair, instead of flying like a mother spirit, she now felt herself rooted helplessly to the ground, and flying spirits moving in on her. They did not look friendly.
Tears welled up and she sobbed, while fuzzy shapes in dark colours encroached from the fringes of her vision to hack their fangs into her neck, some of them tasting rectangular, others sounding like foul flavours.
The icy blackness tried to envelope her in its bat-wings of hyena fur. Weakly, she lashed out at the evil spirits and begged them to leave her alone. Her whines and whispered pleas were drowned out by the moans and groans from the adjacent couple.
A deep, commanding voice intruded into Latie's horrified dreams: „The spirits are friendly. The spirits are friendly. Embrace them, play with them. The predators have come only to give you their furs. They are fluffy."
Latie felt fluffy furs embracing her flanks, cuddling her, and the darkness above her seemed less frightening, rather like a benevolent bed-cover.
„See the mushroom men dancing with the strawberry women", the voice continued, „you are their guest of honour. Each and every one is going to kiss you. They are such jolly spirits. Have fun!"
It was true, the spirits looked a lot less frightening now, and the red and white strawberry women got really well along dancing with the similarly coloured mushroom men, and one of the latter kissed her deeply, which was quite exciting, and interestingly he did not taste like mushroom but like mint.
But what finally brought Latie out of her worry-induced bad trip was Chaleg's primeval scream of completion before he collapsed on top of his Dollie.
In her addled state of mind, the thought of forbidden, early pleasures like the couple next to her had apparantly enjoyed did not shock but excite her. Images returned: Ayla and Jondalar, the drapes to their sleeping platform not quite closed; she on her hands and knees, he kneeling behind her ... like those rhinos she had once watched on a hunting expedition ... or horses ...
What if she'd taken Jondalar to the horse-hearth for pleasures before first rites? Or someone? Unconciously, she reached for her headband, dislodged it, and, breathing the scent in deeply and thinking of what might have been, she finally gave in to the gentle caresses and spread her legs wide.
There was a slight pain, but she didn't care; her mind was flying, riding the wind, travelling the landscape at incredible speed, looking for something - horses, a lover, a point of purpose. She didn't know. It was way better than riding double with Ayla on Whinney, and that ride already had given her sweet pressure and pleasure in places she had not expected.
Some other presence was drawn in with her, following her, and she could sense utter astonishment, but she really didn't care, while the wild ride on ... whatever ... was giving her more pleasure than she ever thought possible.
Latie was lost in visions and dreams. She had passed by a band of women on horseback led by her sister (was that really Rugie with that bent wooden stick and the quiver of tiny javelins on her back?) and was now standing on the shores of Beran Sea, dressed in a light garment of woven plant fibres as the Sungaea made them.
A large watercraft lay pulled up on the gravelly beach, like one of those the riverpeople made, but even more impressive, with eyes at the prow, rows of oars, and a tree standing a-midships where they could pull up some cloth for the spirit of the wind to press into, Oooha, whom they were carrying with them in a leather pouch they'd gotten from the wind spirit's son, Aee-ol-urs. She had already handed over the belt of her garment to the leader of their crew. Apparently he needed it to re-tie the pouch that contained the wind spirit, or so she'd understood. She was not really that proficient in her brother Rydag's silent language.
The leader of the band of strangers was of mixed spirits, a broad-shouldered man with bushy hair and beard, dressed in a lion skin wrap, armed with a club. They were doing a hunting-dance, praising his deeds.
He had killed not just that lion but also the largest boar anyone had ever seen, also a sea-serpent whose heads re-grew if severed, taken down man-eating birds with his spear-thrower, and cleaned the horse-hearth of the horse-keeping headman. Latie's spirit within her descendant's body reclined against the tree with the golden-yellow apples.
Ayla had told her she could see the future at times. The elder legends of the Mamutoi confirmed the same: people in a near-death situation drawing on ancestral spirits for guidance, or shamans drawn into the body of a descendant and Seeing a possible future. But wasn't that something that happened only to shamans, if anybody at all? Latie had no time to wonder.
She understood now why the young woman under the apple tree had drawn on her. She had a lump on her temple, and her head hurt abominally. There was, apparently, something else entirely to that handing over of the girdle than controlling some wind spirit, and the Clan man had performed a mating ritual that included clobbering her over the head with his club and dragging her by her hair.
The young woman had been frightened out of her mind, and reached into the spirit world. Now Latie was with her, and, strangely, she was not frightened at all. She had not been clubbed down herself, and was rather attracted to the handsome man who could have been her little brother's uncle; she smelled horses and was sure she would be rescued.
Here was a hero who would be remembered in songs and legend for times to come, and Latie wanted to be part of his tale and to experience him. She spread her legs wide, and enjoyed the ride. He was eager, and rough, but she was so ready, she soon felt the bliss, and then she flew back in time and space to where she belonged, half-guided by some amorphous presence that seemed to know the way, and then blackness.