Elf Boy's Friends - VIII
by George Gauthier
Chapter 12
The Lesser Inland Freshwater Sea
The twins went to work making copies of the maps the Medkari had drawn not only of the lake region and the Hot Lands but also of lands which lay beyond. The Corps of Discovery would not be flying blind. These copies were not the rough sketch maps and spot elevations and terrain sketch maps which the normally made as they traveled. The Medkari cartographer provided them with his own professional tools so they could produced finished maps.
The only limitations were that the Medkari maps did not use contours based on a geodetic survey but showed relief as hachures and spot elevations. The twins also recorded their observations on the local fauna, fauna, and geology, information which one day might find its way into one or more of their popular field guides.
Kyle made good on his promise to share his charms with everyone in the Corps of Discovery. Only Madden Sexton turned him down. No surprise there. The wir wolverine was one who lay only with the female half of the [human] species.
Kyle could hardly believe in his good fortune at taking to bed such a variety of sexy males: a frost giant, an elf-boy, blond twins, a couple of cute red heads, and a raven haired beauty with a strong upper storey. He couldn't wait to feel those arms around him. In size his lovers ranged from petite to literally gigantic in Finn's case. Equally various were their magical gifts. The group included an avatar of a thunder god; three wizards of war, earth, and air; a fetcher and a jumper. In short, Kyle was on top of the world.
The giant was all top while Drew and Axel were abject bottoms while Dylan, Liam, and the twins could play both roles. Mostly Kyle took them on one at a time but the twins double teamed the insatiable Medkari youth.
It was hard to say which lover excited him most. Finn was supremely masculine, literally impaling Kyle on a prong so prodigious it was a wonder his anal ring could stretch that far. Never had Kyle felt so filled so thrilled and so thoroughly fucked. Finn was so big and strong he could easily lift Kyle's much smaller body into all sorts of sexual positions. Finn liked to fuck a boy while standing up with the boy bent in half, legs thrown over the giant's shoulders while his fundament sank onto Finn's cock.
By contrast, Axel was petite and boyishly cute with fine-boned features and heart-melting dimples. Axel was no stranger to a gravity-defying techniques devised by fetchers for making love. Liam had taught him well. It went even better with Liam. Fetchers might not be able to lift their own naked bodies, but two fetchers could lift each other and turn and position their lovers in all sorts of naughty and improbable ways. You just to be careful not to bump the other guy into the furniture or the walls.
The twins were like a pair of palomino colts who mounted Kyle as if he were their filly and occasionally slapped his rump with a hearty "Giddy-up" for emphasis. Or one of the twins would stretch out and let the filly straddle him and post up and down on his cock as if Kyle were astride a trotting horse. Kyle had done the same with Finn but had never been able to sink all the way down on what really deserved the name horse cock.
And so it went.
Kyle dressed formally in his white short shorts only for flight training. He just felt more secure that way, "girding his loins" as it were, rather than letting it all hang out, whether flying by yoke or autogyro.
Otherwise Kyle went around skin clad like any fisher boy or youth about town. He ran and swam almost every day to the delight of his many friends, neighbors, fans, and clients past and future.
As a wine boy Kyle had a responsibility to keep his body toned and taut to maintain visual appeal to clients and to perform athletically and acrobatically in bed. Habitual nudity was nearly as important aesthetically in letting the sun's rays reach every part of his skin and make it gleam with that bronze shade that signified that here was a boy who was not simply naked at the moment but as a matter of habit. For a wine boy, the two-tone look just would not do.
Finally, the application of depilatories gave the wine boy the smooth glabrous skin of an elf without off-putting body hair even in the usual three places. It did not hurt that being smooth and bare even at the fork of the legs made his manly parts more prominent.
Of course in all this Kyle was motivated more by his own own vanity than by purely occupational reasons.
Kyle grew particularly close to Drew. The boys bonded quickly, finding they had so much in common. The two fetchers could engage in forms of lovemaking that defied gravity and sometimes common sense. Not even a thunder god could match what Drew could do to and with Kyle and vice versa. Their lovemaking was extraordinarily inventive as well as energetic, acrobatic, athletic, and loud.
With a nod from is uncle, Kyle took on the role of tour guide and cultural ambassador. Kyle took them all around town. They got to see the workshops where artisans crafted broaches pendants, and rings out to chalcedony. They went to the fish market where fishmongers and restauranteurs and housewives made their selection from the day's catch. They viewed olives being pressed and joiners making furniture out of teak.
Liam and Axel and Drew all bought a couple of pair of the flattering white short shorts which Kyle wore. On impulse Drew selected a third pair, in a colorful red and yellow pattern. It came with a set of narrow red suspenders or braces as the locals called them which fell from the shoulders, paralleled the boy's well-defined midline, kissed the aureoles of his nipples, and clipped onto the low rise waist band.
Impatient to see how he would look in his new outfit, once he paid for the shorts Drew threw off his expeditionary outfit and put on the shorts and braces and examined his reflection in a full-length mirror. He saw himself as others would see him, a scrumptious studly boy-toy just begging to be courted. The reds of the braces and shorts complemented his auburn locks and the lighter red of his aureoles making for an indescribably sexy look. Drew could hardly wait to step out onto the dance floors of Twinkle Town and strut his stuff.
The twins had been planning to buy silk sarongs to replace their old wraps, alas now grown threadbare, but chose shorts too, color coded of course.
"Shorts are just the thing, Karel for occasions when we cannot be sky clad and do have to wear clothing. I am thinking of sitting down to meals at the the dining room in our residential hotel as well as establishments in Twinkle Town like the Sign of the Whale. And who knows, the five of us just might start a fashion trend back home."
"I quite agree Jemsen. Naturally we cannot wear white but must have them in color coded green and blue. Mmmm, feel the fabric, Karel. The silk is so very smooth it feels like it is caressing the skin. And though it is not sheer, it is thin enough and clingy enough to mold to and to emphasize the shape of the rump and what we have up front."
"Right, Karel. Also the style is very low rise and square cut with an extremely short inseam all of which leaves the torso bared to the hip bones and the legs entirely bare. Which means when we do have to wear clothes we'll be wearing less and baring more of our shapely legs."
"Indeed, long and slender and graced with the sculpted musculature of an athlete or acrobat, what is there not to admire about our legs?"
"Who knew the twins were their own mutual admiration society?" Kyle said in an aside to Drew who shrugged and replied:
"Only everyone who knows them, and I don't mean that critically. Understand Jemsen and Karel aren't just identical twins, they are lovers, soul mates, life-bonded, comrades in arms, and each other's best friend. Yet they still have enough room in their hearts for lovers and friends. I count myself lucky to be one of them."
Everyone murmured agreement including Madden Sexton. He might be the only one in the Corps of Discovery who did not fancy the twins for a tumble, but he could admire their youthful male beauty in an aesthetic sense. Slender, blond, clean-limbed, toned, taut, and tanned the twins were like a pair of palomino colts exuding good health and sex appeal.
The Medkari not only lived around the lake they played in its waters, on its surface, and even underwater. Besides swimming and sailing and rowing, everyone swam recreationally though the young females usually went off by themselves. The younger males had no such inhibitions and were happy to display the trim taut bodies they were so proud of.
At one spot a half-a-dozen thin naked younger boys were jumping and diving into the water where a low bluff looked out over a deep spot. The bluff made a fine jumping-off point. After the boys splashed into the water they swam to where the ground sloped down to the shore and clambered out of the water only to run up the trail that led back to the top of the bluff.
The boys shouted back and forth and joked and laughed and carried on as boys will, clearly having a grand time. And why not? What boy does not like to jump and run and climb and swim in the company of his friends?
"Those lads seem happy and healthy enough though still skinny from their growth spurt." Axel observed.
"Yes," Dylan agreed, but they would have a lot more fun if they knew how to dive properly instead of just landing in the water boulder style."
"So? Show them how it is done." Axel challenged. "Just as you did with me and the twins."
Which was just what Dylan proceeded to do. At first the boys were skeptical but were soon impressed by Dylan's athleticism and style, not to mention his physical beauty. Dylan demonstrated several graceful dives popular among the elves in his home vale. In one he stretched his arms out wide like the wings of a swan before closing his arms and knifing into the water. In another he did a forward somersault in the air, and in another he bent forward in mid air, hands reaching for his toes only to straighten out at the last second and slice cleanly into the water, feet slipping under the surface last.
"Now that is what I call diving!"
Kyle turned to Drew and remarked dryly:
"And here I'd thought we two were the shameless showoffs of the bunch."
The boys insisted that Dylan train them to dive as he did. Anyone could see that fancy dives like those were splendid ways to show off the beauty and athleticism of the male form. Okay so maybe the sport of diving owed as much to sex appeal as to athletics, but it was a hell of a lot of fun and a great way to meet new friends and catch the eye of potential suitors.
With the help of the twins whom Dylan had tutored in diving years earlier soon after they met, the Medkari kids quickly got the hang of it. All they needed from that point was practice.
One popular sport and also a way to travel short distances over water was to stand on a pointed board and propel yourself with a paddle. Fetchers of course could just push it along telekinetically. Upright posture put one's physique totally on display and visible from all angles. This was one of Kyle's favorite diversions, shameless showoff that he was.
Drew and Liam joined in, wielding the paddles only for balance. Kyle challenged his fellow fetchers to a race. As the most powerful fetcher Drew expected to win but came in last. It was Kyle who came in first due to his long experience on the board. Liam came a close second thanks to better "sea legs" than his city boy competitor, a landlubber if there ever was one.
Another sport was hanging on to a swim board while propelling it telekinetically. A fetcher could zoom across the surface of the water as fast as he could run on land. The boards had extra handholds for passengers so everyone joined in the fun with all three fetchers, Kyle, Drew, and Liam, providing the propulsive power. Even Finn and Madden Sexton stripped down and plunged in to take part.
Using swim boards, the members of the Corps of Discovery joined Kyle in diving to explore one of the artificial reefs the Medkari had built. Kyle had brought along several pair of goggles like those used by divers for fresh water pearls. The goggles let them see clearly underwater. As a shape shifter Sexton didn't need goggles. Instead he grew a nictating membrane over his eyes which served the same purpose.
They plunged forty feet down to watch the smaller fish as they darted into holes at the approach of a predator. Schools of shiny fish swam through the water column in a synchronized ballet. On the bottom were sessile organisms including fresh water corals which used the artificial reef as a substrate to build upon. One day the living reef might reach the surface but the top was still fifteen feet down.
The waters of the Lesser Inland Freshwater Sea held no threats. Nothing in the lake could harm a human. The largest fish ran to only thirty or forty pounds. There were no toothy reptiles like those which lurked everywhere in the Amazon Basin. No poisonous water snakes either.
By partnering with a fetcher, anyone could enjoy the sensation of flying underwater by holding on to a swim board while his partner moved the board in three dimensions, diving, turning, even rolling it and them as they traveled underwater for as long as they could hold their breath, a feat everyone could manager for at least three minutes given their high level of fitness and or magical enhancements. The twins especially loved the way the flow of water caressed every part of their bodies at once.
Everyone agreed that underwater exploration was a hell of a lot of fun, the highlight of their stay in the Vale of Asshur.
Kyle also took them to eating places which offered not only fish but also the prime beef which the Medkari raised on the tall grass prairie to the south. It was at one such dinner that Kyle proposed an excursion around the lake. They would stop at various towns, islands, and scenic spots. Dylan was finally free having finished training under Padraig. The elf-boy was now a full-fledged though as yet entirely inexperienced Beast Master.
Before they set off on their excursion their guide told them:
"Don't think you have to dress up on this trip. Save your new shorts for when we meet notables in the bigger towns. Otherwise do what comes naturally to you."
The twins, Drew, Liam, Axel, and especially the elf-boy Dylan welcomed the chance to shed the garments they had worn most days of their expedition and to go about skin clad for an extended period of time.
Given their cultural backgrounds it was no surprise that only Finn and Madden Sexton defaulted to clothing rather than the clothing-optional life style of the elves. Not that either was a prude. They would readily strip down for a swim or in the sauna or at bed time.
For four days the Corps of Discovery sailed or rather sat in a boat which Kyle propelled telekinetically around the lake. They made quite a crew, all but two in the nude, all clean limbs, tanned bodies, bare bums, and pretty faces, an entire boatload of youthful male beauty on the move. Everywhere the locals were eager to meet the visitors whose names had already been known from books and news-papers but were now respected also for what they had done for the Medkari in the Hot Lands.
They stopped at several of the major islands one of which was where the Medkari's had first settled in the Vale of Ashur, a site picked for defense. On the mainland they climbed to the top of a scenic cataract whose waters flowed rather than fell over a slanted rock face. Naked already the boys, jumped in one at a time and let the rushing waters carry them over the smooth stone face to the bottom only to clamber out of the pool at the bottom and climb back up for another ride. Even Finn and Madden Sexton stripped off and joined in the fun. For the finale, the shape shifter shot the cataract in his animal form.
Jemsen was surprised and told Sexton when he was back in human form:
"I didn't know that wolverines swam."
Sexton smiled and told him:
"They don't, but I do."
Sexton caught Kyle ogling him and raised an eyebrow interrogatively.
The professional wine boy shrugged and admitted: "I can't help thinking that it's such a waste that you don't fancy boys."
Laughed and swept his hand down his naked body:
"I assure you young Kyle, that none of this goes to waste."
"Have you ever married?" Kyle wondered.
"Yes, over two centuries ago. Her name was Andromeda. She was beautiful, smart, and kind. Also a fine musician on the lute and the lyre and with a fine singing voice and perfect pitch. She never gave me children. Unions between wirs and normals are seldom fruitful, but we were happy during our decades together."
"What happened?"
"My wife was fully human and thus mortal. To spare her feelings I altered my outward appearance to keep pace with her as the years passed though I never aged inside. Alas, her fate was to be born, to live, and to die. At the very end she asked me to transform so she could see me one last time as I had been when first we met."
"I never married again."
Farther along the shore was cove featuring odd pillars of sandstone shaped by erosion to resemble a quartet of looming giants. Just beyond lay a mysterious outcrop of granite on whose face some early culture had chiseled petroglyphs. Kyle said that a small population of orcs had once lived in the region though nothing definitely marked the glyphs as the work of orcs.
An excursion ashore gave Dylan his first chance to really use his new powers. The group had climbed up to a scenic outlook and at the top found a shepherd boy armed only with a crook and a sling facing off against a pair of dire wolves.
All of them save Finn and Sexton were unarmed as well as unclothed and even those two had only a single weapon each. As Sexton reached for his kukri and Finn his war hammer Dylan held up a hand to urge restraint.
"Let me handle this."
Finn nodded, and the others took their cue from him.
Dylan pointed at the wolves and told them:
"No!"
As the wolves slunk back, Dylan summoned an antelope and had it run past heading for the high timber. Dylan held the wolves for a moment to give the antelope a decent head start. Once released from Dylan's control and without further prompting the predators took off after their normal prey, leaving the young shepherd in peace. The boy, who could not be more than fourteen, allowed that it was usually his big brother who looked after the flock. As a fetcher he would have made short work of a couple of wolves, but the older brother was back at their village courting.
Sexton was impressed by the elf-boy's restraint and fairness. The fledgling beast master recognized that predators were not evil creatures but rather a necessary part of the balance of nature. He had intervened on the side of the human youth, but he did not simply hold the wolves back, he presented them with an alternative prey but given it a head start. Fair all around.
Dylan's new powers were just what he had been longing for. Now he could play a more significant role in their adventures. And he made a better partner for Sexton in their normal jobs as forest rangers.
The powers of a beast master and those of a wir were complementary, being in the same realm so to speak. Excellent in both archery and fieldcraft, they both had a psychic link to the mind of the New Forest. Also his own virtual immortality and Dylan's longevity as an elf meant that theirs could be an enduring alliance and friendship. Now Sexton's feelings toward the younger male were not romantic, nor were they fatherly nor even avuncular. For Sexton Dylan was becoming the younger brother he had never had. It was a good feeling.
"You know," Jemsen began, "this incident puts me in mind to suggest that maybe the druids should recruit beast masters rather than mind speakers to help the Amazons communicate with their new allies the brontotheres."
"That is an acute observation, my friend." Sexton agreed. "So be sure to mention it to Dahl and the others when we get back to Elysion."
Back aboard their boat, as they passed through a fishing fleet Kyle explained that the fishermen among the Medkari did not use nets, only poles or drop lines with barbless hooks. That way they could throw back fish that were too small or too large.
"Too large?" Karel asked.
"It is a lesson my namesake druid taught us. Of course everyone understands why you need a minimum size — so that the little ones will survive to grow large, but what do you think would happen if you continually culled the fish population by always taking the very largest?"
"I see," Karel said nodding. "Over time the average size of the population has to decrease since you are selecting against size. It makes sense."
"We Medkari take pride in being good stewards of the land and the waters."
Their last day they came upon a fishing boat that had gotten swamped when it came about too quickly and the wind heeled it over enough for gunwale to dip below the surface and the boat to fill with water. The fisherman themselves were not in immediate danger since all Medkari could swim, but their boat was barely afloat with only its gunwales above the water
Kyle motioned for the fisherman to swim aside. Once they were clear he started rocking the boat, left and right, spilling water out of it till only a foot was left in the bottom. The fisherman clambered aboard and bailed her out the rest of the way. Meanwhile another fishing boat had collected their gear which floated all around and brought it over. Once the crew re-stepped the mast they were back in business.
"Thanks for the assist young Kyle!" the captain called across the water.
"Our hero!" Drew enthused facetiously.
Kyle snorted:
"Bosh. The crew would have got the water out of their boat themselves by rocking it with sheer muscle power and their weight but at the cost of exhausting themselves. Now they can get right back to fishing."
Later that day, when they returned to port, the captain personally delivered the best of his catch to Farhad's residence as thanks for his nephew's assistance. That evening Kyle and his uncle's whole family sat down to one of the best fish dinners anyone had eaten in a while.
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