I didn't want to risk going outside in my irresolute state, lest I were forced to hold yet another speech. My words would falter like embers in the wind. Instead, I retreated to brood in our room. To calm my nerves, I nursed a cup, which I kept full of rather rancid but delicious wine.

  In the fight with Mulkava and afterwards, I had been Umu. Yet I still remembered Ryymi's life as it was mine. Try as I might, my memories held no previous life as the fire spirit, only phantasmal images of ashen ndscapes and fleeting hints of chthonic mysteries.

  The sky darkened, but Sulme was still out. He might have gotten into trouble, but that sort of thing would surely have been noticed. Besides, the man could handle himself. I wouldn't embarrass us both by running around shouting his name, only to find him drinking with some long lost friend he had chanced to encounter.

  When I heard heavy steps coming up the stairs, my wait-numbed nerves reacted with sluggishness of a drunkard. I stiffened and considered standing up, before deciding to look as I had been busy, sitting on my arse.

  The door opened, and Sulme walked in. He had what seemed to be a new warcoat loose on him.

  I couldn't stay still, so I went to him. The man's eyes averted mine. I stopped half a step away from him.

  "Where were you?" I asked, sounding much more demanding than I would have preferred. My hand had risen to touch his chin, but with the sharp cws the gesture didn't have the tenderness I intended.

  Sulme took a deep breath and turned his eyes towards me. "The smith wanted to give me a fresh coat to repce my old one. Retailoring the ptes took a while."

  "What's the matter?" I stepped to him, close enough to be warmed by his shallow breath.

  Sulme flinched ever so lightly. My eyes got caught on my raised hands. The insides of my torso twisted. How did he dare to be so understandably superficial?

  The Nilkoan straightened his frame. "Who are you? You wear a familiar face, but in the deeper mirage you are a coiled bonfire. I heard, what you did today... Mulkava was your enemy, but he and Ryymi were friends once."

  Mulkava hadn't deserved any mercy. Fortunately for Sulme, I was too lethargic to sh out before realising my temper.

  "So..." I drew my mouth into a line. "You think your friend is finally possessed. Just another serpentist, who lost themselves."

  "No. You are different from the rest. I can see it." Sulme frowned like sad little animal. "But I fear what will happen, if I stay close to you. At the harbour today, even among the dread and awe, my feelings from yestereve weren't gone."

  "But those emotions are not lost to me either!" Again I reached for the man, but before he had chance to retreat, I csped my hands together and looked down. "I spent the whole evening waiting for you, Sulme."

  Firm but gentle hands grabbed my shoulders. I opened my eyes into Sulme's intense gaze.

  "Are you still yourself?" he asked. "Are you Ryy-- Teissa behind those eyes?"

  It would have been so much easier, had I been Umu and nothing else. I needed to be Her: the imperturbable, resolute, powerful. She would not have cared about one feeble mortal like Sulme. She wouldn't have wasted time pretending to be a human as the guest of a family dinner. She would have shed the rest of mortality, which bound her. Umu would have been nothing but the might of fmes.

  Despite my fire, I needed the warmth of Sulme's body. Though I had Umu's power, I wanted to be held in his protective embrace. The high-flowing goals, the rage against unjust gods, was hollow, if I couldn't be with him.

  All those were my mortal weakness. Umu hadn't corrupted me. I tainted Her, like a carcass thrown in the sacred fire of a temple.

  "I cannot say I am your Teissa," I whispered. "Perhaps it would be best, if you left."

  "You don't want me to go," Sulme said.

  "No." I tried to smile, but my mouth wavered. Fortunately Sulme relieved me from the embarrassing effort, by pressing his lips on mine. He was a fool to stay, and I was thankful.

  The man pulled back and stared at me with that faint smile on his face. "Then I'll stay."

  The Nilkoan hadn't eaten a proper meal since morning, so he asked the servants to bring upstairs whatever was avaible.

  During his meal, we didn't talk much. The little what we said was about innocuous things like the food or his new felt-covered steel coat.

  I was content to gaze at him, while trying to understand my infatuation. Yes, he was tall and strong, but not notably so. Many men were bigger than him. Status and wealth he cked, even if his mother was esteemed among her own people.

  A thrifty painter wouldn't have remained overly true to life while doing Sulme's portrait. Without my bias, his narrow-faced countenance was rather peculiar. Especially those rge eyes kept catching mine.

  "Can I still call you 'Teissa'?" Sulme asked.

  A pleasant tingling went through my chest. I smiled. "You may."

  Something sharp scratched my cheek. I noticed that I was resting my jaw on my hands. Hurriedly, I hid the cws back under the table.

  Ever so slightly, Sulme's smile widened. My face warmed. Unfortunately I cked the control required to stop myself from blushing.

  "This is not, how I imagined my return to be," he said.

  "Oh. What did you expect?"

  Sulme remained silent for a while. "That I would find the same woman, who gave the speeches and raised the dead today. I prepared to be forced on my knees to swear fealty to you."

  I grinned. "We can still do that, if you want to."

  The Nilkoan yawned, which I mirrored.

  "It's getting te," he said. "Let's postpone any shows of submission to tomorrow."

  "Very well."

  After taking off my gown, but leaving on my underwear, I hurried under the bnkets. For some reason, I wasn't comfortable showing my body to him, even if Sulme hadn't shown any signs of disgust.

  It was relieving that he didn't consider my form altogether abhorrent. Yet what sort of man wasn't disturbed by a monstrous visage such as mine? Perhaps he truly had inherited twisted 'tendencies' from his father. I had only seen his mother in her perfectly human form, but it was clear that was far from the body she preferred to wear.

  With my tail, it was more comfortable to lie slightly on my side. The tail would likely continue to grow, and eventually I might lose my legs. In the anti-serpentist woodblock prints overseas, the possessed abominations had a thick snake-tail in pce of their lower half. But so did the old carvings of certain lesser kindly gods associated with honest earth.

  Sulme scrubbed his skin with a damp rag, before he scurried underneath the bnkets with me. I was gd for his warmth, as our room was quite chilly despite the house's oven being almost underneath.

  I closed my eyes. The silly insecurity that had shackled me earlier had faded, and sleep crept ever closer.

  So did the man next to me. I kept my eyes closed, but my breath quickened. Heavy heartbeat filled my chest, but it failed to pump vigour into my weary limbs.

  A hand touched mine.

  "I thought I lost you." Sulme's voice was bordering on frail.

  "You should have made sure before assuming such." I turned my smile wry.

  The man's weight shifted next to me. His hot breath brushed my hair.

  "They said that your clothes were burned." Sulme moved his thumb around my hand. "But nobody noticed..."

  "I must have changed my form in the crucible of Aanu, based on instinctive desire." I clutched Sulme's wrist and pushed his hand to my crotch.

  Embarrassingly enough, the linen was damp under the touch of his finger. Pleasant shivers waved through me, and the new parts of my anatomy shifted in unfamiliar but welcome manner.

  Sulme drew a sharp breath. "Is it..?"

  "I think so, but I did ck the opportunity to examine myself." I opened my eyes, looked at bewildered Sulme and said: "Would you want to do it? My body is tired, yet women can enjoy the act without being particurly active."

  The man jerked towards me, but caught himself. "Right now?"

  I chuckled. "Why not?"

  Sulme hesitated for two deep breaths and cmbered on top of me. His eyes had both frantic light and doubt.

  I closed my eyes and let him puzzle it out.

  Slowly, a hand moved up my thigh to pile the hem to my waist. My cheek was kissed, though that meant good part of the man's weight was awkwardly on me.

  A hard rod was between us, instead of going where it should. I grabbed his member, mostly to see, how he'd reach to the touch of my scales. Strangely enough, a throb indicated excitement.

  With my help, Sulme's spear found its destination. My gates stretched open, eliciting a gasp from me. The tinge of discomfort was washed from the way of clean stretching pleasure.

  The man made a tentative thrust, tried to find a better position and humped a few times. His administrations were clumsy enough that I started to believe I actually was his first womanly conquest. No dalliances with a servant's girl, no older noblewoman taking advantage of him, no desperate payment for a night's passing rut. Just me.

  Sulme tried to find a rhythm, though it resembled a child's attempt to churn butter: forceful pushes interspersed with odd ineffectual prodding.

  "You may put more of your weight on me," I said. "I am not made of gss."

  My man pressed against me. I was secure under his brawn and trapped under his weight. The sensations from masculine member plunging into my depths were merely an additional if delightful perk of our love.

  I leaned my head back on the pillow and concentrated on enjoying myself.

  "Does this feel good?" Sulme asked. His breath was ragged.

  "It does."

  I had been lying still as a fish, at least a quarter asleep. However, Sulme apparently needed encouragement. I began to moan with each of his strong, exaggerated movements.

  A shudder went through the bulk on top of me. Sulme's hips pushes against mine, almost uncomfortably hard. A surge of his virile energy poured into my soul and stifled my breath.

  As he withdrew, a new wetness had joined our liquids.

  "Ah..." Sulme rose from top of me. "Did you climax?"

  "No, but that is fine. You will have to fondle me."

  "Alright." Sulme y next to me, and I moved against his side. His hands returned to my crotch, to pet and brush and squeeze. He really had no idea, what he was doing, but for me it was enough that he was so willing to try.

  The built-up pressure released into a glow, almost as bright as Aanu, but infinitely more pleasant. I drifted again towards dreams, when Sulme spoke.

  "Sorry. I shouldn't have... let myself flow into you."

  I croaked a tired guffaw. "You did not seem 'sorry', while doing it, goodman. Far from it. I think you did the deed eagerly."

  "I'm sorry. At the moment, I didn't consider it."

  A part of the earlier heat flickered inside my abdomen. Umu was fire, and fire desired to spread. As a corporeal being I couldn't extended myself directly. Instead, I would have to propagate in the human way.

  "Such concerns are pointless. I do desire your spawn."

  "What?"

  "I mean that I would not mind starting a family with you. It only makes sense. I already know, what sort of man you are. You deserve the best."

  "But you are tangled in politics now," Sulme said. "You will have to marry advantageously to some lord or prince."

  "No. I will not get tangled in the social games of human politics. I want you--"

  I was startled by a flurry of motion around me. Sulme wrapped his arms around me in tight embrace. In spite of the awkwardness of the position, I giggled.

  "Do you mind, if I hug you back?" I asked.

  Sulme let out an amused breath. "Sure."

  After I got my arms around him, I twined my fingers together avoid cwing the warm man in my embrace.