Total pages in book: 127
Estimated words: 121146 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 606(@200wpm)___ 485(@250wpm)___ 404(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 121146 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 606(@200wpm)___ 485(@250wpm)___ 404(@300wpm)
“What are those—satyrs?” she asked, shielding her eyes to see better.
“What’s a ‘satyr’?” Fierce asked, frowning as he put one hand to the blaster on his hip.
“Oh, it’s from Greek mythology—a satyr was supposed to have the bottom half of a goat and the top half of a man,” Celia explained. “That’s kind of what they look like—the two that are on either side,” she added. “The one in the middle that they’re carrying…I don’t know.”
“Quiet now—they can probably hear us,” Hold murmured. He had also strapped on a blaster and he and Fierce both took a step forward, closing ranks in front of Celia.
“Dios, you two—I can’t see!” she complained.
“Just keeping you safe,” Fierce growled. “Stay where you are until we’re sure they don’t want a fight.”
Celia sighed but stayed where she was. She was able to see only by looking between their arms, but she watched as well as she could as the three strange people approached.
The two on either side did, indeed look like satyrs. They had muscular legs with backwards bending knees covered in shaggy brown fur. The legs ended in shiny black cloven hooves that looked as though they had been polished to a high shine. From the waist up they had the bare, muscular torsos of men. Their faces were also humanoid—well, mostly. Because though they had human-looking features, their pupils were slotted like a goat’s. They also had curling ram’s horns on either side of their heads and their long, shaggy hair matched the fur on their legs.
There was one final detail that Celia was able to see as they came forward—but at first she wasn’t sure what she was seeing. The two goat people both had long, thick, dark red things dangling from their groins which swayed when they walked.
Are those…no, they can’t be! she thought as she watched them walk. But as they got closer, she became more and more sure. The long, dark red things were the goat men’s cocks and they were absolutely enormous!
Riding on the shoulders of the two goat men was a third person—this was the one Celia wasn’t sure about. It appeared to be a woman wearing a long white, gauzy silk gown with two slits in the front which showed her large breasts. The breasts had bright blue nipples and they jiggled with every step the goat men carriers took. But the woman was wearing a kind of mask—it looked to Celia like a golden sun with rays shooting out in all directions—so it was impossible to see her face. She also had hooves instead of feet—tiny dainty cloven ones that had been painted a shiny gold.
At last the strange trio reached the hatch of the ship.
“Stop!” the woman called, her voice slightly muffled by the golden mask.
The two goat men halted immediately.
Now that the three of them were close enough, Celia could see a few details she’d missed earlier. For instance, it was clear the masked woman wasn’t just riding on the two male’s bare shoulders—they had a kind of wicker harness which strapped to their backs and shoulders and formed a seat for her to sit on.
It was a very strange looking contraption but the woman seemed perfectly at ease as she sat on her makeshift throne and looked down at them. She lifted her mask at last, showing a slightly elongated face with a long nose that looked almost like a horse’s. On her forehead was the tiniest stub of a spiraling white horn and her eyes were huge and golden with extremely long lashes.
Celia stared up at her and thought, If a unicorn was a person—that’s what she looks like.
“Visitors to JoCosta Twelve, I am La’ver’na, Priestess to the Goddess of the Shining Heart,” she informed them in a voice that had a slight neigh in it. “Please state your business here on our lovely world. We do not usually allow outsiders to stay here unless they are seeking to join our order.”
“We just want to get our ship repaired,” Fierce told her. “We went through a destabilized wormhole and got thrown out here, far from our destination.”
“We’re hundreds of thousands of light years from home and we’re hoping you can help us get back,” Hold said. “We have plenty of credit to pay for repairs,” he added.
The unicorn woman waved a hand at him.
“We do not accept credit here—though we do have a top-of-the-line repair facility. Many ships are sent here by the wormhole, which opens on to hundreds of galaxies and destabilizes itself every two hours on the hour.”
“Are you serious? You’re saying it stabilizes and destabilizes itself all the time?” Fierce demanded.
La’ver’na nodded her head in a queenly manner.
“That it does, stranger. The cycles of the wormhole have brought us many visitors…and many new members of our order—the Sisterhood of Peace.”