Concordat

Breakfast... he thought. Now there's an idea... If I don't hurry, I'm going to be--

Bill's rambling train of thought came to a screeching halt, de-railing itself into a thousand pieces! His optic nerves seemed to throttle his brain, grabbing it by the visual cortex and strangling his momentary disbelief with a wonderful sight!

The form laying atop the futon next to him was a cool steel grey with a brilliant orange-red stripe. The slumbering Skiltaire was, Bill noted somewhat strangely, very male and seemed to be the picture of fluid grace as he flipped easily onto his back, exposing himself and his snow white undercoat to Bill's eyes! His body was on the lean side, shorter than Shyia, but with heavier muscles layered beneath a thicker, somewhat more unruly coat.

Looking down at the meter long mustelid, stretched out now in open and vulnerable contentment, the digits of his jet black paws curling with satisfaction, Bill felt his mouth go sandy dry.

"W-wow!" said Bill in a shout of delight crushed into a soft whisper by a sudden impulse not to disturb whoever this was. After all, common courtesy, even to strangers, was a well-learned Kurushani custom.

Thinking the name of his adopted race switched on the analytical side of Bill's mind, as it always did. He turned off a strange burst from his hormones and gently put this new stranger under his microscope.

Kurushani? Had to be... Even asleep, Bill could feel his mind. There was no mistake.

Male? That's obvious... Bill thought to himself.

Now, Bill thought to himself, comes the sticky part... Savage? he wondered.

The build was right, slightly stocky, yet strong and... Bill was slightly ashamed to think the word of a sleeping stranger, but nubile was the word that Shyia had used herself in their first cultural survey, and it fit well...

Bill found himself thinking like a doctor and sounding to himself like a medical examiner.

His body was well-developed, heavy, thick, symmetrical musculature throughout... All outward signs testified the young Skiltaire as being a member of the slightly more than wild branch of the Kurushani family's racial tree. Bill hesitated to try sending to him, remembering the unpleasant and nearly fatal jolt that an uninvited probe of a Savage Kurushani had gotten him the first and only time he was rude enough to try it.

There was one other never-fail test. Savages ate a cruder form of protein as a result of their wilderness diet. It had the positive effect of layering in faster and stronger muscles than their civilized brothers, but they paid for the extra strength in the price of the smooth sleekness of coat and manner that the "Civilized" Kurushani had taken as a hallmark. One slight touch of the stiffer guard hairs on his thick fur would be enough to tell...

Bill reached out gently, risking the considerable voltage that might reward his curiosity. Touching the underfur would not do. The difference in texture was obvious to the eye but not enough to prove it. He reached a finger toward the two-tone boundary in the male's coat. Touching no more than a fingertip to the slightly ruffed guardfur was all Bill needed. His visitor's fur felt more like a wolverine's than Shyia's sabline coat. His fingers risked pressing a bit harder, and the thickened, stiffer bristles of the Skiltaire's coat resisted his touch, just as nature intended!

YES!! Bill thought to himself on a sudden spear of excitement. This handsome fellow was savage, through and through, and it showed!!

"Bill-San..." an even, strong, and slightly accented voice said softly. "If you want to play, use the strength in those hands, neh?"

Bill looked up suddenly to find himself under the riveting gaze of a pair of hazel eyes flecked with green. Bill pulled back his hand as if he'd taken a full charge, though not one ampere of current had been passed between them.

"What's wrong? Go ahead! I will not break!" The Skiltaire objected, a slightly hurt look in his bright eyes.

"But... Sir..." Bill began, trying not to loose it all at once. "You're a perfect stranger..." Bill replied, sounding like a proper British prude, and not liking it at all. He looked at the Skiltaire with unabashed wonder in his eyes as his mind told him that he was both awake and aware of what he never dreamed he would see!!

"Nofurry is perfect, and the stranger the better!" He shot back with a fast wink. Even Bill managed to crack an easy smile.

The look on Bill's face asked three and four questions all at once. The Skiltaire's smile broadened.

"I arrived late last night, and took the first warm, dark place I could find... Sorry to violate your territory." Their was a bright, self-confidant tone in his voice that Bill had heard somewhere before. Something in the Human's guts also told him to trust what he felt and heard.

"Warm, dark places..." Bill began to say.

"The best kind..." The male Skiltaire finished almost second natured. He noticed the man giving him an odd look. "If you do not want to frisk me... I want a shower and brushing... Have you a towel? I have my brush..."

Before he let it fall to the futon, the mustelid visitor reached into his belt pouch and pulled out a tortice-shell brush with stiff black bristles. He let it fall on top of his pouch. His unexpected guest locked his paws behind his handsome head, giving his body a sharp and brawny flex before walking nonchalantly into the bathroom. Bill gave a low, two toned wolf whistle.

The Skiltaire trotted around the edge of the door frame, wearing nothing but his natural coat. "Speak!" The Skiltaire retorted in perfict Astreli Kurushani.

"How are you named?" Bill asked, phrasing the question in nearly flawless native Kurushani of his own.

"Shyia tells me to ask you..." was the intimately phrased familiar response, also sent in Kurushani to Bill's mind as well as his ears. The words were phrased with the ultimatly intimate form of "you" that the Kurushani normally reserved for mated lovers or friends who had chosen to have their spirits bonded. It was an awful affront for a stanger to presume such a thing, and the Kurushani Human let his surprise and momentary anger show in both posture and native words.

"Ki malushita??" Bill responded aloud, his tone challenging the brassy strangers use of the most intimate form of address in their common language. For a long moment, they stood locked in each others eyes, on the sudden edge of a fight neither one wanted. The Skiltaire bowed shortly, never taking his eyes from the Man. As his head lowered, he spoke.

"Ki kiritamasta, neh?" asked the visitor respectfully asking permission to place their relationship on another footing. His head came up, proud and defiant, asking what manners required, but never showing regret or weakness to his potential foe.

Bill smiled. Whoever he was, this one had a soul of iron with a brass coating, as the Kurushani Proverb said. Deep inside himself, Bill seemed to remember suddenly, so did the Human within him.

"Fine... One SOB to another... Ki takashata!" Bill answered, mixing English and familliar Kurushani with a symbolically deeper bow than his planetmate, a sign of trust and friendship.

"You wish to join me? Perhaps between conditioner and towel, You will remember my name." He took the loop of towel from around his thick neck and tossed it at Bill in playful invitation.

The ball of towel bounced lightly off of Bill's crotch before he plucked it out of the air and sent it sailing back to his new friend in the same motion. The Human's toss was slightly high, and the towel nearly sailed over the Skiltaire's head. Bill watched the fluid motion with envy as the mustelid gathered and leapt into the air with ease to snatch the ball of cloth!

The male's invitation came as something of a shock. Years of training in his Japanese homeland had stripped him of any notion of false modesty. Yet as Bill stood across the room looking at his strange guest, there was something slightly wild and magnetic that urged Bill to accept. Instantly, Bill felt the icy coldness of the wall again, and fear snuffed out the man's wish to accept.

"No... That's alright..." said Bill, switching back to Kanda Japanese. Something else inside him said the Skiltaire would understand without problems.

The Male Skiltaire's reaction look was one of wide open and true disappointment! "Very well..." he answered sadly, trudging off toward the bathroom like a six year old told to wash before bed.

Bill watched in the mirror on his dresser as the sleek savage walked away, his lean yet hard body rippling gently as he moved. Bill looked away from the sight, shaking his head gently. Some part of him scolded himself for being some type of perverse peeping tom.

As the screen to the wash room slid closed, Bill diverted his attention to his morning prayers and the Tai Chi that had become automatic. His forms were still sharp and serene, despite the vast power of the energy that flowed into a tranquil river within his being as he moved. He undressed now, more fully focused and more at peace with himself after the terrors of the night before...

Yet, the night seemed to have yielded something much different than the cold ocean of fear. Bill's thoughts turned back to his strange and somehow familliar friend who bathed beneath the misting water jets of the jacuzzi-type bath. His shared being with his Pridemates had never diminished his almost child-like fascination with his Mates in fur. Yet, when he first saw the splendid Skiltaire lying above the covers next to him, Bill could not ignore the fact that he had felt something most extraordinary.

Shyia and Ryokyo had slept with him before, and in relaxed positions of such open and innocent intimacy that it might have caused a normal to have a coronary. But for some reason, the sight of...

Roci...

Bill thought and rethought the first word and name that had flowed along the river of his mind...

Roci... Roci Stone... Bill almost dismissed it as a joke in bad taste, but when he reconsidered the words that seemed to rise from somewhere deep inside him, Bill felt that warm, familliar feeling once again. It fit somehow, for the Savage Skiltaire had begun to exhibit signs of the well sculpted from that marked the Savages devotion to things physical rather than mental. Bill knew better than anyone that this choice didn't condemn the wilder Kurushani to being slow-witted or dull. Quite the opposite was often true. There were those who chose to renounce the opening of their distant and sacred Homeworld to strangers. Bill knew that this had been a great leap forward in technological and social structures, but along with "civilization" had come its curses as well. While the vast majority of the populace had maintained their pure Bushido Philosophy while choosing to become a wider part of the other spacefareing worlds, a small cadre of dedicated Kurushani separated themselves from the march of history.

Their isolation extended to all things and newer ways. Their ferocious adherence to their unique way of life had few parallels in history. They became a powerhouse unto themselves, convincing others from time to time to renounce the "corruption" of their poor deceived brothers, and return to the Way of the wild and pure life, unspoiled by advanced technology.

Their wishes had been granted splendidly, creating an absolutely fearless, driven portion of their populace, renowned for their physical and psionic skills and their perfection of a rugged, simple, and proud self-reliance. Dependant upon no one but themselves, and owing allegiance to none save the Chosen Khan of Kurusha. Ryokyo's half Savage parentage had melded incomparable strength into his sword of the Soul, leaving Bill a superlative example of what Savage heritage could mean to the fortunate few Kurushani who shared it.

Bill's mind worked to co-mingle the many beautifully fluid and graceful moves of the Skiltaire with the incredible, sometimes raw power that a Savage could command. The result made even the adopted Kurushani Human shudder slightly. As he sat on the futon, waiting his turn in his now shared bathroom, he recalled a story from the Kurushani legendaria that told of hundreds of Savages banding together to attack ten and twenty times their number during the dark war of invasion. While most of their number would fall to superior weaponry, the constant and ruthless Savage attacks would shatter the enemie's morale again and again, rendering them hapless fodder for the others who would follow their relentless charges.

The hiss of the water sounded inviting. Bill decided that he was being... overcautious. He scooped up another towel from the drawer and took a step toward the bathroom. As he opened the door, the spray that hit his face was bracing and cold, just the way he liked it! One of the Human's simplest adjustments to life among the Kurushani was their customary love of bathing in the icy cold streams that flowed from their mountaintops. The Human had surprised his adopted people by being not only the first one in, but the one without fur who could stay the longest in the chill currents, splashing and playing as if he had been born there!

Bill padded over to the shower enclosure and tapped gently on the fibreglass door. Through it he could make out the moving shape under the water spray. A voice rose over the misters.

"I wondered when you would overcome your inhibitions... Come, I need someone to wash my back." Bill smiled. He'd often done the same for others in Kukura. He braced for the splash, and stepped inside.

Roci stood to one side, applying dabs of conditioning gel from a tube to his thick chest fur. He looked over at Bill and smiled. "You are lucky. This mixture is more complicated than soap."

Bill had watched Shyia use a similar concoction. Once worked into the coat and the skin beneath it, unique cleaners worked to clean and soften even the Savage's rougher coat. Roci reached up and grabbed a mid-height shower head, directing a blast of icy water at the seemingly unprepared Human!

Instead, Bill cupped his hands quickly in front of him, forming a scoop that shot the stream of water back at it's sender! The surprised look on Roci's muzzle curled Bill into a tight, laughing ball on the shower stall floor. With a playful chirp, Roci made a lunging dive at the Human. Beyond simple play, the movement disclosed the lightning quickness and fluid strength that came with a Savage's passion for wrestling! Bill was enjoying the sight so much that he barely resisted as Roci looped around his neck, sliding below and behind the human to lock his arms at the elbows in a stern but gentle grip! Bill might have been able to break free, testing his arm and shoulder strength against his mock attacker. But all thoughts of escape fled his mind quickly as Roci pressed his sleek but strong body close to his willing captive.

"Now for a real cleaning!" Roci whispered gently as he pressed his short but handsome muzzle close to Bill's ear. That same muzzle slid slightly lower a moment later and Roci tested his strong jaws and teeth on Bill's stacked neck and shoulder muscles!

Still holding tight behind the Human, Roci smiled as he heard Bill's breath catch and hold, then a long, soft exhale. The male Skiltaire felt the Human's body relax, and Roci laid him down gently on the tile floor, beneath a trio of jets that splashed bracing water all over him and his Human friend. Without a word, he stepped boldly over Bill's head and face to stand on his chest. The Skiltaire reached over to pick up the bar soap from the ledge. He paused a moment, looking over the length of Bill's slippery body with a practiced eye before wetting the soap lightly with a spray of cool water.

"This will be a bigger job than I thought..." said Roci with a sly smile, as he soaped his forelimbs back to the shoulders. He waited a moment, turning to study Bill's eyes. In them he found a soft mixture of wonder and the gentle light of trust. With a broader smile, he turned back to his slippery task at paw, and dove to it gently, as if it was his life's calling. With his first touches, Roci felt Bill entire body become completely relaxed and fluid. Even his heavily knotted leg muscles gave up their struggle against gravity under Roci's gentle paws...

"Chirp...!" Bill said in soft native praise and thanks as his body and mind followed a natural impulse to surrender to light sleep in spite of the cold water...