The Tribe of the Mountains — Chapter 5 — The Goddess

From the teachings of the blessed ones as originally kept in the Library of the Mountains.

Getting to the cave was easy, despite the waterfall most of the slope was not very inclined. The cave itself had an opening tall and wide enough for a person to enter walking besides the small stream leaving it.
Used as they were with the flash floods of the grasslands they would usually have avoided such a place, but the girls were tired and something in the opening made them think that they were welcome and that there would be a cozy place inside.
Actually, there was.
The first chamber was not much bigger than the interior of a hut; it had a shallow natural pool at the center fed from a nascent in the rock. The stream that they had been following came from a little fissure in the side of the pool, but the water in the pool itself was quiet and Anora`s magical light could illuminate its bottom.
Actually, Anora`s light could illuminate the hole chamber. It was a beautiful place with translucent stalagtites hanging here and there from the ceiling but a very small number of stalagmites hampering movement on the ground.
The ceiling was not so high as to be imposing but high enough that Eric couldn`t touch it, except where a few stalagtites grew to the level of his head.
There were two exits from the cave, one tunnel leading up with a small slope and another that was more a hole in the side of the chamber than anything else. A little bit of the water of the pool went there from time to time.
And the girls couldn`t resist a bath.
Knowing that it couldn`t be avoided anyway, they asked Eric to make a torch (I forgot to mention two fire stones in their packs and, of course, Eric had brought a branch into the cave to make a torch in case it was needed) and to hold it high, so that they could take a bath.
Well, Eric was already accepting his mixed blessings. Living with three beautiful girls but not, by any stretch of the imagination, being the one in charge. Besides, it was an opportunity to see them naked.
And they did not disappoint. The three were not exceptional beauties by our standards, but were average lean well proportioned teenage girls, with firm buts and medium sized perk breasts.
As they scrubbed themselves and each other using pieces of ceramic (a technique used even in modern times when there is no soap) they were quite conscious of the male looking at them and also of the nakedness of each other.
Perhaps, with the flickering light of the torch and their other concerns they might be excused for not noticing the small, thin dark tendrils coming from the fountain and entering their vaginas.
Of course they felt nothing. They took their bath, the first of what they thought would be many in their new home.
After their bath Anora and Erynia left, still naked (leather takes a while to dry) but wearing their leather boots (something between a boot and a moccasin), to explore the tunnel leading to higher ground while Bastet took the torch and held it while Eric took his bath.
Now it was Eric`s turn to feel uncomfortable, but Bastet believed that turn about was fair play.
Besides, in her mind they would live a part of their lives in this cave, just the three of them. So, they had to get used to each other`s bodies.
Anora and Erynia didn`t walk far in the tunnel. It soon led to a place both beautiful and frightening. A large cave with uneven floor and places where the stalagmites touched the stalagtites forming pillars and curtains, creating recesses and smaller chambers within the larger space.
Part of the uneven floor sloped down to an underground lake that disappeared in the darkness.
Erynia soon noticed that there was a presence in that place and they retreated back to the first chamber.
Now smelling much better they tied the hammocks in some stronger stalagmites, used rope to both set an alarm system at the entrances and as a clothesline (yep, everybody naked or close to it) and went to sleep.
As happened in the previous night they decided not to post a sentry. They considered that they would all need their strength to hunt in the next day.

Years latter Erynia would write a description of what happened that night.

Erynia talking.

I went to bed a bit sore from the walk and feeling the many bruises and scratches of the last night. I was also very worried of the situation with Eric. He was reasonably handsome, but not exactly my taste and yet, he was the only male around and a girl has needs. Specially if you were a young girl that had almost died recently.
People keep asking me if I noticed anything in the water, if my body felt weird and I am writing this to say for the thousand time that no. My vagina felt normal, only a bit weird when I thought about sharing a male with my best friends and this, the problems involved in our future life was the only thing really worrying me.
Anora said to me that she was worried about our ability to hunt and catch food in the next day. I didn`t have this worry, between our magic, Eric`s ability and Bastet`s amazing agility I was sure that we would find food and soon we would be sleeping in furs and eating as much as we wanted.
And, thinking in Eric, our main hunter and comparing him to my cousin Edwin that had been the one to give me my first kiss, comparing their musculature (Eric won), their tight buttocks and Eric`s penis with a fast glimpse that I had of that of my cousin I fell asleep.
And this was all it took, wasn`t it?
I woke up smelling my pack mates around me while we were digging a tunnel in the rock. I was tall and strong and yet, knew that I was female as were all around.
Did I notice something wrong, find it weird that my body was now twice the size of that of a normal man, covered in scales and that I could “see” perfectly well in the darkness? No, this was my body, had always been and it felt normal.
For the first time in my life I felt a stirring in my loins when looking at a female, the other female pack mate that was trying to dig that damned rock besides me. And, some small part of my mind told me that this companion was Anora.
This realization brought the part of me that was Erynia to the front and allowed me to look around. The body still felt normal as did the bodies of the twenty or so other creatures besides me. They were family, friends, pack.
But the pack was failing in digging that rock, it was too strong. Our claws were getting damaged for almost nothing. The small part of me that was Erynia came with a solution.
I gestured to Anora and, communicating by smells and sound beyond human hearing we planned. We went to a nearby cave, got a stalagmite and brought it back.
We used the stalagmite to pry loose a large piece of that damned hard rock. A piece that was almost loose due to days of digging.
The stone in the wall was not uniform, there were veins of this harder material (iron ore, it seems) mixed with weaker stone, with intelligence we started to use pieces of the stronger stone to excavate and started to choose better the places were to dig.
After a while we opened a hole in that strong wall, leading to another cave. Than we started to work on the floor, making a channel to guide water into the new cave. We knew that water had to get to that cave, but not why and it didn`t matter. Digging a channel allowed the water to get there faster than waiting for it to overflow from the nearby pool and we felt that it was needed a good amount of water, bigger than what we could carry.
Than we stopped to rest, play with our pack (all female) and …
The world was seen through smells. I was on all fours exploring the ground of the hills looking for prey.
My pack mates were not around, this was a time for small game and I preferred to hunt alone.
Again the body felt normal. Now I can look back and know that I was a female wolf bigger than most horses, but the words would not make sense to me at that time.
And I was facing a dilemma.
I could smell prey at the other side of a river at the bottom of a valley, but there was no lace to cross nearby.
As before, the part of my mind that was Erynia took over, only now I could remember being a girl. But at this moment I was a wolf and wolves do not conjecture or keep thinking over the past.
At least not when there was prey nearby.
And I was strong enough to fell a tree, so, I choose the right spot, away enough not to scare the prey, made my bridge and stalked the game.
At the end of the day I brought pieces of meat to the caves, dropping them into the dark water were they disappeared quite fast.
And now I was a girl again. But I felt stronger, with no bruises or scratches and this time I knew that I was not in my body.
I was in not in a body.
Together with Bastet and Anora I was in a cave, the highest, biggest cave that I`ve seen in my life. But this was the spiritual world and we knew this.
The three of us were forming a half circle, talking mind to mind while we waited for a goddess to materialize in front of us. And we knew this because we were also the goddess whose physical body was made of millions of little dark things, so small as to be near invisible.
And we knew that we had been … infected, contaminated, blessed? Possessed? All these names have been used since that time, but I prefer simply taken. We were a part of HER, a part that she had wanted for a long time.
Prior to us she didn`t have thoughts, couldn`t plan well ahead, had only the cunning and abilities of the many animals that she controlled and used to feed her, expand her territory, and fight her enemies.
Before us she did all this, but like an anthill or a hunting wolf. She could plan, but not create and build new things. She was smart, but she didn`t have creativity.
Now she was whole.
But she also understood the concept, the need of choice.
And, so, she formed her body from our deepest desires. A tall, exotic woman with white hair and blue eyes. Skin as black as the caves where she lived and voluptuous curves.
This is when we all realized that now we were attracted to women. We desired our goddess.
But she had to give us a choice.
Because the difference between rape and consent IS choice.
So, she talked to our minds, even knowing the answer.
She gave us the option to leave and she had to be sincere because we were in HER mind.
And, of course, we decided to stay.
In that fast mind to mind communication we decided to rule the dark caves as HER assistants (some call slaves, but we had the choice) and she would improve our bodies.
But she had one limitation.
Her parts, her dark matter reproduced by dividing themselves in two new beings when there was enough food to provide for the resulting growth. She was a mother to herself.
She simply could not understand males, could not get into their heads, could not control or influence their actions, could not talk to them.
So, She changed the wolves, made the females bigger, altered the males so that they thought like females, they looked like females and smelled like females.
She had instinctively done the same for every animal that she controlled.
SHE wanted Eric.
But we had to get him for her.
And he must have a choice.