Total pages in book: 78
Estimated words: 75457 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 377(@200wpm)___ 302(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75457 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 377(@200wpm)___ 302(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
“There was an upheaval in our ancestors’ lives about twelve thousand years ago. We have very few magically preserved records that survived that time period and none give us a clear picture. Can you give us any insight into why that time was so chaotic?”
Yes.
I knew that one.
I might not get all the terms quite right, but I could give them an overview.
“Yes. Around that time on Earth, the area around the portal was hit by a large meteor shower. It killed off a lot of the large animals in that part of the world and did tremendous devastation to the environment. The people who were living in that part of the world seemed to vanish overnight. If they were your people, it’s possible they went through the portal to escape the danger.”
Fully human scientists might still be debating a lot of facts, but the Bigfoot community kept records like no one else we’d ever met and they’d confirmed the Younger Dryas impact event. It was just unfortunate that they hadn’t started keeping written records on paper that wouldn’t degrade earlier.
They’d mostly lived in other parts of the world, though, so having any information about North America at that time was something we were grateful for.
“Repeated catastrophic events?” Varrick looked around as the historians exchanged glances again. “How repeated?”
Oh.
“There seems to have been at least five major events that nearly wiped out all life on Earth starting several hundred years ago. None lately, though.” And thankfully the clairvoyants had been quiet on that front. “But it is probably closer to seven with the impact near the portal and depending on how you count an early war with a couple of magic user groups a couple of thousand years ago. That’s in another part of the world, though.”
I wasn’t sure that was big enough to count but the radiation damage from their creative use of weapons was still fucking up the environment.
When I just got blinks from everyone I decided it might be too much for them at one time.
Maybe we should focus on happier history for a while?
I really should’ve taken more history electives in college too.
Next time someone came through the portal they were going to have a historian with them come hell or high water…or angry mages and world-ending flooding.
Oh, maybe we should classify it as at least eight?
Chapter 19
Klynn
“That was…” My mate paused as he practiced engaging the privacy shield around his rooms. “Exhausting.”
Before I could agree, he’d turned and leaned back against the door, frowning dramatically even for a human. “How were the historians more dramatic and exhausting than your government leaders? That’s got to be backward.”
On his planet, it would be.
“I think it is because we have a smaller overall population and there is more consensus about what the leadership needs to manage.” In this case, who could come through the gate and how it would be used. “The historians do not like having their assumptions questioned and you have made them reevaluate much of what they thought they knew.”
It made them dramatic, which even I could admit was strange to see.
“We did it, though.” Looking pleased, my mate’s eyes sparkled with what I thought was mischief as he pulled me into his arms. “We even got the kids to ask something else besides bathroom questions.”
I wasn’t sure the jokes had been any better.
“Whoever explained knock-knock jokes to them needs to be punished.” Wren. It had to have been Wren. “That will get annoying.”
My mate laughed before his devious expression shifted his features and he pretended to frown. “I think someone else needs a punishment…what should I do about a naughty boy who was cheeky and kept wanting to laugh at everyone?”
Oh.
Me.
That was me.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I pretended to shrug and made my eyes wider like the subs in my books would do. “I was very helpful.”
Everything I’d read and seen said I wanted to protest slightly but not too much. My mate was a worrier and I didn’t want to accidentally talk him out of my spanking.
I was going to get a spanking.
“Really?” He raised one eyebrow and leaned his head back against the door. “That’s not how I remember it. You were even wiggling against me and begging for attention before we’d left this morning.”
Was that what I’d been doing?
“I—” I had every intention of doing my best to balance protesting and teasing him, but he slid one hand down to my bottom and gave it a squeeze. That stopped all thinking and I had to work not to rub myself against him.
All my books agreed that would’ve been a dangerous move.
“How do Daddies make impressions on their naughty boys so they want to be better in the future?” His question had an obvious answer but making myself respond was not as simple as it should’ve been. Thankfully, he realized it was not an issue with the game. “Impressions are important, aren’t they?”