A Predator's Communion [Complete]
Author’s Note/Disclaimer: The following tale is inspired by a previous Dungeons and Dragons character of mine. In my ‘spare’ time I’m a major RPG geek, you see. The story itself is set in the Forgotten Realms campaign setting; for those of you not familiar with D&D, this is the same world – Toril – that is the setting of R.A. Salvatore’s Dark Elf novels, starring the exile Drow ranger Drizzt. The Realms setting was originally the work of Ed Greenwood and Jeff Grubb, and the properties belong to Wizards of the Coast. No infringement of copyrighted material intended, and this is certainly not at all part of Realms canon.
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Snow fell softly amidst the high tree canopy above her, the heat of the natural hot spring creating thick, transcluscent mist in chill in the northern air. The woman – if she could, in fact, be called such, reclined in the waters, letting them ease the tensions of her muscles and wash away a fortnight’s grime. She was tall, the woman, and youthful; one would hazard a guess that she was in her mid-twenties at the oldest. She smiled predatorily with too-white, too-perfect teeth as she examined her reflection in the gently rippling waters. Her features were of Illuskan stock, hardy yet ruggedly beautiful; her fair skin bronzed from constant exposure to the northern sun, her eyes a piercing ice-blue. Casually she washed long strands of thick yet soft hair of dusky gold, not bothering to remove the numerous bone and feather charms that were bound at differing points along the length of various locks. Aside from these ornaments and a necklaces of sharp teeth from numerous predators on a leather cord, she was quite nude. Her long hair cleansed she turned to using a soft, wet bit of well-tanned hide to scrub trail dirt from her desirbale figure, a sleek form taut with muscle, hardened and firm from a life amidst the wilds yet still full and soft in all the proper places.
It had been a stressful fortnight, and the chance to relax and center herself was much appreciated. In retrospect, trying to spend any length of time amidst the idiotic, filthy denizens of any sort of civilized community – even the rustic sorts of hamlets and villages that were only tenuously separated from the wilds about them here in the rugged frontier known as the Silver Marches – had not done her any favors. Noisy, wasteful, and above all, impure. There was no respect for the proper order of things, and if there was no respect, there most certainly no fear. Fear of the wolf at the door, fear of the hungry eyes in the woods that did not care if you were a noble on a hunting excursion from Silverymoon or a poor freeman farmer struggling with the hard northern soil, and saw you only as food for their bellies.
It was to one such as herself, in a word, infuriating. She had even been forced to resort to falsehood in regards to the patron who granted her magicks, for worship of her master, the Beastlord Malar, was outlawed. Outlawed! The gall, the arrogance of these sheep in their pens of stone and wood… still, she was free of their rampant, insufferable hubris now, here in the sylvan solitude of the Moonwood. Let them keep their domains, for though she was a goodly distance from her home in the High Forest, this domain was hers. A place to honor her Alpha, to hunt, to gain the strength she would need to return to her Pack’s lands and challenge her bastard parents and siblings, the ones that had exiled her in all ways but officially. At night, she often dreamt of returning, a pack of her own at her back, and showing them the blessings she received from the Beastlord, though not the Gift that was her kin’s birthright, was still one not to be casually trifled with. She would return in a storm of fang and fury and reclaim her birthright, and she would do it with the full blessing of Malar’s will – that the strong culled the weak, who were there for their betters’ benefits.
Beside the pool, keeping watch over his mistress’ garb (boots, skintight fringed leather trousers, and a skimpy, open-front vest that when laced by its leather thongs barely preserved her modesty) as it dried by the fire and her few other personal effects, the druidess’ great, shaggy companion perked his ears and growled softly. The tall woman’s gaze turned to her only real friend. The mastiff-sized wolf whined unhappily, and the druidess paused, centering herself to the pulse of life that flowed through all things – the very pulse of Chauntea the Earthmother, something similar yet not quite the same as what the finger-wigglers called the “Weave.” Riding its currents for a moment, she found the resonance as she had first been trained to do in the Witche’s Lodge a decade ago. To an unschooled listener, the conversation that followed would seem to be naught but meaningless snarls, yips, and growls, but to those who knew better, she and the massive wolf were having a perfectly coherent conversation.
’*You hear something, Runt?’
‘Footfalls in fallen limbs, Packsister.’
’How many? Are they close?’
‘Three, Packsister. One metal-skin, one longear, one woodwalker.’*
The druidess nodded. The wolf’s ears were keen enough to tell much from simple footsteps; three interlopers he had said, one was armored – you could hear such, with a practiced ear, from far, far away in the woods. The others were more interesting, however – an elf, and someone similar to herself, who moved at ease through the wilderness. Soon, she even heard the distant clanking of greaved feet herself. To her chagrin, the travelers were coming closer, and though the elf and the fellow wildswanderer could be shrugged off, the armored presence confirmed a most unpleasant fact.
Malar’s bloody claws, they were damned adventurers, and there were few things she hated more than adventurers! Damn fool heroes waving sword and staff about, trampling through whatever ‘uncivilized’ parts of the world they cared to, putting anything that objected to thsi to the sword, and having the nerve to call it ‘heroism.’ It was, in fact, the vast number of such fools that had congregated in the unwelcome urban bastions of the Marches that had sent the druidess retreating into the welcoming arms of the wilds once more.
And now, they were trespassing in her territory. Undeniably arrogant and utterly insufferable. With a mild curse she rose from her bath and stretched her long, lean form before shaking herself dry and slipping over to the fire. She slowly tugged her now-dried leathers onto the form that they could only barely contain, and hefted her wickedly barbed, blooded hunting spear. She nodded to the wolf and barked a command, before titlting her head back and flourishing the spear, the Weave constricting and expanding as she pulled on the blessings of the God of Hunters. There was a shimmer in the air and soon at the rear of her now-alert and readied comrade a mist rose up, coalescing slowly into a pack of slightly smaller yet still savage and intimidating wolves.
“We hunt.” she growled in their tongue, and they bayed joyously to the duskfallen sky in response.
“Did you hear that?” the armored figure bearing an unsheathed broadsword inqured of her companions, the human ranger Hadrian and the elven wizardess Ilysia. Hadrian nodded grimly.
“Wolves. Quite a lot of ‘em too, Lady Valeria.”
The helmeted, armor woman nodded as well in response. “Close?”
“Fairly. Sounds t’me like they’re at the hot springs. No idea why so many wolves would be there, though.”
“Perhaps it is the Malarite the Captain asked us to look into in town?” the elfmaiden suggested in her soft, melodic voice.
“Could be.” agreed the ranger.
“Then we had best be prepared for anything.” their apaprent leader said flatly, and removed her elegantly-forged helmet. Curly ringlets of soft brown hair fell free of it to the base of her shoulderblades (or where they rested beneath armored plates in any event), and a creamy, milk-white complexion glowed lightly in the flickering firelight of the ranger’s torch. The lovely human woman began to utter a prayer to her deity Torm the True over her blade, and soon it glowed with holy energy, empowered to punish the wicked. The paladin then turned to her companions once more.
“What do we know of this Malarite we hunt?”
Hadrian shrugged. “She was almost exiled under suspicion of worshipping Malar; and that one ditz with the Captain’s guards said she lured her into the woods and tried to eat her, but then, Sharla is, as we all know and I already said, a twit.. and she was drunk on Wormwood at the time, too. Eventually, the woman just left town.”
Valeria just sighed, then closed her eyes, opening them with a sudden flare of white light.
“I sense.. evil here. Predatory, vicious.. hungry…”
Her companions nodded in understanding and readied themselves for battle, the sorceress invoking a cantrip to light their way so the ranger might have both hands free to wield his bow. Soon more incantations followed as she enshrouded herself in magickal protections, and the paladin slid back on her helm.
She motioned wordlessly with a hand that the trio should proceed, and her comrades obliged her, following her footsteps closely as they went. Soon enough, they heard the wolves in the underbrush. They tensed their grip on weapons and spell reagent pouch. Still, in all but the divinely-reinforced heart of the lady knight, the creeping fear of their situation dawned on the party.
They were being hunted.
She lived for this, the thrill of hunting the most dangerous of game. Certainly there were more physically or magickally potent creatures in the Realms, but a cadre of skilled adventurers – who made the hunting and slaying of these more potent beasts and beings their voaction – was truly the greatest test for any hunter. She had cast aside human shape, not through blood, through the Gift, but through her own druidic prowess, running alongside her companion wolf Fenrethir and the mystically summoned pack they lead in their own image, baying a blood-oath to Malar, a hunter’s prayer in its oldest tongue. The three were positioned sensibly; the armored one with the glowing blade – a damn paladin, the worst of the already bad lot that was adventurers – was in the front, and the ranger in the back, keeping the less physically able spellchucker in the center, “protected” to their minds. She smelled the fear on them, heard the beats of their hearts, so rapid that a bard could have danced to them. Sweat poured from them as they ran, not daring to make a stand here in these tangled branches. So they ran, even the paladin, who seemed to be putting aside the typical suicidal lust for heroic last stands the holy warriors usually possessed to ensure the survival of her companions. Sadly for them, four legs were faster than two.
The only thing the paladin and the elfmaid heard was a scream and a chorus of howls as Hadrian’s legs were knocked from under him and quickly surrounded. His screams were horrible as the conjured wolf pack tore him to bloody shreds.
The paladin turned with sword in hand, and the finger-waggler hurled a spell to put the wolves into a comatose slumber. But it was far, far too late, as all that greeted them was a number of sleeping wolves encircling a bloody scrap pile of flesh, bone, and leather…
“C-Corellon’s name..” stammered Ilysia
“Is not welcome to be spoken here.” purred a deep, cruel, smoky voice in reply. The women both turned to face the source, before them on the path. It was, beyond shadow of a doubt, the largest wolf either had ever seen. Yet there was something amiss… the wolf was a sleek creature with piercing blue eyes and striking, dusky gold fur… and the wolf was grinning.
“A werebeast!” spat the paladin contemptuously, and cheathed her sword, drawing a long silvered dagger from her thigh sheath. The wolf only laughed, and rose up onto its – her? – hind legs..then kept rising up, and up, and up… mist gathered at the beast’s feet as its fur receded in most places and lengthened from the back of its skull, and its body warped, snapped, and twisted with the wet pops of bone and sinew as she retook her birth-shape. She popped her back and rolled her shoulders then stood there in human guise, shamelessly nude as her bronzed skin still rippled back into place in some areas as the mist at her feet coalesced into tight, immodest, and rugged leathers that enshrouded her nakedness, albeit barely, and formed a vicious spear in her waiting grip, its jagged, large head still caked in the dried and crusty blood from past kills. Her lips and chin were smeared with wet, fresh blood.
Hadrian’s blood.
“Who – what are you?!” demanded Valeria.
The druidess smirked coldly.
“I am Mysti Ulfsdottir, and this is my territory.” the drudiess answered simply.
“The Law of the Silver Marches disagrees, evil one. As do I!”
Mysti only laughed and invoked the Power of Malar. Her skin emitted an emerald radiance as leaves swirled up about her, and when the light faded her flesh was hardened and bore the texture and hue of tree bark.The paladin lunged and drove the dagger into the druidess’ chest.
Or tried, at least. The blade sank in, but the druidess simply smirked and raised a hand to the sky, barking a word of power. The sky flashed as a stroke of blue-white lighting struck the upraised hand, and too late Valeria tried to pull away. But she was not fast enough as Mysti dropped the spear and seized the holy warrior’s helm by the face plate with the now-free hand. The lightning coursed harmlessly down one arm, across her shoulders, and up the other…
..but it was anything but harmless as it surged into Valeria. The paladin’s armor only intensifying the bolt’s fury, Valeria screamed a hoarse cry as she twitched inside her steel shell, muscles spasming in agony until unconsciousness took her. Mysti smirked and released the blackened visor, and Valeria’s armor-clad form slumped to the down with a heavy thud and the clanking of metal plates.
Ilysia screamed and fumbled for her spell pouch as Mysti turned her gaze to her and uttered the words of another old druidic prayer. The underbrush beneath the elf’s feet shot upward, constricting her legs to the knee and seizing her wrists as well. In a span of moments, the wizardress was helpless. Mysti sauntered over slowly, predatory lust in her eyes. Withj another incantation, the vines hardened into stone.
“Stay around.” Mysti purred “I need to go tend to your leader.”
The druidess returned a few minutes later, having dragged the unconscious knight to a nearby tree and divesting her of her armor and its underpadding, leaving her dressed only in a scant loincloth about her hips. She had admired the Valeria’s healthy, well-formed figure briefly before conjuring vines to bind the unconscious knight to the tree at the neck, arms, waist, knees, and ankles. Her first captive secure, she then turned her attentions back to the still-struggling elven maiden.
“The knight will be my entertainment tomorrow night.” she told Ilysia with a cruel smile. “But as for you… I must have my full strength for the grand hunt she promises… and your other companion… has already been claimed…”
A rough hand seized her shapely yet small elven breast through the silken fabric of her dark blue, toga-like robes. The elven maiden winced, closed her violet eyes, and turned her head away, stray locks of blue-black hair falling across her chest and shoulders.
“Still, I should consider myself lucky they claimed the ranger… elven flesh is so very sweet and succulent, after all, as if magick flowed in the very fiber of the chidlren of the Seldarine’s muscles and skin…”
With a loud rip, the robe was torn away and its remnant sent fluttering in the wind. Suddenly bared to the wind and snow, Ilysia shivered, her pale, rosy nipples stiffening prominently. Mysti traced a circle about each one with the long, sharply-filed nail of her index finger, then leaned in to lick one as well, leading Ilysia to intensify her futile squirming. Smirking, Mysti traced her nail – hard, deep – down the elf’s torso, leaving a thin line of blood down the length of her willowy stomach and abdomen, finally reaching the tender, hairless lips of Ilysia’s womanhood. Smiling, she thrust the finger deeply into the trembling elf’s moist vagina, drawing a pained shriek from her captive as the finger’s sharp nail tore into her most sensitive flesh. She pulled her now-bloodied and wet finger out and gingerly licked it front, then back.
“Oh yes… such a rare treat, tender young elf maiden….”
She circled behind the imprisoned elf, squeezing her slim, shapely, soft buttocks once apiece before slapping them heartily.
“Good, tender hams… with a moist loin and firm breasts.. oh blessed Malar, where to begin…”
Her eyes gleamed as she returned to face her prisoner, grinning cruelly.
Ilysia screamed as the grin.. bulged, expanded slightly outward in her captor’s face, distorting the features as it lengthened along with the teeth that it was comprised of, teeth that went from human dental structure to a maw of horrifying yet in a strange way still predatorily beautiful fangs. She bent forward and licked the nipple of the elf’s right breast, then began to suckle it roughly – before her teeth tore into the soft, succulent flesh and shredded the breast away almost completely. Mysti howled out exultations to Malar that mingled the agonized shriek of Ilysia; she savored the tender flesh in her mouth and the hot copper of the elven blood as she chewed and swallowed, then with a second bite tore away the tattered remnants of the tender elven tit. Blood poured down Ilysia’s torso as she sobbed in pain and horror, but the sobs became a shriek once more as the fangs tore away the better half of her remaining breast, savoring its flavor slowly before a fourth maw full of flesh left the elf a breastless ruin of blood and torn flesh from the waist up. As Ilysia wept in her hellish torment, as Mysti knelt before her trembling nether regions. Ilysia sobbed.
“C-Corellon please… no.. please, no…”
“Oh yes..”
Mysti gently began to lap at the elf’s tender labia, then let her tongue slide deep and probingly inside the elf’s cunny to lap at blood and juices, savoring the taste before her fangs clamped down ever-so-slightly about the meat between her sleek elven thighs.
“Please… anything but…”
She screamed as the fangs pierced in sharply, and it grew first louder then hoarse when Mysti tore away her soft pubic flesh to the very bone in one savage bite. Ilysia sobbed as Mysti took the torn morsel of elfmeat from her mouth and slowly savored it in small bites as the bleary-eyed sorceress watched helplessly, her mind almost completely gone.
“….kill……me….”
Mysti only laughed, smearing her blood-drenched face upon the back of a forearm. Her face was pure sadism.
“Oh no, my tender morsel…” the druidess purred as she invoked a healing spell that did nothing to restore the destroyed portions of the elf’s anatomy, it did stretch skin over the open wounds and exposed bone and restore her lost vigor. With dawning horror, Ilysia began to keen in despair.
“You’re going to live for a good, long time while I enjoy you. Until first light, when I will finish you and feed what’s left to Fenrethir…”
With this cruel knowledge passed on, Mysti slowly circled to the elf’s back, and sank her fangs into the soft meat of the elf’s right buttock…
Torm’s name, it hurt. Every muscle in her body throbbed and some were still spasming slightly as she awoke, stirred by cold air on her mostly bare form and the sounds of Ilysia’s weak screams. Looking up through bleary eyes, she had to bite back a most-unpaladinlike scream of her own, this one in horror, at the scene that greeted her swimming gaze.
Ilysia was a torn and ravaged ruin… one arm was missing – its hand and wrist still held in the vines at her feet, the other had been chewed to the bone from shoulder and elbow, exposing the red-streaked white for all to see. Her breasts were gone, as was the tender flesh of her groin; with a bit of uncomfortable twisting she laid eyes on their captor. Mysti was holding up the elfmaiden’s outstretched right leg, the heel of the foot cupped in one hand; Slowly she was bending down to sever the flesh of each dainty toe and then suck the soft meat from the bone. Ilysia was dazed and nearly dead from all appearances, yet she still sobbed and whimpered in agony as the druidess finished her toes and moved to slowly strip the flesh from the rest of her soft, small elven foot. Looking down, Valeria saw that her condemned comrade’s left foot was already naught but bare and bloody bone. Their captor did not lower the elven leg when the foot was bared, however; instead, starting at the ankle, she began to gnaw up its length as if the limb were a great cob of corn, only more sucuclent and flavorable by far. In minutes she had stripped the leg to the knee, and minutes after that, the firm, sweet elven thigh was naught but skeleton as well. Mysti paused in her feasting with the completion of that limb’s stripping, and saw the sun riseing up sleepily over the horizon. The look on Ilysia’s face as she realized the same thing could only be described as heaven-sent.
“The morning comes, and I have near taken my fill of your succulent and sweet flesh, little elf. May your sacrifice be blessed by Malar, for surrendering your flesh to nourish your better…”
Mysti’s fingers extended into wicked claws and her muscles swelled slightly as she invoked the Druidic power at her disposal. Then she rammed both taloned hands into the center of Ilysia’s chest. The elf managed a scream louder than any save the one that had marked the devouring of her cunny-flesh as the druidess forcibly broke open her ribcage and separated it with her bare hands; Ilysia felt so very cold as her insides were exposed to the chill northern breeze, and soon she felt nothing at all as the Malarite beauty’s claws pierced her heart and tore it from her chest. The druidess slowly savored the organ with small bites as Ilysia spasmed once, twice.. then fell limp in the taut vines’ hold. When the heart was fully devoured, Mysti dispelled the vines and let the ravaged carcass fall to the ground.
“Eat your fill, Runt.” she said to her companion, who had been eyeing the spectacle’s final act hungrily since his own awakening. The wolf did not need to be told twice, as he slipped up slowly and began to devour flesh and bone alike of the destroyed corpse. Mysti smiled and slipped over to the bound paladin.
“You had very good taste in traveling companions, my dear.”
Valeria only scowled in reply, trying to hide the tears for her most foully murdered friend. Mysti smirked and matched her gaze, jaw slowly warping, returning to normal size and form and the claws of her fingers becoming simple, albeit long and sharp fingernails again. Gently, she moved her hands down to rip away Valeria’s loincloth, stealing away the last bit of the paladin’s dignity along with the modest garment. Soft, unshaved dark fur covered the tender mound from thigh to thigh, and Mysti gently rubbed the back of her hand against it, stimulating the lady-knight’s loins ever so slightly. Valeria squirmed fiercely and Mysti smirked before tracing a finger through the fur to caress along the soft, firm lips of the paladin’s womanhood, which set it to quivering in spite of Valeria’s conscious wishes.
“Never had a man, I would wager… you paladins and your chastity.”
Valeria again answered only with an icy glare, which only elicited another cruel grin to form on the druidess’ blood-drenched lips. Rising back to her full, not-unimpressive height, Mysti turned and sauntered toward the spring that was now nearby, stripping out of her leathers as she went and baring her luscious body shamelessly. She glanced over her shoulder and smiled.
“Rest up, my dear… when Selune’s face shines down on us, our hunt will begin..”
Laughing, she turned her gaze forward once more and slipped into the soothing waters, leaving the Paladin to her thoughts. Slowly she washed the blood from her sleek, tanned skin, taking the time to enjoy fondling her own firm breasts and to give her own sleekly-furred mound some pleasure, before lying back in the waters to sleep off her large repast of tender elven meat and so be at her prime for the the sport the night ahead promised.
It was not exactly a pleasant day, for Valeria. The most severe source of discomfort – for one – was the fact that she was quite nude, and unlike her captor who dozed contentedly in the hot springs, was not sheltered at all from the cold winds and snow of northern Faerun save by the scant protection the tree coverage granted; for two, the tree itself was decidedly uncomfortable against her naked back and buttocks.
That, and to be honest, witnessing her friend’s earthly remains be so defiled after such a horrible death sickened her to the very pit of her stomach. She could of close her eyes to it of course, but could not stop the sounds of tearing meat, spurting fluids, and breaking bone as the wolf throroughly masticated the shell that had once been the receptacle of Ilysia’s eternal spirit. Quietly she prayed to Torm for strength if not deliverance, considering her options. One could assume if this wicked Malarite shaman planned to hunt her, she would be releasing her beforehand, which left Valeria two possible paths to proceed down. First, she could do what she was meant to do, and attempt to elude the huntress until dawn (which was, if she remembered her Malarite lore correctly from her acolyte training in the temple at Tantras, when these hunts ended if the quarry was not caught). It was a safe enough plan – safe as any option she had to her; Malarites obeyed their own rules, especially ones dictated by ritual. If she beat this cannibalistic villainess at her own game, she would go free, with a boon no less. The only problem with this was the actual difficulty in pulling that off; after all, Malarites as a whole were skillful hunters, and a duid new the ways of the woods like no other. It was a fairly long shot chance that Valeria could outmaneuver the druidess here in her own element.
The other option was to wait until she was freed and attack her captor, hopefully taking the cruel yet lovely Malarite by surprise. But would that element of surprise be enough to carry the day? After all, her would-be opponent had managed to quite handily disable her while she was fully armed and equipped and in her prime – which a night and day shivering naked in the cold north wind without food had left her decidedly far from. She pondered the odds, found them wanting. Likely she’d just get thrashed soundly and end up being tortured for far longer and fare more severely than Ilysia had, then healed and told to run again. No, when it came down to it, she really had little choice.
She would be this cruel villainess’ quarry. Resigning herself to her fate, she tried to settle in and rest as best she could. With some heroic effort she finalyl managed to sleep, only to be woken some time later, at around midday if the filtered sun shining through the forest canopy was at all accurate. The druidess, still bare as the beasts she emulated, was holding a cup to her lips.
“Drink.” she ordered, but Valeria clenched her jaw. Mysti only rolled her eyes.
“Just water. And I have some food as well. Wouldn’t do to have you too weak to run, come moonrise. In fact…”
With a wave of her hands and an eldritch invocation, all but the vine about the paladin’s neck receded, and it changed, becoming like a long collar, attached to a living tether of great thickness. Valeria stumbled forward with the sudden release.
“Won’t do to have your muscles all asleep, either. I want you in your prime, after all.”
With this, the druidess sat down a bit of trail bread, some fresh fruit, and several chunks of salted jerky, as well as the water. Then she turned and sat, cross-legged, on an outstrteched deerskin on the ground, sinking into some form of meditation.
Did she dare eat the offered victuals? Her stomach was certainly keen on the notion, surely.. but what if they were poisoned? She shook her head – if the druidess had wanted to kill her she’d have done so before now, and definitely in a more gruesome fashion than through simple poison, and as far as weakening her, was not offering her food and mobility being done in the interest of just the opposite? Hungrily she tore into the rations. The fruits were far fresher than any found in the markets of Tantras, and the water far more pure and clear; the trail bread was satisfying. The jerky was most peculiar, sweet and tasting like pork, yet richer and of an unusual texture, but delicious and heavily spiced with wild herbs, and her hunger pushed aside the pit of dread suggesting just what sort of meat it was she was eating. With the meal soon finished she felt the hunger dissipate and her strength start to return; with the gnawing in her gut gone she became aware of another bodily urge and blushed fiercely. After a moment she chided herself, however. After all, it was not as if anyone here would take issue with it, least of all, she imagined, her captor. With her sense of propriety appeased, she hastily ducked behind the tree she was bound to and relieved herself. This tended as well, she slipped close to the warmth of the spring as her “leash” allowed and sat her bare buttocks upon the soft, cool moss, letting it gently tickle the flesh of her hindquarters, so much more comfortable than the rough bark of the tree. Stomach full and bladder emptied, she once again fell into a light slumber.
When she awoke, she found her bare form was draped in a warm deerhide, and saw that the golden visage of Lathander was just beginning to recede below the horizon. For a moment she marvelled at the softness and warmth of the hide, then to the fact her captor had made such a tender gesture toward her.
Nonsense, it was just so she’d be warm, fit, and able for her run; surely that was all it was. The druidess herself was seated on a moss-covered fallen log with a similar hide wrapped about her shoulders, gazing up at the darkening sky quietly, slowly drawing a whetstone across the curved blade of a curved druid’s sword adorned in runes and charms. Valeria murmured softly as she rose to her feet, and Mysti glanced over slowly.
“It is time.” she said quietly, then lifted another weapon from where it had been unseen in the gloom at her feet. It was Valeria’s own broad-blade, also freshly sharpened and cleaned. Mysti stepped over quietly and lay it at the paladin’s feet, then moved to the middle of the vien tether and with a whistling cut of her own sword, severed it in twain. Cut off from its lifeblood, the magickal vine fell away to fine dust about the lady-knight’s neck, and Mysti cast off the hide she “wore” as her quarry knelt to take up her sword; Valeria’s gaze saw the druidess was painted in ruddy Illuskan runes and drudic sigils, their meaning lost on her. The druidess smiled predatorily and bowed her ehad to the paladin.
“You have an hour to run, then I will take up the hunt. May Malar bless the better of us this night. Valeria only nodded slowly, and uttered a brief prayer to her lord Torm the True.
Then she was gone into the woods and the gathering darkness
She ran.
She ran with all the strength her divinely-fortified body had to bend to the task, feeling the air blow cold on her bared flesh. Around her the woodlands had come alive with the calls and songs of countless beasts; the sensation oddly took Valeria back to the tournaments of her squirehood, with the flamboyantly (and at times scandalously!) dressed bards and bardesses giving rousing performance to incite the jousters and duelists to greater heights. For a moment, she had to stop and shake her head at the irony of it, that here, worlds away from her home in Tantras, her life had come full-circle and she was once again engaged in a high sport as the minstrels of the land sang their songs; Only here, the stakes were much greater – and the whole event was as bare of the normal knightly pageantry as she was of the normal knightly vestments. Around her, she slowly came to let the environs enter her mind as she flew past them fleetly. Tree limbs grasped longingly for her lithe, sleek nakedness, some caressing her flesh, others running wooden fingers through her hair which flew out behind her. Her bare feet crunched through fallen snow and snapped scattered twigs,but her discipline let her resist the cold and these slight pains. Sweat poured from her fair skin and cascaded down her firm, fit curves, but she continued to run at her highest speed, taking comfort from the holy symbol about her throat (which the druidess had respectfully not removed – or else had left for fear of being burned should one of her wickedness touch such an icon of purity) and the sturdy, leather-wrapped grip of her reliable broadsword’s hilt in her right hand, blade angled backward.
At long last she allowed herself to glance upward and read the patterns of the sky, pausing briefly to draw in a deep breath with which to soothe her now-burning lungs. She sighed and exhaled the cold northern air, her breath adding to the fog rising off her hot flesh now gleaming in the moonlight with the sheen of sweat. With a small gasp, she noted the position of Selune’s face in the heavens.
Her hour’s lead had ended, and the hunt was now begun in earnest. Forcing herself to slow the thundering roar of her heart as it turned the placid rivers in her veins into churning rapids, she lifted the holy symbol to her lips and kissed it, tasting her own sweat, and then took off once again.
She opened her senses to the woodlands around her on all sides, the land that was her own kingdom. She was of the land, and the land itself was in her very soul. She had granted the lovely paladin her hour, and now Mysti took up the hunt. She breathed in the chill air as she felt it on her own nude and annointed body, and let out a howl that was only partly human in exhultation. She truly lived for this challenge, as any true scion of the Beastlord would. With predator’s grace she took up her sword and set off into the woods, resisting the urge to take the skin of the wolf, forcing herself to make this challenge a true test, pitting only her human form’s senses and capabilities against those of the lovely lady-knight. She felt the fires of bloodlust singing a thousand songs in her blood as she drew the chill northern air into her lungs, with the paladin’s scent upon it.. her sweat, her blood, the musk of her femininity… a heady perfume that drove the huntress forward through the cold, darkened woods, It was a courtship, in a way. The pursuit, the conquest, and the slaking of lusts.
Only not lusts for sexual release, but for spiritual communion. Life, to a Malarite, was a series of hunts, of conquests. It was to prove that, if survival of the fittest was the true rule of the world, that the Malarite clergy were survivors without peer.
A moonlit courtship, as she ran, following the paladin’s trail; in fact she was disappointed by Valeria’s clumsy efforts at sylvan stealth – but then, most paladins were anything but subtle….
Ah, there.. a flash of pale, naked flesh in the silvery light of Selune.. the strong, powerful scent of humanity almost intoxicating now…. she ran quietly but swiftly, gaining on the distant form of her quarry….
The druidess was close.. so very close. Valeria could sense her pursuer drawing near, feel it in her bones, the instinctive sense for danger granted to all holy warriors by the gods of goodness and right.. and with grim certainty, she began to realize that death rode on the cruel Malarite temptress’ shoulders.
Her death. It was, to her mind, inevitable.
Far better, then, to face it bravely, rather than run from it. She had lied to herself earlier, after all…
She would face the druidess. Turning, she raised her sword….
Just in time to parry a vicious, downward stroke from the Malarite’s curved blade. Sparks flew as the metal screamed, and Valeria staggered back a step from the impact of the blow. Mysti grinned, genuinely amused.
“So the rabbit would face the fox…”
“Even a rabbit may strike when cornered..” replied the paladin as she swung the heavy sword in a vicious arc, first upward then downward with crushing power, the blade searing with holy fire…
Only to have it cleave a dead log in twain like a cord of firewood as the wily druidess sidestepped and swung a blow for the naked knight’s abdomen. Unbalanced from the mighty blow, Valeria could only throw herself abck desperately, but even then she felt the cold, stinging kiss of the Malarite’s sword across her ribs, as the skin parted and a single, long line of crimson oozed forth from the minor wound. Valeria watched in mild disgust as the druidess raised the blade to her lips, licking away the blood from it gingerly and carefully.
“The taste of divinity… ”
“WIll be your last.”
A vicious thrust was parried neatly by the druidess as she maneuvered effortlessly through the underbrush that even now was costing the paladin her footing.
And still the battle raged, flying sparks illuminating sweat-sheened bodies that burned so hot with the fury of battle that they steamed in the cold night air. A few nicks and grazes were suffered by both combatants, but the final stroke was not one of brute force or even skill, but pure cunning. Again the paladin’s blade came rushing forward to behead the vile, cannibalistic devoted of the Beastlord….
w..who promptly ducked. The old, thick tree behind her took the sword gleefully into its grasp, the blade buried so deep it was truly impossible to make it so much as budge an inch…. Valeria valiantly tried to pull it free, but to no avail…
then came a sharp strike to her legs with a sleekly toned third lower limb, a powerful sweep that dropped VAleria onto her naked arse on the cold ground. And soon, Mysti’s sword was at her throat.
“You are beaten.”
Valeria’s head lowered in solemn submission. “Yes.”
“You will not struggle?”
“No. My honor is worth more than my life could ever be, and I was beaten fairly.”
“True enough.. ”
With a gesture, Mysti bade her prey rise, and the paladin subserviently obliged.
Soon, they were making their way back to the clearing they had occupied previously.
The journey back was silent – there were no more words to be said. When at length they arrived, Mysti took the paladin’s hand and guided her into the steaming spring water, soon following. Valeria had to admit, the churning, hot water felt delightful, particularly on her own, chilled skin. Mysti only smirked and pulled forth a wooden container, stoppered tight with a well-carved plug, and shook it vigorously.
“What…?” Valeria began, but Mysti opened it before she could finish the query, letting free a deep, pleasant herbal aroma. Elven soap, the paladin realized, and nodded. Mysti dipped long fingers into the sweet, cleansing herbal paste, then rubbed it between the palms of her hands. Then, slowly, she motioned for the paladin to stand up in the waters, was obliged, and began lathering the decadent, indulgent substance over the paladin’s lean shoulders and toned back, moving lower, lower… down to her buttocks, each one being lathered thoroughly and massaged with surprising tenderness, as Mysti quietly spoke words of power and traced a sigil gently in the lady-knight’s skin with a nail, invoking a lesser-known prayer that was still invaluable to the busy huntress, one to completely cleanse the insides of a captive prey. Valeria gasped as suddenly her bowels were mystically purged of all waste, then gasped louder as a well-soaped finger thrust up into her anus, soaping the interior of her rump and sending the paladin trembling. Mysti gently slid her finger in and out of the paladin’s arsehole, until she was satisfied with her cleanliness there, and then turned her about. Valeria shuddered at the sudden spin and the shock of cold air that followed, but Mysti only smiled and began to lather her ‘guest’s’ full, firm breasts, tracing circles about the nipples which, already hard from the chill, stiffened even further. Valeria let out a lusty moan – then blushed fiercely. Mysti grinned.
“Come now, enjoy this bit of indulgence.. I am certain your God would be understanding….”
Valeria swallowed the lump in her throat, but still blushed fiercely, and Mysti’s chuckle was warmly amused as she squeezed and kneaded each breast, soaping them thoroughly before sliding down to tickle Valeria’s ribs while lathering her long, lean torso.
The paladin hated to admit it, but.. Torm’s name, some part of her really was enjoying this…
Mysti at last had her lathered to the waist, and down both legs.. leaving only one part of the paladin’s anatomy uncleansed… Valeria looked down on her soft, virgin cunny and swallowed another lump.
“Are you going to…?”
“Rip it off raw with my teeth and eat it in front of you, like I did with the tender little morsel of elven sweetmeat? No.”
Valeria sighed in something that might have been relief, but the sigh caught in her throat as she saw the druidess lift something from the brush surrounding their bath. It was long, curved… a length of deer antler. The horn fragment was undeniably pointed, but the point was largely blunted, not sharp at all, and the other end was thick with bony, knobby bumps… the small, wood and leather handle at the end of it, a handle gripped in Mysti’s strong hand, was all the clue the paladin needed to know what purpose this implement served….
“Oh.. Torm’s name.. you are going to…”
“Make your end far less ornerous, when the time comes for it…” the druidess purred, then slid sleekly through the waters to her prisoner once again. In the dim firelight, her unlathered groin’s soft pelt glistened with the water that gripped like crystalline teardrops to each hair, and Mysti found the site irresistible. With her free, left hand, she began to stroke the paladin’s puss, sending Valeria’s loins quivering and wakening them to full, alert arousal.
“I.. I have never..”
Mysti touched the instrument in her right hand to the other woman’s sensuous lips.
“I know. Just relax your muscles.. and see why the rest of the world says vows of chastity are so bloody mad…”
The druidess grinned again, and Valeria felt Mysti’s left hand spread open her netherlips.. then the worn-smooth tip of the druidic dildo was traced down her, over ehr chin, down her neck, between her breasts.. descending slowly until it rested its tip between her cunny’s folds…
The thrust came quick, without any sign of its impending arrival, and Valeria soon felt herself filled.. felt her hot blood flow down into the water as her virginity was claimed by the druidess.
So much for a virgin sacrifice… she thought, before Mysti began to vigorously fuck her with the primitive sex toy, deflowering her thoroughly and making coherent thought a difficult proposition at best. Her body trembled as the pressure buil in her loins.. and soon, Valeria moaned and threw back her ehad, caught in the throes of her first orgasm. Mysti continued relentlessly, letting juices flow down the antler shard and onto her hand, as well as into the water….
After what seemed like hours, Valeria slumped, utterly spent, and Mysti licked the juices from her hand like a content cat cleaning its paw.
Then Valeria began moaning again as her now very tender loins were soaped in and out, provoking one last orgasm she did not even know she had left to her name. It was the last straw for her exhausted body, and she sank into the warm embrace of the waters that held her just above the knees, soaking away the lather and dozing gently in the comforting heat….
Valeria awoke to the chill of a breeze on bare skin, and found herself in a strange position. Her wrists were bound tight, spread out from her body and held downward by two vines growing from the ground itself. She was on her knees, her legs parted wide, to the point her recently deflowered cunny was waiting with lips wide open, and she was not kneeling on bare earth but on two stones, one beneath each knee. She drew in a deep breath, and smelled fragrant herbs, only then growing aware that she was slathered in a thick herbal sauce of some sort… she licked her own lips, tasting the strong, woody flavor of the mixture; in moving her head she realized her hair had been cut to just below her chin, her luxurious chocolate curls absent now..
Then, she saw Mysti, now clothed – albeit in her previous garments, which barely fulfilled their purpose of maintaing her decency. The druidess approached and smiled at her.
“So.. this is..?”
“This is the end, my tender prey… I will miss you.. but in a way, I will always carry you with me… a small part of you, here..”
She placed a hand above her heart, and Valeria closed her eyes to hide the tears. She slowly began to see, truly see. This action, these murders and defilement – devourment – of the remains.. they were nto acts of perversion, of simple callous cruelty.. no…
This druidess, she was as close to a Paladin as her feral god would ever have. She had been raised to consider humans, elves, and others nothing but prey, just as Valeria had, herself, been raised to hold Torm’s truths above all else…
“WIll it hurt?”
"..yes,, it will hurt, my sweet prey.. but I will keep you alive…”
Mysti invoked a blessing of renewal over the paladin’s helpless form, then touched the ground before her with a hand, tracing a sigil. vines rose up to wrap about her calves tightly, binding both legs and rocks that supported them tightly to the ground… then, she felt a slight tremble as the ground between her legs parted, and, unseen to her but soon felt, a herb-entwined wooden spike of cedar rose up from nowhere, the tip soon pressing against her womanhood, slowly, steadily pushing upward… Valeria flavored ehr cheeks with salty tears as she was slowly spitted vertically, the spell healing her torn flesh about the spike as it slowly pushed upward through her body, straining the bonds that held her grounded.. She felt it inside her, inevitable, agonizing as her flesh tore and was mended almost simutlaneously… she was having a ahrd time breathing as the fiery agony lanced through her… but through gurgled blood, she murmured out a final request…
"..a.. kiss.. farewell…”
Mysti smiled with a lover’s serenity; at last, the lady-knight, at the end of her own life, realized the truth.. that to a Malarite, it was not uncommon for the hunter to come to love her quarry…. Mysti slipped over and kissed the doomed paladin powerfully, passionately… then pulled away, just as the cedar-spike, slick with blood, burst from between the lips she had just kissed, rising a good two feet above Valeria’s mouth.
Valeria gurgled and twitched horribly, kept alive only by the virtue of the regenerating blessing cast upon her. Mysti looked upward, brushing away a tear as she called down the paladin’s blessed release. A blue-white bolt of thin lighting struck down, striking the point of the naturally-grown spit and with furious heat, setting it ablaze in an instant, roasting the knight’s innards with rich smoke and herb flavor as the bolt itself cooked her flesh and mercifulyl stopped her heart.. the body twitched briefly, the short-cropepd curls standing on ends… then, the body grew still, and all there was to sense was the savory aroma of naturally-prepared and roasted woman…..
Mysti would spend the rest of the night, and most of the day beyond it, slowly savoring the sweetly flavored, heartily smoked meat of the paladin who for a single night had been her lover, starting first with Valeria’s noble heart; unlike with the savagery with which she devoured Ilysia, Mysti showed nothing but the highest reverence to her beloved sacrifice… this was not a matter of simple carnal and gustatory delight as the elf’s cruel end had been. No, this was a matter of faith, of spirituality… she felt her brief but passionate lover in her soul now, forever a part of her as she consumed the paladin’s heart, taking her courage and fortitude into herself; she feasted delicately on the sweet mound of her womanhood, seared bare by the lightning, consuming sexual flesh and womb along with it, absorbing the rich fertility of her lover. Her strong muscles would bestow their strength to the druidess, her eyeys the collective wisdom they had witnessed… when, a turn of Selune and Lathander passed and she had devoured the paladin near-completely, she let the vines and spit release her, letting the earth take her bones and letting them enrich and fertilize it…
..to nourish others beyond herself, to feed the grass, which fed the deer, which fed the human masses… who fed her. The cycle of life was never-ending, and now, sweet Valeria would forever have a place in it.
It was truly a predator’s communion.
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