An Ogres Tale (Vore) by Repentant Lurker

This was something I wrote after a lively discussion on the DGF about whether or not ogres cook their food. I felt it was necessary to play with the ogre sterotype a little. [b:3mikmcvv] An Ogres Tale[/b:3mikmcvv]

It was a lovely sunny day. The clear water of the stream burbled its way downstream occasionally glinting as it caught rays of sunshine. At the edge of the stream a small leaf swirled around in an eddy, sometimes getting close to the boundary with the main current, near to being swept down stream then suddenly being flicked back into the centre of the eddy to continue swirling around. A careful observer might notice that when the sunshine caught the surface of the stream it was refracted forming fleeting rainbows in the water beneath. A careful observer might also notice that the way the leaf swirled around appeared to follow a certain pattern though closer observation still would reveal that it never quite traced the same path twice.

Sitting in the shadows of a rocky outcrop next to the stream, almost blending in with the rocks themselves was Hurb. Hurb was a very very very careful observer. What Hurb had noticed was that there was a very slight correlation between the spectral patterns in the water caused by the sunshine and the motion of the leaf. If another onlooker were to spot Hurb despite his natural camouflage they would probably run away very very quickly. That’s because Hurb was an ogre and anyone with any sense at all knows that if you see an ogre the best thing to do is run away very very quickly before it sees you, hits you with a big stick and eats you. Once the fleeing observer had put a safe distance between themselves and Hurb they would probably think to themselves, ‘Thank god that ogre didn’t see me and chase after me, hit me with a big stick and eat me’ a little while after that they might think ‘Look at that big dumb ogre sitting there with his big dumb eyes staring at absolutely nothing, what a big dumb creature, aren’t all ogres big dumb creatures’. They would be wrong. Hurb was actually one of the greatest chaos mathematicians on the planet. Although he didn’t know it he was in stiff competition with a sperm whale in the north Atlantic and a large fungus at the base of a dead oak tree in Wiltshire. While sitting in his shady little spot Hurb had carefully calculated the effect that the intensity of sunlight, depending on whether the sun was shielded by a cloud or not, had on the complex vortices of the eddy. To do this he had also taken into account the apparent volume of water flowing down the stream at any one moment, the wind direction, and the presence of any little fish or insects. He hadn’t taken into account how the movement of shingle on the bottom of the stream may have affected the leaf as he couldn’t watch the two at the same time, this disturbed him as it would clearly have an effect of his calculation, Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle had reared its ugly head. Not that Hurb knew who Heisenberg was as an ogre he didn’t have a great deal of knowledge of Human history but he understood the principle anyway. It didn’t really matter anyway. What effect the sunlight was having on the vortices of the eddy was of little importance, it was just interesting that’s all, if you like that sort of thing, which being the great chaos mathematician he was Hurb did. His stomach rumbled. He was Hungry, the sun was starting to set anyway, it was time to go and get some food. He picked up his big stick and then performed the much more impressive task of raising his huge bulk from the ground. The leaf in the eddy was suddenly caught by the main current of the stream and floated off towards the sea. Hurb smiled to himself. Chaos.

Hurb was one of the many creatures of ancient mythology to have ventured through the little inter-dimensional tear in the fabric of space time that had appeared a few years back. Along with a few hundred ogres modern earth had a sudden influx of large numbers elves, fairies, trolls, dwarves, gnomes, goblins, hobgoblins, orcs, gnolls and a litany of other such creatures. This had of course come as quite a shock to the Human population at the time but the differences between the local residents and migratory species were gradually getting ironed out. A treaty of sorts had been drafted that restricted the movement, other than that authorised by application for a proper permit, of the Neomythical folk to the North American national parks. This arrangement suited most of the Neomythicals, exceptions had been made for the few Humans that had come through from the alternate dimension; they were allowed to blend into ‘normal’ society and there were of course the alternate annual pilgrimages of the Orc and Dwarvish populations to the Munich Bierfest. Like all ogres Hurb’s name had meaning. His meant: He who is descended from a long line of great and venerable ogres, enlightened in matters of the world, gifted in the arts of maths and science and no we’re not sissies we’re just as good as anybody else at hitting other creatures over the head with a big stick thank you very much. Hurb like a lot of great thinkers was a bit of a social anomaly. Most of the Ogres had decided to live in the forests of Canada where the long winter nights made for good hunting and even in the summer the forests provided plenty of shade. Hurb had chosen to make his home in Yellowstone, partly because he had a side interest in geology and found the natural springs and geysers particularly interesting (very chaotic), partly due to the large amount of tourist traffic which had its own advantages to hunting but mainly because the park authorities had placed a ban on all goblinoid creatures (much to the chagrin of ogres Humans had lumped them into this category) except those authorised by special permit. A helpful gnome had made an deal with Hurb to get one of these permits (the deal being quite simply that if the gnome got him a permit Hurb wouldn’t hit him over the head with a big stick, sometimes it pays to play to your stereotype) and so he was free to roam the parks on the condition that he limited his hunting to 200 Human catches a year and didn’t eat any of the park staff. Hurb was happy with his lot. The lack of any orcs or goblins meant he didn’t have to worry about their feeble attempts at ogre hunts, not that they were much of a worry just a bit of a pain in the arse; having to bash twenty or so irritating little creatures over the head with a big stick while they were trying to poke you with pointy things was rather disturbing when you’re trying to observe sensitive changes within intricate natural phenomena. He didn’t really get on with other ogres either. They tended to limit conversations to what they had managed to band on the head with a big stick that day and how much elf blood they could down in a single sitting. It wasn’t that hitting things with sticks wasn’t important to Hurb, he took just as much pride in his abilities as any other ogre and he liked his elf blood too; the fresher the better. It was just that when Hurb tried to chat to other ogres about the beauty of natural sciences they tended to throw skulls at him and tell him to shut up. He generally found life easier if he kept himself to himself.

He had made a good fist of life down here in Yellowstone. There was quite a big elfin population which meant he could more than make up for the imbalance between his Human quota and his dietary requirements. Being able to catch only such a small number of Humans also meant he had learnt to be very selective about his food and only dined on the tastiest looking morsels. Like most ogres he far preferred the taste of females they were naturally more succulent than males and their meat was usually much tenderer. They were more fun to keep around too, male ogres are by nature rather promiscuous creatures and given that their females are only in heat once a century they have to find ways of dealing with their sexual frustration (any male ogre who’s ever tried it on with a female ogre who’s not in heat soon ends up getting a very unpleasant lesson indeed on what it feels like for your head to be at the wrong end of a very forcefully swung big stick). This often leads to ogres playing with their food in a manner that a casual observer probably wouldn’t think to be hygienic. The large number of tourists in the area meant there were plenty of tasty morsels to choose from. Hurb was a good hunter and was very adept keeping his huge frame carefully tucked away in dark corners until his prey got so close that they had only enough time to have the vaguest sense of a rapidly descending big stick before it was too late. Hurb had also taken the opportunity to learn to speak some basic Human. Admittedly his catches generally weren’t the greatest of tutors; they usually did quite a lot of high pitched screaming that Hurb had gathered wasn’t particularly polite. Over time though, he’d managed to pick up quite a bit, especially when skulking in corners waiting for something that looked appetising to come along. Being the erudite sort of fellow he was he was quite interested in learning more about Human culture. He was especially interested in their little squiggles like the ones on their permit. Initially he had been very wary of those squiggles because they looked a bit like the ones that elves make and any ogre knows that if an elf starts making squiggles you’d better either hit them with a big stick before they finished or hightail it out of there quickly because their little squiggles meant magiks were coming and magiks were never much fun. The Human squiggles didn’t seem to be directly related to magik although Hurb was sure there was definitely a correlation between their squiggles and some of the complicated bundles of stuff they used which often seemed to do things that seemed like magik. Hurb suspected they didn’t do magiks at all, it just didn’t smell right for one. The few Humans back in the old dimension were quite good at making things out of bits of stuff, usually things to do with avoiding getting hit with a big stick as far as Hurb was aware. Since there were many more Humans in this dimension it seemed natural that they had developed more complicated bundles of stuff that did more complicated things.

A few hundred yards upstream from where Hurb had been sitting was another careful observer. Melissa was a PhD student specialising in neomythical anthropology. She was currently lying on her belly, peering through the lens of her digital SLR camera watching two fairies making the most of the last of suns rays. They were sitting on a small rock not more than 5 yards away, just on the other side of the stream apparently completely unaware of Melissa’s presence. She watched as they reached between their thighs to collect their nectar which they smeared over each others beautiful delicate bodies, spending an inordinately long time caressing each others cute little breasts before lying down to enjoy the sunshine. Melissa risked taking a picture, fearful she would scare them away but determined to record her find. She was delighted to see that the fairies appeared undisturbed and clicked away a few more shots. She reached carefully back for her bag to take out her notebook so she could make a few notes about what they were doing. Suddenly the fairies looked up in her direction exchanged fearful glances and fluttered off into the trees of the forest. Melissa cursed herself, she quickly scribbled her notes and then put her notebook back in the bag. She noticed it had suddenly become much darker and thought that she’d better head back to the lodge where she was staying. She stood up and turned round to see a huge great mass of greyish olive green flesh looming above her. It was decorated with a simple loincloth and an unfeasibly large number of very sharp looking teeth and carrying a very big stick.

Melissa couldn’t believe it. Standing in front of her was what could only be a real live ogre. Hardly anyone had reported sightings of ogres (there were none in the cross species neomythical parliament that had conducted the negotiations with the government, apparently none of the other species were keen on the idea, but the gnomes in the group had still lobbied for their rights, good fellows those gnomes you could trust always trust them to treat you fairly just watch your small change that’s all). The only ones that she knew of were up in Canada, there weren’t supposed to be any here that was for sure, Yellowstone had a ban on goblinoids. Melissa was particularly interested in that phylum and she had wanted to do her field research up north for that reason but unfortunately she couldn’t get a research grant to study outside the US. She had seen a picture of an ogre but it wasn’t a very good one it was mostly hidden in shadow. Seeing one up this close in these parts was like an anthropologist’s wet dream she instinctively raised her camera to take a picture. Record, record, record having been hammered into her brain by the professors back at college.

Hurb had quietly approached the tasty looking morsel. From the way it was lying Hurb could tell that it had a very succulent bottom. It was wearing some blue fabric to cover its hindquarters but this was stretched tightly over the delicious looking buttocks and the legs that emerged from them looked equally scrumptious. Hurb saw the pesky fairies take flight and cursed himself for noticing them sooner he was sure that his intended meal must have realised her was there. He was surprised when it didn’t try to scamper off. He was even more surprised when it turn round and stood there and stared at him. This really wasn’t normal behaviour for a meal, he was so taken aback that he delayed hitting it with his big stick, wanting to see what it did next. He was a bit apprehensive when it raised the bundle of stuff that looked like a shiny black rock but it had been pointing it at the fairies and it hadn’t seemed to do them any harm. He wondered if it was supposed to be a machine for hiding it a bit like the elf magik with their special cloaks. He wondered if she could tell it. What the hell all that would do would scare it and he was close enough that if it tried to run he could still hit it with his stick before it got very far. “Er are you tryin to hide cos I can still see you if you are” he said (don’t judge Hurb for his grammar remember he’s self taught from tourists).

Melissa was shocked the ogre had just spoken. She’d never read anything about ogres being able to speak. She wondered how best to react, her instincts were telling her to run but the pragmatist in her know this was futile and most likely just end up with the ogre using that huge stick it was carrying. She decided to try and talk to it “I’m not trying to hide. This is a camera” she said, taking it from around her neck. “What’s dat” asked Hurb (before you start let me point something out ogres, those that speak English anyway, are often accused of being dumb because we here them saying dis, dat, de and dem all the time. You have to realise this is due to an anatomical speech impediment after all it’s virtually impossible to make a decent th sound if you have three rows of razor sharp teeth where your incisors should be). Melissa wondered how to explain “It’s for taking pictures” The ogre looked slightly confused at least that’s what Melissa hoped his brow creasing meant “Here look” she said turning the camera round so that the ogre could see the image on the screen. He peered at the small object at first he thought he was just seeing his reflection but then he realised it wasn’t moving when he did. Interesting, he wondered what the purpose was. Melissa flicked back through the previous images so he could see the pictures of the fairies. “I use it to record what I’m seeing so I can show it to other people” she explained. Hurb was satisfied with that, in fact it made a lot of sense. “When you wos (tourists again) finished looking at de fairies you wos making lines on dat” Hurb said pointing to the notebook sticking out of her bag “what’s dat for”. This time it was Melissa’s time to look momentarily confused until she realised he meant her writing. “Oh. That’s writing” she said unhelpfully. Hurb considered whether his meal actually wanted him to hit it with a stick. It was going the right way. Melissa guessed that further explanation was required “It’s a bit like this” she said pointing to the camera “The lines I make are a way of recording what I am seeing a bit like if I was to tell someone what I saw. Instead they can look at the lines, we call them words and they’ll know what I said, sort of. Does that make sense?” Hurb scratched his head, he supposed he understood it all seemed very unnecessary “Why don’t you just tell dem?” he asked. Melissa frowned trying to think of a way of explaining. “Those ones that I wrote are really just to help me remember the important parts of what I saw, in case I forget. But if I wanted to tell someone everything I saw all day long it would take me ages to tell someone else. But if I write down what I’m seeing at the same time as I’m seeing it then I can show them the writing later and they can read it (that means to look at what the words mean) when I’m not there. That way I don’t have to spend my time telling them they can give the writing to someone else who can read it and so on.” Hurb was sort of beginning to understand. Melissa had got her teaching hat on, this was a bit like talking to her undergraduate tutorial group. She pulled out a textbook from her bag and turned to the section on fairies. “Look you saw I was looking at fairies earlier. If I’d never seen one and wanted to know about them I could read these words and that would tell me stuff about them. I don’t need to go and find someone who knows about them because it’s written in here.” The value of there word things started to dawn on Hurb you could use these word things to explain stuff to people without having to be there for them to throw skulls at you. “I want to learn dese word tings.” Hurb declared “How long will it take?” Melissa wasn’t sure. The ogre seemed to be fairly quick on the uptake. She didn’t really know how long it took someone to read, she took a stab in the dark. “I’m not sure I suppose you could learn in a couple of months if you worked hard.” Hurb’s brow became deeply furrowed. He was hoping this was something he could pick up over dinner.

Hurb considered his options. The food looked very appetising; it was certainly very aesthetically pleasing with nice long curly reddish brown hair and a very pretty face with hazel eyes and lovely full lips. It had nice big milk making lumps on its chest; those were one of Hurb’s favourite parts of a humanoid female (with the exception of goblins, he didn’t have any favourite parts of a goblin). The rest of its meat looked fairly nice and lean but there was enough of it to make for a very good meal. It actually looked like it would be the tastiest thing he’d had to eat for quite a while, the sort of meal you could linger over and play with, quite a lot. His belly rumbled again as if in agreement with his thoughts. Melissa heard this and it suddenly occurred to her that unless she thought very quickly there was a very good chance she’d end up inside it and that was definitely not a place she wanted to be. “Look I can help you to learn how to read. If you want to learn I’m probably your best bet. Most other people if they saw you they’d probably just run away or try to shoot you. You’re not supposed to be here you know” Hurb dug into his loincloth and pulled out his laminated pink card “I got a permit” The gnome had taught him to say this by rote before he moved into the park, apparently some of the people carried bundles of stuff that could be quite dangerous and it was best to be careful. His food was right about the not running away though Hurb was still rather surprised it hadn’t attempted to leg it. He wondered if he only ate half of it if the rest of it would still be able to teach him. Not likely unfortunately. Had Melissa known quite how much Hurb wanted to eat her then she probably would have given up and tried to make a run for it. As it was she wasn’t aware of the ogres discerning taste. What she did know was that no one had ever written a first hand account of anything more than the merest glimpse of an ogre. If she could persuade him not to eat her for long enough to teach him to read then she could get her PhD out of this encounter. She decided to try and make a deal and decided that declaring her interest was the best way forward. “Look Mr Ogre. I’m Melissa. Meeting you today is the most exciting thing that’s ever happened to me. You’re fantastic, much more interesting than fairies. I really want to study you; to learn more about you. We really don’t know much about ogres and I’m sure you’re misunderstood. I can teach you to read while I’m learning about you. What do you say?” Hurb hadn’t quite caught everything she said, his English wasn’t really up to excited little outbursts yet, but he had got the gist and even ogres aren’t immune to a little flattery. He could be persuaded by her proposal. He knew where there was another good source of food for his dinner. He’d been heading for a campsite full of college girls just a little further upstream when the contents of Melissa’s cute little denim shorts had caught his attention. “Ok Melissa” he said putting forward his summation of the circumstances “I’m Hurb” (Hurb is of course an approximation there’s a subsonic baseline that humans can’t hear for starters) “You teach me to read and I won’t eat you for a bit.”

Ruth was more than a little tipsy she and the other girls had been drinking wine since the early evening. She and five of her friends had come to Yellowstone on a camping trip. They were all sat round the campfire alternately telling ghost stories and rude things that they’d like to do with various boys back home. Ruth felt like she needed to pee but was on a bit of a quandary about whether or not she could actually stand up. She decided to go for it and just about managed to get to her feet without toppling over into the fire. After soaking up the jeers at her drunkenness from her friends she staggered off in the direction of the campsite’s portaloo. She was feeling a little queasy and by the time she reached the loo she’d come to the opinion that she if she was to open the door the smell would probably make her puke. She decided to go for a piss in the bushes instead. She walked a little way into the trees, looked around to make sure no one could see her, pulled down her jeans and knickers and squatted down on her haunches making a quick check to ensure she wasn’t about to piddle on her clothes. She had a momentary sensation that something was not quite right and looked up to see a big rapidly moving stick brandished by what a moment ago she had thought for all the world was a stout tree.

Hurb slung the unconscious girl over his shoulder happily. She was almost as tasty looking as Melissa. He walked back to where she was hiding. He was quietly impressed at her lurking abilities but if she could creep up on fairies then he supposed she had to be quite good at it. “Where do we go now?” Melissa whispered “I’ve got a cave not far away.” Hurb replied. “Follow me.” He said setting off quickly he really was getting quite peckish indeed. “Is she dead?” Melissa asked when they’d put some distance between themselves and the campsite. “Oh no” Hurb said “I only gave her a little tap.” Melissa wasn’t sure she believed it was possible to give anything a ‘little tap’ with the small tree trunk that Hurb was carrying but he took his word for it. She was quite surprised at the speed and quietness with which he could move through the woods, you wouldn’t think that anything as huge as Hurb could move through the woods so stealthily, he was after all at least 10 feet tall and his chest was about as wide as a small car. Melissa was having a bit of difficulty keeping up with him and was hoping that his cave really was close by.

Fortunately it didn’t take too long before Hurb ducked into a small (for him) gap in a cliff wall. The hole opened up into quite a large cavern. He ambled inside and plonked his pretty cargo onto the floor. In the middle of the cave he pulled as sort of carpet of slightly damp sphanum moss off of a pile of embers it was insulating and set about chucking pieces of wood onto it from a pile in the corner. Before long a quite a healthy fire was burning that lit up the cave casting long shadows throughout the crooks and crannies of the walls. Melissa was quite glad of the fire. It had been getting quite chilly outside and she was impressed at how quickly Hurb had got it going she got out her little note book and scribbled down a quick diagram of his technique. She glanced at the girl lying on the floor and it was only then that it struck her that she would have to watch the poor thing being eaten. The pragmatic side of her tried to tell her there was no difference between this and a naturalist watching a lion take down a gazelle on an African plain. There wasn’t anything she could do about it was there. The emotional side of her wasn’t quite sure it was quite that simple but in view of the ten foot tall ogre in the close vicinity that had seemed quite prepared to put her on the menu not long a go it was quite prepared to give pragmatism due consideration. Hurb bustled about the cave for a few minutes chucking the odd log here and there brushing some discarded bones into a corner, where Melissa couldn’t help noticing there seemed to be quite a healthy collection. She watched the ogre cautiously and it gradually dawned on her that big old Hurb was attempting to clean up. She couldn’t help smirking to herself it just didn’t seem right that a great big lumbering carnivorous hulk like him might actually be a little bit house-proud.

Hurb finished his pottering shortly afterwards and pulled up a big log close to the fire he patted one end indicating that Melissa should sit her self down. He then picked up Ruth and slung her over his lap. Melissa had her first good look at her soon to be eaten companion. She had light brown hair that looked like it normally spent a lot of time being straightened and fell to the middle of he back. Her jeans and panties were still round her ankles showing off a long, shapely pair of legs topped with a pretty little neatly trimmed bush. Hurb reached down and pulled off the garments, he sniffed, realising with some distaste that his prey had not waited till she regained consciousness before evacuating her bladder, he didn’t want to think about the fact that his back felt slightly clammy. He chucked the clothes on the fire and set about pulling off the coverings on her top half. The removing her t-shit and cardigan revealed a pair of nice perky breasts. Melissa couldn’t help comparing them to her own, she wasn’t entirely sure given her current circumstances that it was beneficial that her were slightly bigger. Hurb was clearly inspecting his catch too. He prodded and probed her like a butcher checking a his meat for quality, exactly like that Melissa supposed. Melissa couldn’t help wondering what he thought. The scientist in her couldn’t resist the curiosity. “Is she good?” she asked. Hurb looked over, a bit surprised at the question and slightly amused at the expression on Melissa’s face it was clear that she was surprised to have asked it. “Not bad.” He said “Good quality meat. A bit skinny. You’d taste better.” He gave Melissa what she hoped was a grin, it wasn’t very pretty. He placed the girl carefully on the floor, picked off what at seemed to be some sort of cloth from the floor and left the cave for a moment. When he returned shortly afterwards Melissa could see that the cloth was in fact like a wineskin which he had filled with water from the stream running close by the cavern. He hung it on a branched stick that he had staked into the floor. She hadn’t noticed before but when she looked around the cave Melissa could see quite a few simple tools. Hurb walked over and picked up one of them, a six foot ling pointy stick. He released a handful of water from the wineskin and tossed it down his back, repeating the action a couple of times. He then picked the skin up poured a fair bit over his pointy stick and emptied the rest of the contents over the girl on the floor.

Ruth awoke with a start. Someone was pouring water over her. She opened her eyes and saw the campfire. How had she got there? The last thing she could remember was going for a pee and then… she shivered, suddenly realising she was naked. What an earth was going on? She looked up and saw Hurb. The resulting scream was so loud that Melissa had to cover her ears. Hurb didn’t seem to be concerned. He grabbed one of the girl’s legs and lifted her into the air. Ruth screamed again as she was dangled just off the ground. The way Hurb was holding her she was looking directly at Melissa. Ruth couldn’t understand why the other girl in the cave was so calm with this monster here. Then again the monster didn’t seem to be dangling her in the air either. “Who are you? whats going on?” she asked desperately. Melissa wasn’t sure what she should say. She went with “I’m Melissa, this is Hurb he’s an ogre. I think he’s about to eat you” feeling it was best to be straight up in this sort of situation. It wasn’t like the girl was going to benefit from false hope. “And you’re just sitting there watching him?” Ruth screamed “Er yes” Melissa replied “I’m kind of studying him. Sorry.” An awful lot of foul language suddenly flowed from Ruths mouth. Hurb smiled, glad that things were getting back to normality although he clouldn’t help joining in on the conversation “She’s teaching me to read too.” He said proudly. Ruth was gripped by apoplexy “Teaching it to read! What fucking planet are you on girl, it’s a fucking great ogre, ogres don’t bloody read you stupid bitch!” She yelled. Melissa was quite taken aback she was a well brought up lass and not generally used to this sort of abuse. It was probably because of this that her reply was rather cutting. “No. They eat girls don’t they!” She cut to the bone.

Hurb was tiring of the banter and really very hungry indeed. He picked up his pointy stick and then lowered Ruth’s head between his legs, trapping her between his thighs. Using one of his massive hands to force her legs apart he shoved the stick into her pussy with the other. Ruth shrieked like a banshee. Melissa gasped the stick had gone well over a foot into her and Hurb was holding here there like a sausage on a stick. He pushed Ruth down to the stick a little more firmly so there was no danger of her wriggling making her fall off. “Girl meat tastes better cooked” he said holding the neatly skewered girl over the fire.