Friday, August 30, 2013

(Fan)fiction Friday 13: Shallya's Will Ch. 5

The New Role


Tags: [Futa/F] [Rape] [Huge dick] [Cum] [Beating] [Anal]

During their rest, they had slipped down along the wall gradually, until they were both lying on the spread-out bundle of rags and blankets, with only a sparse few bits of cloth wrapped around them. The dungeon was dark and the low noises of many women echoed quietly between the walls, but with no nearby opening to the outside, it was a pleasant temperature, at least. It remained impossible to tell what time of day or night it was.

Julia had for the first few days in the hole felt like she knew what time of day it was, but she had forgotten now. It was getting harder to remember how long she had spent in here. A month? Two? The first cuts were well-healed by now, and so were many of the subsequent ones. The redhead sighed, turning her head to the left to watch the brown-haired girl sleeping against the warrior’s arm.

That Vesper, she had barely fallen asleep before she started to twitch and whimper. Julia had never experienced anyone so wracked with nightmares. It had taken a very long time for her to get used to the tossing and turning, but she had finally fallen asleep herself. Now, she simply laid on her back, next to Vesper, refusing to remove the arm wrapped safely around the initiate. She obviously needed the comfort, even in her sleep.

The warrior squeezed Vesper’s tense shoulder gently, looking up in the darkness above them. There was a stone ceiling up there somewhere. During her first days here, she had tried to get out, screamed, crawled, punched and ripped at every conceivable exit, until the abbess herself had finally come down to the cell. Julia ran her hand carefully over her toned stomach, wincing a little at the memories. Not really the pain, more the words that Syrith had said. They echoed in her mind even now, after so many more nights and days in this hellhole.

“You don’t have to understand, Julia. You only have to accept that you are but one cow in a herd of cattle. You live or die by the whims of your betters.” She had whispered the words quietly, to herself. With a deep sigh, she pulled up the blanket covering the plagued initiate, hiding her more prominent features. “Not that it matters,” thought the warrior. “They’ll be here to start it all over soon enough…”

As minutes passed for the quiet redhead, Vesper’s whimpering grew into something resembling crying, though there were no tears. Finally, with an almost exasperated sigh, Julia rolled to her side and reached her other bruised, muscled arm over the girl’s stomach, turning her to her side. Their bodies squashed together lightly, with one still asleep and one covered in the marks of a fight.

At some point, the tired, beaten woman heard a wet gasp and felt the novice’s body jolt. Hesitant arms and cool, soothing hands wrapped around Julia’s back. She squeezed Vesper as best she could, holding the shaking girl close. It took a moment until it dawned on her that the initiate was quivering with barely-contained tears. All she could do was hold Vesper close, her head sagging against the novice’s shoulder lightly in shame. The frail woman needed comfort, and all she had was a beaten, gruff warrior who only had one weapon when it came to emotional damage; Suppression.

The two laid there in the darkness, one ashamed and one deathly afraid of what the next hours would bring, both wondering when, not if, their captors would return.

*****

As time wore on, guards came and went in the dungeon, to remove and replace the inhabitants of the cells. Cell-doors screeched against stone and were followed by silence, screaming or low moaning. Julia instinctively curled her arms tighter around the quaking girl in her arms. Each time a boot-clad foot hit the stone outside their cell, she could feel the initiate shake with fear.

She could have peered out through the cell door, she could have seen the guards drag naked women off, but instead preferred to lean her head against Vesper’s shoulder and neck. For once, she preferred not to see, to instead hold the young woman in her arms and pretend that today, the gods would have mercy.

Three sets of metal footsteps came to a halt outside of their cell. “Of course not,” thought the warrior, struggling to hold back an ironic, hopeless smile. She squeezed the shivering girl in her arms, and then loosened her grasp.

For once, Julia refrained from struggling. Two guards pulled her apart from Vesper. She managed to catch the third guard planting a knee in the vainly struggling girl’s lower back, only for him to grab at the novice’s arms to tie them behind her back. The warrior knew very well what she had coming, herself. After the first many days of fights, scratches and kicks, the guards were all too keen to deal out punishment to her when they could.

One guard had hooked his arms under hers and held her in place. A fist slammed against her already blue and yellow jaw, turning her face along with the impact. Thin ropes of spittle flew through the darkness from her ruptured lower lip. She spat at the floor defiantly, running her tongue over the small rupture in her lip. She was more prepared for the punch landing against her stomach. The hit was met by taut muscles. It hurt, but that was all. She gave them no more reaction than what they could force out of her reflexes. The warrior quickly became a boring target, and was dragged over the floor, only a little behind a struggling Vesper.

*****

The short journey from the cell up to the orgy hall was no longer much of an event for Julia. She deliberately let her bare feet drag limply over the floor, listening to the softly grinding sound. The guards clearly cared little for what she did. They had dug their gloved fingers into the flesh of her biceps and simply carried her along. She could almost physically feel their surprise at the lack of struggling.

For Vesper, however, it was a different story. With her arms stretched down along her sides and then tied by the wrists over her curvy little butt, she stumbled along, panicking, wet breaths catching in her throat. Her teary, ice-blue eyes scanned the stone brickwork of the hallways, looking for doors or exits of any kind, but there was very little except the occasional black stone corridor stretching to the side of the main path.

As she rounded a corner, the guard pulled harder, causing the scared initiate to stumble and almost fall. The guard grunted and simply dragged her along by the arm he had hooked under hers. Her shoulder strained painfully, but she had no time to get back up with the tempo the man had set.

*****

It started off as only a low, occasional noise, barely registered in the background inbetween the dragging of feet against stone, heavy breaths and intermittent, high-pitched sighs of pain. Eventually, the sound of steel against steel became louder, and below it, other sounds grew and blossomed into their own horrible melody.

Steel hit steel. A gurgling, desperate scream rose, then the sound of bodies smacking into, against other bodies followed. The thump of fists against soft skin, the sharp sound of bodies hitting the stone floor, both of them mixed with rhythmic moans, sighs and pleads of forgiveness, or begging for more.

Vesper was dragged around a corner, and suddenly, as she stumbled forward, the hedonistic overture hit her straight on. The enormous room opened around her, overwhelming her senses with impressions. It was all too much.

The room was one giant mess of circles of people surrounding slaves, small arenas where people fought, clusters of bodies piled on other bodies, rapes carried out surrounded by what appeared to be intimate scenes. Goat-headed, rippling creatures sparring with regular humans were everywhere in the room, flexible girls and women danced around iron poles, and innocent youngsters were murdered and bled dry into the waiting mouths of mutants and humans alike.

The guards forged a path through the utter chaos of humanoid forms, dragging the two young women towards the opposite side of the large room. They were heading towards what appeared to be a wooden throne. The wide armrests were held up by intricately detailed, naked young women carved into the block of dark wood that made up the large seat. In the throne, with obscenely spread legs, sat the leader of this cult. The now naked, raven-haired beauty who had welcomed Vesper on that first night. Abbess Syrith.

As she came closer, she could see more of the matriarch of the cult. There was apparently going to be some spectacle to amuse the bored-looking woman, as the floor immediately in front of her was clear of any writhing bodies in a relatively large circle. Vesper’s eyes travelled up along the abbess’ shapely, athletic legs, and then stopped. The tendrils of worry lashing around inside her stomach solidified to a block of ice as she saw it, a hefty, veined cock lying limply against the throne, between the woman’s statuesque legs.

The intiate’s breathing accelerated rapidly, her chest heaving and falling. The images of the last time she had been up in this hall flooded her mind, a lightning flash in her mind bringing back the images she could now imagine herself in the middle of from the night before. The dark-haired beauty on the throne, hammering into her defenseless form. She shuddered, vividly remembering feeling the slimy come drip from her, before she was dragged away.

She ripped her eyes free, for now ignoring the rest of the well-trained form on the throne to focus on the eyes of the figure. The orbs that met her were crowned with pitch-black irises, staring haughtily, hungrily back at her. It felt as if the blackness tore at her, into her soul, consuming her in an instant and then growing bored with her again. The feeling seemed to only last for a moment, but when the shivering novice emerged from the hold of the abbess’ eyes once more, she was in front of the woman, held in place by her arm by the silent guard.

Behind her, Vesper heard a low grunt and the sound of naked skin against stone, and then a low thump. She wrestled her frightened eyes from the horribly enchanting being in front of her, to cast a look behind her. The two guards carrying Julia had thrown her on the ground, and one had apparently given her a kick in the side. Still, the hardy, battered fighter was getting on her feet, almost before the guards merged with the convulsing, lewd mass of creatures surrounding the matriarch’s spot.

At the sound of whispered words, the girl’s head snapped back to look at the dark-haired woman on the throne. Dark, wispy tendrils of blackness were coiling around Syrith’s right arm like lazy, thin snakes, extending through the air towards the brown-haired plaything in front of her.

A black tendril grazed the novice’s forehead, pushing an unruly lock of hair away. A second tendril coiled around the initiate’s ear, and then pressed lightly against her temple. A third tendril extended, mimicking the second, on the other side of Vesper’s head. A final, fourth tendril came to rest under the bound woman’s chin, pushing her slightly downcast face upwards. The matriarch more spat than said a last word, causing the tendrils to jolt, sending the girl’s eyes rolling upwards in a forced, standing trance.

*****

Vesper heard wicked laughter first, and then all the other sounds of the orgy room. Vision, smell and feeling returned to her gradually as the black tendrils receded. She felt slow and heavy, spent, as if having worked hard an entire day. She looked at the abbess sitting in front of her, seeing her lips curl in a cruel, amused smile.

“Orphan,” she said nonchalantly. The word hit Vesper like a whip.

“You live for others, punishing yourself for events you could never have influenced,” the abbess cooed, slowly getting up, taking the three fluid steps necessary to reach the girl standing in front of her, running a hand along the novice’s soft shoulder, up along her neck and into the long, slightly curly hair, taking a firm hold that drove a hissing gasp of pain from Vesper.

“You think your pathetic goddess is testing you, don’t you, girl? You desperately search for wisdom and meaning in a world where there is none, you seek a mythical better tomorrow…” The raven-haired beauty’s lips curled into a hateful snarl as she jerked the girl’s hair roughly, her voice rising to a shout.

 “There is no tomorrow!”

“Shallya’s world failed before it even began, little one. Tomorrow is -never- coming,” said the abbess, her voice gradually falling to a low whisper. She looked into the icy blue, darting eyes so close to her own, smirking once more. Leaning back, she pressed her tongue out between her lips, withdrew it and then spat at Vesper.

The transparent glob of spit splattered against the initiate’s face, her eyes only barely closing in time. She stumbled forward blindly, the demanding hand stuck in her hair pulling her towards the throne. She felt and heard the abbess sit down once more, then felt a hand clasp around her middle, dragging her close, squishing her thigh up against the thick dick. She shivered, but clearly felt that there was no getting away from someone with the kind of strength that held her in place against the abbess’ center.

Shaking her head, Vesper blinked her eyes open once more. She looked down, seeing black-nailed fingers spread slightly against her firm tummy, then a hand came into her field of vision under one leg, lifting it up and placing it so that the novice’s knee and lower leg hung on the outside of Syrith’s thigh. The positioning was repeated with Vesper’s other leg, and she was then pulled close to the body behind her, feeling large tits squash and flatten a little against her taut back and tied arms. Directly below her exposed pussy, the wide, veined shaft was coming to life, hardening, growing thicker and longer.

“Now, Vesper… You simply have to accept your new role. You have to see what the world is becoming. Look out at my disciples, see the truth.”

From her perch atop the abbess’ thighs, Vesper could more clearly see the room at large. Her eyes quickly scanned the depraved landscape of the room, seeing deadly fights and acts of torture side by side with scenes that looked like star-crossed lovers had at long last found an opportunity to complete their love.

There were sensual scenes of affection, the snaps of whips, an overflow of unions spanning the spectrum from violent to loving, and even what appeared to be a station of tied women to be used completely at the discretion of anyone in the room. The initiate quickly looked away from the room at large, preferring instead to focus her eyes in front of her, on Julia.

The proud, tough woman was circling a four-armed, amazonian woman. Apparently, the fight had been going on for a little while, as the four-armed being was bleeding from her nose, and Julia was rolling her left shoulder, as if to restore feeling.

After this myriad of different impressions, Vesper had almost forgotten where she was and how she was positioned, but it quickly came back to her. The matriarch’s black-nailed, spread fingers pressed harder against the initiate’s flat stomach, while the other hand came to rest just a few inches down the inside of one of those widely spread thighs.

Vesper felt hot breath against her ear, and soon after soft, wet lips closing around her earlobe. Then, gradually, she felt a mounting pressure against her pelvis. It was an odd feeling, warm, soft, but at the same time insistent. The initiate looked down, her heart clogging her throat as she saw what she assumed to be the first half of Syrith’s hefty dick between her legs, rubbing lazily against her exposed inner thighs, smearing a little sticky, transparent precum into her skin.

With breaths catching in her throat, the novice started twisting, wriggling and flexing nervously, but she was held in place easily enough, achieving little other than grinding the head of the abbess’ cock against her skin and nether lips. Seconds felt like eternities as the bulbous cockhead pushed up against her cunt, the initiate’s struggling increasing despite the now rough handling of her stomach and thigh, nails digging into her tender skin.

At the very last moment, when Vesper could feel herself her body beginning to hesitantly spread around the abbess’ shaft, a heavy thumb and a grunt pierced the atmosphere immediately in front of the two on the throne. The pressure against her stopped, and she relaxed ever so slightly. In front of the throne, Julia had been slammed against the ground by the four-armed woman. For a moment, Vesper felt sure that she saw the redhead send a quick glance up at her, barely a noticeable diversion of her attention, but still one that the initiate sensed.

For a short while, Syrith’s attention remained on the two struggling forms on the floor in front of her. The vicious beating that the insolent warrior received from the four-armed amazon was met with rapidly waning interest, though, especially after Julia managed to free herself. Still, her sides were glowing red from the amount of hits she had received.

Once again, Vesper felt the insistent pressure against her clenching cunt, her toes curling as she felt the thick shaft begin to push into her. Her breathing came in shaky, superficial gasps, her entire body tense as tight, aching pussy slowly became stuffed with two inches of potent, steely dick. She barely registered another loud incident in the fight in front of her, and it appeared that Syrith’s attention would not be easily diverted either, at this point. All Julia’s new attempt solicited was a brief stop in the slow, grinding entrance into the shivering girl as the matriarch glanced towards the fallen warrior, and then once more focused on her prey.

Vesper could, by now, only stare down her front. The sounds and sights of the fight in front of her grew distant, blurry shades barely registered in the corners of her eyes. The domineering hands grasping her relatively small form rearranged slightly, providing her a moment of respite as fingers trailed over her front, teasing against her vaguely defined ribs until they reached and harshly grabbed one of her breasts, kneading the flesh.

The hand on her thigh merely moved below her taut leg, enabling the black-haired abbess to lift the initiate upwards, off of the turgid member and then let her clenching walls slowly spread out again as she was simply held in place, gravity doing the majority of the work. Her eyes remained fixed down along herself, watching with mildly fascinated horror as she bulged just a fraction of an inch outwards when the tip of thick, hard dick slowly bored into her pressuring, tense cunt.

It became harder to track time for the novice, as Syrith seemed to be content with merely massaging the tip of her massive shaft in her new toy.

“Take… What you want,” came the matriarch’s almost sensual whisper, causing Vesper to snap back to reality, her eyes straining to try and catch a glimpse of the raven-haired beauty. She could feel teeth gently tugging at her earlobe.

“The only thing that matters, is yourself…” The last two words were stretched out in a hiss, and with them, the initiate gradually arched her back, her eyes bulging as she felt the woman finally sink her cock in deeper in a slow, languid slide. A frantic inhalation caught in the girl’s throat, her toes curling as she felt herself utterly impaled, yet the abbess continued on, stuffing more pulsing cock into the meekly whimpering initiate on top of her, pressing, almost hammering in the last possible bit of cockflesh she could fit, finally drawing a satisfying, shaky sob from her victim.

For an eternity, the two sat on the throne. The brown-haired, naked initiate’s back arched madly, and the victorious, pleasantly smirking matriarch merely stayed in place. Vesper’s body shook with a sob again, her body clenching, shaking slightly as she refused to relax her muscles and let her rapist have her way entirely. For more than a minute, the two were as a single, obscene statue.

Finally, with a wet, despairing gasp, the novice could hold no longer, her body relaxing and falling against the strong body that held her in place. The hand groping her breast slowly snaked its way down over her side, feeling almost as if it laid claim to her skin as it descended down her form, ending with a firm grasp of her thigh.

With the initiate’s body once again conquered, it seemed that the revered mother had but one care left, and that single need had to be sated now. She managed a few testing, rolling thrusts, but soon seemed to lose control, her fingers squeezing the sensitive skin of Vesper’s thighs as she manipulated the girl’s form up and down at increasing speed, battering her rock hard, immensely-thick fuckrod into the writhing, whimpering woman on top of her.

“Nh, nnh, nhah! Mhnh!” The young woman’s initial, whimpering gasps quickly grew into more high-pitched, gasping breaths as the grinding, tearing pain from her stretched insides grew more insistent for every pounding thrust. Her body shook for every time she was skewered, pushing against the slightly sweaty form of the matriarch behind her.

After reaching a momentary crescendo, Vesper’s high-pitched squeals died down to meek, quiet sobs for every time she the fat cock bored into her tight snatch. The firm, domineering hands on her thighs and the lips around her earlobe were beginning to show a hint of desperation and lack of restraint, but the initiate barely felt the difference. Her mind was already clouded with permeating pain and a desperate, flickering fantasy of what life could, should have been like for her, to an extent that she was almost in a trance.

Through this trance-like state, she vaguely, between hammering thrusts, noticed Julia held against the stone floor by the four-armed beast. Vesper’s head lolled around aimlessly as she was slam-fucked against the abbess’ strong thighs, but she could not get the image of the grotesque beast jamming a large cock into the woman she had for a brief moment imagined as her protector in this place, someone who might, somehow, save her.

That hope was thoroughly extinguished as she watched the warrior simply lie on the stone floor, rocking back and forth as she was asspounded. Almost as if it was not her body being violated, Vesper faintly noticed that the grinding fuck had stopped, and that she was now pressed down around a spasming, cum-spewing rod. The foreign warmth felt alien, disgusting as it splattered against her cervix.

She would have cried, attempted to struggle even, but her eyes were locked with Julia’s green orbs, drawing strength from her beaten cellmate, somehow. Full feeling slowly returned to the initiate, her anchor in reality restored by Julia’s shockingly calm look. Her cunt involuntarily convulsed around the thick cumcannon that continued to spew rope after rope of jizz into her, so much so that she could feel it obscenely bubble from her clenching pussy, rolling and dripping down the part of the shaft left outside of her.

The hot, thick strands of semen continued hosing into her, the pressure against her inner walls mounting slowly. She was simply too stuffed full of wide fick for the copious amount of jizz to have room to dribble out of her at the rate that it was fired in.

Just as she started to thrash weakly, the fountain of cum died down, shooting a few last blasts of cum before it slowed to a dribble. Vesper let her head hang, her cheeks burning as she realized that Julia had been staring up at her the entire time. The warrior could not possibly have missed seeing the chewy, flooding cream leak from her abused cunt.

*****

Vesper was left impaled on Syrith’s softening cock, the hand previously guiding her body up and down instead exploring and caressing her moist skin. The initiate could clearly hear the rape taking place in front of her, but could not bear to see her protector be violated. Oddly, there was very little sound save for the panting of the assailant, and the odd grunt from Julia when she was hit or kicked by someone.

At some point, the guard who had dragged the girl up to the hall returned and roughly pulled her from the matriarch’s lap. The trip back to the cell was unclear to Vesper, her mind already straining from the events that had transpired. As she stumbled along, she could almost physically feel the second rape layering itself on top of the first. By the time she was thrown back in the cell, she was shaking with disgust and pent up tears that she refused to let out. She was dirty, sweaty and stained with the abbess’ fluids, she ached and could barely feel her arms or shoulders anymore, still tied with the rope around her wrists as she was.

By the time the guards dragging Julia came, Vesper had wormed her way onto the rags and blankets near the wall of the room. Lying on her stomach, she more felt than saw the presence of the guards, especially as one of them made his way over to her and bent over her. She froze up entirely, her eyes wide as she stared backwards and up as much as she could. For a long, long moment, the man stood still, then she felt something bite into the rope holding her wrists in place. With a light snap, the rope was cut, and the guards disappeared as quickly as they had entered, closing the iron bar door, leaving the two lightly panting women behind them.

Friday, August 23, 2013

(Fan)fiction Friday 12: Shallya's Will Ch. 4

Darkness, A New Friend


Tags: [Futa/F] [Rape] [Drugging] [Nightmare/Flashback] [Blindfold] [Ritual] [Imprisonment]

The first thing she noticed was that breathing was harder. Something was covering her, but she was still stuck in the split-second between sleep and awareness, darkness retreating from her mind and senses. She wanted to move, to sit upright, but found her limbs sluggish, easily held in place by a hand against her shoulder. Sleepily, her eyes cracked open, swimming a little. She could see the threatening shape of white cloth very close to her eyes, held over her mouth. Above her, a hooded shape hovered. All that was visible in the faint light of the beginning morning were strong, feminine lips and an equally powerful and somehow sensual chin.

Vesper’s vision had already begun flagging, feeling as if she was spinning around inside herself. She remained entirely conscious that she was lying still on the bed, on her back, throughout the experience. Colors drained from the world slowly. The shape above her grew monstrous for a brief moment. Finally, she sank back into blackness.

*****

The first half second, she felt no pain, merely registered that the blade had penetrated her robe, her stomach and finally stopped when the tip settled in the pillar behind her. The force of the thrust had pushed her body into a slightly angled posture, from which she looked down and saw the blade sticking out of her, saw blood flooding out along the blade. Clasping at her stomach, the initiate looked up at the black-armored warrior in wide-eyed shock.

The giant man stepped back, yanking his weapon free of the girl in one violent movement, pulling her with it until she simply fell forward. Vesper hit the ground sideways, her body prickling and convulsing, the thorny flower of agony blooming inside her. The only thing that came out of her mouth was blood, her eyes remaining wide, almost bulging with shock. Blood spilled from her mouth and from her stomach, quickly spreading from the clingy, damp cloth of her robe and onto the ground.

With her eyes misting, she more felt than heard or saw the bodies around her hit the ground. Muted screams tore through to her blurred mind, screams born not only of impending death, but of worse things happening before the final release. Vesper’s mind was awash with so many images. Thoughts of Amelia surfaced, desperate thoughts of how she would now never complete her ordainment, but above all, the all-consuming need to relieve the pain. She attempted to summon up the will to stutter out a prayer of healing, but only bubbling gasps burst from her lips.

Weakness crept over her mind and body, her previously spasming legs merely flexing instinctively, her thoughts drifting as she became more and more numb. The world was slipping from her grasp. Thoughts evaded her and left nothing but pain itself. Soon, even the scything pangs of pain grew distant, leaving only apathy. Her head fell to the right, her cheek landing against the ground roughly.

The scene played out in front of her should have horrified her. The few of her sisters that were not dead were being abused around her. She could only passively observe as the revered mother, the abbess of the temple, was dragged out of the main building and forced to her knees. Vesper could see tears on the old grey-haired woman’s face as she looked out over the courtyard filled with butchered women. The ruins of her temple, littered with the dead or dying youths she had helped raise for so many years, would be the last thing she ever saw.

*****

Something wet and slightly rough pressed against her face hungrily, then disappeared again. She felt the fingertips of a feminine hand trail from her thigh up over her body, circling briefly around her slightly protruding hipbone. Her lips cleaved open, ropes of built-up saliva bridging the gap, quivering as she took in a deep gasp of air.

Something was covering her eyes. It felt and seemed to be dark cloth. Her head hung over the edge of what felt like a polished and smooth block of wood. It reached from her shoulders and down to the middle of her firm  bottom. She tried moving, but quickly discovered that her wrists and ankles were tied to something at the base of the block. Only when the feminine hand trailed further up, over her gently rounding side and up to the bottom of her ribcage, did she realize that she was naked.

Vesper flexed, straining as best she could against the ropes. There was little she could do. Whoever had tied this certainly knew how to handle rope and keep someone in place. Slowly, the scent and sound of the room around her infiltrated her mind. A tangy, sweaty smell with a sweet note was all-pervasive. Around her, sighs and moans of satisfaction and pain mixed with the lewd smacking of skin against skin. In the background, there was the faint sound of steel on steel, and shouting.

“N-no!” The protest had burst from her lips as the hands trailing over her form had reached her breasts, caressing gently over one, twisting the nipple before ending up on the initiate’s shoulder, holding her even more firmly in place. She was soon answered by coarse laughter, both male and female.

The hand left her shoulder. For a few brief moments, she laid there, bare and unable to see, feeling the bodies all around her in whatever room she was in. The petite girl turned and angled her head, attempting to hear the people around her better. With a shriek, her head was dragged upwards with a hand in her hair, the parted lips of the panting initiate meeting a luscious, slick set of lips.

Vesper was breathless, gasping for air through her nose as a thousand prickly needles bored into her scalp. The grip of her hair did not let up, it only grew stronger as someone stole a deep, demanding kiss from her, shoving a tongue into her mouth. When her lips were finally free again, she could feel hot breath against her skin, then her ear.

“Mmh… You’re going to be so much fun, just like your sisters.” Warm air from the feminine voice filled her ear, making her shiver slightly. The breathless initiate’s back arched slightly as she once more strained against her restraints, only to be yanked down again, her back resting against the wooden block. Vesper’s shoulders and thighs were beginning to hurt from the strain of having her limbs tied below her, but she had other things to occupy her busy mind with.

The hand gripping a fistful of her long, curlish, golden-brown locks started pulling downwards, dragging her head with it, eliciting a pained, wet gasp from the novice. As her head was forced down, her tense neck became increasingly exposed, tendons defined clearly due to her pain-clenched jaw.

Vesper’s form jolted as hot, moist lips pressed against her neck, nipping at her skin lightly as they made their way down over her form, trailing over her collarbone and down over the gentle rounding of her flattened left breast. The initiate could not hold back a gasp as her nipple slipped between those suckling lips, once more soliciting laughter from the unseen crowd around her.

As soon as those lips left her body, she started writhing and struggling against her bonds again. Her teeth gritted, her entire small form tensing in an attempt at overworking the ropes holding her firmly in place. A hand from landed on her thigh with a sharp smack, making her gasp. A warm, dull ache spread where the hand had hit.

She could feel the air move against her skin. Someone walked around her, walked from her side to where her knees pointed. The bound initiate pressed her knees against each other even more resolutely, instinctively trying to cover what she could of herself. The hand on her thigh dragged over her soft skin, fingertips circling gently around the tip of her knee. A second hand landed just above her other knee, sliding to the inside of her leg.

Vesper barely felt the mounting pressure outwards at first, but as both hands increased the strength of their push, her thighs tensed, tendons in the back of her knees stretching the skin. Her pearly-white teeth began to show as she gritted them, her breathing coming powerfully through her nose. With all her might, she forced her legs against the pull outwards, her back pressing down against the wooden block, her shoulders straining upwards against the bindings.

After another ten heartbeats of struggle, a hand was removed from her knees, and the one left relaxed its pressure. The initiate relaxed ever so slightly. The next moment, a fist slammed knuckles-first into her taut stomach, driving a gasp of air from her lips and forcing her to reflexively curl up as much as she could in her restraints. Immediately, both hands were back on her knees, pulling her legs apart. Hips were jammed in between her thighs, leaving her open and unable to stop what was to come. Coughing, with beading sweat and droplets of spit running from her mouth, up into her nose up over her face to be soaked up by the blindfold, she continued to struggle in vain, thrashing her head from side to side.

Around her, the room had grown more and more silent as the struggle played out. Now, as she had been split open, a vague, monotone mumble rose to a chant. For a moment, her insides froze in terror. Images of what she had seen in the forest, on the night her temple was burned, tore through her mind. But there was a different note to this chant, she realized. It felt like a horrible call, as if it was egging someone on.

Over several minutes, the chant slowly rose in intensity until it filled the air, surrounding the struggling, blindfolded girl on all sides. Vesper continued to vainly try and force the strong hips between her thighs out, but there was little to do but lie there and wait.

Finally, as the chant seemed to be nearing an almost feverish crescendo, the girl’s legs were forced further apart, painfully far due to the nooses around her ankles holding her legs down, limiting her flexibility considerably. Her chest rose and fell swiftly, her twisting, revolting body giving a jolt as hands lifted something and let it go. A heavy, warm length landed against her pelvis and firm lower belly. The strong hands quickly moved to her sides, fingers spreading slightly as they dug into her skin.

The initiate’s struggles gradually died down until the only activity left was the heaving of her chest and occasional turns of her head when she felt someone or something come close. The chanting around her wavered back and forth in intensity, and the smell of the room seemed to grow increasingly oppressive. The shaft against her tummy pulsed lazily, soon reaching up far enough to almost reach her bellybutton. She struggled upwards, her blindfolded eyes staring blindly down in the direction her captor had to be in.

The fingers grasping her sides grew more painful, their grip tightening. The form between her thighs withdrew slowly, as if to ensure that the bound novice felt the entire length slide from root to tip off of her center. Vesper’s toes extended, then curled and extended again. What muscles the girl had bulged in a last-ditch attempt at freedom.

She felt the hard, wide cockhead push up at her, parting her, stretching her more and more widely. Her thighs tensed harder than ever, her hands balling up, nails digging into her skin. The initiate let out a gasping sob, but it drowned instantly in the chanting around her.

“N-nnnh-nnn-“ her voice strained, tinges of pain flowering inside her pelvis as the wide length forced her apart. Too tired to keep her head up any longer, she let it fall over the edge of the wooden block. It took only moment before tears pooled against the inside of the blindfold, soaking it only to reform and flow down into her hair. She writhed, her protruding hipbones pressing against her skin as her back arched. The shaft continued to firmly press into her tight pussy, past the point of fullness. In the back of her buckling mind, she wondered how much more of it there could be.

It took what felt like an eternity until the initiate for the first time in her life experienced the unfamiliar feeling of churning balls pressed up against her. By that time, blood was dripping from her clenching hands, so hard had she dug her nails in. Her chest heaved heavily, and her form felt slick from the thin sheen of sweat that was forming on her. Her jaws hurt from having been closed tightly for so long. But it was nothing compared to the wide, horribly warm and veiny shaft hilted in her stretched cunt.

The nameless body between her thighs stayed hilted in her forever, long enough that, in the end, Vesper simply could not hold herself taut anymore, falling down against the wooden block in a gasping, sweaty mess. The chanting around her came to an abrupt and immediate hold, replaced with rough, promiscuous cheering. Warmth rushed in around her. She felt the hands and tongues of many, many people press against her, tug and caress her hair, face, feet, breasts and body.

The balls felt sticky with their combined sweat as they peeled off her skin. What could have been a moment of relief for the initiate barely even registered. She was overflowing with fright and uncertainty as every inch of her skin was licked, caressed and nibbled on. It was only when the wide cock began plowing steadily into her that she fully registered it. The rape was coming to fruition. In the middle of an insane, licking, grasping throng of heretics, she lost her innocence to an unknown cultist.

Vesper’s form rocked back and forth, the pounding she received making her gasp. Gradually, the mass of hands and tongues dwindled, the last of them leaving with a longing lick of the girl’s nipple. Then, it seemed, the unwilling performance was back to merely being eyecandy. The lewd noises of the room started again around her, and she simply rocked back and forth, back and forth.

Occasionally she would struggle against her restraints vainly, but otherwise, all that existed was the cacophony around her, the enveloping smell of sweat, sex and blood, and the wide cock pistoning in and out of her stretching, grabbing pussy. Vesper’s back arched lightly as her rapist entered a more feverish state, thrusting at a harder and harder pace. She felt the hands on her sides clench painfully, and then the thrusting slowed some, as the large dick pulsed out thick, sticky cum, splattering into her abused cunt.

It was an unwelcome, foreign feeling of warmth. She felt dirty, even more dirty that she was, covered in spittle and sweat. The person holding her seemed wracked with pleasure, hilting one last time in the initiate and then pulling backwards. The last weak ropes of sperm launched at her, one shooting up over her pelvis, splattering stickily around her bellybutton, the others landing against her slightly gaping pussy. The warm, gooey liquid made her shiver with goosebumps as it rolled down over her abused form. She felt it drooping, felt the weight of the gobs of spunk redistribute as the ropes became long, obscene strands hanging down from her.

Vesper had halfway expected the next cultist to come up and repeat the rape, remaining tense for quite a long time, but there was no further contact to her skin. She was simply left in the center of the room, her body stretched in a wide, inverted U around the sticky wooden block. It was hard to tell how long she laid there, bare and open for all to see, but it was long enough that the cum dried on her skin.

Eventually, even her thoughts gave way to nothingness. She simply hung from the block, disgust slowly creeping into every fiber of her being. Disgust, and regret.

*****

She was awoken by hands untying her wrists and ankles. She was dragged off the wooden block, her feet stumbling as they fell against the stone floor of the room. She could hear and feel sleeping forms close around her, but the two figures hooked arms under her shoulders, and pulled the stumbling initiate along the floor, outside of the reach of any one of the bodies she could feel around her.

The atmosphere changed drastically, and the low, mumbling noise of the room she had been in disappeared behind her. The air became colder and more damp, and increasingly oppressive. This had to be below ground. The two people dragging her by her shoulders stopped, and she heard a metallic, grating sound against stone. The initiate regained her footing shakily, only to be pulled off of her feet once more when she was pulled through the opening. After a few more seconds, she began to hear breathing, low mewling, crying and faint moans around her.

Vesper felt her bearers stopping and turning, and once more she heard the grating sound of metal against stone. She was carried forward, and then thrown. She landed heavily against the ground, only barely managing to take most of the fall with her hands. The door was slammed shut behind her, and footsteps paced away, quickly lost amongst the other faint sounds of the dungeon.

With a shaking, cold hand she reached up, pushing the black blindfold up to her forehead. Almost no light hit her wide eyes, but enough that she could just barely see the outline of a female body in the dark, up against the wall of the cell she was in. The initiate pushed against the floor, her skin sliding uncomfortably over the cold stone as she dragged herself up against the opposite wall, her eyes fixated on the other woman in the cell. Slowly, she got up into a sitting position, pulled her knees up under her chin and wrapped her arms around herself. The cold of the stone seeped into her, made her shiver, but she was too scared and unhinged to notice the pile of rags in the corner next to the other figure.

“I ain’t going to hurt you. They got their hands on me too.” The voice had a foreign accent. Vesper was too tired to begin considering where the woman might be from, but she did relax a little, examining her once again. The other woman was a far more impressive sight than Vesper imagined herself to be. The woman looked like she was around Vesper’s age, she had dark, dull red hair that looked almost black in the faint light of the dungeon, a proud face and a well-toned fighter’s body. Her breasts were considerably larger than Vesper’s two handfuls-and-a-half, too. She was covered in superficial cuts and bruises, but appeared to be taking it quite well.

“Name’s Julia. You okay?”

The huddled initiate simply nodded in return, her empty eyes darting around until they came to rest on the small pile of rags and blankets next to Julia. She swallowed, grimacing a little. Her throat was dry. “Julia… I-I mean, I’m Vesper.” She glanced at the redhead’s eyes before looking at the pile of cloth again.

Julia’s green eyes scanned the scared woman in front of her. “Really, with her demeanor, girl’s more appropriate than woman,” she thought, but immediately regretted her judgement. No one came through the first nights in here without noticeable scars, emotional or physical. The bruised woman attempted a reassuring smile, but it turned into a grimace rather quickly. Smiling made her abused face ache. Instead, she gathered up the pile of blankets and rags in one arm, stemming her other hand against the wall to push herself up on slightly shaky feet.

“Listen, Vesper. I’m, ah… Sorry. Everyone here deals differently with, you know. It all.” Julia realized that her sudden apologetic behavior probably came off rather strange. It was usually everyone for themselves in here, but the quiet, shaken strength of the brown-haired girl thrown into her cell had somehow pierced the tiniest of holes through her shell. She felt dirty for having fallen into judging this Vesper as quickly as she had. The fighter took a step closer to the girl. Their eyes met and locked.

Vesper swallowed, looking down and away from Julia. It was obvious that she was trying to hide tears, but even the faint light in the cell illuminated the wet, wavy lines down her cheeks. With a quiet sigh, Julia took the last three steps to the other wall, sinking down along it, her behind hitting the floor with an audible smack. She grimaced. Her strength had been sapped entirely by a long night of fighting in the orgy hall. “The Hall of True Beauty” she had heard the cultists call it.

“Fucking freaks,” mumbled the redhead.

Vesper barely registered the redhead’s voice, so quiet was the whisper. The woman sitting next to her radiated warmth and a measure of safety, but then, so had the abbess. She stayed still, frozen in place as Julia began wrapping one of the blankets around her. The woman removed her arms once the blanket was in place, wrapping them around her own knees. Vesper swallowed, resting her head against the blanket hanging between her knees. She began rocking back and forth.

There was no concept of time in the dark place. Not a single sign of the time, not a single window to let in fresh air. Vesper had no idea how long she sat curled up, rocking back and forth. Finally, she heard the woman beside her sigh. Not an exasperated sigh, but one of frustration with herself. The initiate stayed very still as she felt a toned, strong arm carefully drape around her shoulders. She felt herself pulled lightly against Julia, and did not resist.

Wednesday, August 21, 2013

A Different Prince Charming Published


Description: Putting everything on the board, Amelia's father has gathered his army and even brought his daughter along to the front. He plans to confront the elven army and establish his supremacy once and for all. Plans and strategies have a habit of not surviving contact with the enemy, though, something that the monarch's daughter soon learns in a very personal way.

A Different Prince Charming is an erotica short story that details the meeting of two people of different races with entirely different ideas about how the world should be. One cannot refuse the other's idea of teaching, and things quickly take a turn towards the carnal in the royal tent.

This story contains 8000+ words of scorching, interracial fantasy erotica, featuring an amazonian futanari (A woman, except with cock and balls) elf and her reluctant, dubious princess partner.

Author Notes: So, this was actually something I wrote a couple months ago. I was uncertain about publishing it back then, perhaps because it was the first thing I had written in a long while at the time. I guess I regained some confidence (Whether warranted or not) in my writing over the past few months, so here we are.

I should also note that this is the first of 3 stories that will be using covers I got from goonwrite.com. I'm pretty satisfied with it, and James, the guy who adjusted the covers I ordered, did so within 24 hours as advertised. I really can't say anything bad about the service. It's cheap, fast, and while you may not be able to get exactly 110% the kind of cover you want, there is a staggering amount of premade covers.

Guess that sounded a bit advertising-ish. I don't work there, but I think the cover looks much better than anything I've made myself.

Without further babbling; I hope you enjoy the book.

Sunday, August 18, 2013

An Update on my Writing

Hello, blog. It's me again. Not dead from sun poisoning or whatever.

I took a break from writing some time during the summer, and when I slowly started back up, I only managed between 1000 and 1500 words a day. That was my goal, sure, but it was pretty pitiful. I felt like I was back to where I started this journey. Still, I kept on target in terms of wordcount for all of July.

Now, we're about halfway through August, and things are going -much- better. I have rediscovered my love for and remade my writing schedule, and as a result I am now able to crank out 4-6000 words a day. A day. A month ago, that was what I'd write in a week.

I have gotten to this point by using a very simple technique. I struggle to call it a technique, really, but I believe it's called the Pomedoro technique. Basically, you set a timer to 25 minutes and work on your task, then take a 5 minute break. You repeat this as many times as the task needs you to, and then you're done.

Previously, I'd just sit down to write. That pretty much ended up as nebulous as it sounds. I'd write for a while, then end up surfing the net, playing a game or watching TV as my brain stopped being able to concentrate. I'd waste large amounts of time on this, because you don't "just" check the news, or check imgur.com, or whatever.

Now, with this new technique, I write for 25 minutes, then give my brain a break for 5 minutes, then repeat. This has meant that I have easily been able to write for 3 hours. That is the amount of time I have in the mornings. From 9-12. In that, I'll usually end up at around 4500 words. In other words, a pace of about 1500 words an hour. This, again, is up from around 1000 when I "just" wrote.

As it stands right now, I am 5 days ahead of my 1000 words a day schedule, and I predict that I'll blow it away easily.

All of this is very exciting to me, because I realize that I have been very quiet on the publishing front. Only 1 book released in the last 2 months. -Not- good. I have a novella being proof-read, though, as well as 2 short stories almost finished and ready to be sent off to proofing as well. Best of all, I have the covers for them already!

I spent 75$ on some professional-looking covers. The reason I can afford that at all is because I've been spending time working on some commission work for a game called Trials in Tainted Space (Yes, T.i.T.S). Rather than blow the money from the commission on dope and booze, I've been spending it on staying alive, having a roof over my head, and book covers. Ah, yes. Adulthood! Sensibility! (It sucks)

That was my unscheduled update for the time being. See you around!

Friday, August 16, 2013

(Fan)fiction Friday 11: Shallya's Will Ch. 3

A Sign Of Things To Come


Tags: [Story] [More of Shallya's Work] [Mutant Child] [Ominous End?]

It was high noon when Vesper crested the last hill and laid eyes on Ostermark’s capital for the first time in her life. Bechafen was an enormous city by her standards, with more than 10.000 inhabitants, she had been told. The temple she grew up in could have fit inside the city’s walls a hundred times, probably many hundred times.

Vesper raised her petite hands to provide some shade from the sun, scanning the city for a white-washed temple like the one she grew up in. The heat was sweltering, even on the hilltop, with a weak, cool breeze grasping at locks of her tangled hair. The initiate paused her search for a moment to run her fingers over her forehead, sighing quietly as she felt the thin sheen of sweat pool along her fingers. A few drops ran into her hair, the rest she shook off her hand, to the ground. The hooded robe really was not made as summer wear, at all. She reached up and pushed the hood back, free from her neck with a small shudder. The cloth clung hesitantly to her skin for a moment, only to let go, leaving an uncomfortable wet patch.

Standing on the tips of her toes to add a few inches to her unimpressive five feet and a few inches, the novice let her eyes scour what she could see of the city once more. Finally, she caught a glimpse of what she thought could be a temple of Shallya. It was situated in the rich district of town, opposite to the gate she was close to. With a small smile on her lips, she set off towards the city gate.

*****

Some twenty minutes later, Vesper crossed the threshold into the city, giving a small nod to the two guards keeping a watch over the surrounding lands, and again to the two standing on either side of the entrance inside. Immediately, the initiate felt enclosed. Not to a claustrophobic degree, but the large city and the mere knowledge and feeling of thousands of other people going about their daily lives around her was quite breathtaking. She did not even realize that she had stopped to look up at the two-story buildings until one of the guards cleared his throat quietly. With a mumbled “sorry,” the girl continued down the main street, into the city.

It would not take long for young neophyte to realize just what conditions many of Bechafen’s inhabitants lived under. There were beggars on every street. The coughs and groans of the malnourished, the sneezes of the diseased, it was all only a few steps away from the main avenues running through the city. She continued onwards, passing through a wonderful market that was absolutely brimming with exotic and wonderful things. A troupe of performers awed her for the better part of ten minutes, and the herald’s news for double of that. The war against Archaon’s forces had left much turmoil.

Finally, wrestling herself free from the grip of the lively, beating heart of the city’s commerce, she set off down a less-travelled street. As she walked, the houses became progressively less well-maintained, the kids playing in the streets increasingly thin, and the amount of people sitting or standing around without work or a goal in life grew ever bigger.

After a long walk, she came upon a small square lined with ramshackle houses and empty food-stands. A group of kids were fighting over some sort of toy, and several groups of people were dotted around the open, unpaved area, many of them looking ill or even crippled. The initiate paced to a free bench and set down her things, drawing in a deep breath, feeling the familiar tingle of satisfaction that she always felt as she was about to start work in an area.

Vesper opened her bag of medical supplies and looked up, smiling at the lone, elderly man with a measure of surprise. Normally, she would be crowded with patients the instant she was ready. She reached out her left hand and placed it on the man’s right forearm, a calm, serious expression settling on her face. Often, people needed someone to listen just as much as they needed physical assistance, so she always remained prepared for both. The man looked down at where she touched him. He was visibly surprised for a moment, then relaxed.

It turned out that he had a minor infection in a wound on his leg. The ardent novice cleaned the injury and patched him up again efficiently, receiving the deepest thanks from the man. Like everyone else she had treated after the night the temple burned down, he commented on how cool and soothing her touch was. She merely smiled to him at the remark, otherwise conversing idly as she worked. The more focus she could take off someone’s wound, the better.

After the man had been treated, it seemed as if the rest of the square became less wary of her. Vesper wondered briefly why they had been cautious at all, given the mission of all Shallya’s faithful, but quickly let the thought go. There were plenty of wounds to bandage and heal, and plenty of minds to mend.

Hours passed as she treated everyone who came to her in the small square. The stench of sweat and long-unwashed clothes hung in the air from the crowd of people around her that needed treatment, even long after the summer sun fell below the walls of the city. At some point, someone offered her a meager meal, which she declined as politely as she could. These people obviously needed it more than her. “Give it to the next beggar you come across, madam. Thank you, and go with Shallya’s blessing.” Vesper gave the middle-aged woman a smile, and returned to stitching up someone’s wounded arm.

Finally, as night truly settled on the square, the initiate started to pack up what remained of her supplies. She finished the day off with blessing every single person present along with promising to come back the day after, and then set off back towards the market square.

*****

A frail, bony hand gripped her left sleeve and held on. Vesper was forced to lurch to the side a little. The initial fear of being gripped vanished quickly, as she looked into the eyes of an obviously desperate woman, somewhere in her thirties. Ragged blonde hair surrounded her starved face.

“Please, miss. Please! It’s my boy. Please, you have to help him! You have to help!” Her voice was pleading, but still barely more than a whisper.

It was hard to say if she was truly so weak that she could barely speak, or if something else was the matter. The startled girl put what she hoped was a calming hand on the woman’s shoulder, smiling peacefully to her. “I will gladly help your son, ma’am. I promise that he will be fine. Take me to him.”

Before turning to lead Vesper down an alley by her sleeve, the blonde-haired woman’s eyes turned abruptly painful as the initiate said that the boy would be fine. It took only twenty seconds for the stumbling novice and the hunger-wracked woman to reach a collection of planks and clay that could only be classified as a house in the most liberal sense of the word. It was more a hut on the verge of collapsing than a proper building. The low-hanging ceiling was wet despite it being summer, and it arched downwards heavily, forcing even the petite novice to bend down as she entered.

Inside was darkness. A figure rustled around in the back of the one-room hut, but with no light inside the house, she was unable to truly distinguish much of anything in there. “Ma’am, I am going to call upon Shallya to create light for us, so I can see while I work. Please, do not be alarmed. This is an entirely harmless prayer.”

The young initiate waited for a few seconds, more sensing than seeing a slow nod from the woman, now standing just inside the hut after closing the door. Vesper mumbled the words she had been taught so many years ago, now, and held out her hand. From nowhere, a small sphere of light flickered into existence, almost as if someone had breathed out and the globe had followed. A milky-white, cloudy ball formed, and a soft light illuminated the entire hut.

Vesper’s eyes focused on the woman first. She looked scared, oddly, but determined as well, standing guard at the door. The girl followed the older woman’s eyes as they flickered from her and to the back of the hut. What Vesper saw made her jolt backwards. She exhaled sharply as her head bumped against the soft, wooden ceiling, her eyes rapidly taking in the sight in front of her.

A boy, probably around ten or eleven years of age. As so many others in Ostermark’s capital, he bore the distinct signs of having had too little food for too long. But that was not what had shocked the initiate. The boy’s hands… Where he should have had hands, his arms transitioned into obscene, orange-red crab-claws big enough that it seemed a wonder that he could even stand up with them. Despite this obvious mutation, he had not charged the foreign girl entering his home. He whimpered in the light, and pressed himself up against the back wall. Vesper cast a glance at the woman by the door, her voice at once frightful and accusing.

“What has he done to become a mutant? What horrible deed runs in your family’s blood? How have you restrained him from attacking me?”

The questions hit the older woman like lashings from a whip. She shrunk away from the novice, though remaining committed to guarding the door. Her voice was tearful and desperate as she spoke.

“I-I don’t know! I don’t… Two months ago, his hands started to change. He has always been a good boy, I swear by the twin-tailed comet itself! We have done nothing to deserve this, miss. I only wish that someone could change him back-“

Her voice broke. She abandoned the door, running over to cradle the equally frightened boy in her arms. When she looked up again, her face was lined with trailing tears. There were no more words, she could not speak, only look desperately at the untried initiate, hoping for a miracle.

Vesper’s lips parted, but she stopped herself from speaking. It was impossible for her to suppress a very sharp tinge of fear as she looked upon the mutated boy. She certainly had no idea how to cure mutation, if there was a cure at all. But how could this boy be a mutant at all? He could not have made the journey to Mordheim and back here unnoticed, and there was not a hint of chaotic insanity in him. Yet, he still bore those enormous, scissor-sharp claws.

She swallowed, wet her lips, and hesitantly spoke once more. “I… I’m very sorry, ma’am, but I can’t change what has happened to your son. I don’t know of any cure for mutation. Your secret is… Safe, with me, but I cannot help you.” She glanced at the boy, meeting his eyes briefly. They were wide, scared, and above all, contained a deep-rooted sadness. Far too much bad had happened far too quickly to such a young boy, Vesper thought before bowing her head and hurrying out the door.

For the first five minutes, the initiate scurried through the mostly empty streets of night-time Bechafen. Her thoughts whirled unrestrained, but kept returning to the look in the boy’s eyes. He had not been mindless. He was an innocent victim of a cruel world. What did that mean for the mutants that had attacked Mercy’s Light? Had they once been what this boy was now?

Vesper’s light run slowed gradually. She wandered slowly through the city, across the empty marketplace, past noisy taverns and whorehouses, barely noticing what was around her. She knew the general direction she had to take to get to the noble district, and certainly needed time to think before meeting her sisters in faith. So lost in thought was she, that she did not notice a young man walking opposite to her stopping dead in his tracks, glancing at her robes and the red heart and drop of blood over her chest. The man paced ahead of her towards the noble district, and was soon out of sight once more.

After more than half an hour of wandering, the tired, pale initiate stepped through the gate to the noble district. She sent a smile to a guard in a metal breastplate and asked for directions to the temple of Shallya. Upon receiving the directions, she offered a blessing to the guard and walked off purposefully. The temple was some four hundred steps up ahead, in the middle of a lavish, paved square. “Perhaps a bit too authoritative”, Vesper thought. Especially the five steps up to the double doors seemed an odd choice to the ascetic, giving servant of Shallya who now stepped up them.

Having knocked on the door a few times, she was received by a lightly panting, dark-haired abbess in white robes. The initiate noted the lack of the bleeding heart upon her left breast, but the revered mother certainly smelled like Vesper sometimes believed she did after a long day working in a crowded hospital. They exchanged brief pleasantries, the woman introducing herself as Abbess Syrith. She was in her late twenties, surprisingly tall and certainly very good-looking, Vesper noted mentally.

The initiate was shown to a small, sparsely furnished room with a prayer mat, a small desk and chair, and a roughly hewn bed. The abbess excused herself, and left the tired girl to drift off to sleep in the small, cool room.

Friday, August 9, 2013

(Fan)fiction Friday 10: Shallya's Will Ch. 2

The Void


Tags: [Nightmare] [Kindness and doing Shallya's Work] [More Story]

Weakness had taken a hold of her limbs. Her breathing came in sobbing gasps. Vesper’s body was shaking, exhaustion tearing at the edges of her fraying mind as she stumbled through the pitch-black, cursed woods. Her best friend’s death was imprinted on her mind. All the unsteady initiate could think about was the pleading look that Amelia had given her when she had realized, in the last possible moment, what was happening. Perhaps worst of all, Vesper was no longer sure if the look had been a cry for help, or simply a plea for it all to end.

The pale, lurching initiate finally sank to her knees, her breathing ragged. Every fiber of her being screamed in pain, but still, she carried on. She had to get away from that horrible place. With even with her vision flagging, Vesper continued to move forward, crawling along the forest floor in a precarious haze. Abrasions had started appearing on her hands as she ungracefully planted her palms against rocks, fallen branches and the raw earth. Her arms failed her, finally, though her fingers still clawed at the earth. A frustrated, desperate sob pierced the silent woods, the girl giving in and sinking down against the ground entirely, rolling slowly to her side, only to fall the rest of the way onto her back. For a moment, her mind screamed at her to continue, but the darkness of sleep descended mercilessly.

*****

She crashed against the floor, impossibly wide blue eyes darting around the dark room as she frantically crawled and clawed her way into a corner between the next bed over and the wall. For a few short moments, her eyes were glassy, her sweat-covered body sliding against the polished, worn floor as she attempted to squeeze herself further and further into the corner.

Vesper’s ragged breathing stopped, her body prickling with what felt like icy needles as she saw a vague form descend and land lightly on the planks, quite close to her. Her heels continued to slide over the floor, her breathing snapping back into existence, coming in fast bursts interspersed with hacking sobs. The figure reached both its thin arms out, palms lifted to show that it had no aggressive intentions.

Suddenly, as if it had just broken water, Amelia’s head pierced the darkness around Vesper, her hands landing on the terrified girl’s shoulders, and then sliding up to her cheeks in a gentle, slow caress. Amelia, Vesper’s best friend in the orphanage, was used to her friend’s nightmares. She kneeled in front of Vesper, who was now slowly calming down, realizing that her nightmare had been just that.

Amelia embraced her panicked friend, positioning her head against her own shoulder. The two leaned against each other lightly, shaking as one with Vesper’s muted, subsiding sobs. After what felt like an hour, she sniffled heavily, reached her small right hand up to her eyes to wipe her tears, though she still had wet streaks down her cheeks.

Amelia was stronger, braver and much further ahead in her studies than Vesper. Despite her being only fourteen, Vesper felt certain that Amelia could do her ordainment ritual the next morning and pass, if she had been allowed. Vesper smiled weakly at her friend, and planted a hand on the railing of the empty bunk she had been leaning halfway against. Amelia got up slowly, taking Vesper’s left hand, pulling her up by it.

*****

With a burst of hot air, the initiate jolted and opened her eyes. It was morning. The wind carried the scent of beginning rot with it into the forest, still only a trace in the gentle morning breeze. Vesper exhaled tiredly. Her body was still tense after the dream, and even more so, she ached and tingled from the amount of strain put on it the night before. With a weak gasp, the initiate blew hair out of her face and rolled to her side.

She bit her lower lip gently upon setting her palms down against the ground, dragging her legs under herself to sit on her heels. Vesper looked down at her palms. They were scabbed and sore, yet somehow quite cool. She had trouble remembering how her hands had taken all those small cuts, though the cool feeling had stuck with her since waking up in the forest the night before. Had it not been for the marauding band of chaos-worshippers, she would have been a priestess now. The Mercy’s Light temple would have been standing, and Amelia…

Vesper shook her head in a vain attempt to clear her mind of the images that came flooding back, clasping her palms to the sides of her head. She took a deep breath, silently mouthing the words for a prayer. For the first time since last night, she called upon Shallya’s power. As it always was when she did, the calming presence of her goddess became clearer and more present than ever. Calmness washed over her, flushed her worries away and hid the horrific images from the previous night. For now, at least. The initiate exhaled, her breathing coming much easier now.

Her body felt lighter, as if she had had a full night’s sleep and a good meal already. The scabs on her hands peeled off by themselves, revealing fresh, lively pink skin below. Normally, the order refrained from calling upon their goddess for such small injuries, but Vesper felt this to be a special case. Placing a hand against the ground again she pushed off, getting up on her feet again. She looked out from between the thinning tress at the edge of the forest, her eyes fastening on the charcoal walls of what had been her home for the past twenty years.

The smoking ruin of burned wood and smoldering stone seemed quite surreal as it was, on top of a small hill covered in swaying, green grass. In the morning light, the path that the chaos warband had taken away from the temple was obvious enough. The ground was trampled, torn and much of the vegetation dead in an almost completely straight line from the burning ruin and into the forest some hundred steps to Vesper’s side.

The white-robed initiate stayed still, staring at her ruined home. She had placed the palm of her left hand against the bark of a tree to her left, pressing gently against it as faint memories of what had transpired the night before in the temple courtyard fought to surface. She offered no resistance, but for now, the blessing she had cast kept her mind at ease. There was no one else left. Not the abbess, none of the guards, not a single sister. She had been unable to save her only friend.

With a heavy sigh, Vesper bowed her head. Despite having been deemed worthy of becoming a priestess, she knew very well that she was, in many ways, still an apprentice. A novice. Without a temple to call home, without her teachers, she would simply have to build up the knowledge that they had had, herself. A fitting penance it was, too. She would wander the world to learn what it was to live a life that pleased Shallya. She would help the sick and suffering.

Vesper sank to her knees slowly. Her eyes were fastened on the swirly lines of smoke rising from the abandoned temple as she once more mouthed a quiet prayer. This time, there was no magic involved. It was merely a show of dedication to the daughter of mercy, followed by a short oath. The kneeling, blue-eyed novice swore to Shallya, her goddess, that the next five years of her life would be spent wandering the empire, helping those in need, relieving suffering wherever she could find it.

She kept still and silent for a long while after finishing her prayers, her eyes slowly scanning all that remained of the buildings on the small hill in front of her. Not until noon came did she stand up to walk away, a timid sort of determination in her steps. The spell would keep her in control for the rest of the day, at least.

*****

It took Vesper the rest of the day to wander eastwards to the small delta of rivers that ran into Ostermark from the river Stir. She camped by the riverside just before the point where it split into smaller streams, eating what she could find of berries and plants, keeping warm with a cover of fallen branches and grass. Exhausted after the day of wandering, she woke up only once, barely even remembering her nightmare by the time she became aware.

On the second, sunny day, she crossed the river. She had seen a map of Ostermark only a year ago, and remembered reasonably clearly that if she wandered east, she would eventually reach a town lying along the main road north.

Getting across the river was no easy task, but nevertheless, she managed without too many complications. It did, however, leave her and her clothes utterly soaked. Wringing her hair was easy enough, at least to a point. It had always been wild and curly, so the wild bath was hardly noticeable in how her tresses fell down over her shoulders. The robe, however, was another matter. The area she was in was wilderness, clear and simple. Even so, parading around naked did not seem like a good idea, much less a proper thing to do.

In the end, she compromised by taking a one-hour break in a secluded little meadow, sunning herself while her robe dried almost entirely. She was hungry, but knew that she was not too far from the town of Burgenhof either. And so, well before noon, the initiate anxiously stepped into the town.

Having no idea of what to expect, she timidly approached the first citizen she saw, asking for directions to the temple of Shallya. What came to pass next would end up becoming a common occurrence for her. The town had no temple to Shallya, merely a shrine in another temple. As a follower of Shallya, Vesper was introduced to the resident priest, and allowed to tend to the shrine of her goddess.

There was barely time to remove a few old offerings before the first supplicant approached her. Even in a small town, there were plenty of sick and hurt people. Many were mentally unstable, and even more suffered in their daily life, living under horrible conditions that Vesper was quite shocked to hear of. She ended up staying in the town for a week, before feeling the need to travel onwards, following the road north. The town’s desperate need had been sated, and she did not want to get bogged down in one place.

For the next three months, Vesper Adalie travelled north along the Bechafen-Kadrin road. Soon, she found that travelling merchants and peddlers had spread the word of her impending visit to a town much ahead of time. It would often be hard for her to enter a settlement to find its shrine before she was swarmed with the needy. Festering wounds and boils had become a part of everyday life. Crushed souls and minds were mended almost every day. And, when treatment was over, the patient would without fail thank her, take her hands and remark how soothing and cooling her touch was. It seemed almost as if Shallya had blessed her in particular. No matter if she used bandages or prayer, the result was the same. Laying her hands on the patient always soothed them. Calmed them.

Along with the awareness of her pilgrimage came an unforeseen circumstance for Vesper. She started receiving gifts. The inhabitants of every single town she had visited had gladly given her of their food, but the gifts grew more lavish the closer she came to the province’s capital, Bechafen. At first, she occasionally received a few pieces of copper.

Vesper had never needed nor handled money before. The people of the land freely gave her what she needed to live, and so, it seemed only natural that she gave the money she received back to those who needed it far more than her. She would go to bed hungry some nights, having shared what food she had with a beggar. She lived the best life she possibly could, keeping the tenets taught to her in her heart.

And still, with all the good she brought, all the suffering she relieved, she could not rest easy. Seeing weapons made her queasy, bringing back horrible imagery from the night the temple was attacked. She awoke often during the night, screaming from nightmares she was too tired or hungry to remember. Whenever she first came to a new town, the people always feared the worst, only to find out of her nightmares.

Eventually, Vesper built up somewhat of a reputation in the rural, dark province. A reputation of someone so preoccupied with helping all of the suffering that what she saw came back to haunt her in the night. It became commonplace for Vesper to find sleeping forms outside of the shrine when she came to in the morning. When she questioned them, they all said the same. They had been praying for her, so that she might continue her work.

On the last night in the last town before she reached Ostermark’s capital of Bechafen, Vesper was gifted a silver-filigree symbol of a heart and a single drop of blood. The creator, a smith whose wife the young initiate had nursed back to health, approached her and spoke to her as if she was otherworldly, a habit that people had fallen into worryingly much when addressing her. She had come to appreciate the hooded robe more and more, so that she might have a chance of not being recognized immediately upon entering new settlements.

This state of things, however, was to change soon.

Friday, August 2, 2013

(Fan)fiction Friday 9: Shallya's Will Ch. 1


Mercy's Light Extinguished


Tags: [Story] [Death] [Violence] [Blood] [Implied Rape] [Implied Torture]

A bloodcurdling scream broke the silence of the spring’s early dusk. A moment of deathly quiet descended over the courtyard. An explosion of splintering wood followed, as a giant, black-bladed axe penetrated the gate’s old oak planks. A second axe followed, next to the first. The gate buckled, curving inwards as the sound of plate crashing against it tore through the early evening’s sudden silence. Vesper looked around in sudden panic, seeing the initiates around her in much the same state.

Her eyes locked with Amelia’s. The force of the second crash against the gate shook some of the initiates from their fear-dulled reverie. Vesper and Amelia had always found strength in each other, but now her normally-calm eyes looked back at Vesper with rising panic.

The third crash was the last. A tower of a man smashed shoulder-first through the gate, the eight-pointed symbol of chaos decorating his armor like obscene jewelry. In one sweeping move, he bent down on one knee and gathered up his grotesquely-large weapons, one in each hand. He let out a deep, roaring laughter, casting his fiery red eyes on the first initiate in the frightened flock that had begun pulling back from the gate. More black-armored warriors and horrible, disfigured mutants appeared through the gate, piling into the courtyard, cutting off all chances of flight from the oncoming slaughter.

A monstrous creature stepped through the gate. He was human, but was covered in living, blinking eyes. Every bit of visible skin was dotted with them: Large, small, crying blood or long-since dried and rotted away from their gaping sockets. His nose flared in bored disgust, his eyes scanning the frightened group of initiates.

Behind the white-robed group of young women, the door to the living quarters adjoining the orphanage was opened, and out of it came the five guards the temple had. Vesper caught the man covered in eyes breaking into a brief, arrogant smile, then his arm shot out and sent a dark mass hurtling towards Amelia. The woman was knocked over backwards, her eyes bulging, tearing at invisible hands that seemed to have locked around her neck.

That was all the agitation needed by the throng of invaders. The giant, black-clad warriors and the disfigured mutants set into a cacophonous, bloodthirsty roar, and then charged. One guard had managed to get in front of the clump of initiates. Vesper saw his head fly, an expression of terror frozen on the helmet-clad face. A jet of hot blood burst from the falling carcass’ opened neck, spraying into the cold air. The steaming, warm liquid splattered onto the warrior who had separated the guard’s head and body, and onto Vesper as well. She took a step back, her icy blue eyes wide with horrified shock. Her back bumped up against the wooden pillar situated right in the middle of the courtyard. The initiate’s hands had already started fumbling over the wood behind her, searching for a way backwards, but it was too late.

A crazed, screaming aberration rushed towards her, sword lowered and ready to strike. Her throat constricted. Her heart felt like it had stopped beating as a thousand tiny prickles of fear poked at her innards. The sword pierced forward, the air audibly sliced apart as the point of the blade was thrust at her stomach.

*****

She awoke, wetly gasping for air. One gasp followed by another, and another. Her senses assaulted her with darkness, a pregnant silence enveloping her. She sat completely still, the rough bark of the oak behind her comforting her with its mere presence. Slowly, her breathing leveled out. Had Amelia been here, she would have calmed her.

For another long, quiet moment she sat there, her hands slowly moving to her stomach. Her robe was torn and wet with something sticky, something that was not water. Her fragile mind constantly threatened her with wandering back to the events of a few hours ago, back to all that she had seen. “No,” she whispered quietly to herself, as if her voice alone could stop the dark path of her thoughts. “No.” A more decisive note loomed briefly in her voice. She ducked her head when she heard how loud the word sounded the second time around.

Now was not the time to waste the second chance that Shallya had given her. Amelia could still be alive. The possibility was there. Vesper had always remained certain that if something was ever to happen to her friend, she would feel it. She felt sick, but it was not the end. Not yet.

The young initiate’s upper body lurched to the right, determined as she was to get up. Her right hand instinctively shot down against the ground, stopping her halfway in her tumble towards the ground. The sudden stop made her feel like vomiting. Again. She bit her lower lip, leaning over further, shakily placing her left hand next to her right, pushing off from the ground. Barely halfway upwards, she had to grab at the bark of the tree behind her, clamping onto it, tearing a nail in the process of staying relatively upwards.

Her abused stomach muscles convulsed. She felt like screaming. There was nothing left to throw up, but she had to double over anyway. Tears forced themselves from her eyes, her mouth agape as her esophagus and stomach worked, allowing only for intermittent coughs of air.

Finally, she was able to stand again. Her shaking fingers clutched the crust of the tree. Time could only be dwindling. “I –have- to move,” she whispered to herself, putting one foot on the forest floor, a small distance away from the tree that had been her companion the last indefinable stretch of time. The other foot went out in front. Vesper’s stomach felt strange. Empty, yet tiny quakes continued to run through her painfully. Another step. The path taken by the marauding band into the forest was obvious enough. Easy to follow.

She stumbled through the dark night, a hand clutching her tense stomach, her way lit only by the sparsely-starred sky above. She staggered from tree to tree, slowly. Certainly, Vesper was no tracker, but she became more and more certain that the trail of the band of mutants and black-clad warriors was widening, and it seemed as if they had begun looking for somewhere to camp.

For the second time that night, a scream pierced the silence. Distant, this time, but close enough that cold fright tore through Vesper’s chest. Amelia. The scream was Amelia’s. Breathlessly, the battered initiate upped her pace, her heart’s beating soon resounding loudly in her ears. There was still time.

There was still time.

*****

She could see flames up ahead, flickering with occasional shadows of large shapes moving around the clearing. The air pulsed with an ungodly, horrible noise. It took a while for the staggering, panting initiate to realize that what she heard was the twisted prayer of chaos. Chants to the dark gods. Raucous laughter began to become audible below the chanting, with the sound of skin against skin coming soon after.

Vesper placed her right hand against the trunk of an old oak, doubling over briefly while gasping for air. She looked ahead, her eyes swimming slightly with tears of despair. The light from the flames flickered, illuminating a gathering of warriors and aberrations massed in front of a crude stone block that Vesper could only assume was some sort of altar. The horned, eye-covered man presided over the assembled flock, chanting loudly with one arm raised, the other slowly moving over the top of the unholy stone table in front of him.

The flames flickered again. The man held a severed human head by the hair. In his trance, he appeared to be painting a barbarous symbol upon the stone surface with the blood and raw juices leaking from what he was holding.

She had to look away, her entrails turning in disgust. Instinctively, she held a hand up to cover her mouth, but there was nothing physical to hold back, only a hacking cough. Vesper turned her head away from the camp, sinking down along the trunk of the tree she was hiding behind. The young initiate felt her heart drop in her chest. Where was Amelia? The sound had surely come from here, and it was not her head that the vile heretic was using to draw with.

There was a flash of red light from behind her. The eight-pointed sign that the horned man had been creating was pulsing with light. At first, the rapid pulses of the light almost blinded Vesper, but slowly, her vision adapted, or the blinking slowed to a lazy shift in hue from blood-red to almost black.

Vesper could clearly feel the difference in the air’s charge. The feeling of the area had gone from bad to worse. Whatever was happening on the altar, it was dangerous. She had to find Amelia and then the both of them had to get away. Where was not important. Once more, Vesper’s eyes darted around the camp, passing heaps of armor, filth, weapons and even human body parts. Finally, with the aid of the sickening light now bathing the camp, she saw it. A silhouette behind the altar, tied to the fallen trunk of a tree that surely had to have been as old as the world itself. The person on top quivered faintly. It was a woman, but her head was turned away from Vesper.

The figure’s arms and legs were pulled down along the curved sides of the enormous log, tied and held in place with black leather straps. The curve of her legs looked unnatural, too smooth. It only took Vesper’s trained eyes and mind another heartbeat to figure out why. Every bone in them had to have been shattered or fractured. The figure stirred. Vesper was unable to hear anything through the increasingly loud chanting, but she saw the unmistakable shake of the body’s shoulders. A sob. The person was alive.

With the ritual seeming to close in on some sort of feverish climax, Vesper rose from the ground, staggering along the edge of the clearing. She passed the altar, casting a glance at it. For a moment, she felt sure that one of the eyes socketed everywhere on the horned man’s body followed her moves, but he made no move to have her captured, nor did any of the men or mutants.

At last, Vesper was past the altar, closer to the large, fallen log. Reaching up to brush a lock of matted, golden-brown hair out of her eyes, she cast a glance past the tree she was hiding behind. The figure imprisoned figure was still more than ten steps away, but close enough that she could have heard Vesper approaching, were it not for the deafening, hellish chanting.

Vesper swallowed, her eyes roaming down over the naked figure. She was tied very tightly against the large log, barely able to move her limbs at all. Her back was marred by what appeared to be whip-marks, cuts and a few large bruises. The worst, however, came further down. Vesper averted her eyes immediately, closing her eyes tightly.

The mad, horrific chanting seemed to be reaching a crescendo, only to abruptly stop. Complete silence enveloped the camp.

Vesper cast another glance past the tree. The horned, eye-covered man had left his position at the altar and picked up two jagged, ceremonial-looking knives. He was moving purposefully towards the figure tied to the large, fallen tree, with three of the bulky humanoid warriors in tow.

Vesper’s eyes darted from him to the tree, seeing the figure tied to the giant log look up. The initiate’s heart skipped a beat, a tingling sensation starting in her head and chest, slowly descending until it layered in the pit of her stomach, weighing her down.

Amelia’s blonde hair was frayed and appeared to have been roughly cut off in places. Both corners of her mouth were ruptured and dribbling blood. Her nose appeared to be broken, and her deep blue eyes were dulled with pain. She had trouble keeping her head steady, her throat working, trying to say something, but her words never left her throat. All that Vesper heard was a vague hiss of air from the girl’s opened mouth.

With powerless desperation rising in her chest, Vesper looked at her lifelong friend. Amelia was too far gone, too groggy to realize what was going on. Her head wavered a little as she seemed to attempt to focus on Vesper, then, finally, her head simply fell to the barky surface below it with a small thump, eyelids half closed.

The lead cultist stopped at the side of the trunk, a dagger in each hand. He was already lifting the two blades high above Amelia’s abused, bare back. It seemed as if in the last possible moment, clarity forced itself upon the beaten and battered initiate. Her eyes opened, staring into Vesper’s. She looked frightened and in pain, far from the blissful slumber they had always been taught. Amelia’s breathing accelerated and she began to writhe what little she could in her bonds.

Vesper refused to move her eyes from Amelia’s, but it was obvious what happened. The young woman’s body jerked once, twice. She squirmed and continued to writhe, albeit far more weakly than before. Blood began to bubble from her throat, overflowing her lips. Red beads rapidly assembled and formed, trailing down to the initiate’s chin, clinging on only to loosen from her skin and drip down. Her body jerked again with a third stab, causing her to arch her back, eyes rolling upwards, before she finally collapsed down against the log.

There was no sign of oncoming paradise in this; there was only a horrible, tortured death, alone and amongst enemies. Tears trailed from Vesper’s eyes, her stare staying locked with Amelia’s eyes, even as those deep blue eyes slowly, painfully lost the luster of life.

Vesper blinked, shaking her head. She realized that her hands were clasped in front of her mouth, that her breaths were coming through her nose in heavy bursts. The three warriors accompanying the leading cultist had kneeled next to Amelia’s body, and were now lapping up the streams of blood formed down over the young woman’s body.

With her limbs shaking, Vesper stumbled backwards, away from the tree she was hiding behind, back into the darkness of the forest.