Willow's Tale (oct. 06 theme, but ineligible)
I had hoped to finish this in time for the October contest, but was too ill to write. Still, I wanted to share it here. Enjoy!
WILLOW'S TALE
The honeycakes were Willow's downfall.
For many years, the delicate dryad had peered at the outside world from safe within her emerald sanctuary. She watched with idle curiosity as the Others, the humans, fished for wriggling trout in the river, or led their fleecy flocks down into the meadow to graze. But Willow's attention was always sharpest when, hand in hand, pairs of the Others slipped out to the meadow. Fumbling, or swift and practiced, worshipful or brutal, they released their animal selves on each other beneath Willow's fascinated gaze. These were the times when Willow watched most closely, creeping to the very edge of the old forest.
Because Willow wanted to know.
Willow would watch the lovers in the long grass, year after year after year, and wonder what it would feel like to have another body flatten hers against the earth. She would attempt to touch herself the way the humans touched each other, and wonder what different, rougher hands would feel like against her smooth, pale flesh. She would spend many years, day after day, watching the meadow and trying to understand.
It was on just such a day, as Willow spied on a young shepherd eagerly plundering a bored barmaid, that Willow realized that she, herself, was being watched. An Other she had never seen before stood just beyond the couple, gazing at Willow with stormcloud eyes. Startled, Willow slipped back into the green shadows, and watched as the strange man turned on his heel and strode away through the grass, to a stone cottage.
Willow began to watch the cottage after that, and noticed a steady stream of village girls entering. The first few giggled as they approached... and wept as they stumbled out, or were carried out by ragged, hard-eyed men. After that, the girls were dragged in, and almost always carried out.
At about the same time, Willow began to find offerings at the edge of the forest. The first day, she found a tiny honeycake, and a circlet of cunningly-wrought leaves in copper and bronze, beautifully enameled to match her sunset hair, and set with smooth green stones to match her mossy eyes, all wrapped up in a scrap of brightly-coloured silk. As she nibbled the sweet, buttery honeycake, redolent of strange spices, she heard an unfamiliar voice whispering inside her mind.
"You are lovely, and desirable, and i will teach you the ways of the flesh if you wish. But such knowledge will cost you dearly. If you accept, then wear my gift as a token of our bargain." Willow knew that no harm could come to her within her forest, so she blithely slipped the circlet around a slim wrist, licked the last few sticky crumbs of honeycake from her fingers, and went about her day.
The next day, and the next, and the next, Willow found yet another honeycake, another circlet, and the same deep voice whispering the same words softly in her mind. The first two circlets fit perfectly, but the next two refused to stay on, until she slipped them over her little feet and around her ankles, where they seemed happy to stay. They were pretty, and Willow enjoyed the way they glowed against her pale skin, but it was the luscious, spicy honeycake she truly craved (for dryads love sweets, but know nothing of baking).
Each day, the offerings were left a little farther from the edge of the forest, a little deeper into the meadow, and Willow had to stretch more and more to reach them without leaving her haven, or losing contact with her heart tree. On the fifth day, the little gift was just beyond her reach, no matter how much she stretched. Looking around to make sure she was not being observed, Willow darted into the meadow to retrieve her prize...
and tumbled into the long grass as the enameled anklets fused to each other. As she struggled to her knees and picked up the silken bundle, the bracelets also fused together, and the contents of the packet fell to the ground: no honeycake, just a larger matching circlet of enameled leaves, which Willow placed atop her head.
As she did so, she heard a throaty chuckle in her mind, and looked up to see the lean, storm-eyed man looming over her. He smiled, but it was not a friendly smile. He knelt down in the grass, lifted the circlet from her curls, and she heard the familiar mind-voice again, though his lips never moved:
"No, little one... you are no queen."
He snapped the circlet around her slender throat.
"You are, at most... a pet."
With that, he slung Willow over his broad shoulder and strode across the meadow toward the stone cottage.
His laugh, echoing through her mind, was not friendly either.
***********
Willow had never been under a roof before, and everything was strange. The air was close, and smelled of spices and musk and metal. there was a fire burning in the stone fireplace, and forest creature Willow feared fire above all things. Bits of furniture -- table, chairs, an iron bed -- were arranged here and there. Books and parchments lay scattered on every surface.
In the center of the room stood a large black iron frame, like an open doorway leading to nowhere. The storm-eyed man set Willow on her feet in the frame and muttered a few words aloud. At his words, Willow's wrists and ankles separated, and she breathed a sigh of relief. Before she could flee, however, she found herself spread-eagle in the iron frame, the circlets around her ankles and wrists now bound to cold black iron. The frame was large, and Willow small, and she was stretched taut, utterly unable to move anything but her head.
The storm-eyed man began to speak to Willow's mind again as he moved around the little cottage, gathering up small bottles, a blackened wooden bowl, several artists' paintbrushes, and a mortar and pestle.
"I am Karras, little one, and you have willingly accepted my terms. You may call me Sir. You may not call me Master, as I serve another. You may not speak unless spoken to. If you annoy me, you will be punished. If you defy me, I will burn your forest. You friends will die, and you will remain with me until I have no further use for you. Do you understand?"
Willow nodded. "I understand... Sir. I am Willow."
Karras placed his gathered supplies on a small tray, which he set on a nearby chest. He then crossed the room to the iron frame, took her left nipple in his fingers, and began to twist.
"You have no name, little one, unless I or my Master choose to give you one. You have no name, no home, no rights. You have nothing unless we choose to give it to you, and anything we give, we can take away again. Do... you... understand?"
Tears in her eyes, Willow nodded. "Yes, Sir."
Without another word, Karras released her flesh and returned to the chest, grinding powders with the mortar and pestle, transferring them to the little bowl, adding drops of foul-smelling liquid from several bottles. Occasionally, he would refer to a book or parchment, mouth a few arcane words, and continue mixing. Finally, satisfied with the result, he turned his attention back to Willow.
"Now, little one, we shall serve my Master."
**************
Taking one of the brushes, Karras began to paint Willow's body. Circling her nipples, stroking long lines up her inner thighs. Sometimes, he used the tip of the brush's handle instead. The dark liquid glowed eerily when applied to her skin. Wherever the soft brush touched her, she felt a tongue licking, lapping; the touch of the handle left fingers... no, talons!... tracing, pinching, pulling. He parted her labia with his fingers, deftly unhooded her clit, and painted around and around it. Willow shuddered in mingled fear and ecstasy.
Karras dipped the brush again, whispered something, forced her jaws apart, and painted the inside of her mouth, pushing the brush all the way into her throat. When he withdrew the brush, Willow tried to close her mouth, only to find that she could not.... and that something thick, hard, fleshy was pushing in, filling her mouth, pressing into her throat. it withdrew slightly, then pressed in again... again... again.
She heard Karras in her mind again. "Lick Him, little one. Suck Him. Use that pretty tongue of yours.... remember your forest."
Willow obeyed. Whimpering, deperately fighting to breathe, she swirled her tongue over the phantom phallus as it plunged into her wide-stretched mouth, her mind still reeling at the tongues and talons tormenting her body. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Karras dipping his hand into the paint bowl, slathering the substance on his own cock, stroking himself to hardness. He picked up the paintbrush and, chanting, stepped behind her, spreading her bottom, exposing the tight little rosebud there. She felt the tip of his cock pushing, slowly but insistently, into the too-tight passage. Then his hand snaked around her and, just as he slid all the way into her tiny ass, he plunged the paintbrush deep into her pussy, rupturing her hymen. Willow screamed in her throat. Then she was screaming for all the world to hear, as the phallus disappeared from her mouth and was now between her legs, pushing up into her pussy, stretching her, filling her, forcing her upward against her bonds. Karras and the phantom fucked her fore and aft, alternating their thrusts, never giving her a moment's respite. She could still feel the tongues, the claws, everywhere... so many of them. Something still sucked at her clit... something with teeth....
Willow wanted to die, and yet.... there was a strange heat rising within her, coiling sinuously through her belly, and she began to moan, and move with her tormentors, opening, offering.... She began to tremble as something tightened unbearably inside her , and she shuddered, shrieking, uprooted from everything she had ever known, flung from haven to horror to.... exquisite release.
As Willow orgasmed, Karras howled, plunging into her, and she heard an answering roar from the phantom. A darkling mist roiled before her, coalescing into something almost man-shaped, but larger, glowing red and black, heavily muscled, its head almost brushing the rafters. It thrust into her once more, pouring its seed into her cunt as Karras poured his into her ass, and Willow climaxed again, and again, and again, until she lost consciousness, hanging limp in the cold iron doorway....
************
Willow awakened, still suspended, to the sensation of large, rough hands between her thighs, stroking her clit. She opened her eyes, and saw the daemon crouched before her, amusing himself with her body. Beyond him, she saw Karras preparing more pigments.
Would this daemon be her Master now? Willow wondered. Would he make of her his pet? The daemon merely laughed out loud, making the cottage tremble, stood to his full height, and spoke for the first time.
"Ah, little one, you amuse me. But no. I am a warrior, a general, a conqueror. I have no need of pets. You, little one, are but a road. You are a bridge.
The Daemon General strode to the door, looking out across the world.
"A good world, Karras. I will enjoy taking it. You have chosen well. And I knew you would eventually find my bridge for me."
Stooping to clear the doorway, the General stalked out into the night. Karras approached Willow once more, bowl and brush in hand, and once more began marking Willow's body. She shrank from his touch, pleading silently with her eyes, as the tongues began to explore her again. She had brought the General across, she thought. Surely she had fulfilled her part of the bargain?
Karras paused a moment, gazing upon Willow with something akin to pity, before resuming his obscene calligraphy. Willow heard his voice slip into her mind, and her blood ran cold.
"No, little bridge, you must prepare yourself. For a General, a conqueror, must have his armies... and his armies are even now marching toward you...."
The End
