Flesh.
Blood.
Lust.
Violence.
Touching.
Rending.
A consciousness dwells inside my mind no longer. I am an animal, and a savage one at that. A oft-beaten dog with sharp teeth, ready to lunge at anything that smells good enough to eat. Proper memories do not form; only brief, incisive flashes of seduction followed by murder. Always in that order. It is my obsession. It is my life, and nothing else enters my mind, whether by nature or by choice.
Ardour.
Ferocity.
Passion.
Barbarism.
Feeling.
Flaying.
My body revels in the glories it performs; the glories it endures. The glorious acts that erupt between men and women, and those that erupt between monsters and victims. The distinguishment of warmth from a beating heart and a still one becomes as that between an entrée and a main course. In keeping with the metaphor, the whole meal takes place after downing two bottles of wine, for its specifics aree not appreciated and the experience can scarcely be recalled after the fact. Dessert is an idyllic afterglow, the feeling of a vengeance satisfied as much as of a hunger satiated. Each dismembered corpse is a blow against Alum in my mind, though that is to simplify things, for my mind is not capable of truly recalling Alum, Timoth, Ebonreach, or even Saemara. It only recalls the feeling of betrayal, of vulnerability, of hatred, of revenge, and each of these is satisfied anew with each violent conquest.
The only other person I am aware of is Xanthe. Her blue hair is a constant presence in the backdrop of my savagery, and I am vaguely appreciative of her. Not for her company, for such mundanities are always neglected and instantly forgotten, but for her guidance. It was this which leads me to so many weak-hearted men on the outskirts of the Dreadwood Forest, for I could never have found them on my own. I wait in the Forest for travellers to come my way and have my fill of them.
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After an incalculable number of murders, my mind began to settle for brief periods each day, usually right after I fed; eventually increasing into the morning. Xanthe started taking me back inside the Dreadwood Forest to spend time with the other nymphs, who I learned had all undergone a similar feral stage early in their lives. Newborn nymphs were often reckless, and the guidance of a leader - indicated with vine tattoos - was usually required to prevent them from drawing too much human attention.
As I recalled my human life, the vengeful feelings I had held towards Alum had intensified doubly with not only my biological transformation, but also the encouragement of the other nymphs. The rage spread beyond him to encompass all men. They were vile creatures of lust who could never truly understand or care for those within their protection. To become the stronger party to the relationship of genders was the only solution, or so the nymphs believed.
Slowly, but surely, my sense of identity began to return. I was not the same person, for the human Saemara would never have consent to traipsing about the Dreadwood Forest in the nude, but I was able to remember my life before Alum’s betrayal. Accompanying this change was a parallel improvement in the conscious control of my behaviour. I was able to go longer periods without seducing and devouring men, though it pained me to do so. When Xanthe led me to my victims, I was able to remember most of what happened while I was with them.
I must have killed dozens of men. Even among nymphs I was a prodigy for they mostly lurked within the forest, luring travellers from the road. It was rare for them to attend neighbouring towns more than once or twice as recent inductees into nymphdom, and totally unheard of to do so in such quick succession.
This was part of Xanthe’s plan. I came to know her as a caring patroness, for she never lost sight of my human fears and desires. I had duties as the Duchess of Ebonreach, and she was pushing me to regain my humanity as quickly as she could. The dismembered bodies I left in my wake were a small price to pay for that. The men had come to us, after all. It never ceased to astonish and disappoint me that men didn’t question the likelihood of a beautiful maiden appearing at their doorstep in the nude.
Perhaps even more strangely, the fact that I was still pregnant for the first days of my new life did not seem to make any difference at all. Some small part of my mind was aware that the men were entranced beyond the means of any human woman, especially after I’d come back to my identity, but I didn’t really care. To me, it was pathetic that they were so lustful even for a pregnant woman, who must already be claimed or else of incredibly low quality, though many of my victims were also met after I had delivered my daughter.
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My child was birthed while I was still in the bloody haze and I have no memory of the event. Nor do I bear any scars from it: nymph immortality resets the appearance to one of healthiness shortly after injury is incurred, which is incredibly convenient when one’s life consists of running through the woods without the protection of clothing. I have no memory of the birth, nor was I aware of what happened to the baby immediately afterwards.
As the haze of my early nymph days receded slowly with each victim, and with practise prolonging the gap between feeds, I came to know the other nymphs. There was a lot to learn about them. My pink hair, for example, was extremely rare. It was the sign of one who had entered nymphdom by means of a murder-by-proxy. Most nymphs had yellow or blue hair, denoting murders by stabbing and poison respectively. Red and green were less common, but still appeared far more than pink, for they required murders to have been committed via strangulation or by beating. Nymphs tended to prefer the company of other nymphs with their own hair colour, though this stopped short of forming a caste system.
In fact, nymph authority was altogether loose. Since we all shared the same experiences, beliefs, and goals, any desire for authority was limited to the need for organisation and external representation. Nymphs with leadership ability were tattooed with a pattern of vines, and I was tattooed thusly immediately upon my entrance to the Dreadwood Forest on the assumption that my station as a human would carry forth beneficial traits as a nymph.
The relationship of nymphs with the beastly denizens of the Dreadwood Forest was one of indifference. Mindlessly aggressive creatures would still attack nymphs, but they were usually too big and cumbersome to pursue far, for nymphs were lightweight and fleet of foot, and not easily exhausted. The rest had learned this and left well enough alone. It came as little surprise to me to find that the lake-dwelling crab-like creature which previously attacked me and Wargwa was a common resident of the lakes which nymphs frequented, but thought little of their intrusion on its territory.
As I learned all this, I was observed by Xanthe. One night, as the light of the full moon filtered through the forest canopy, she said, ‘The Saemara of old is recognisable once more. It is time.’
‘Time for what?’ I asked her. It did not sound as though she was intending to take me on another trip to the human villages.
‘Your identity and memories have returned, for the most part. You are not who you were before you came into the Dreadwood Forest, but nor would you be even had you remained human. You are lucid most of the time, until the urge becomes too great for you to ignore. That will improve with time.’
‘This is true, but what is it time for?’
‘Can you not guess as to what I might refer?’ she asked me. Even among the nymphs she was beautiful, and the moonlight illuminating her pale skin and reflecting off her high cheekbones made this even more obvious.
I considered her words. My memories might have become a part of me once more but they weren’t something I had much interest in browsing. Fantasising about the next farmhand to stray too far from the granary was far more interesting. He might be well-muscled and full of warm, juicy vitality. His fictional blood occupied my mind beyond what anything in my memory could hope to compete with until Xanthe snapped me out of it.
‘Saemara?’
I shook myself out of my daze. ‘My apologies, Xanthe. The hunger is difficult to control.’
‘We have all struggled with it, and some never overcome it,’ she said. ‘I can only suggest that you try to focus on the more long-term pleasures granted by true emotional fulfilment whenever the desire to feed overtakes you.’
The idea of long-term pleasures and emotional fulfilment was totally uninteresting to me, but I nodded out of politeness. I owed her at least the pretense of considering her words. She pressed me again for my answer, and I finally realised to what she referred.
‘My daughter. It is time for me to meet my daughter.’
Xanthe smiled proudly, twirling my hair in contemplation of how much progress I’d made in an apparently short time compared to other nymphs. Now that I remembered her I was restless to meet her and bade Xanthe take me to her immediately. She seemed pleased rather than annoyed at my demand, and led me to the lake clearing where the most maternal among the nymphs had been rearing my daughter.
The nymphs who cared for her in my absence had taken to calling her Kassandra, and though Xanthe was at pains to say that I could still name the child anything I wanted, I had not chosen a name and was content to retain it. She had big blue eyes and tiny blonde hairs crowning her head. When I held her against me, she reached out her hand and touched my face. A tear rolled down my cheek onto her hand as I experienced the first emotion of my nymph life other than lust or hatred.
I sat with the nymphs who cared for my daughter and thanked them. We spoke for several hours as I became acquainted with Kassandra. I was curious how she had been fed, and further mysteries of nymph immortality were explained to me. Those who had been breastfeeding mothers at the time of their transformation into nymphs would forever continue to produce milk. I was curious whether I could produce milk, for my breasts had become engorged with the pregnancy and had not flattened as my belly after the birth, but an attempt revealed that I was unable to do so. Either that was not how the magic worked, or else my milk had dried up from lack of use before it could take hold.
As a result, I knew that Kassandra must remain here until she was old enough to take proper food. This was of little concern to me, however, as Kassandra appeared healthy and well cared-for. Certainly these mature nymphs made far better parents than the savage beast I’d spent most of the past few months embodying, and though I was saddened to farewell my daughter, I knew that there was scarcely a safer place for her in the entire world. The Dreadwood Forest I once feared had become my home, and I trusted my kin to protect Kassandra within its boundaries.
Already, however, the prospect of her growth concerned me. She could not grow up never knowing one of her own kind. She would have to return to human society once she was old enough, and therefore I would have to return with her. It was not a prospect I relished, and a large part of me considered that it might be better for Kassandra to return without me. I was a nymph now, after all, and that sort of lifestyle was not particularly appropriate for parenting.
Before my thoughts could delve too deeply into such complicated matters, I felt the urge come upon me once more. Xanthe saw it at once and took me by the hand, leading me to the nearest human village. It was time to feed.