Norhill 715, spring.
The Glisinda that stole into a Wizard's estate kept a knife tucked inside her palm and wove low through the gardens and fields in a cloak of dull, splotched black. Instead of a stalking Hunter, she was a leery coyote, all gaunt muscle and furtive steps. Her skin maintained the dirt's deep brown, though she sacrificed greater concealment for her full body to concentrate on perfect vanishing for her horns. They itched fiercely from the constant shifts of color. Beneath bare feet, hundreds of seeds murmured their birth dreams.
Since the Banishment, nature's grand symphony had dissolved into a cacophony of competing voices. Every time she tried to single a song out, a thousand competitors came crashing down on her ears. She did her best to ignore them all.
-One day, the noise will drive me mad. I'm shattered. A defective king-killer.-
Talia would have had a solution: a dream fragment or a wise word. Yet, the Maiden slumbered in that fortress tree, far beyond the nymph's touch. Besides, would Talia even recognize the creature Glisinda had become to survive?
Oh, she met humans. Learned real quick that her kind stuck out. Something about the way they stared in awe or horror at her horns and ever-shifting skin foretold trouble, and she never stayed at the farms or villages for more than a day. She couldn't stand how the children all peeking at her from the windows and corners for hours at a time like a monster and how the adults suddenly spent half their days in hushed conspiracy just out of sight. Though still extraordinary by human standards, Glisinda suffered at her attempts to forage from the unfamiliar ecosystem and the maddening chatter of leaves. She spent most of the winter hunkered down in the foothills of the mountains east of the river, trying to avoid the constant skirmish of human troops.
A few of the older folk still spoke mutated dialects of Dryad. They called it the old Norhill tongue, but that was rather silly. Who did the humans think taught Norhill? Dryads! Communication did her little good, though. She had nothing to barter except her body, and she was not yet sunk so low.
Wiggling through a net past the sprouting crops, Glisinda wished to be human, walking mana batteries. Without the land, she could not summon a fairy fire, much less the grand fireworks of a Wizard. It did not occur to her that a Wizard could never enjoy the feel of soil between her toes.
-If I wasn't so damn stupid, I wouldn't have to take this path!- Right through the Eon's back yard.
Her body still obeyed the Turning, and with Spring the inner nymph rose. Regular meals, a good night's rest, a mate and a family, the soul-wrenching sobs – those could all wait, but no Dryad could deny the physical need to encourage life. How could that hurt anyone?
Shortly after Turning, she had caved to the cravings and helped an old man who allowed her to stay the night in his shed. Kramer owned a farm, probably the worst land for thirty miles, full of rotted stems. Glisinda stepped into the middle of that and gave her bottled frustrations a channel. Power flooded out of her, sucking away ten pounds of tissue to start the kindling; like a fire, her initial sacrifice rolled out into the surrounding soil and found responses in hundreds of seeds. Wheat exploded from the ground; stunted trees straightened, proud to bear succulent autumn fruit already; old growth gave way, devoured; vines twisted, looped, and played across her arms like playful snakes. She stretched back and for a glorious moment felt whole again, a part of the wondrous Cycle. A single verdant communion.
The nymph shuddered and fell out of tempo, losing the music. She doubled over, panting, tears in her eyes. A moment's kiss only made absence colder.
Old man Kramer's new jungle caused a lot of trouble. He denied the existence of the human sun god, Athos. Dryads taught that all humans worshiped the sun, though they argued amongst themselves over specific doctrine.
“So is it illegal not to worship?” Glisinda asked after a meal fit for a horse.
“Being a beastman isn't illegal. Things don't have to be against the law to be a bad idea,” Kramer responded.
If the local parish hated beastmen as much as atheists, she could see why none stuck around. They arrived a scant day after Glisinda's magic, armed as if she was an invading force and buzzing like hornets. She felt proud for thinking to turn her skin the rosy human pink and wrap her cloak around her waist in a semblance of modesty.
Greeted by a half-naked stranger amidst a garden that could outshine the county fair and the smirking old heathen Kramer, the parish reacted poorly.
“Look! Kramer finally made a deal with the Shaitan! There is his temptress, flaunting her nudity!”
hateful syllables and that hissing tone! All the horrible memories of Banishment rushed Glisinda, choking her. She turned tail and fled. The mob barely had time to react before she disappeared into the brush. For lack of better direction, they turned on Kramer and the field; they set fire to the plants and beat Kramer mercilessly.
Glisinda didn't really blame the old man for divulging their small talk under duress, though it meant that the parish knew her destination. At least she never mentioned a specific name, so Roho would not find himself in trouble too.
Incensed, the mob watched the highway now, alert for strange maidens headed for Lydia. Innocent girls suffered harassment because of her, stripped in front of strange men to search for demon markings. The nymph watched one episode, angry enough to contemplate slitting throats, but in the end she admitted to being too weak for them all. A Dryad without land, more pathetic than a fish flopping on the cutting table.
Between those zealots and the enigmatic Eons, Glisinda preferred the mysterious threat. The foothills practically swarmed with humans – farms, villages, forts, caravans, plantations – except for the wide swath of the Eon's homestead. So cluttered and claustrophobic. Did these humans never leave a stretch of land for the animals?!
Lost in her reverie and no small amount of sulking, Glisinda shivered at the lightning tingle of magic too late. It pricked her like a needle and raced off to deliver the stolen information to its owner.
"Shaitan's greasy balls!" she swore. At least humans made great curse words.
She hustled to retrace her steps out, only to find a swarm of men zooming in on her. She ducked and weaved, at first confident that their clumsy patrols wouldn't find her. Despite her mobility, these men forced her deeper into the plantation, making use of thorough sweeps to prevent hiding spots.
Too bad an Eon could afford numerical superiority. Faced with twenty men who knew their playing field and utilized careful herding, the result was inevitable. Hounds and a hare, they played out the chase – though the Dryad was on the wrong side for her tastes. Soon she crouched against a stone fence, staring across the dirt at crossbows.
A leader stepped forward, a big ham in blue and gold with bloodshot eyes and a scowl. He barked Lydian gibberish.
She sighed and held out her hands in surrender. -For the moment.-
While maintaining an open line of fire, men approached and put their sweaty hands on her. Her heart thumped wildly, expecting their hands to grope and roam. In many species, a captive female joined the harem.
Instead, her captors proved to be professional. They striped her naked, testing her knife and cloak with a small bottle of heavy water, and one deliberately placed his palm against her cheek. When nothing happened, he shrugged.
“No mana,” he told the others. “Runaway, you think?”
“If she's looking for work, we've got room in the kitchens,” replied their captain. “Cover her up.”
Glisinda would have been fine naked, but she shrugged and slipped the offered cloak around her form. The men moved with her cloistered in their midst, escorting her into the plantation's center, but made no move to restrain her. They passed a high stone wall, fortified with architecture of human warfare that the Dryad little recognized. Inside, flat concrete smothered any green away, cold and rough on her feet. Charged stones emitted more light than a dozen torches to keep the courtyard as bright as day. Amidst the sharp lines of housing, blacksmith, and stables, a plantation mansion in burnished oaks and polished marble brought sudden homesickness to the nymph. That silver-white shrine would always remind her of Capitol. Of Talia's shrine.
A mummy in golden wrapping bounced down the mansion steps, jaunty even at this hour. Glisinda could swear his eyes glowed purple between the cloth, pupils swimming in mana so dense that the surrounding air thrummed. The currents lashed back and forth, clawing to be free, to escape and mutate and rejoin the Cycle. Crushed under the man's iron heel, they ran nowhere but circles through his veins.
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
-Wizard.-
His tight wrappings showed off rippling muscle, a heroic physique, and hefty endowments - all places where the mana glowed brightest in its shackles. -Daddy's trees glowed the same way in all the places where he Grew them. A sculpted body like our old house, made by mana.-
"So its true!" he crowed in old Norhill. "A Dryad! You do speak this language, yes?"
The nymph flicked glares at the guards around her instead of responding.
"Oh, yes!" He waved the guards away in Lydian, leaving Glisinda alone. Plenty of sleepy eyes watched from the windows or the walls. “So sorry! How would they know how important this occasion? You are an envoy, yes?"
"Envoy?" the old Glisinda would have corrected him.
"You know word?" the Eon quivered in place, all bundled mana and cranked nerves. "Diplomat from the nation silent for many years?"
Mors knew deception, and the part of her heart that Thanata claimed stepped smoothly into play. "Yes. Of course." She brushed dust from her cloak and curtsied with its ragged edges. Even covered by it, she could feel the men shift their gaze to her body and inwardly sighed. "Forgive me. I was to go to Lydia secretly. I had not counted on your magics."
He chuckled. "Many do not, yes! Much cost for that field, but worth security. Guards sleep, no? Magic does not.”
"Of course." Thanata, always the better flirt, let a bit of coltish amusement tickle her lips.
"I am Sebastian, and you are welcome in my home."
"Glory," she lied, waltzing forward. She tried to call up the mysterious sway that she once saw in a dancer, the kind of thing that sent sensible nymph men into seizures (heaven help prudish humans!).
"Welcome, Glory." Sebastian kept a healthy distance. The trapped currents leaned towards Glisinda even ten feet away.
-When all that roars free, is it like an orgasm? Or death? How come only humans get to find out?-
Cold chaperon he may have been, Sebastian still saw Glisinda to a room lavish with sheepskin carpets, feather cushions, a bed fit for monarchy, and not a living thing in sight. A pa, cold cage. Too nervous to sleep, the nymph stripped, curled on the windowsill, and lost herself in the happy fragments of her childhood as the sun rose.
Servants on the ground floor stared at the figure, her skin rippling in color like it was dancing with the dawn.
-Let's just stay here a few days, Thanata. The rest will be nice. We won't have to fight for everything, at least for a bit.-
As for Sebastian the Eon? Like most men, he had better things to look after than a stray nymph.
**********
Over the next week, Glisinda haunted the plantation grounds. Sebastian appeared little, apparently caught in the culmination of a decade-long working, and his cadre of servants treated her much as delicate nobility. They worked in a strange vacuum without human contact; meals seemed to appear on the table by sorcery, and baths might as well have run themselves. The touching phobia ran deep, with the servants who passed her in the halls making detours of several feet if a side passage was not available.
A lethargy settled into the dryad's limbs as the stress ebbed, and though she woke each morning thinking that day to depart, at night the warm, human bed proved far too tempting.
After exploring the grounds several times over, she could no longer stand to watch the people breaking their backs just to make the earth grow. Oh, she wanted to show them better, coax the wheat to the sunlight...but she was in no hurry to be attacked again. Instead, the nymph explored the household and its combination of incredible comfort and alien industry. The kitchens seemed so wasteful, but each meal rivaled a King's feast. No maidservant entered the mansion proper, relegated to the kitchens, and a small fleet of house butlers corrected every error or dust mite to touch the oak furnishings. Glisinda spent a lot of time standing, unwilling to sit in chairs hacked out of living wood. It would be like sleeping in furs made from the family pet!
She strongly suspected that the guest room's wardrobe reflected Sebastian's taste. Every dress featured lace and corsets and deep cleavage, and the shoes were dainty things impossible for anyone to run in. Maybe Glisinda felt the need to investigate the human noblewomen the servants seemed to equate her with, but she tried several on. The first, her horns shredded in dressing; the second set the house in an uproar since it was apparently some form of intimate nightgown. The third squeezed her into a waif's bodice, and she flushed before the room's mirror. All lithe and toned muscle, she felt like a monster in a silk net. Yanking that one off, she gave up on human fashion. Her ragged cloak would do well enough.
Eight days after her arrival, Sebastian finished his spell. As it reached crescendo, lightning storms thrashed outside. Sudden frost wrecked the crops. Many servants clutched amulets of Athos, expressions strained. The mansion ran on a high wire, full of quiet curses and snarls.
Triumphant, Sebastian swaggered from his laboratory that night, dressed in court finery with a bare face. His golden hair and stout jawline were fashion statements in themselves. He made a point of ordering a grand feast prepared despite the rotten weather and promised to buy new crops for the estate (or so he translated for Glisinda).
Shortly before time to eat, a serving girl knocked on the door. About thirteen, she stuttered out rehearsed lines. "The M-master requests that you attend in finery. He has commissioned a dress in honor of your presence. Please enjoy of it!"
Curious, Glisinda let the girl set about preparing her, and a sort of magic the process turned out to be. Scrubbed clean of homey earth smells and primmed from face to toes, the Dryad gaped a the dress the girl offered. Cream and white, it pinched against the figure of her bust and bodice before spilling across her feet in a waterfall. He must have commissioned it almost as soon as she arrived! Clearly, she had misjudged him as a boar because of his focus on work. She twirled for the mirror and smiled.
Later, she would curse herself for not seeing clearly the inevitable. A girl with half a brain would have realized Sebastian cared only for his own pleasure.
The dinner was overwhelming. So many faces, all of the local well-to-do chattering in their foreign tongue, and too many sidelong glances at her to be innocent. Young women paraded themselves in front of Sebastian and his visiting colleagues, cut from a singular cloth: waif. They spent all year waiting for this opportunity, while Glisinda saw the dinner as a headache on the way to bed. -Probably better, on second thought, that I can't understand what they're saying. It can't be nice.-
She retired from the commotion as soon as the meal proper ended. She wanted to practice her kata in the fields, but how exactly did one get that gown off alone? After a few fruitless and timid tugs, she gave up and just fell onto the bed dressed, passing out.
Once wine and revelry closed and the night settled in, Sebastian turned to Glisinda's room. She snapped awake at the door's creak...
...and could not move, not even an inch to budge her fingertips to the knife under her pillow.
"Ssshh, beautiful." The Eon sauntered into her field of vision. "That's a little something skimmed off the top for you. Sure, Lord Ellswick might complain, if he even notice, but the old dodger will be dead of age before he be able to afford me again. Such dirty work he wants; things best not made public, yes? It really is so convenient to outlive your enemies."
Inside, the nymph shrieked and sobbed until spots flared in her eyes. Her mightiest heaves would not budge a toe.
His Norhill turned immaculate at the drop of a pin. "You have no idea the sheer boredom we Eons endure, beautiful. Once you set up your fabulously lavish estate, flocked by a hundred clients slavering for the years of your mana, what else is there? We so rarely can indulge our..." Sebastian leaned down to run his fingertips over her breasts. "...baser instincts."
Knowing its futility, Glisinda bellowed for Talia or Serge. Anyone, anything, to break the heavy strands that coiled through her. When the Wizard's mitts squeezed her breast, she wanted to vomit. He was not gentle, but a conqueror.
"That skin...like a watercolor, always dancing to some new shade. Look! It even mirrors the tint of my skin!"
Glisinda felt her body begin a puppet marionette, somehow managing to thrust herself forward even as it played at terror.
Sebastian gripped her dress and ripped. "Mm. Easy rip, a favorite." His hands roamed deeper and deeper. "Did you know that Wizards created your kind? Just like the beastmen."
-Liar!-
"Oh, not the modern kind. Grandmaster Kenja is many years too late! No, you were from the original Wizards, the great ones. Specialized mana funnels. Efficient little pets! What takes me months to generate internally, you accomplish with a grain of sand in that grand cycle of yours. We created you to build our paradise. No hunger. No disease.”
-You don't even understand our Cycle!-
He straddled her, the bulge of his dick under his leggings an obscene roughness against her skin.
"Its too bad such pretty pets gave rise to such abominations as the mors. Perhaps for my next spell, I'll create a plague to devour them?"
-Mors.-
One of Thanata's teachers described the world as one mighty river. A nymph coaxed the eddies into the forms of life; a mors wiped that slate clean of debris to renew the flow. Always together, opposed, like the arms of an arch that meet to form a bridge.
She shunted Sebastian's harsh touch from her mind and dove deep, seeking that cold serenity like the beauty of the winter mountains.
There! In her heart, right beside the thrumming pulse of spring.
Sighing, the Eon unzipped his manhood. “Oh, it is has been so long.”
Thanata unleashed the cold. Her skin became silver-white, her touch frigid, and her eyes flecked with steel.
"You who force long life, remember the touch of mortality."
Sebastian's magical shackles crumbled away, devoured by her cold, and the mors snapped up to throttle his throat in one hand, his feeble dick in the other. An avalanche roared through her to strike the Eon. Suck the immortal mana from his cells and let the remnants die!
The stricken Eon tried to cough out words and only exhaled dust. From inside out, he rotted and aged and imploded, letting off a fierce, decaying stink. His remains decomposed into a layer of ash across her bed and belly.
Frozen in battle clarity, Thanata gathered her cloak and stormed the Wizard's sanctum. Magical door locks crumbled at her touch. A man may not have been able to drain spells nestled underneath a layer of iron, but the mors exerted her own gravity to devour each one in a flick. She threw every book in Old Norhill's tongue into a sack to peruse later, toppled the strange laboratory equipment, and took pleasure in pillaging the fist-sized sapphire that focused the plantation's magical defenses. Then she vanished through Sebastian's own secret routes, gone before the household staff could react to the noise.
-So much for safe haven and Wizards. Sun and moon, how will I ever explain this to Roho?-
Only after dawn broke, safe in the wild mountains high above the plantation, did Glisinda let the hammer of emotions fall and sob herself to sleep.