Private Tales Feral Animals

[Yavanna]

“Is this really necessary?” Her words dripped from full red lips, slow and sickly sweet as honey.

The elf craned her neck to the side, the motion causing her long braid of golden hair to sway across a shoulder and the collar around her throat to be bare, cold metal stiff above the taut tendons in her neck. The runes etched in the metal suppressed her magic.

Yavanna, high sorceress of Fal’Addas, turned to look out the carriage window. Of course she saw nothing, the drapes were drawn shut. The cushions were soft, but even so the rattling jostled her every so often as they hit ruts and bumps.

“I’m going to get free eventually, human,” she sighed to the sole other occupant of the carriage interior. “And when I do I think I’ll turn you into a newt. Would you like that?”

One bare foot slipped fee of a sandal and Yavanna traced a toe up the human’s armored calf.

“I think you would. No. Not a newt. You’re more of a ferret aren’t you. A little vixen hunting ferret. Is that how you got into my high tower last night, slip under the gate like a little ferret?”

The woman had to have had some help. No one had ever gotten inside her tree tower without her permission, much less abducted her from it. Not in all her hundreds of years.

This was all a very new experience for Yavanna. And she hadn’t had a new experience in quite some time. She might have even enjoyed it, but for the collar.

Sable

 

[Sable]

She tried to ignore the elf’s presence, though every flicker of movement in her periphery was a test of her restraint. Those pointed ears taunted her, vile, mutated things that begged to be cut down to size. It would’ve been easy. Satisfying.

But she had orders. The prisoner was to be delivered whole and unmarked. Sable didn’t know why, and she didn’t care to. It wasn't her job to ask questions.

Utter revulsion curdled in her stomach. Sable didn’t warn the elf. She moved like everything she’d been trained to be - a shadow with bone and intent, and the contact was already there: iron fingers closing around the ankle, her grip bruising, final.

Grey eyes pinned the sorceress with the same flat appraisal she gave a blade. “If you value the air in your lungs, ‘Vixen,’” Sable said dryly, “I’d think better of touching me.” Her thumb found a small knot of bone under the elf’s ankle and pressed hard, assuming the pressure point pained elves as much as humans. She shoved the foot away with a warning look.

“Keep your hands, your feet, and your tongue to yourself until we pass the gates of Vel Anir. Appreciate what comforts you have, lest I remove them.”

 

[Yavanna]

A startled and disbelieving gasp of pain escaped from between Yavanna's lips as the human pinched a nerve in her ankle hard enough to bruise, then shoved it back. Yavanna's amber eyes widened at the strength behind that shove. The woman had some muscle to her. Her pretty pale human features were so serious. How could she be, with those little rounded ears? Yavanna always thought they reminded her of bear ears.

"The ferret has teeth," she muttered.

How long had it been since anyone hurt her? Not in the last seventy years, surely. Yavanna pulled her foot up beside her on the bench, the folds of her slitted crimson dress tugging around her figure. Long, delicate fingers massaged the spot where the woman grabbed her. The pressure hurt again. Yavanna let out a little breathy, silvery laugh, like wind chimes in the forest.

The grey eyes of the woman's were humorless as drawn daggers and roughly the same shade. Yavanna's lips curved upward along with a haughty tilt of her chin as she refused to relinquish control of the situation. It would take far more than a collar and some flexed muscle to cow her.

"You think we're going to reach Vel Anir? So adorable."

Fal'Addas would be searching for her even now. This carriage would not get far.

The chains on her wrists ached, the metal cold and biting as the collar. It would be off soon, she was sure.

In the meantime...

"Until then I guess I should," lithe legs unfolded, not touching the other woman, but slipping languidly into the opposite corner bench. "Appreciate my comforts..." Yavanna reached both hands over her head, chain and manacles scraping against the wood behind her, as she stretched - back arching.

Sable

 

[Sable]

Sable’s lips twitched - not quite a smile, not quite a sneer - as that soft, startled sound slipped from the elf. It wasn’t the pain itself that pleased her, it was the surprise. The disbelief. The little gasp of realisation that her captor was no mere human courier but something sharper, something made for breaking things far stronger than her.

The smallest taste of harmless pain, yet it had landed beautifully.

Her eyes traced over the elf in the dim light, that impossible skin, unmarred and gleaming like polished ivory. In the Academy, flesh that unblemished would have been an open invitation. The kind of softness that drew punishment, not admiration. She wondered, briefly, how someone could live so long and never have the world mark them.

It was only when Yavanna’s voice cut through the hum of the carriage that Sable realised she’d been staring.

Her eyes snapped back to hers. "Yes.. She has teeth. All the better for ripping out the throats of mouthy elves."

The words came out clipped, colder than she intended. Her jaw tightened, a muscle feathering as the echo of ferret gnawed at her restraint. She would not rise to it, nor to the elf’s smug certainty that she’d never see Vel Anir’s walls. Sable had never failed a mission, and she wasn’t about to start for some silk-draped relic who thought herself untouchable.

The motion in the elf's movements were so deliberate, it might as well have been a slap. Sable’s eyes narrowed, her hand flexing once on her knee, a warning in itself.

Her gaze lingered one last moment, grey steel against gold, and she exhaled through her nose, eyes rolling skyward as though praying for patience before she looked away, settling back into stillness and silence.

 

[Yavanna]

The eyeroll of dismissal would have been more convincing if it had not been preceded by the lingering stare. Yavanna's head tilted, blonde braids tumbling about her face. She studied the harsh lines of the human's features as the captor stared fixedly elsewhere. So at odds with those cute little ears.

"Oh? You want to sink your teeth into my throat?" Her voice came in a low and husky timbre, lips quirking as she refused to acknowledge the reality of the threat and arched her neck even further, smooth skin bronzed by the sun demanding attention.

Amber eyes stared down her nose through slitted lashes. Everything about the human was hard and severe and edged, as if she was iron the whole way through. But iron could be brittle too. There were very few Anirian humans who would be so unbothered by the presence of an elven sorceress.

"Is that why you can't help but stare, human," Yavanna hummed, "Thinking about what I might taste like?"

This woman had all the grace of a trebuchet. But there was a certain dangerous air to her that Yavanna found... appealing. So seldom had humans posed any real threat to Yavanna. The prospect seemed ludicrous. And lately, even in the depths of the Falwood, she'd heard the new rumors from Vel Anir. The new rulers were soft. Pliable.

This woman did not seem so pliable. And her touch had been strong, her words hard. Yavanna wondered if the muscle beneath that armor was as hard.

Sable

 

[Sable]

Sable levelled Yavanna with a look of exasperation, the kind reserved for insolent recruits and gnats that refused to die. A dry, nasal sigh followed - the sound of someone who had long since outgrown outrage, who had worn patience into habit through sheer necessity. A sound that held years of boredom and bone-deep discipline.

Her fingers curled against the cushion at her side. The motion was lazy, almost absentminded, yet the air obeyed as if tethered to her will. Pressure gathered in the small space between them, invisible, precise, wrapping itself around the elf’s mouth and throat. Not enough to bruise, only enough to swallow her next breath and steal the sound from it.

“Don’t tempt me,” Sable said, voice quiet and flat, carrying the weight of a blade laid on a throat.

The carriage seemed to draw in a breath with her, even the rain against the window seemed was muted. The silence that followed was absolute, and when she exhaled again, it was not in irritation but in something close to relief, a small, appreciative sigh for the stillness she’d carved from the noise.

"Better.."

 

[Yavanna]

Currents of air flowed and constricted around Yavanna’s throat and swirled around her mouth, stifling her words and her breath so that she could only drag in the meanest of breaths through her nose. The tightening of the air felt like a physical rope around her throat, only one she could not touch or pull away.

Panic rose in Yavanna’s chest and for the first time in a centuries she knew real fear, which quickly molted to fury.

Magic wielded by a human soldier? This woman was one of them. One of the Dreadlords, that order of battlemages who the Anirians formed to make war on the elves. It was they who had burned the Falwood time and again. It was they who slew so many of her people and made slaves of them.

Her heart pounded in her chest and she leaned back against the carriage wall behind her, furious. She raised her bare feet and started kicking at the dreadlord. Thrashing, she shoved her heel at a breastplate and her toes into the woman’s face. Anything to get her to release the spell around Yavanna’s mouth and neck.

Sable

 

[Sable]

Sable’s patience broke with a low, rough sound that was more growl than word. Before Yavanna could draw back her foot again, Sable caught her by the wrist and hauled her off the seat.

The carriage lurched, in a blink the elf would find herself wrenched across the narrow space, spun so her back hit something solid and unyielding. Armour. Breath. The press of a heartbeat.

Sable’s arm came up across her collarbone, firm but precise, holding her in place without cutting her air this time. Her own leg curled around the elf’s to trap them and still the furious kicking. The movement was military, clean and efficient, but there was nothing impersonal about the heat of it.

“Desist,” Sable warned, the word a breath against Yavanna’s pointed ear. "And keep your disgusting feet to yourself." Her tone was level, controlled, yet threaded through with that thin current of anger that made the air itself tense around them.

She held her there for a moment longer, both of them breathing hard, until the carriage’s motion seemed to settle around their locked bodies. Then she eased the pressure slightly, enough to remind Yavanna that she had the choice to stop fighting.

“Enough,” Sable said again, quieter this time. “I don’t need to hurt you. But don’t mistake that for weakness, because I'd fucking enjoy it.”

The air in the carriage softened, the invisible restraint slipping away until only the ghost of her hold remained. Sable’s breath was still close to her ear, measured and steady. “Now. Sit still, little vixen, and shut up, or test me some more and I'll rip the air from your lungs and gladly watch you suffocate.”

 

[Yavanna]

The elf stopped struggling the moment the Dreadlord wrapped an arm around her and dragged her back. She felt the pressure of a breastplate against her back, the metal hard and unyielding. Just like the woman who wore it.

Yavanna’s legs found themselves stilled as the Dreadlord wound her own foot around them in a lock, the steel of her armor cold, stiff, probably as rigid as the muscles beneath. Yavanna imagined that the woman’s body was much like her face: all pale angles and severe edges.

Spirits. So strong for a human. Maybe I will turn her into a monkey.

She did not struggle, but she did roll her hips back against the metal thigh cuisses.

“Such a sick, demented, dreadlord,” Yavanna hissed, “Seems like you might enjoy watching a bit too much.” Her voice was still that low and husky thread. “I’ll enjoy taking my time with you when the tables turn.”

Sable

 

[Sable]

Sable’s jaw clenched, a muscle ticking at her temple as Yavanna pressed her hips back against the hard curve of Sable’s thigh. Blood warmed beneath her skin - not lust, she told herself, but anger, pure and hot. Even breathing the same air as the elf made something in her coil with revulsion.

She shoved her back hard into the opposite bench, forcing distance between them with a motion like a weapon. The carriage rocked with the force of it.

“I hope you do have loved ones who try to rescue you. I have orders to kill any who stand between me and my cargo.”

A slow, humourless tightness shaped the last words. “It would be the most fun I’ve had in a while.”

She straightened then, letting the threat sit between them. The air around them was still again, heavy with the promise that Sable meant every word.

 

[Yavanna]

“Fun? Such a quaint little human,” Yavanna sprawled luxuriously on the opposite bench, spreading her body out until she hung loosely, manacled hands draping over her head and scraping the floor, hair draping down like a curtain. “I don’t think you have any idea what that word means.”

Outside, there came a thunk against the door of the carriage, then a chorus of blood curdling yells and shouting. A horse let out a shriek of absolute terror and pain and the carriage ground to a sudden halt, swinging wildly before stopping.

“Ooh,” Yavanna smirked, “right on time.”

Arrows fell thick and fast from the underbrush, peppering the carriage guards and carriage both. Elven archers, maybe a half-dozen, burst from the tree line and started attacking the carriage.

Sable

 

[Sable]

This elf was testing every shred of Sable’s patience. She’d been about to snap something sharp and cold in reply when the first scream split the air outside. The Dreadlord’s head turned slowly as the carriage rocked beneath the assault.

An arrow punctured the panel just beside her temple with a solid thunk. Sable’s grey eyes flicked toward it, unimpressed. She let out a long, steady sigh through her nose, not fear, not even irritation, just bone-deep exhaustion.

“Wonderful,” she murmured.

In a single, fluid motion, she reached forward and fisted a hand in the elf’s collar, yanking her upright. The carriage door flew open with a gus, and Sable stepped out into the storm of arrows, dragging Yavanna with her.

Around them, the air hardened, invisible but palpable, a cocoon of pressure that bent incoming arrows off course or shattered them mid flight. The same current snaked around Yavanna’s limbs, holding her fast at Sable’s side whether she liked it or not.

Grey eyes swept the treeline, assessing, counting, calculating. Her voice came low and precise.
“Stay close,” she said, though it was no kindness, it was a warning.

Then her hand clenched. The air detonated outward, compressed wind slicing through the forest in a thousand invisible, razor sharp shards.

 

[Yavanna]

Chaos reigned. Without her magic, Yavanna felt more vulnerable than she had in centuries. The thought that she could die right here, right now, seemed an absurd thing and it produced a numbing effect on her.

Jerked forward by a fist around her collar, Yavanna uttered a gasp of pain and outrage, but could not do much more than stare around as carnage unfolded. An Anirian soldier fell past Yavanna, clutching at an arrow in his throat and gurgling.

Then the dreadlord began weaving the air to terrible effect. Yavanna stared in fascination at the human, whose slivers of razored air tore through bush and bark alike. Torn wood and leaves sprayed up.

Yavanna couldn’t tell if any of her people died, because the Dreadlord kept dragging her along. She had to run to keep up or risk being hauled like a sack of flour.

This far from Fal’Addas, Yavanna had no idea where the dreadlord thought they were running to, but she seemed single minded and relentlessly set on an objective. A woman with a plan. Blasted human.

Sable

 

[Sable]

The driver and the guards were already down, bodies strewn like torn sacks. That was an inconvenience. The dead horse however, was a problem. It was much too far a walk back to civilisation. Too many trees. Too many elves. She was a dreadlord, alone in their territory, capturing one of their own. Most definitely a problem.

She moved with the economy of someone who had learned to make every second count. “Move,” she snapped, a short hiss that left no room for argument. She hauled Yavanna along by the collar, forcing the elf to match stride. Her boots ate the churned earth; her breath was steady, already thinking two steps ahead. She needed height, a vantage point, and there was an old watch tower not far from here. If she could reach it she could buy time.

An arrow thunked against the invisible barrier at her back; she whirled before the sound finished. Her hand came up as if by reflex, fingers clawing the air. The pressure slammed into the archer’s throat like a fist. The elf's bow clattered to the ground; she clutched her neck, eyes wild, her mouth working for air that would not come. She dropped to her knees, then folded sideways, clawing at the earth in a ragged, futile panic.

Sable’s voice was a low, dangerous rasp. “I told you, I’d kill them, and I’d enjoy it.” The words were a verdict, emotionless. She released the archer when the body went still, letting the dying echo around them for all the warning it was worth. Then she turned, shoulders square, and began to run toward the tower, dragging Yavanna with her.

 

[Yavanna]

She stumbled along after the dreadlord, led on a collar like a dog. She'd remember that. She'd remember the way the human enjoyed crushing the life from one of her people. Yavanna did not cry. Humans could not comprehend the years of her lifespan - all she had seen and done. Most trees were younger than her. But even trees sigh in the wind and she let out a soft and sorrowful sound at the death of an elf, whose life was worth fifty times that of a human insect.

Her bare feet padded across leaves and dirt, the feel of grass slipping between her toes one that should have made her feel alive, laughing as she ran through the forest. Instead, she felt only disgust and hate for this pathetic pig of a human. She purposefully ran through a thorn bush as they passed it, pain flaring in her right thigh.

They kept moving.

"They'll find you eventually, wherever you're taking me," Yavanna gasped out as they paused in the run for a moment, the dreadlord apparently staring up at an old watch tower, "And they'll skin you alive."

Yavanna did not know how long they ran, but the sounds of fighting died away long ago leaving only their panting breath. Her dress was not made for running through the forest, though she was thankful it at least had a slit to allow her legs some freedom of movement. As they came to the door of the watch tower, Yavanna had a moment to look down at her leg. A two shallow scratches ran across the top of her thigh, blood trickling from them.

Her lips curved in a feral smile. The Gladestalkers could use any blood she'd left on the bush to help track her. This was not over.

Sable

 

[Sable]

“I’m sure they will,” Sable said flatly, the words clipped. Her grey eyes met Yavanna’s. “And if it looks like I’ll lose this mission by dying anyway, I’ll be sure to kill you first.” No flourish. No promise, only the quiet efficiency of someone who meant what she said.

Then she moved. The tower door gave beneath her heel with a splintering crack. She hauled Yavanna through the gap and up the spiral stairs. The steps were narrow and slick with moss; by the time she reached the top her head spun with the motion. The little rampart ringed out around them, cracked stone and a view that let her pick a dozen lines of sight through the trees. It was low cover and a poor castle, but it was something.

She didn’t know how many elves were still following them, or whether Vel Anir would bother to send riders for a single prisoner. She didn’t like guessing. She didn’t like being without backup, not in these forests. That unease she swallowed and turned into preparation.

Sable shoved Yavanna down onto the cot, closed the trapdoor with a solid thunk, sealing them in, and sat on the floor, back to the wall, arms folded over her breastplate, every sense taut and waiting.

 

[Yavanna]

Yavanna sat where the dreadlord put her for a moment, watching the woman move about. There was a concern etched on her human features and she looked wound up, like she was tensing every muscle fiber in her being. The coy grin appeared on Yavanna's face again at the woman's plight.

"Oh, you've no idea what you're doing, do you?" she crooned, words the lilting sing-song of the Falwood.

The elf rose from the cot, anger still seething in her at the woman, but Yavanna suspected she was older than even this watch tower. She could be patient. Could wait. And in the meantime, she would wear down this block of chiseled human in front of her and see what made her crack.

Bare feet whispered across old, half-rotted wood as Yavanna moved to hover over the seated dreadlord.

The elf tilted back her chin defiantly and felt the east wind brush across her, pulling at the fabric of her thin dress of scarlet silk and making strands of her golden hair float. She was tall and proud, skin smooth and tan save where the thorns and dirt marred it. Her eyes shone like two orbs of amber and her lips were full and pouting in the way that made so many sigh. Among the humans, she would have passed for a queen of men. The collar around her throat and the manacles on her wrists could not stifle her regal allure.

"Do you even know who I am?"

Sable