Athaniel's Libation Ch. 01

© 2023 E.P van Gelder. All rights reserved. The author asserts the right to be identified as the author of this story. This story or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author except for the use of brief quotations in a review. If you see this story on any website other than Literotica.com, it's been copied without the author's permission.

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Lockdown, for many was a time of endless drudgery. Jogging around the block, feeding your sourdough starter, and experimenting with the right tea to make kombucha. For me and my girlfriend however, it was a time of unrivalled debauchery. Freshly moved in together, we passed the time with each other, experimenting sexually, chemically and in every other way really, while liaising with strangers online to feed the idea machine. In other words, my memories of lockdown are hazy at best.

But somehow, throughout all of that, I also wrote my first book. With no plan, no eye on the market, no idea what I was doing really. I just sat down every day and decided what happened next. What came out was... interesting.

When the first draft was done, I had my girlfriend read it. She hated it... and I parked it in the "some day" folder.

Now, a few years and a few books later, this has become little more than a vague memory, like everything else from that time. I thought it would be fun to go through it again and relive the story with you. I'll give it an edit, and hope to see if anyone on here enjoys it. If people do, I will keep editing and posting installments until the entire thing is up.

This first chapter is pretty much just the setup. If that's your main thing, the amount of fucking will definitely pick up in the next installments.

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We are old.

Old enough to have seen a tree grow from a seed to a home-tree. Old enough to have seen rivers cut gorges into the land. Old enough, even, to see our own demise.

The lands below were ablaze with the setting sun. The world itself was burning.

It seemed like only yesterday that we roamed those lands freely. Woodland and prairie, teaming with life, from the southern sands to the frozen seas. Ours to roam. Not to own, not to exploit, but to inhabit, like any other creature.

Not like the humans, who spread across the land like a blight, cutting and burning everything in their path.

Including us.

I spun an arrow around between my fingers. There was nothing special about it. Thousands exactly like it had passed through my hands over the past few days alone. But this one was the last one.

It snapped to a halt in the palm of my hand. It was wood, and it had feathers. The steel head was crude but sharp enough to pierce leather, skin and muscle. Funny, I thought, how ineffectual an arrow really is. I put it on my bowstring, but before I could draw, Lethiana joined me on the rocky outcrop from where I'd been watching the army amassed below us. The longbow that made her so deadly gleamed in the orange light. As did her eyes, rimmed red with exhaustion and grief. She gave me a resigned shake of the head. I already knew what she was going to say. "We're done Athaniel. She's given the order."

I got up stiffly, tiredness turning my limbs to stone.

Done.

We were both silent, letting the immensity of the word settle between us.

"I wish we would keep fighting," she continued, gazing down on the army. "I'd rather die than bow to this vermin."

"Fight until we're all gone?" I asked. "Until our history is nothing but a story? Told by humans, to humans?" I peered to the tents below us. "We must stay alive. Sirinia is right. A thousand years from now, this rabble will kill each other, or die of some filthy disease they bred into their animals. We must bide our time."

She snorted and nocked an arrow. "Your mother is always right." She drew... and sent the arrow flying. We watched it disappear into the darkness below.

"Of course she is. She is our queen." I said.

She nodded, her eyes still on the army below us. "That she is. And she has called a parlay. The pig's king is already on his way up." Her eyes dropped to my hands and I realized I still had my arrow nocked. "Are you going to shoot that or keep it as a memento."

In answer, I drew silently. One can learn to relish the supple twang of a well made bow. And as I released I wondered if I'd ever get to feel it again. The arrow was lost in the darkness as soon as I released. I doubted it would make a widow of anyone.

-

Sirinia chose to meet the humans below the mother's tooth. Ritharasa, in our tongue. It was a tall, jagged spire of rock that rose from the surrounding cloud forest. There was a clearing there. Where we crowned our queen centuries ago. Even if its significance would escape the humans, it was clear to all of us. History doesn't end. Honor your roots and persevere, like the mountain itself.

The cloud cover surrounding us was thin and sunlight filtered through the rocky spires around us, casting a multitude of glowing light beams through the misty air. The beauty seemed a harsh paradox with the brutal truth this day would bring.

Every fadal from the crags that could still walk had gathered there in the clearing. It wasn't all that remained of our kind. No, thousands still lived their lives hidden away in the rainforests behind the broken crags. But our numbers here, the seat of our queen and the gateway to our lands, had dwindled shockingly over the past months. Regardless of today's outcome, the grief would be immense. A weight to carry for decades... centuries to come.

A hushed silence descended on us as our gathering parted, leaving a clear pathway to our queen.

The human's leader, followed by a contingent of at least fifty heavily armed warriors, all men, sauntered into our midst. He wore dirty leathers and a wolfish smile that, even then, made me grit my teeth.

Lethiana was close to me, moving backwards as I was. I saw Sarlai and Isani not far away. Where Elliana was, I did not know. The fact that our [[zinthasa]] was scattered at such a moment spoke of the chaos that had engulfed us.

But we all lived. At least there was that. How many zinthasas could say the same? Whatever happened today, we would face it together. This night our family would gather in Lethiana's home tree. We would eat together, and then probably we would sleep together. Elliana would probably try something, despite the hollow-eyed exhaustion, despite the suffering and the grief. Or maybe because of it.

The thought inched its way down my belly and grew into a glowing urge. Even now, while witnessing the most devastating moment in the history of our kind, my unquenchable thirst clamored for my attention. It was my nature. Our nature. I'd bathed in the waters of Zinth. Not once, but three times. My body was a vessel for its power. It coursed through my veins with every thump of my heart. Lust, unadulterated, pure, sacred, and hopefully enough to give one of the women in my family a child.

In times of peace it was what made life in the zinthrasa a joy of the senses, a never ending dedication to rapturous pleasure. But lately, in these times of war, it had only meant torture, a constant, unabating urge that taunted us while we struggled for survival. Once or twice I had cursed the day we went to the springs of Zinth, and wished that just for once, I could stop its magic from filling my belly with that heavy throb. But wishing, as we were learning every day, had little effect.

The hollow eyed crowd scattered slowly to make space in our midst, until a path opened for the pig's king and his smelly men. They stopped in front of our queen, my mother, Irinia.

Her eyes were hard and pale as glacial ice. Her skin had the pallor of someone who had been running on fog for so long they'd forgotten what it was like to eat properly and sleep a full nights sleep.

Combined with her white hair, her white dress and the snow owl mantle that was her birthright, she looked translucent, part cloud herself, part of what shrouded this mountain, and gave it life.

She was not someone who would bend easily. But we are all tested in our own ways, and bending was what would be asked of her today. Bend... or break.

The human commander stopped in front of her, put his hands on his hips and cast about with a puffed up chest. "Where is your leader?" He grinned, looking over his shoulder at his men. They all chuckled.

"I am that." Irinia's flinty voice cut through his laughter.

"You?" He looked her up and down, his eyes pouring down her body like treacle. "You're just a girl! Pretty enough... but skinny."

The words hung there, the sheer idiocy of them, the insult. I clenched my fists and a growl rumbled up my throat. I sensed the anger crackling around the clearing. Lightning was ready to strike.

Moon's shadow, if I had known then, that the kingdom we fought was vulnerable at its core and had other, bigger enemies to deal with, I would have put an arrow through his throat myself.

But, having kept ourselves apart from the world of humans for as long as we did, we knew nothing about our enemy and the internal strife that divided the kingdoms of men.

If he was trying to goad her, Irinia didn't catch the bait.

"Can we get to the point here... General Waentsin?"

General? Not a king then. And how she knew his name, I did not know. But her words made his pretend ignorance fall flat. The grin disappeared from his face.

"To the point?" He straightened himself up, then slowly circled his arm around to encompass all of us. "You..." He paused briefly. "...are now under the rule of Kinborg."

Irinia regarded him flatly and shrugged her shoulders. "What does that mean exactly?"

The man called Waentsin smirked. "It means you will pay tax." He looked around at the rocky outcrops surrounding us. "These rocks are rich in silver. You will send us 50 pounds of it. With every full moon."

A low murmur echoed through the gathered crowd. The walls surrounding us glimmered with veins of silver, now doubt a tantalizing promise of wealth and power to the humans. Not so much to us, who used no coins and wore little jewelry. And to mine it would mean ripping apart the very rocks that sheltered us, desecrating our home till it was unrecognizable.

Our queen spoke again. "And if we agree to pay this tax? What else? Will you occupy our lands?"

He snorted and surveyed the scintillating rocks that played in and out of the filtered sunlight. "No. This place is too misty for us." He let his eyes crawl over her body. "And the women are too skinny."

His men laughed heartily and he turned to them, holding up both hands, as if he was squeezing something. "We'll be home soon, men!"

They all roared. It was hard to imagine that their wives would share this enthusiasm.

He turned back to Irinia and spoke again. "Pay your taxes and we'll leave you alone."

I sensed the relief in the fadal around me. To have to cohabit with these creatures and to be subjected to their rule and authority, would have been humiliating and unbearable.

"But..." He continued. "You will have to provide us with an emissary. As an assurance that you... behave."

"You mean a hostage?" Irinia said in a flat voice.

"Call it what you will, pretty girl." His self-congratulatory grin made me grit my teeth. "We will take your firstborn son."

A silence settled over the crowd just as the blood was draining from my face. I turned to find Lethiana's stricken eyes on me. And beyond her Isani, shaking her head in disbelief. No. Surely not... Why would they want me? The request to take me as a hostage was as ludicrous as it was saddening. But that didn't mean my mother was going to say no.

When I turned away from my consorts, I found Irinia watching me. I could see the sadness in her eyes. We both knew what she had to do. She took a deep breath and turned back to the gloating general. With one solemn nod, she broke our lives apart.

-

It was a night like many others. Up ahead between the canopy of our tree, the stars were dimmed by the brightness of the moon while they awaited their turn to shine in the later hours of darkness.

An owl hooted, another answered. It was a conversation I had heard a thousand times, yet I still did not know its meaning.

A night like many others, and also the first night of its kind. My sword, Xanael, was still perched casually next to the suspended bridge that connected our home to the central tree.

I had cleaned the blood off and left him there to be returned to his place in the caverns. There, he had waited in the darkness for so many years. His existence had been little more than a theory. Much like the tragedy each of us imagines will never hit us.

It was getting late. The cicadas were ending their song for the night. A moment of silence that marked the beginning of a new day, soon to be filled by the morning birds with their cacophony of song.

Elves, they call us. A word of which we do not know the root, even though the language they speak is a crude version of our own. But we call ourselves [[Fadalthlaien]]. Beauty of the world. An old word, but important enough to remember, always.

Awe, rapture. Respect. Gratitude. These words divine our lives. Even on a night like this.

But tonight we added grief. Because on this night, this life of ours would end.

Lethiana stood on the edge of the wooden platform that was suspended in her birth tree, the home we had shared for centuries. Below us, the cloud forest shrouded the world like a thick, damp blanket. But here, high above, we could look out above the canopy and see the moonlit sky. And the sun, when it would set the sky ablaze a few hours hence.

We'd discussed the ordeal that was upon us, until there was nothing more to say, nothing more to piece apart. No words would change what was about to happen. Now, silence cloaked us as surely as the cloud did the forests below. My consorts, my family. Elliana, Isani, Sarlai, all women, which had bought me a life long of ridicule among my people. We all waited for Lethania, the oldest among us, to speak. She turned to us slowly. Her tired eyes were as hollow as the night.

"We should go to the moon pools." She said. "The clouds are low enough that they will be clear. We should be on the earth."

I nodded. It felt right. I looked around at the faces of my consorts and we all agreed solemnly. Except Elliana, the only one among us who could muster a knowing smirk on a night like this.

She was always more attached to the comforts our home offered. Comfort, and decadence, she was a counterpoint to the rest of us, who would tirelessly range the surrounding mountains to hunt and to collect fruit.

"And we should mate." Lethania added, now looking at me. "If anything, to give you some last relief before you head off on your own."

The relief it would offer would be short-lived, but welcome. It had been years since we had last traveled to the Zintha springs, but its waters still set my blood on fire with a constant, unabating urge.

I heard someone purr and turned to find Elliana's languid smile suggesting all that was to come. She had always been the irreverent one, even on a night like this, when sadness permeated us all.

Sarlai rose from her seat in a lithe, graceful movement that belied her exhaustion. She rolled her eyes with a rueful smile but then stepped closer to stroke Elliana's hair. "Are you ready to relieve our prized stallion of his heavy burden?"

Elliana nodded and leaned her head against Sarlai's hip, smiling like a cat.

"I can do all the work. I can only imagine how exhausted you all must be from the fighting."

Elliana wasn't one to wield a sword or bow, but in truth, she had worked as tirelessly as the rest of us, tending to the wounded with her caring hands and warm smiles. As she would be right then, if it wasn't for my imminent departure that was about to break up our family.

Sarlai leaned down and kissed her head. "How very selfless of you." Elliana turned and pulled Sarlai down for a sensual kiss. "Don't worry." She mumbled. "I'll leave some for you." Then she turned her smoldering eyes to me. "There should be plenty."

I groaned. The moon pool now seemed very far away. You could always count on Elliana to torture me. But Lethiana was right. Tonight, on the cusp between the fight to protect our world, and losing it forever, we should honor our heritage with all we had.

We all followed Lethania, across the slowly swaying rope bridge. Down the steps, spiraling down into the clouds that would drift between the trees until well into the morning, when the sun would burn them off. Moonlight illuminated the steps on one side of the tree, but in the shadow on the opposite side, the darkness was absolute. But these steps had the familiarity of a thousand years. We needed no light to find our way. So we filed down, silent as the fog.

The moon pools were not far, but the climb up the narrow, mossy steps was steep, and the movements of the four women ahead of me were slow and calculated. Trying to ignore my groaning limbs, my thoughts returned to the conversations that had taken up our night.

None of us had an inkling on how to accept the truth that lay ahead of us, the yawning void of life lived apart. We had bonded over hundreds of years. Living together, hunting together, and, of course, through the act most sacred of all, our mating.

The mating rites of the Fadal were not a trivial matter. For when a woman accepted the seed of a mature Fadal, the consequences were profound. She would be transported to realms of ecstasy so sublime they were said to rival the joy of the Gods themselves. Yet once denied the sweet nectar, a fever would overtake her - a writhing, primal sickness from which there was no escape. To mate with a Fadal was to court both heaven and hell, to be lifted up to the stars and dashed upon the rocks below. So it had always been, and so it would be forever. To mate was to be bound for eternity, a responsibility heavier than the stone of the mountain we lived on.

Most sacred of all, is the rite of Zintha. A pilgrimage to the springs of Zintha, deep in the mountains. There, in the cool pools, surrounded by ancient rock, the Zinthrasa, the Fadal family, is bound by a singular intent, that to create offspring. The fecund water of Zintha heightens the senses, deepens the urges, and we become fertile.

Three times we have made that journey. The first, when Lethiana, Sarlai and I started our family. And I still remember that first ecstatic frenzy. The desire that seemed impossible to sate. The endless flow that came forth from me, filling, soaking their contorted bodies as they rode from orgasm to orgasm until we all joined in a rhapsodic climax that changed our world forever.

We went again, when Sarlai took a lover, Isani, and I was there just as a sacrament, there only so they could share, and scale those heights together.

And last we made the journey when Elliana, only barely mature, set her sights on me.

"An infatuation." Lethiana had called it at first. "Don't indulge her."

But the infatuation had lasted and she had pursued me with unrelenting interest for decades. An interest that, mind you, had filled me with an answering desire I could not seem to shake. For many years, Elliana found endless excuses to spend time in our home, all the while making moon eyes at me, while I tried desperately to ignore the decadent curves of her young body.

No one understood, really, my attraction to her. She was considered too round, too soft, by the standards of our people. Sarlai would tease me about it. Lethiana would roll her eyes with a bemused smile. All the while, they enjoyed seeing me tortured.

And they came to love her, for her warm playfulness, and for her single-minded commitment. And of course they enjoyed the way she drove me wild. Not in the least because it added to the already overwhelming drive to mate that dominated my waking hours and dreams alike.