Tauli Ch. 03

"Invite her to join us, so I may view her." Chanda said, putting down her pin and picking up her cup.

Dia stood up, still bowing, and then seized her wrist violently, causing her to spill the tea.

Chanda glared at her in shock, "What are you doing?"

"The pin, your grace!" Dia said quickly, and released her.

The two stared at the silver object, lying on the table. The end that had been immersed in the liquid was stained a vibrant green.

---

"This way." The toxic whispered, her soft feet sinking onto the loose stones, drawing them up and dissolving them, as she led the him up the small rise to the land that lay between all three kingdoms.

Aetauin had hoped to never return to this place.

Her heart was heavy, and she was struggling not to weep, as she remembered the last time she had set foot here. She hadn't left it in one piece, or even in pieces. She had been dead, for all intents and purposes. A singular stubborn droplet of water clinging to the blade of a warrior, without mind or intent.

The rest of her had experienced the fullness of death. Boiled, frozen, her being ripping down to base components and flung so far and wide that she had simply ceased to exist.

As she crested the rise, it became more apparent that it wasn't a hill at all. The ground had been forced backwards, struck by a tidal force so great that the foundations themselves had been shifted, distorting the landscape in every direction. Ripples visible in the ruined earth left behind.

From here, she couldn't see the edges. There was a circle of some kind, from an impact that had so devestated the landscape that even now nothing grew there. Not a single stubborn blade of grass or seed had managed to take root inside it.

"I've seen the Pale, before." Regius said in irritation, "I crossed it, Aetuin. I led my people through this... Desert, for lack of a more apt description."

She nodded, as the skin under her eyes began to bubble, the toxic beginning to cry. "I have a word, m'lord, that describes the very fullness of the Pale. You crossed it, seeing a hazard of the environment. A curse of gods to kill mortal kind... But no god made this. It's no more natural than my birth."

"I know." He insisted in ignorance, "I saw the swords and spears. I walked through the remnants of a battlefield where a thousand soldiers fell."

"No." She shook her head grimly, "You didn't. You walked through a massacre where forty thousand soldiers fell. Ten thousand free men of Aspen, twenty five from Arylia. And fifteen thousand men and woman, raised here, in Lytia. But they weren't fighting each other. And it wasn't a battlefield. Forty thousand soldiers stood, and fought, side by side their enemies, in unity. The whole of the continent, against a single common foe."

"Not a battlefield?" He said in confusion, "Because... It was too one-sided?"

Aetauin let out a sad gasp, remembering it. "I fought with them, or I tried to. It was the reason that I was born, m'lord. I was crafted by mages old and stupid, from the tears of their enemy. They believed it would give them an advantage, and it did. I have magic that few can imagine. Destroying me is all but impossible... And still... Here... I fell. Here... I died. I died a thousand deaths, a million. Every droplet torn asunder into things so small that we have yet to name them."

He looked at her in concern.

The toxic fell to her knees with a splash, holding her head in her hands. "I led them into... It wasn't battle. Gods forgive me... It was not a battle. I expected to fight a fucking army... The salamanders didn't send... They didn't send their armies to fight us, m'lord. They sent their daughter. Alone."

Regius crouched beside her, resting a comforting hand against her shoulder, "Alone?"

"She wielded no magic. She carried no weapons. She spoke no words of comfort before the end." Aetauin felt her entire body trembling, trying to become insubstantial. "Three survived that day. The Pale isn't a battlefield, m'lord. It's the graveyard where Tauenlytara buried the men and women... Who tried to take from her. That... That poorly spoken girl... That you saw earlier... Did... This... In a span less than a day."

He stared up at the desert, "No magic? How is that... Possible?"

"A salamander breathes fire. She breathes the sun. A salamander's scales break weapons... She breaks the world before you can draw them." Aetauin shook her head, "She... Pitied us. She showed mercy to us. This... M'lord... This voidscape that belongs in the nightmares of the damned... This is what happens when Tauenlytara holds back."

Regius breathed in sharply, "Holds... Back?"

"She can unmake the world!" Aetauin shouted angrily, forcing herself to her feet. "She has magic, m'lord! She has weapons. She didn't use them. She shook the foundations of the entire fucking continent to its core! And! She! Wasn't! Trying!"

The toxic tossed a hand to the horizon, throwing liquid that evaporated as it hit the sand. "The reefs to the north are where we were before the Pale! The mountains to the east and west, come from the impact of her landing in the middle of this place! Our armies surrounded her, that's how we started, and it was the last fucking mistake we were allowed to make! We... We should have run. We should have understood... That surrounding her... The only thing it did... Was put us in her arm's reach."

"That... Girl... Who couldn't even finish a single word..." Regius said in disbelief, "Did... This?"

"Ten years ago." Aetauin nodded grimly, "I was born of her tears, m'lord. I am a part of her. I wasn't born of a sacred tree, or divine blood. I'm just the tears of a singular salamander woman. She is mortal. But you're fucked in the head if you think that you can take anything that she has claimed."

The man looked grimly at her, and she could tell she wasn't getting through to him. She grabbed his chest and began to eat through the silk shirt, "She doesn't have to fight you, Regius! The others will kill you if they think you've annoyed her! She killed forty thousand people in a day! No one will let it happen again. The kings. The armies. The other beggar lords. They'll fucking kill you!"

"Will you?" He asked in concern.

She put a bare hand against the skin over his heart, eyes boiling with tears as she stared into his and the dawning of comprehension there. Aetauin winced, "I love you. I will spare you the horror of a world unmade, if you insist on taking what belongs to the Pink Dragon."

---

The nekan woman slid onto the captain's desk, crossing her legs, and smiling excitedly at him. She lifted the rune-engraved bracelets around her wrists, "She didn't know he was into this kind of play. She might have given him more attention if she did."

"You are a prisoner, Princess Ink."

Her foot slammed into his face and pinned it flat against the desk. Swords drew as the guards went to deal with her. Blue eyes flashed and burning hot metal fell to the ground as their hands steamed and smoked.

She spoke slowly, quietly, "Her name... Is... Exilia. Mother took her old name away. This is the only time she will tell him. Name lost. Call her by it, again, captain... And he will be wishing she settled for killing him. That name... Is dead name."

She lifted her foot gently, and then winced as she felt the cold and weird sensation of a bleeding nose. She snorted it up loudly and relaxed onto his desk, ears flicking happily as she looked at him.

The elf looked down at her with concern, "You were exiled?"

"Mmm." She nodded and shrugged, "She wouldn't be going back, if she had a choice. But sinking the Orlian would take the last of her control... And there not anyone who wanna see Exy have a rebound, mortal or god. It not be a pretty thing."

He rubbed the bootprint on his face and signalled for his men to leave. The elf collapsed into his seat, looking at her grimly, "Have you ever actually had a rebound before... Exilia?"

"Once." She nodded, "She was... Weak, back then. Just a newborn. Premmie, too. Her sister punched her unconscious before she blew up the capital. Exy nearly killed her mother."

His eyebrows furrowed, "Wasn't that... Your actual birth? You were born casting. I have heard the tale. Art-"

"Kinslayer." She corrected him with a glare. "Both banished. And if he wants to keep living, he won't be sending anyone after Kinny. Because Exy might not be feeling great, but she'll sink the ship and drown with it before she lets him near her sister."

"She punched you out, within the moment of both of you being born."

The neko laughed and grinned, "Why is he saying it like he doesn't actually believe it? He just saw Exy casting, whilst at her limit, and still wearing fucking cuffs. What's the limit of enchantment on these little things, anyways?"

"I had thought they would exceed even your capabilities." The elf grunted and shook his head, "As for the pursuit... You don't have to fear for your sister. My orders were not to return without one of you, and so, I have fulfilled my duty to the empire."

She rolled onto her side, scratching a series of alchemical formula into his desk idly, as she looked into his eyes. "He's worried, isn't he? That the empire is lost."

"Empress Twenty Four, as cruel as she could be, was what we needed." He said quietly, "Gods preserve us... Because if she has gone to join them in the next world... Then what wrath has she kept at bay, now unleashed? Your mother was evil in many ways. A villain, you might say. But without her... There is nothing to protect us common folk from the things in the world that are worse."

Exy nodded in agreement, "Mmm. Mother ate a dark god's soul. Pretty sure you can't say something like that without acknowledging that she could be bitchin' scary, even to gods and demons. Politics has never interested Exilia. She wanted to be left alone to cure her fucking horny. But politics was also beneath her... Because she met gods. Lots of them. They been preparing for war, since before her birth. Looks like it happening. Finally."

"Can we survive it?" The elf asked her cautiously.

She rolled onto her back again, lifting up her wrists to stare at her cuffs. Eyes locking onto the burning runes about to give way. She smiled sadly and shook her head, "Between gods and men... There can be no war. How can you fight a volcano exploding? How can you turn the tides back when they swallow your islands? When gods fight, mortals bleed."

"Are you mortal?"

She laughed bitterly, "That's a dumb fucking question."

"The answer isn't obvious to me."

The neko rolled her eyes, "The answer isn't obvious to the divine. Exy is Exy. She's an anomaly, like her Oma. She's also as interested in being sucked into that shit as Oma is."

"Oma? I... Am not familiar with your family tree." He said uncertainly.

She shrugged, "Mother's adoptive mother. The White Witch."

"Oh, for fuck's sake." He shivered, "Eratigan is actually real?"

Exilia laughed quietly, and then yawned, "Mmm. Anyways, she used too much magic. So she wants to sleep. He can either take off his pants and fuck her, here on his desk, or he can pretend not to want her, and she'll curl up here until he's ready to do it."

"I am not going to ra-"

"She's giving him permission." She rolled her eyes and reached for her belt, "She's had a lonely while, and she sorta likes him. He's loyal to her mother's memory, at any rate. Which is as much as she's gonna get. So... He can dick her. If he wants."

He offered a flimsy excuse, "You're the princess."

"She's an exile." Exilia retorted.

She slipped her pants down to her ankles and laid back again, waiting for him to make up his mind. She was pretty sure if she used root of norbark, along with crysanthimums, this time, then her next tincture should be able to offset the lust for another couple of hours.

Unfortunately, getting access to alchemy materials was probably going to be a problem if they dumped her in the palace dungeons. After the escape of the kitsune, her mother had set up a few special cells for people that had unreasonable skill or power. If Exy ended up in one of those, she wasn't even sure if she'd be able to get out, again.

Not that the cell could hold her - it'd just set off her unstable control.

Couldn't really call it escaping the prison if she blew the whole thing up and got buried in the rubble. Living through something like that might be beyond her means.

She looked in concern to the elven captain, "Seriously? He's... Not... Going to fuck her? Come on! She hasn't had any for... Fuck! She nearly let a bunch of fucking Darkthorn inside her, this morning. She's upset and angry. Please. Just take out your dick, and put it in her! She's hungry."

"You never need to fear that I would... Do such a thing."

She swung her legs over the edge of the desk and spread her knees, showing off her womanhood. "Captain. Just so we're clear... Exy wants him to fuck her. Not because politics. Not because prisoner. Because she wants to get fucked. She needs it. Needs it bad. If he rejects her, then he better not let any of his sailors near her, because Exy might bed the entire fucking ship. She wants it."

"I... What?"

The neko slung her cuffs behind his neck and pulled him in close, surrounding herself in his nervous scent. She purred and rubbed her face into his chest, "She has a problem. Genetic. She's always in heat. It's the elf in her. Exy needs it. She needs to get off, or she goes wild. Loses control. Sometimes she uses toys or fruit... But with so many sweaty men around her... They're tempting. If she becomes the captain's plaything, it protects both Exy, and his crew."

"You're royalty." He continued to resist her.

She looked up at him with innocent blue eyes, "At least let her blow him. It'll do something for her. Please?"

"I..."

She tugged his head gently down and kissed him. Her musk would be playing havoc with his hormones by now. She knew it wasn't exactly fair, but she also knew he respected her, deeply. She'd do her best to ease his guilt... Tomorrow. For tonight, as the crew worked to repair the ship enough to limp back into port, she would have him.

Her tongue entered his mouth. She felt him begin to resist, and purred hungrily. Pulling at the cuffs to press his mouth in harder. She could feel her ever-warm slit begin to drip onto his desk in anticipation. She wasn't going to let herself be interrupted this time. A trickle of magic locked the door, and cut off sound to the world outside the room.

"Please." She whispered, begging him. "Please."

"Princess..." He said in concern.

She hissed in frustration at him, and pulled her bound wrists back from around his neck. Grabbing his pants and dropping to her knees in the same motion. His manhood was stuck at a floppy semi, which she almost took as a personal insult.

Exilia glared up at him with her blue eyes as she put her mouth around him. Her tongue running quickly up and down the ridges of an elven cock, slathering him, coaxing him urgently.

"Gods, woman!" He gasped in surprise, "I shouldn't be..."

He was cut off as his eyes rolled back, and her tongue found the nerve cluster buried between the ridges on the head of his cock. She treated it like an experiment, prodding and jabbing at the nerves until they did what she wanted and replaced his rationality with instinctive desire.

She growled in anticipation as he finally began to harden, swelling up in her mouth. Exilia began to bob her head, taking him as deeply into her throat as she could. Control of her laryngeal muscles was on full display as she squeezed and caressed him, breathing heavily through her nose.

If she couldn't get hold of any norbark root, then, potentially she might be able to find a way to adapt mugwart. It was a common enough weed, but if she purified it under direct moonlight, in the saliva of a succubus, she might just be able to extract a pitiful amount of the chemical she needed. It was a possibility worthy of her attention.

She snarled angrily as he went to hold her head, threatening to put her teeth into him. No one touches a neko's fucking head. What would it take for everyone to learn that stupid damn lesson? It was something every kitten damn well knew.

The elven captain pulled back his hand quickly, and she replaced the threat with eagerness to try and offset the loss of lust she'd just inflicted on him. She really didn't want to delay getting good and fucked any longer than she had to.

Exilia released him sloppily, before standing and turning, leaning onto the desk as the runes on her cuffs burned out, and the rough iron cracked and crumbled. She waved her hips at him, and began sketching the symbolic components of mugwart onto his desk with a claw.

He entered her slowly, savouring every inch of her. She smiled blissfully, and let out a low moan, as she continued to spin out the alchemic structures. Gods, he actually had a decent dick. She hadn't been expecting that. Mugwart was infuriatingly stable, so much so she'd never really given much thought to breaking it down.

Stable alchemical structures were both desirable and undesirable. If it was stable, then it was safe to transport, which was good. However, it also meant that bonding it to something else was difficult. She didn't know of anyone who had extracted noressence from mugwart, even though it did theoretically contain all the right components.

She cooed as he held her hips and began to move in and out of her soaking depths. She was practically dripping onto the floor as each bump of the natural rings around his cock rubbed through her tightness. There was a reason elven men were paid more by the whorehouses.

What she really needed to do was sunder the components, down to the base elements, filter and reconstruct. It was the dream of every alchemist, but sundering wasn't exactly a well understood science, yet. "Oh gods. Oh, right there! Fuck!"

Her blue eyes widened and saw empty nothingness as he really began to saw into her. Her top lip pulled back, revealing that her top right incisor was curled. A pain when cleaning her teeth, but a mark of her esoteric birth. She moaned loudly, encouraging him.

"Fuck her, harder! Fuck!" She yelled, leaning heavily onto her elbows and dropping her head. It wasn't just her imagination, after not having any for so long. This captain was actually half-decent at what he was doing. "Shiiit. Make her cum. Make her cum!"

To purify the mugwart, she'd need to burn it, then soak the ash in a strong alkaline at least overnight. His balls struck her sensitive clit, obliterating the thought with a surge of ectasy that had her knees trembling.

Soak it, and then... Exilia dropped her head, moaning loudly and giving up. He was a decent fuck. She loved the feeling of him inside her, how mercilessly he pounded against her despite having tried so hard to resist her just a short while ago.

Cum! She needed to add Tauran semen to the mix, before she forgot. She hastily scrawled a reminder to herself. She did always forget that the most male of hormones was essential to balancing out any changes to herself.

Her knees were practically knocking together as her hungry slit poured down the insides of her thighs. Twisting rivulets of her light and thin fluid interwined with his heavier precum, spilling as he pulled back, before squelching on the return stroke.

Exilia's eyes rolled back in her head as she felt the heavy urge beginning to dull. Felt her body relaxing as the impossible and desperate urge finally began to ease. She felt the weight lift, and felt free. She barely even noticed the orgasm arrive, because of the freedom from the incescant desire left her giddy.

She yawned and went back to her alchemy, waiting for him to finish.

---

Kristen was rattled, and shaking, as the ratboy dragged a box on top of the closed trapdoor. He didn't look at all like he was confident that thing in her basement would agree to stay in the basement.