Uncertain Future Ch. 04

For the longest time there was only darkness. Then Lara saw it, the light, shining in the distance. At first it was dim, but it shone gradually brighter. And brighter. And brighter. Too bright in fact, it became irritating. She opened her eyes.

Lara jolted and screamed. The fall. That was the first thing she remembered when she regained consciousness. But she was not falling, she was on solid ground now. She felt the ground with her hands. Yes, it was really solid, wood solid, it felt. She couldn't see the floor as the blinding glare was still shining at her face. Then the light weakened. It took a few seconds for Lara to regain her vision. And when she did, she realized, for the second time in a few days, she was imprisoned again, this time in a wooden cage.

It seemed she was indoor as there was no sunlight anywhere, and the only light source was from the person standing in front of her. The stranger looked like a sorceress. She was a magnificent sight to behold. Her tall and slender body ensconced in a blue dress that failed marvelously to cover her up at places where it should. The tight bodice split in the middle, showing ample cleavage. The hem of the dress was a mass of delicate tassels that generously showed off her long full legs whenever she moved. Her skin was smooth as silk and her face resembled the idealized images of goddesses from ancient statues. Her entire body oozed sensuality, seemingly molded to arouse unsuspecting eyes. In her right hand she was holding a lavishly ornate wooden staff topped with a bright gem emitting a soft purple light. Purple...?

"Are you that bird-woman on the tower?" Lara asked after she connected the dots.

"Good observation," the sorceress remarked with a slick as ice voice. She entered the cell and walked towards Lara. The young priestess involuntarily crawled back away from the advancing witch until her back touched the cage. Lara felt uneasy with this woman, her intuition told her there's something unnatural about this witch. The lustrous woman extended her hand and held Lara's face, she twisted and turned Lara's head as she studied every facet of her face.

"How old are you?" asked the sorceress.

"I'm twenty," Lara muttered. The sorceress's hand was the same as her voice, cold as ice.

"What's your name?"

"I'm Lara. Who are—?"

"Good, good," the witch said with a satisfied smile. Letting go of Lara, she stood up and walked out of the cell. "Come with me," she said.

"Who are you? Why are you taking me here?" Lara asked sheepishly.

"You can call me Melisza. You're here for a special reason, dear Lara. Come with me and you'll find out," she said while waited at the cell's door for Lara. She still wore a smile, but it definitely not to show friendliness.

Lara stood up, and in the process realized something's different about her. What is she wearing? She wasn't wearing the dull servant dress, but a white, thin, almost sheer, ankle-length dress. It fit her perfectly, as if it was tailored for her. She gave Melisza a confused look.

"You'll find out soon enough," the witch repeated, the mysterious smile never faded on her face.

"Let's go." Melisza chirped cheerfully and Lara meekly followed the witch. She had so many questions, and witch's reticence made Lara anxious.

As they walked through a narrow corridor, Lara noticed many strange things about this place. The floor and the wall were made of wood. There wasn't any light sources except from Melisza's staff and crystal balls hanging from the ceiling that magically lighted up whenever Melisza walked under them. Lara heard the sound of bird chirping coming from somewhere, and judging from the constant chirping there must be a lot of them. Finally, they made it into a big room filled with sunlight. She could see the sky above through a giant hole on the ceiling, and above the hole, schools and flocks and hordes and mobs of birds of all kinds was flying or perching. Lara saw green leaves and big branches above the hole, providing natural shades. Suddenly it made sense to Lara: she was inside a tree the whole time. And this must have been some sort of sundeck for the witch. Melisza must have carved out her own lair from this giant tree.

But there was no time for sightseeing as Melisza descended a wooden staircase. Lara followed her, and the light above faded gradually, but never diminished completely.

At the bottom of the stair was a round room. At first Lara couldn't make out what was in it because the room was near pitch black, but Melisza waved her staff and the room brightened up. Lara gasped when she saw light spread above her head as dozens of candles floating in the air were lit simultaneously.

Lara looked around. It was a spacious living room with no windows. She saw chairs, tables, drawers and bookshelves. Scattered about were some tapestries and unknown items of decorations made of feathers mounted on the wall. On the opposite side of the room were double doors, and just like almost everything else in this lair, it was made out of wood. But the thing that caught Lara's attention was something lying in the middle of the room. As she and Melisza walked towards it, Lara could slowly make out the shape out the thing. It was a creature actually, a very big one. He prostrated on the floor and lay motionless, there was a thin layer of black fur on his body and most noticeably, a pair of ivory horns extruded from his head.

"Recognize him? I took you away from his fort?" Melisza whispered into Lara's ear, whose eyes were still glued on Tarok's body. He was wearing brown leather pants and a tattered white shirt with multiple slashes on it, and he had no weapon on his body. Lara couldn't answer, she was stunned and utterly confused. What had happened here?

As if reading Lara's mind, Melisza started explaining. "Well, your master and his ruffians rode here trying to attack me. How foolish! I got the upper hand, since I saw their scouts riding away from my nest earlier, so I was prepared. Killing the men was easy. But him. Oh, he was a real piece of work. He destroyed probably a hundred of my tree guards. Only my strongest spell could bring him down."

"Is...is he dead?"

"Dead? Oh, no. I'm not done with him yet. I have plans for him. And for you too, dear Lara," Melisza whispered into Lara's ear. Her breath was cold, and it made Lara's skin crawled.

The seductive witch left Lara's side and strode towards Tarok. She gripped the staff by the tip and swung it, knocking Tarok's horn with the other end. Golden sparks flew the moment wood and horn met, causing the minotaur's body to jerk slightly. He awoke from his slumber and grunted.

"Get up," Melisza spat.

Tarok panted hard as he struggled to prop himself up, his tense muscles straining under his own weight. Melisza must have cast an impressive spell to make him like this. At last, he managed to sit on his knees. Lara noticed he couldn't rise further due to the fetter tying his hooves to the floor. His hands was also cuffed, and the handcuff tied to the floor through a short chain. The giant minotaur flexed his arm and yanked hard at the chain, but it didn't give. He tried again, harder, but still nothing happened. He studied the chain. Lara saw the surprise on his face, but faint purple glow on the chain let Lara knew Melisza had enchanted it.

"Stop wasting your energy," the witch said, already walked back a step to keep out of Tarok's reach. "My enchanted chains are stronger than your brute strength can ever be."

"Why do you keep me alive?" he muttered under his breath, still hadn't looking up. His voice was low enough to be barely audible but was filled with a suppressed anger that reminded Lara of his earlier rage.

"Hmm, you're straightforward, huh. No 'Where am I?' or 'What are you going to do to me?' or 'Please don't hurt me'?" she said in a girlish mocking voice.

Tarok remained silent, but his anger was barely contained now as steam blew through his muzzle. Melisza grinned. As she was walking back towards Lara, the witch said, "Don't want to talk to me, huh? Then maybe, you would like to talk with someone you know." Melisza grabbed Lara's shoulders and shoved her forward forcefully, sending her falling face down in front of Tarok. When she had gotten up on her knees, she saw a pair of blue eyes, just a foot away from her, staring at her in disbelief.

"WHY IS SHE HERE?" Tarok roared at the smirking witch.

"Stop screaming! You'll scare the birds. I bring her here of course. Oh, did I mentioned that I drop by your camp? After you had so thoughtfully trekked through the forest just to 'visit' my home, I could not but return the favor. It was very entertaining to see your men cut down to pieces by my tree guards, to hear their screams of anguish, to see the camp burned to ashes. I wonder what they will think if they know their leader did this to them. Hmm?" The sorceress hummed in a mock girlish sound. Tarok avoided her eyes. "But sadly, I couldn't stay till the end, I got my prize, and so I must head back."

"What are you talking about? What prize?" Tarok inquired.

"She's kneeling right in front of you." Melisza gestured towards Lara. She immediately felt her blood run cold. Her? The prize? What does that witch want from her?

"Confused, huh? Well, you'll know later, I don't want to ruin the surprise. Anyway, truth be told, payback was just one of the reasons for my short trip to your camp. Through your accompanying minions I learned of a young female slave in your possession. A Verea's priestess no less. What a coincidence, I though. I need a young girl right now. So I make the trip, prepare to fight my way through the fort to find this girl. But I don't even need to do that. She was standing right on top of the tower, ready for me to grab. It was surprising how easy everything was." She boasted in a singsong voice while parading around her bounded prisoners.

"What did you do to them? The four men who follow me?"

"I left them where I found them. Dead, of course. Don't feel too bad, once I got everything I want to know, I let them meet their ends quickly. Sadly, the same can't be said about you."

"What do you want from me?" Lara shouted. The witch's refusal to let Lara know anything about her intention vexed the young girl immensely, and Lara couldn't keep quiet anymore.

The alluring sorceress didn't answer right away. Her previous taunting grin now turned mysterious as she strolled towards the young priestess. "Don't be impatient. Soon you'll find out. I promised," she said, her hand playfully pinched Lara's cheek. Lara turned her head away from the witch's hand.

"Stop torturing the girl and start explaining yourself, you bitch," Tarok growled.

"OH. What shocking language! How dare you call me that, you ungrateful beast? After what I have done for you? Don't you remember how important I was to you? Don't you—"

An explosive clank of the chain cut Melisza off. Tarok had plunged towards the witch but couldn't grab her as the enchanted chains held firm, denying his advance and forcing him to fall back into his place. Lara was terrified, she had never seen him this angry before, not even when she mistakenly kissed him. His flared nostrils was blowing out steam, his teeth gritted tightly, his biceps and neck muscles flexed as he wrestled with the chains.

Melisza flinched at the outburst but hold her ground, the grin never disappeared from her face. "Well, well, look like I make the bull's blood boil." She turned back to Lara. "Did he ever tell you about how much I meant to him? No? Well let me tell you a story."

"Shut up." Tarok grunted bitterly. He'd slumped to his knees, defeated.

"You might be surprised to hear this," the witch started, ignoring the seething giant, "that the dumb beast in front of you is not the same as the rest of the minotaurs. He was a very special thing. You see, his mother was human, only his father was a minotaur. How, you might wonder, is this possible? After all, when the gods created man and elf and minotaur and all other creatures, they make sure that their creations wouldn't be able to breed with each other, lest they spawn some horrific abomination that offend the gods' visions of life. And it was one of the laws that govern this universe, from the dawn of time up until...him. I created him. I cast the spell that give life to him. I make the impossible happen. I, Melisza, had defied the gods," she gloated, her voice became more and more excited until she realized she was ranting and calm herself down. Still, she couldn't hide the pride in her tone. "His father was some chieftain from a tribe in the north-western mountain range, and his mother the chief's slave, probably a whore—"

"SHUT UP, YOU EVIL B—"

A purple lightning bolt, accompanied by a screeching 'zzzt' sound, flew from Melisza's staff straight to Tarok's chest. His body immediately tensed up, and he collapsed into a heaving pile on the ground.

"How rude of you, to cut off a lady like that," Melisza scoffed, visibly annoyed at Tarok for breaking her train of though. "Anyway, I put my spell on his mother, just to see what would happen. I really didn't know if it would work or not. But it did. A few months later, she was visibly pregnant. I can only imagine the reaction the pregnancy caused to those mountain bulls. Too bad I can't really stay to see what happened next. After I left, I have always wondered what became of the child. Until today, when the minotaur from years ago, in flesh, came and showed himself to me."

"You didn't know...if it...would work...or not," Tarok said between breath intakes as he propped himself up, "because you didn't invent that spell. Your teacher, Talina the Alchemist did. You steal it from her, along with all of her arcana and alchemy research. Even the staff in your hand was stolen from her. You killed Talina, you betrayed your own teacher. You cast the spell, not for the benefit of knowledge, but out of twisted curiosity. You didn't care if the spell kill my mother or not, you didn't care about what she had to go through. You couldn't stay to see what happened, because you feared the other alchemists would learn of your treachery and come to hunt you down. So you had to run, and hide like a dirty RAT." He explained, a smug grin appeared on his face when he saw Melisza's facial expression. "Surprised, huh? All these years I'd try to find you. I traveled the land, I'd gather what information I could find about you. And I found you at last. You'll pay for what you did to me."

Throughout Tarok's speech, Melisza's countenance turned from slight annoyance to visible surprise to full-blown panic. Finally, the stew of emotions petrified into a cold, stiff grimace of anger.

"And what is it exactly that I have done to you, except giving you life, making you exist. You. Owe. Me. Your. Life. You should be thankful for me, you stupid, ungrateful bastard," barked Melisza.

"I didn't ask to be born like this," Tarok screamed at the sorceress, venting his deep-seated grievance at her. "You couldn't imagine the pains I've gone through. You made my life miserable. You made my mother's life a living hell. All because of who I am. I'll make you regret the day you cast that fucking spell, the day you thought you could toy with people's life like that. You hear me?"

Melisza didn't answer to his threat, nor making any response at all. In fact, she didn't seem intimidated by it one bit. Her face slowly relaxed from the stiff anger as she composed herself.

"Whatever," she sneered. "Look at the chains on your hands and feet before you make threats, filthy beast. Life's too hard for you? Tell it to someone who cares. You're my slave now, my personal toy, understand? I can do whatever I want to you. I made you, and I can destroy you. Easily." She retorted before turning around and walked away from Tarok.

"Anyway, I'm tired of talking. I keep you alive for my entertainment, not for arguing," the witch said, reverted to the sweetened singsong voice as before. Her demeanor had also changed, she walked confidently and acted in charge again. She pointed her staff at Tarok, but no lightning bolt came out or anything; instead the chain tying Tarok's hands lighted up and the chain slackened. It had been magically lengthened.

Setting herself down on a comfortable seat that looked like vines that had twisted and bent to the shape of a chair, Melisza said, "I'd always heard about the strength and power of minotaurs. Today, I saw you perform in battle, and I must say that was most impressive. But now, I want to see the other kind of prowess that people also say about minotaur. So give me a demonstration with the girl. Make her scream for me."

"What...did you say?" Tarok uttered after a moment of stunned silence.

Melisza sighed. "Why are you so stupid? You have the head of a bull and the brain of one too? Fuck. The. Girl. With your cock. Ravage her on the floor. Do it like how you animals like to do it. Tore off her clothes or beat her or something. Just make it exciting," she spoke with a casualness like that of a matron directing her servants to clean the house, and not of a witch giving instructions to an extremely perverted act.

Tarok stared at the evil witch, then at Lara. She hadn't move from her place and was still on her knees after being shoved by Melisza. Even though her face was obscured by her black hair, one could tell, through the trembling of her petite body, how she was feeling right now. He turned to face Melisza again.

"You want entertainment, huh. I got a better idea. How about you shove that staff up your cunt and go fuck yourself," Tarok said under gritted teeth.

Melisza looked like she'd had kicked Tarok if she was standing near him.

"Stupid and stubborn! I guess it's my fault. I should have disciplined you first." Melisza raised her staff. It flashed and a bolt of lightning flew hit Tarok again. Before he could recover, 4 more bolts successively flew through the air and zapped him. He cried and collapsed on the ground. A faint smell of burned fur permeated the air. But that much lightning was not enough to take down Tarok completely, because after a moment of huffing and panting, he pushed himself back up.

"Give up yet?" inquired Melisza.

"F—fuck you." Tarok uttered under his breath.

Again a string of thunder strokes zapped Tarok. Again he collapsed. And again he rose up, still defiant of Melisza's order.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" the annoyed sorceress groaned, "I give you permission to fuck. Isn't that you minotaurs do all day besides killing each other? And you refused?"

"The girl is mine, and I, alone, decide what to do to her. And it definitely, not fucking, for your entertainment." Tarok replied hoarsely through each intake of breath.

"I don't get this!" the witch said, shaking her head in bewilderment. She turned to Lara. "Lara. Tell me, how was sex with him like? Did he tend to refuse a fucking like this?"

Having been forgotten during Melisza and Tarok's verbal fight, Lara at first didn't realize that Melisza was talking to her. Only after a few seconds did she come to her senses and Melisza's words were processed in her distraught mind.

"I...I don't know!" she answered meekly, her voice shook from fear.

"What do you mean you don't know? How did he fuck you?"

"He...he didn't," she replied truthfully.

"What?" Melisza eyes narrowed into a probing squint then slowly widened. "He didn't fuck you? As in, he didn't penetrate you with his cock?"

Lara nodded.

"How long have you been his slave?"

"About a week."

"Are you telling me, that he, a freaking minotaur," she said, pointing a finger at Tarok, "captured a Verea's virgin and still keep you as a virgin?" Lara obediently affirmed this with a slight nod.

"Wow, this, this is amazing. I can't believe my luck. I have a virgin in my hand," the witch exclaimed in a cheery, shrill voice. "You surprise me, Tarok. I didn't expect a beast like you to have that level of self-restrain. Oh, thank you, Tarok. Thank you for saving her for me."