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Anise’s world was a riot of pain.
The Sable Scourges had been called to the small town of Gemmelheim to discover what was causing a marsh just north of the town to turn into a poisonous mire. They’d hunted down and crossed blades with a monstrous two-tailed scorpion; in the final moments of the fight, Anise had seen a second beast dropping from the crooked willows above towards Quinlynn. She’d tried to push the gatewarden to safety while pressing herself into the shadows of existence.
She hadn’t counted on the creature’s sting being equally immaterial.
“Priest Sinter! We need help!” She was in Kharzel’s arms, of course. The poor woman would be blaming herself. Anise tried to tell her that it was alright, but the motion set off a new wave of pain and she blacked out.
She woke moments later, the feel of dirt and rock on her back and warmth on her face. Anise forced her eyes open, jet black irises staring into the golden eyes of the head priest of Gemmelheim. He was a tall human, with thick red hair and worry on his face. “Did you use any healing magic on her?”
Quinlynn was there, tears streaking her face. “A few potions. It was the best I had, we don’t have an alchemist on our team.” she said.
Sinter placed a hand on Anise’s forehead, smiling down at her. “Not to worry. Ivrar dislikes fae magic, but she was injured protecting his domain. That should help. Is she claustrophobic?”
Anise tried to chuckle. It came out sounding too much like a death rattle for her comfort. But Quinlynn laughed for her. “The exact opposite,” she said.
“Good. Then I’m going to bury her, and call on Ivrar to restore her.” Sinter placed a hand on the ground, on either side of Anise’s head. “Ivrar, your priest needs you. Your land needs you.”
The ground rumbled, and the earth began to move like water, small waves splashing over Anise’s polished-oak skin and covering the half-shredded black leather that she preferred to wear. She felt her arms slip into the ground, and then her legs; more dirt began to pour over her breasts, gathering around her stomach and thighs like a comfortable blanket. A pillow of tiny rocks gathered around her head, pulling her dark green hair out of its ponytail to cascade around her like a halo, and for a moment, the agony rippling through her was replaced by the comfortable sensation of the ground pressing around her. The earth pressed down on her stomach, and there was a moment of disorientation before she felt the flows of mana running through her, replacing the breath in her lungs. It was pleasant and dizzying, like taking a deep breath just as you surfaced from a long swim.
Then the pain was back, stars dancing in the blackness around her. ‘Little adventurer, you are not well,’ the world spoke to her.
Anise tried to shrug, but the ground was packed around her, pressing her legs together and crossing her arms across her stomach. She tried to open her mouth to speak, and the ground pushed back. All that emerged was a muffled, quiet moan of pain.
‘You slew the beast blighting my lands; that will account for much of my price. But purging such a poison will weaken me. Will you give some of your vitality to me?’
Anise gritted her teeth, grunting again. Elementals had a tendency to forget that the Kin needed air to speak. She felt lucky enough that this one had remembered that she would need to breathe. Pushing through the pain, she tried to direct the thought ‘I will’ to the spirit.
‘Then let us heal together.’
Anise felt grains of dirt slipping through the tears in her ruined leather, running against her skin like a thousand tiny fingernails, too light to tickle but just enough to run shivers across her skin. Like all dryads, Anise didn’t get goosebumps, but she’d had the feeling explained to her and she imagined that this was what it was like. As the rocky stream ran over her, she felt the earth pull at her clothing, tearing it away in slow strips and exposing more of her skin to the gentle cascade, a slowly widening shiver that grew to cover her whole body.
Nestled in the earth were pebbles, each one smooth and cool. As they danced across Anise’s skin, she felt the poison of the scorpion leaching out of her, pinpricks of heat that danced across her. She gasped, the sound swallowed in her throat as the earth held her face tight within itself. Where the earth rubbed across her like a stiff brush, cleaning and sensitizing her skin, the stones followed it gently, and in their wake she felt sensation return, the pain gnawing at her nerves driven off one line at a time, and she felt her mind slowly clearing as the poison was carried away to the far corners of the elemental’s realm, to be gradually and carefully dissolved.
She hung in the darkness as the earth moved over her, relentless and resolute. She’d been entombed before, as part of her games with Creidhne, but even her Emissary’s work could not compare to this. Every part of her was engulfed, completely unable to move, and she was desperately aware of how dependent she was on Ivrar’s goodwill. The gentle stream running over her could pick up speed, scouring her skin, or crush her in a heartbeat. He could withdraw the gift of breath that let her live, leave her squirming and gasping for air.
But accompanying that knowledge was the certainty that he would not. Ivrar had said that they would heal together. To an elemental, all words were oaths, and all oaths were sacred. The wrong fae might twist that statement, but she knew that in the hands of the forest god, she was perfectly safe.
Anise longed for that dichotomy, and her awareness of it brought a flush that had nothing to do with healing. The certainty of knowing that someone had power over her, and would never misuse it was what had drawn her to her Emissary in the first place. Finding it here was a surprise, and a delight. So when the earth began to shift in its patterns, running across her body in gently rasping circles, she was primed to respond.
Belatedly, she realized what Ivrar had meant when they had made their deal. Wracked by pain, she’d assumed that the vitality she would donate would be blood, or spiritual essence. Something to replace what he was losing. She had forgotten that he was an elemental of the forest. He was seeking fertilization.
She was, fortunately, in a position to give him what he wanted, and all that she had to do was respond.
With the poison purged from her system, she was ragged, exhausted, and simultaneously filled with a surge of relief. The earth moving around her was in total control, and she didn’t try to fight it. She panted softly, essence-infused air circling through her lungs, rising up to her mouth and then swallowing back down, stars bursting behind her eyes as she lay in the darkness. It was almost as though a thousand hands were running over her, all directed by a single will, each one attuned to her responses. When there was a moment of wincing or twitching away, the earth quickly shifted. When she shivered or swallowed a moan of anticipation, the swirls picked up speed, running across her in quick succession, tiny pebbles vibrating against her most sensitive points.
Along with the stimulation, larger rocks began to appear. They lined up against the muscles of Anise’s back and legs, pressing in and then pulling out as though massaging her. The stone-driven massage was at once painful and relaxing, pushing out the remnants of pain from her poisoning while leaving her muscles even more limp and exhausted, vulnerable to the pleasure still rippling across her body. Anise felt her fingers trying to flex against the earth, but it was packed in so tightly that she couldn’t even press them down towards each other. In response, the earth around her hands began to pulse as well, sending light caresses across her fingertips and palm, and she gasped at the touch.
As the heat within her built, Anise felt Ivrar’s presence in her mind once again. “Do you wish me within you? Will you align with me?”
Yes. She couldn’t imagine anything that she wanted more. Her body was on fire again, this time with desire. As ragged and tired as she was, hanging on the edge was almost overwhelming, and she begged with her thoughts. Come inside me, please. Join with me. Surround me. Make me yours, just for these moments.
The elemental’s response was a warm chuckle. “You are more eager even than my priest,” the elemental said, his words causing the earth around Anise to rumble. She could feel every syllable on her skin, commanding and nurturing all at once. “I will not deny you your communion.”
Slowly, she felt the stone shaping itself around her, pressing against her nether lips. She moaned as she felt it slide a half-inch in, and then out again, and her moans rippled through the earth around her, earth wetting from her saliva into a second member that began to push gently into her mouth. Although it was wet and giving, Ivrar’s power kept it whole as she took it in, her mouth filling with a rich, but mild, loamy taste.
Ivrar was a gentle lover, but a relentless one. Each of Anise’s gasps and moans reverberated through the elemental’s body, leaving her an open book as he focused his efforts. His crafted tools alternated, the one in her mouth sliding in as the one below withdrew, then pulling out as a powerful thrust made her whole body shudder against him. She would have bucked and twisted, but the earth around her was still holding her perfectly still, grains of dirt continuing to caress her body and drive her to new heights of pleasure. Her joy and lust echoed back into the elemental, and his form began to rumble as he absorbed it, sending an entirely new strain of vibrations back through her. The two of them continued to build on one another, Anise’s own arousal feeding out into Ivrar and back into herself, every part of her body being teased and stimulated as she let her thoughts drift away and her emotions dissolve into unfocused bliss. Her mental restraints slipped away bit by bit, the last bulwarks of control that she left up out of habit breaking down under the steady, beautiful communion. No fear, no worries, no need even to focus on what she could give him in return for what he was giving her. The only thing that she could do was the only thing that he wanted her to do - succumb to the sensations, and give him her climax.
And she did. Her orgasm erupted through her like a volcano, every nerve ending engulfed with overwhelming pleasure, and Ivrar drank it down, his efforts redoubling as he began to thrust within her with newfound vigor and strength. A second climax followed the first in less than a minute, and then a third. Anise’s world, already reduced to the feeling of Ivrar against her, dissolved completely as she gave of herself to the elemental who had saved her. She could feel the ground around her rippling as the elemental mirrored her reactions, her sensual energies flowing out into his roots and eddies.
As the string of orgasms subsisded, leaving her body wrung out, Ivrar held her close, the elemental’s constructed members carefully withdrawing and the earth that bound her loosening just enough to let her continue to shiver within his embrace, the warmth of the land surrounding her and the feeling of satisfaction wrapped around her like a blanket. She let herself drift away, darkness finally overtaking her as the elemental nestled her to his breast. The last thing that she remembered before sleep swallowed her was Ivrar’s soft words.
'Well given, dryad, and well-received. It is a shame that the fae found you before I did. You would have made a truly wondrous priestess.’
When Anise woke, she was lying on the soft sheets of a cot in the small temple attached to Ivrar’s garden, skin gleaming clean and hair carefully brushed out to one side. She could still feel the residual ache of her lovemaking in her muscles, the aftermath helping to mask the weakness that the poison had left behind. She let out a soft, happy groan as she opened her eyes, running one hand down her body.
Sitting in a chair next to the cot, Kharzel jerked awake. The large orc looked down at Anise, blushing faintly. “You’re awake!” she said. “Thank the spirits.”
"One in particular,” Anise said, voice still husky.
"I tried to put you under the covers, but you… uh… reacted…” Kharzel’s blush was even fiercer, as she looked everywhere except directly at her teammate.
Anise laughed gently. “I can believe that,” she said, sitting up slowly. “It’s alright, Kharzel. We’ve seen each other in more compromising situations than this.”
Kharzel coughed, clearly thinking back to some of the hijinks she and Raisa had been up to when Anise stopped by their rooms to collect them for a mission. “I know,” she mumbled. “I’m glad that you’re okay. Did the elemental demand much of you?”
“Nothing that I wasn’t freely able to give,” Anise assured her. “Is everyone else safe?”
Kharzel nodded. “You were the only one who was badly hurt. The priest was able to handle everyone else with his own theurgy.”
“I’m glad to hear it.” Anise stood, reaching down and wrapping the sheet she’d been laying on around herself like a sheer shawl. “I’m starving,” she admitted. “The healing process took quite a bite out of me. So to speak.” She chuckled softly. “Let’s go downstairs and reassure the others, and then I can give my thanks to Sintel and Ivrar properly.”
Kharzel’s head bobbed in a nod. “I’ll let them know you’re on the way,” she said, darting out the door.
As Quinlynn dressed herself, she looked out the window at the garden below, seeing how the earth was still rippling faintly where it had swallowed her. She wasn’t the only one who was still weak from her exertions. Perhaps she would have to return here, and offer a small worship from time to time.
It would be a pleasant way to pass an evening.