[b][u][center]A Study of Connections
Part 6
For a-lycotonum
By Draconicon[/center][/u][/b]








The night came and went, and another day of the festival was over. Hazel was happy to wake up in her own bed the next morning, and happier still to not have someone’s juices dripping out of her. The visions from last night…

The half-elf slowly sat up, wincing as she felt the wet spot in her sheets. She’d just sat in it, and her…dog pussy…squelched as it rubbed through the wet spot, squishing far more than a human sex would have done. It was still inflamed, heated, needy…

[i]The pendant…[/i]

Naked as she was, she barely felt shame as she let the blankets fall from her body, grabbing for the pendant that Sister Oakhoof had given her. She pulled it over her head, letting it fall against her throat and her breasts again. The heat slowly faded away, not quite gone, but better than it had been. She let out a slow sigh of relief, rubbing her face a few times as her sex stopped drooling, at least. 

It didn’t stop the stink, though. She reeked of sex, despite not having had any, and she groaned as she felt the oils of sweat dried into her skin. The bath was going to be needed for more than just the company and advice this morning. 

The half-elf dragged herself to the side of her bed, fumbling for her slippers before sliding them on. A robe followed, and she tossed a second one over her shoulders to change into after the bath. She didn’t want to wear the same sweat-soaked robe out of the bath as she had worn to it, and she didn’t want to soak herself with that stink all over again. 

Whispering a few purifying spells, she felt the power of Erastil flowing through her, a benevolence that was granted to the priests of the temple without having to pray and gain their spells the old-fashioned way. She would need to do that later, yes, but for now, she had his understanding, his gift. It kept the stink of sex from flowing out from under the robes, at the very least, and kept her from being exposed as…well, something that she didn’t want to believe she was just yet. 

With that done, she walked through the temple tree, doing her best to keep her head down and herself as uninteresting as possible. She ignored the clusters of other sisters and brothers that were up this early in the morning, and continued her passage through the more isolated corridors of the temple. Hazel wasn’t sure if she was projecting an aura of ‘leave me alone’, but at least nobody bothered to stop her. 

Eventually, she reached the bathing chambers, and the same clerk that had been there the last time was there today. 

“Meeting with Oakhoof again?” 

Hazel nodded. 

“Same bath.”

She nodded again, hurrying down the slender branches to the proper chamber. The longer that it took to get there, the more self-conscious that she felt. The half-elf wanted to feel better about herself, and in some ways, she almost wanted to take the pendant off. The whole thing just felt…better…when she was heated, when she was horny, when she was willing to show herself off. 

[i]No, no, that’s the corruption. The pendant helps. It keeps me focused on something other than…dick…[/i]

Or was it just dick?

The half-elf would have slapped herself if she wasn’t about to step into the bathing chamber with Sister Aster Oakhoof. The other woman would likely hear it from the other side of the door, and even if she didn’t, she’d see the mark that it would leave on Hazel’s face. The last thing that she needed was to give the impression that the hobgoblins that she was working with were violent. 

[i]Just…just keep going forward…you can do this…You can do this.[/i]

Taking a deep breath, she stepped into the bathing chamber, following the tree branches to the bigger branch that held the hot water. The antlered, elder elf woman looked up and smiled at her approach. 

“Hazel. It’s good that you made it.”

“I’m sorry for any delay. It was a long night.”

“And one that was profitable, I assume?”

“…Not in the way of the festival.”

“That wasn’t what I meant,” the older woman said. “Come. Join me.”

Despite having done this very thing the day before, Hazel still felt some slight shame as she started pulling her bathrobe off. She didn’t have the same option of disrobing piecemeal as she had done the day before, as she hadn’t had the chance to put on any underthings, but she still did it slower than she might have done before her transformation. As the robe slid down along her shoulders, exposing her breasts more and more, she did her best to keep her head down and not stare at the other woman. 

Not that she wanted to stare at Aster Oakhoof. At least, she didn’t think she did. The other woman had been a comfort, albeit a mixed comfort, but there was something…

[i]Focus![/i]

Pushing that weird feeling out of her head, she let the robe hit the floor. With her legs slightly spread, her blackened sex pushed forward more than it had any right to, and she could feel the throbbing of the clit hidden in the folds a little more than she was used to. She did her best not to focus on that, instead sliding her feet free from her slippers and making her way to the hot water. 

Aster watched her the whole time, the antlered elf keeping her eyes focused on various parts of Hazel’s body. It wasn’t the lustful stares that she had received from Vitus, nor the rather hungry looks that Vakrozad had given her, but rather something else. It was almost…

Almost possessive, she supposed, but that still seemed wrong. After all, why would a priestess of the church look at her like that?

“Let me tend to you,” the older woman said, nudging her ankle under the water with her hoof. 

“I…I’m fine.”

“Dear, you’re tense as can be. Allow me to relax you.”

“…I…if you say so…”

She extended her leg as she was bid, and her heel rested on the other woman’s bare thighs. She blushed as she tried to imagine that she wasn’t pressing her foot so close to another woman’s bare parts, and she looked up to the heavens as she cast about for some distraction or other. 

Not that there was any to be found after those thumbs went to work.

“Mmmph…”

“You allow yourself to be too tense,” the older elf said, shaking her head as her thumbs dug into the flesh at the arch, stroking, rubbing, pushing, massaging. “If you don’t relax, you will miss things.”

“I’m trying. It’s just…hard.”

“You are surrounded by monsters. That will put anyone on edge.”

“They’re not as bad as you think.”

“Hmmm.”

There was another gentle push, this time at the ball of her foot, and Hazel gasped, groaning under her breath as she started sagging down in the water. Pressure points. She remembered how the older woman had done that the last time, how they had relaxed her so much, and it was happening again now. She sagged down as her body started relaxing, going limp almost against her will. 

As Sister Oakhoof continued the massage, however, Hazel tried to focus more on the reason that she was there. She needed to talk to her superior about what was going on, what she could do. 

Aster had knowledge that few others in the temple did, borne out of experience and her old age. Tristan might have had more access to the temple due to his position as the high priest of the area, but that didn’t mean that he knew the same things that Sister Oakhoof did. She had been through more than any other member of the temple, and while her point of view was…skewed, as far as Hazel was concerned, there was still something there that she could glean. 

If she could focus well enough to talk, that was. 

As the elder sister’s fingers dragged their way along the top of her foot and the thumbs dug into each of her toes individually, Hazel groaned. Her words came out as grunts and whimpers at first, but eventually, she found her words. 

“Have you…have you ever heard of…Primal Points?” she managed to ask. 

“It isn’t a term that is widely bandied about, but I know of them, yes,” Aster said, cocking her head to the side. “Where did you hear it?”

“It’s – mmmph – it’s not important. Do you know what they are?”

“Oh, yes. They’re quite essential for the deeper workings of divine magic, after all. They have saved my life a few times.”

“What – ah…ah…”

She had to force herself to focus as the massage worked further down from the ball of her foot, the little relaxing rubs turning into something else. Something that warmed her, something that teased her. Her sex felt like it was swelling below the water, and she wasn’t sure that she liked that. She wanted…she wanted to…

[i]No, no, focus![/i]

Desperately holding thoughts of the vision at bay, Hazel kept talking. 

“I need to know what they are. If they’re what I think they are.”

“Dear, I can tell you that, if you don’t mind telling me where you heard the name.”

“But – ah…mmmph…oh, that feels…”

It was almost too good. The gentle, relaxing rubs were teasing her from head to toe, somehow, as if the pressure points were even more powerful than they had been just yesterday. There was a warmth that ran down from her neck to her ankles, something that made her feel nice and relaxed, gently soothing her further and further from that stressed headspace that she had been in after waking up. 

“Just let me know where you heard it, and we can discuss it.”

“Mmmph…”

“That’s not that hard to tell, is it?”

“I…ah…”

Another little rub, this time feeling like it was going right from her foot to her sex, making her feel wet in a whole new way. The slime inside of her felt almost like it was dribbling into the bathwater, and her cheeks burned. 

“Come now. Is it really that bad? It’s just stressing you holding it back. Let it loose and feel release.”

“I…I heard it from Mol.”

“And who is that?”

“The hobgoblin seer.”

“Hmm, I see…”

There was a sudden push, and Hazel gasped, her eyes going wide as she arched her back against the side of the bathtub. She…her pussy…

Clench, throb, clench, throb. There was a sudden heat that ran through her, a tingle of pleasure that was followed by a wave of it. Her entire body felt like it was seizing, like she was going into a spasm of – 

“NNNGH!”

Like a delayed orgasm, the whole thing ripped through her at once, and if she’d been standing, she would have been knocked flat on her ass. As it was, she pushed her foot more firmly against Aster’s grip, and her other one slid along the floor of the tub until it pressed against the other woman’s hooves. 

“That’s it…just let it loose…”

Hazel groaned, slipping further down as that orgasm continued to ripple through her, her nipples hardening, her breasts rising from the water, her eyes rolling back. The older woman didn’t even smile, but rather held that point on her sole, almost like she was holding down a button. The pressure kept the pleasure rolling, and by the time she took her thumb back, Hazel had almost passed out. 

As the pleasure slowly faded, she blushed, shaking her head. She couldn’t make eye contact with the other woman. 

“I’m sorry. I couldn’t…”

“You weren’t supposed to resist, Hazel.”

“But…but I just…”

“Fouled the waters?”

She blushed, but the older woman chuckled. Aster gestured at the clear waters around them, shaking her head. 

“It was merely release. You are fine.”

“But…you…”

“It isn’t a sexual thing to allow someone else that release, merely a different sort of treatment. It felt better to listen to me, didn’t it?”

“…It felt…interesting…”

“And it will feel better than that, as long as you do what you are told. You are a priestess of the temple, Sister Hazel. I am only looking out for your best interests.”

Something was wrong there, but there was such a comforting warmth lingering that Hazel didn’t question that statement. She merely closed her eyes and rested the back of her head against the edge of the tub. 

“Now, Primal Points. Doubtlessly, the seer of the hobgoblin tribe filled your head with a mismatched idea of what they are. The savages do not understand the beauty of such places. They are, of course, where the gods were formed.”

That did not match with what Mol had told her at all. According to the seer, the Primal Points were where great decisions were made, where the hard choices were finished. Where the gods were formed, though…

The massage continued, and her eyes slid down to a more relaxed state again as she listened. 

“The Great Gods were there before the creation of the universe. They stood against the chaos that was all that existed before them, and they were the ones that laid the ground work for those that would come afterward. Their power of law and order restrained the chaos, forcing it to take form that could be molded, that could be worked, that could be made to support all life that would come afterward. 

“But they, of course, were merely the first of the gods. From the meeting point of order and chaos sprang forth other powers, other forms of life. Some were spirits of chance and destruction, creatures that stood for the old times, that wished nothing more than the destruction of their ‘prison’, as they referred to the form that the Great Gods had created for them. Others, more sympathetic to the life that had begun to form, were creatures that became the great fonts of nature that the druids touch, and still worship to this day. 

“But others…others were formed where the purest points of Order and Chaos touched each other, where life came about, and Order won the day. It is said that the forest contains one such place, where Erastil himself was born, and where he still takes his rest when the day comes to an end.”

That was not the same story as she had heard from Mol, not even in the slightest. Something had changed in the telling, or perhaps the church had a different story to the hobgoblins. 

But which was right?

Hazel knew that she needed to figure that out, but the soft touch of those fingers along her sole dragged her deeper and deeper into relaxation, and Sister Oakhoof had many more questions for her…

#

She returned to her room almost without thinking, mechanically and smoothly as a golem that was following orders. It wasn’t until she had taken off her robe in her room that she ‘woke up’ and realized that she had walked the entire way from the baths to her room barefoot, and that her clean feet had started to dust up again. 

[i]Well, that could be worse,[/i] she thought. [i]At least I have something to look for, now.[/i]

Primal Points. She had never heard the term before yesterday, but now she had two conflicting ideas as to what they were. They could be the birthplace of gods, or they could merely be the place where, as Mol said, something ‘big’ happened. The birthplace of a god certainly seemed big enough to deserve the name Primal Point, but was that all that it was? Or was there something that she was missing, something that Aster Oakhoof hadn’t told her?

[i]I’m suspecting my own people, now…[/i]

It wasn’t a good feeling, but at the same time, she didn’t know if she could just stop. Aster was a member of the church looking for a way for the hobgoblin mission to fail. She could easily be lying. 

Yet, at the same time, hobgoblins were monsters. Why was she willing to trust them over her own people?

Hazel knew the answer, and it was entirely down to the fact that the hobgoblins had been good to her from the moment they’d met. That, compared to the ‘family’ feeling in the temple, was more than she had ever expected. There were none of the judging aunts, none of the weird cousins that were looking for a way to corner her and fuck her, nothing that resembled the rough and tumble family politics that ran the temple as a whole. They were just people, people that wanted to be loved, people that wanted to love…

And they were too stupid to lie to her. 

That was a big one, she had to admit, and it made her wish that it was something different as she got dressed in a proper dress. It was still a bit on the tight side for her – she was starting to put on a little weight since she came back to richer food – but it did show her off rather nicely. Perhaps a little too nicely, if she was honest as she looked at the mirror. Her breasts seemed a little…obvious, she had to admit, and her hips were a bit wider than she would normally like to show in a dress like this. 

Before she could undress and try something else, however, there was a knock at the door. She blinked, calling for whoever it was to come in. 

It was a runner from the town, a young man that couldn’t have been more than sixteen. He panted, leaning against her door frame. 

“Sister Hazel, you have to – you have to come at once. There’s a – there’s a problem down at the baker’s.”

“What’s the matter? Is he alright?”

“For now, but he’s threatening his daughter, and the hobgoblin that she brought back.”

“What happened?”

“I don’t know, but they’re barricaded in the back, and he’s threatening them with a knife.”

“Lead the way,” she said. Shoes and other clothes would have to wait. 

#

She found the baker hammering on the door to the back of his bakery, and she could see through the windows at the back that a hobgoblin was pressing himself against the door to keep it closed. Shelves and other tables had served as improvised barriers against the windows, but she could still see through it. The minute that Hazel peered in, the baker’s daughter Siana leaned up. 

“Sister, please, help us!”

“What’s happened here?”

“I just…I brought him back, and…”

Hazel could already see what must have happened. The pair of them had come back from the dance the night before, they’d slept together, and the father had lost his temper. The fact that they were doing the right thing by merely staying safe rather than fighting back gave her hope, at least. 

As she walked into the bakery, she stared at the baker himself. Though an older man, he was wielding a cleaver – something that was better suited to a butcher than a baker – against the door, slamming the sharp end against the wood over and over again. 

“You bastard! You let her out right now, and I’ll just cut off your balls! Make me chop this door down, and I’ll cut off your fucking head!”

“Ahem.”

“I swear to Erastil, if you put your tainted seed in her, I’ll –”

“A-HEM!”

Hazel cleared her throat louder the second time, and the baker finally turned to look at her. He seemed to realize, suddenly, what he was doing, and he threw the knife down before pointing at the door. 

“Get them out of there, and get rid of that monster!”

“I’ll be the judge of monstrous actions today, sir. What happened here?” she asked, using her best ‘Sister of the Church’ voice that she could summon. 

“That bastard was here when I woke up, and he was balls-deep in my daughter!”

“Would that have been a problem if it were a human?”

“What?!”

“Or an elf?” she asked. 

The baker was descending into incomprehensible babbling, and his face was as red as a tomato. As far as she was concerned, he was driven entirely by rage, and there was no pleasing him. Not at this point. 

She walked around him, pressing her hand to the door. 

“Hello? This is Sister Hazel. If I guarantee your safety, will you open the door?”

“Yeah, if you can,” a grunting voice answered her.

“Safety?! I want him de-balled for what he did!” the baker said. 

“The term is ‘gelded’, if you want to use it properly,” Hazel muttered under her breath. “And nobody is doing that to anybody today.”

“Why the hell not?! He’s a monster! You don’t treat them like people!”

“And who says that?”

“I…you…”

“The hobgoblins are here at the invitation of the high priest of this church. Unless they break the laws first, you are to extend them the same hospitality that you are to extend to anyone that comes to our village. Do you understand?”

“They’re MONSTERS! They’ve always been monsters, and they always will be. What are you, some monster-lover?”

Hazel whipped her head from the door to the baker, and she fixed him with such a glare that he went still right then and there. The fact that she had her teeth gritted and that there was a hint of the divine power of Erastil flooding down her arms, making her glow, probably helped with that. 

“Are you implying that a life of love is restricted only to those like you?”

“I…I…”

“Are you saying that I, as a half-breed, as a hybrid, as a half-elf, am somehow less than you, merely because I had two different parents?”

“N-no, of course not.”

“Then what are you saying, hmm? Are you saying that, perhaps, your daughter is an idiot, that she is fouled beyond redemption because she let someone inhuman touch her?”

“…”

“I would suggest, good baker, that you leave. Step outside, and allow me to talk to your daughter and her lover alone.”

“…I –”

“Now.”

The baker stared at her for a second or two longer, then slowly bowed his head. He left the bakery, and his last expression of anger was to slam the door shut behind him. Hazel shook her head, turning back to the door that the lovers were hiding behind. 

“You can come out now.”

The door opened, and the hobgoblin and Siana stepped out. The hobgoblin was fairly typical. The same sort of half-furred, half-leathery hide that she had gotten used to seeing covered him from head to toe, and his clothes, such as they were, consisted of a pair of leather trousers and thick boots. He had a tusk on one side of his mouth but not the other, and he had a fresh wound across the side of his head. It looked like a knife wound…or a cleaver cut. 

“Come here,” she said, softening her voice. 

As he leaned down, she channeled the divine power of Erastil into the poor man. The cut healed under her warming hands, and the hobgoblin chuckled. 

“Thanks, lady.”

“You’re welcome. Is that better?”

“Yeah. Was getting a hell of a headache from that thing.”

“Well, at least that’s sorted. Now, Siana – oh. Where…”

She stared at the younger woman, or rather, at what she wore around her neck. It was a thick, leather collar that was pulled tight around the other woman’s throat, one that lacked a tag or anything else that a dog might have. She didn’t see any magical sigils on it, but merely seeing it brought back the memories of the vision. 

Hazel fought the urge to touch her own neck and succeeded, but that didn’t stop the phantom feeling of that vision, of being collared, of being held under Vakrozad from filling her mind. The idea of having that collar around her neck, of feeling someone pulling on it, dragging her down and…

Somehow, that made her ass clench. The other visions had shown her giving in to Vakrozad, allowing him to fuck her ass rather than her pussy, and the arousal that came from the visions nearly spoiled her right then and there. Hazel cleared her throat, taking a deep breath so that she could focus again. 

“Siana.”

“Yes, Sister Hazel?”

“What is that?”

“The, um, collar?”

The half-elf nodded. 

“Um…I…” Siana rubbed her finger around the edge of the leather band. “He gave it to me last night. He didn’t say what it was for, but…I liked it. And we had fun with it, heh…heh…”

“I see.”

Looking at the hobgoblin, she expected to see some sign of guilt, or shame, or something that would have revealed that he was caught out with something. Instead, he merely looked happy, almost like a man that had proposed and had the proposal accepted. He slapped his hand down on Siana’s shoulder, smiling wider than ever. 

“She looks good in it, doesn’t she? She’ll be a good wife, if she keeps it on.”

“…Siana. Do you know what that collar means?”

“I, um, I assumed that it was like a ring.”

“And you want to be with him?”

“…” The young woman looked up at her hobgoblin lover, and smiled. “I do.”

“Then…the blessings of Erastil upon you,” Hazel said, bowing her head to the pair of them. 

Much as she didn’t like the sight of the collar, she knew that there was nothing that she could do to take them apart now. They were moving in accords to what the festival was supposed to be about, and had indeed been about, for the last few centuries. The power of Erastil was meant to move those that were affected by it to make families, and they were definitely doing that. 

[i]I just hope that he means that she’ll actually be married to him as long as she wears the collar instead of…[/i]

The images of the vision threatened to return, and she pushed them out of her head. If it was cursed, then they would know soon enough. If it wasn’t, then it was merely a gift, and they were having fun, as they should. 

She bowed to the pair of them and walked out. She had scarcely made it out the front door when the baker growled again. 

“Monster-lover.”

“…What was that?” she asked, slowly turning to look over her shoulder. 

“You heard me. What, you already letting that hobgoblin chief fuck you? I thought a sister of the temple would have more class than that.”

Hazel took a deep breath, slowly letting it out. It was family politics again, except that this time it was the extended family judging her. It was the same as anywhere else; if you broke the unwritten statutes of what being in the family meant, you were ostracized or mocked until you fixed yourself. 

But there was nothing to fix here. Nothing that had gone wrong. It was everyone else that was messing this up. 

Looking over her shoulder at the baker again, she made sure to fix him with a solid stare. Bit by bit, he crumpled up, shrinking in on himself, his shoulders hunching as if he was trying to hide between them. She narrowed her eyes, and he winced. 

“I am a sister of the church, and what we stand for is love, devotion, and family. You are the one that believes that it must be stopped just because they aren’t like you. Think on how you stand for hate, then, before you start throwing insults at me.”

The baker didn’t say anything, and Hazel left him behind. As she walked back to the temple, she was reminded of having left it barefoot, feeling the dirt between her toes, the soft dust that was starting to cling to the bottom of her feet. It was like the vision, again, of her and Vakrozad fleeing through the forest while barefoot, the roots battering against their soles, their eyes fixed on the horizons as they fled from the village. 

[i]I am not making enemies. I am standing up for what is right.[/i]

Putting Siana and her lover out of her mind for now, she focused on the far-off temple again. She needed to get to the library and find out what the truth of the Primal Points were. Now that she knew what to look for, she was pretty sure that she could find out what she needed to know. 

Books might have the same lies as a person’s mouth, but they were easier to check, easier to verify or disprove. She could find what she needed there, provided that there wasn’t anyone in her way. 

[i]And if there is…well, I have a friend.[/i]

Sparrow would be more than willing to help her track down what she needed, even if she had to pull her away from the new boyfriend. The hobgoblins had apparently made quite a few lovers with the village. She just wished she knew why. 














[b][u][center]The End[/center][/u][/b]

Summary: Hazel comes back to the temple for advice, and ends up getting dragged into a relaxing bath, and then into a minor catastrophe. 

Tags: F/F, elf, half-elf, human, hobgoblin, lovers, collar, foot fetish, orgasm, embarrassment, nudity, femdom, cum, series, fantasy, magic, church, corruption,