19 comments/ 40983 views/ 39 favorites The Half-Breed's Journey By: Cruel2BKind *For those who read my stories, my friend is running me ragged! Begging me to write these. Hi friend, you know who you are! Anyway, this is more quest-based then I ever expected to write, so I hope that you all enjoy it. As a bit of a disclaimer, the sex in here is very rough, and a little extreme. If you do not like tentacles, this is not your story. If you do not know what I mean, look up 'tentacle hentai' and then decide if you want to read. All characters are 18+* THE CIRCLE DEMON Helen had been a strange girl from the start. Raised by her mother, her mother's husband died before she was born. In the village, her father had been a respected huntsman, so no one openly spoke about the controversy around her birth. Both Moll and her late husband Malthus had been hale and healthy, with sturdy bodies and reddish complexions. Moll's daughter was born six months after her husband died in a hunting accident, and her child had midnight-black hair and bright green eyes. Unsettling eyes. In a small town like this, a low degree of inter-family relations was unavoidable. First cousins were frowned upon as marriage partners, but not forbidden. Second and third cousins were often married. Everyone in the town had the same basic coloration. Blonde and tawny hair, brown eyes, ruddy well-tanned skin and large bones. Helen broke the mould already as a babe with black hair and green eyes, and as she grew older, more and more set her apart from the others. She was a tiny little thing, always smaller and slighter then the other girls her age. She was quick, and intelligent, and had clever long-fingered hands that could pick up sewing faster then any other girl her age. Moll was terrified for her clever different little girl. The unnamed village was isolated except for the wool traders that came once a year. It had been twenty years since the last witch-scare. Moll didn't want her strange daughter to bear the brunt of the village's superstition. Especially since Helen had a birthmark on her thigh. The mark was shaped like a crescent moon, and it was just the sort of thing that would drive the superstitious village into a frenzy. Moll forbade Helen to swim or bathe with the other children, and instilled into her at an early age that it was forbidden to take her clothes off. Helen's mother needed to keep her safe, for she knew better then any suspicious villager how inhuman her daughter was. --- Helen had grown into a young woman, but not a well-loved one. Helen knew what she was. She was an odd creature, and she had never seemed melancholy about not having friends, beyond a vague yearning. The boys didn't like her because her strangeness was threatening. The girls didn't like her because they remembered all of the 'incidents' when they were children. No one had tried to trace these back to Helen, or even tell anyone. But the group of girls that were Helen's age avoided the strange petite girl with a wary watchfulness. Just her presence was enough to put them on edge. It was spring, and the new strawberries had just been picked. Helen was bringing a basket to sell to the widow Hautzig, who made jelly, and was the strange girl's one friend and confidant. Helen had always stayed short and slim. She was barely a hair above five feet tall. Her body was curvy, but still slight. She wore a dull green skirt that went to her ankles, but her feet were bare. Helen hated shoes. Her hair was twisted into a plain braid. On her upper body she wore a simple chemise (loose linen shirt with puffy sleeves and a low neckline) next to her skin and a plain brown vest over that. Some women liked to tighten the vest to make their breasts look bigger, and in some cases, spill over the edge of the vest, barely contained by the translucent chemise. Helen however, kept her breasts tucked tightly and comfortably under the vest, with the chemise pulled up tight, barely a hint of cleavage showing. Boys hated her anyway, might as well not give them the show. The widow Hautzig saw her and took the basket of strawberries without a word, giving the girl a few small copper coins. Helen went to her assigned spot next to the loom, where she wove beautiful wool shawls that sold for a high price when the traders came. The friends spent a comfortable minute in silence, until Hautzig broke it. "I heard that the Richard's boy has been suffering from some terrible dreams lately. He hardly gets a wink of sleep." It was quiet for a bit longer. Then Helen spoke. "I was bathing, and he was spying. I saw his manhood, he was playing with it." She closed her eyes, feeling the faint pulse of warmth in her crotch, and the faint feel of slippery wetness. The Richard's boy was a filthy spying tom, why would his dirty gaze make her feel this way? Helen's mother had been hesitant about telling her daughter anything about what a man and woman do to each other, but the widow Hautzig had none of Moll's reservations. Most of the village girls only knew what strict talks from their mothers and dirty jokes could tell them. Helen knew all about a man's urges, from nightly eruptions, to the soreness they felt if they didn't come. She knew all about her own body, including how to give herself pleasure, and why she became wet if she thought about a man in a sexual way. (In Hautzig's colorful language, "It's to grease yourself up for his pole, so you better be greasy, or it will hurt like hellfire...") She wondered what it would feel like if it ever happened. Would if feel as good as her hand made her feel every night? Would it hurt? Hautzig's voice woke her up from her rambling thoughts. "It's been at least five years since you've used your illusions on anyone. You'd best be careful, not that the little inbred brat didn't deserve it anyway, but no more dreams. No more visions, and for heavens sake, don't do that bit where you change yourself. It's downright unsettling, even for me." "Yes Hautzig." Helen whispered, her hands flying over the loom. --- Moll was a laundress now that her husband was dead, and she knew that her frail-bodied daughter would never be able to handle the heavy work, slinging wet bundles of bedding and clothes through boiling water with a pole, beating filthy garments on rocks, half-blind from the lye in the cleaning fluid. Helen had her weaving, and she made baskets and mats out of willow branches that she gathered herself. They brought in good money, but only one day a year when the traders came. Helen spent a part of her day weaving shawls at Hautzig's house, but she spent the rest of the day in the forest. That was another reason the village thought her odd. Only the huntsmen went into the forest, and everyone else was too clumsy and unexperienced to get through the underbrush, and terrified of the grey mountain wolves that roamed the forest. Helen went deep into it almost every day. --- Helen went home to the little hut in the scrublands near the edge of the village. Steam normally billowed up from the large cauldron in front of the house, but today it lay there empty and brooding. Helen shivered, feeling a tingling sensation in her spine. She felt uneasy. Something was wrong. She ran into the hut, dropping the basket that she had used to bring Hautzig her strawberries. She ran into her hut to see her mother lying peacefully on the bed they shared. But when Helen ran to her, her callused hand was ice cold, and her eyes did not open. Helen took in the half-full cup of boiled hemlock on the table, and the way her mother had dressed in her finest clothing and combed her hair. The effect was somewhat ruined in how Moll had voided herself after death. Helen very calmly walked outside, and into the woods with tears streaming down her face. She was walking when she entered the woods, then she started jogging, and then she started to run. The girl was running as fast as she could, sobbing, screaming, blind. Thorns and branches tore at her arms and skirt, rocks and twigs tore at the hard soles of her feet. Her hair tore free of it's braid and filled with leaves and twigs as branches raked at it. Helen had gone mad. --- Helen's frantic run had slowed to a limping shuffle. She sobbed as she limped over ridges of rock and a carpet of needles. When she came to a trickle of water from a small spring-fed pool, she dropped to her hands and knees and dunked her face in the water, slurping like a horse. The water was like ice, and it shocked her out of her confusion and grief enough to finally realize the danger she was in. She had no idea where she was. To get to the pool she had crossed a rocky plain, and she had no idea where she had come from, or where to find her trail. The sun was setting, and all she had was a sewing kit, a four-inch knife, what she was wearing and a shawl. Helen collapsed by the pool and cried, this time with frustration at herself as well as her grief. Helen was not entirely unprepared. The tears slowly stopped as an deep reserve of steel began to show itself. She would make a fire, find some berries, catch a squirrel maybe. She would survive the night, and then go about finding her trail. She must have left some kind of trail, tramping through the woods like a wounded deer. She slowly got up where she had collapsed in the stones by the edge of the pool. She took assessment of her situation. Her skirt and the sleeves of her chemise were badly torn. She cut away the hindering tatters of cloth with her knife. The sleeves of her dress now only went to her elbow, and the dress to just a bit below her knees. She wrapped the rags around her sore feet. Her foot-soles were rock-hard from always being barefoot, but even her feet had taken the toll of the long crazed run. She was beginning to feel how sore she was. She stood to stay limber, and walked into the woods, looking for materials to start a fire. --- She had a length of springy strong wood about three feet long. She used the cord belt for her skirt to make a rough bow-shape. A resiny halved log was the base, and she had whittled a spindle from a bone-dry piece of cedar. A palm-sized rock was her socket. She steadied the halved-log base with her feet and placed the tip of the spindle in a small v-shaped groove surrounded by dry shredded birch bark. She wrapped the string of the fire-bow twice around the spindle and then applied pressure on the spindle with the socket-rock in her hand. After a few clumsy tries, she was moving the bow back and forth, making the spindle rapidly spin in it's groove. Eventually, a wisp of smoke started to trickle from the groove. Helen kept spinning, panting and not daring to wipe the sweat from her brow. There! A flare of light and a larger wisp of smoke. Helen crouched and blew gently, seeing a small ember flare amongst the tuft of shredded birch bark. A tongue of flame greedily ate up the tuft, and then she was putting in twigs and larger shreds of bark. In no time at all she had a mid-sized blaze going, and was feeding more resiny branches in. She made a shielding firewall of stacked stones on the windward side and went into the woods to gather what she could find. --- She found a rabbit warren just half a mile away. She had a decision to make. Either take time and effort to make snares, which would be more likely to succeed, or to use a part of her that wasn't human. She decided to use the latter. She walked away from the warren, and stripped out of her clothing. First the vest, then the skirt, then the rough woolen shorts (they were male undergarments, but she found them far more comfortable) and finally her chemise. She stood naked in the late warmth of the early autumn day. The setting sun lit up the creamy paleness of a body that was never exposed to the sun. Her face and hands and feet were pale, but they looked dark in comparison to the rest of her. Her matted hair hung down to the middle of her back. Her vulnerable white back with the delicate sculpted wings of her shoulder blades showing through the skin. Her hips were full, and her ass round and firm and pale. The crescent mark on her thigh was just below the bush of dark trimmed fur between her legs, right on the inside of her long left thigh. Though she was short, her legs were long and shapely. She found a small trail worn into the thick moss by generations of rabbit's feet. She lay on her stomach, crushing her small full breasts into the thick soft moss. She ducked her face against the moss, smelling the green earthiness of it. She concentrated as hard as she could. Despite years of practice, full body changes took a lot of energy out of her, and gave her terrible headaches. As she concentrated, the rabbits huddled in their burrows noticed that there was no longer a human above them. Their primitive minds had instantly forgotten it, and their sharp senses were fooled. There was no longer a scent, a sight, a sound, or even the weight of a human on top of the warren. Helen's body looked radically different. If you were to touch her, her skin would feel smooth and fleshy and real, but she looked, smelled, and weighed as much as the moss she was lying on. If you squinted, you would see a vaguely woman-sized hummock, but besides that, nothing remained of the young girl that had been lying there moments before. It was an illusion, a very clever illusion. Within moments the rabbits were up again, nibbling on grass around holes in the warren. A few times, a rabbit came so close that it's fur nearly brushed her hidden skin. But Helen remained still, in deep concentration. Both of the rabbits that had touched her were scrawny yearlings. She wanted a fat rabbit. Her stomach growled. Suddenly a rabbit dashed from it's hole right in front of her eyes, making her flinch, and her illusion flickered from the shock. The rabbits could smell and see and hear her again. She lunged for the rabbit, feeling it's fur against her fingertips before it rushed into the hole. "Fuck the devil's mother! You fucker! You fucking whore-rabbit! You little shitty furry CUNT!!!" Helen started to cry with frustration and disappointment. Her stomach felt hollow, and empty. When she finished crying and was ready to start again, she noticed the pull. She looked around startled. It was very faint, but it was as if something was pulling on her body ever-so-slightly. As if she were a magnet and a piece of iron was nearby. Helen didn't bother to go get her clothes, she just followed the pull. She went in the direction that it was pulling her, and it never got stronger, or painful, but it just kept showing her where to go. Helen moved around a ridge of rock and saw it. Two concentric circles of massive stones. The outer ring was of huge rectangular stones by themselves, and the inner circle had horizontal stones lying on top of the rectangular stones. It was huge, and the pull was taking her within. Leaves were falling, but inside the circle, the leaves floated lazily. In circles and spirals and spinning in opposite directions of each other. Something was contained inside the circle of stones. Helen neared the outer ring, but paused ten feet from the outermost stone. The floating leaves inside the ring started to stir. A soft whispery voice, like leaves rustling came from inside the circles. "Come in pretty one. We will have a time to make the angels sing." A thick intoxicating smell rose from the circles, a purely sexual smell that smelled like burnt sugar to Helen. "Come in pretty one, pleasure me and I can tell you anything you need to know." Helen took a deep breath and tried to speak rationally. To ignore the way wetness was growing between her legs and the warmth that was spreading through her naked body. "Who are you?" "The ancient humans trapped many of my kind. I need pleasure, I need it. The ancient humans knew our power and weakness. In this cage I am denied. Give me pleasure, and I can give you whatever you need." "Can you tell me my way home?" The leaves stirred restlessly. "I need pleasure, come into the circle, and we can discuss this later..." The rustling voice was full of need and longing. Helen realized that though this was some ancient and powerful demon, it was made into a child by how much he needed sex. It gave her power. And it couldn't leave the circle. "No, we will discuss it now. I need a rabbit and I need directions home, and then I will get into the circle." She moaned. The smell was making her soaking wet, her body pulsed with pleasure. The demon in the circle whipped the leaves around with frustration. "Yes, yes I will give you anything you desire, just please, come into the circle!" Helen took a deep breath. "Do you give your word? To honor my promise and to let me go when I desire?" When all of the sentient creatures of the earth were made, the creator gave them gifts of magic and elements and flight. To the humans he gave the power to lie. No other creature on earth could lie. The leaves whirred wildly and the demon in the circle cried out with frustration. It would have kept her in the circle, would have literally fucked her to death. That's what the circle demon had done to every woman, and every man who had wandered by it's circle for the last five hundred years. It needed pleasure, needed it so badly. "I give my word to reward you for my pleasure, and to release you." Helen choked, breathing the intoxicating smell. "To release me before I am dead trickster. Do not toy with me, I will walk away and catch my own damn rabbit..." "Noooo." The demon moaned, sounding pitiful. "I promise! I promise! I will reward you with whatever you desire and release you after three hours, I give my word! I give my word!" Helen took a deep breath of the intoxicating scent and stepped into the circle. --- The demon was a shapeshifter. It could split his form, be man or woman, be a mix of both, appear as any living creature. When the girl walked into his domain he split his essence into three. She stared with wide, lust-glazed eyes as three men appeared in the circle. The scent of burnt sugar was a drug, a powerful aphrodisiac. The men were exactly the same, carbon copies of each other. It was a copy of a man that the circle demon had fucked to death as a woman and a man almost three hundred years previous. The men stood six and a half feet tall, powerfully muscled, covered thickly in hair, but with the muscles oiled in sweat. Muscular legs, and each one had an engorged cock leading out in front of them. Eight inches long, and thick. Helen watched them with her dilated eyes. Her nipples were like hard rocks standing out from her full breasts. Her thighs twitched together, putting pressure on her moist pussy. One of the blank-eyed man-puppets went behind her and held her arms above her head. He ground his cock against her soft firm ass. His soft groans filled her ear. She could feel the hot trickles of precome from his cock dribbling between her ass cheeks to her asshole, making it twitch and flare. One of the puppets dropped to his knees and picked up her legs so her knees were on his shoulders. The sudden helpless feeling just sent a dizzy wave of pleasure through her. She screamed when the puppet put his voracious mouth against her pussy. She could feel it's tongue tasting and swirling and lapping against her hot throbbing pussy. She was dizzy and moaning with pleasure when the third man-puppet went to his side and put his rough hands on her breasts. He buried his head in them, biting and sucking on those rock-hard rose nipples. "All of you." One of the man-puppets moaned. "I want all of you." The one behind her hissed. The one between her legs lifted his head, his mouth smeared and wet. "I want every hole you've got!" The one between her legs sucked on her clit and she came for the first time. She shrieked and bucked her hips in the puppet's face. She was used to giving herself pleasure, going for one climax and then going to bed. She had already climaxed, but a mixture of arousal and the effect of the aphrodisiac had her even hungrier for their hands on her body. The Half-Breed's Journey Ch. 02 THE SATYR It was nearly sunset in the tiny (though not as tiny as some) village of Kusta when a barefoot, ivory-skinned, steely-eyed girl walked through the very outskirts and farms on her way to the center. The village that the strange girl had come from was so tiny, that market had only been held one day a week. Kusta was large enough so that market was every five days, and a small trading post was open at all times. The population of Kusta was just over five hundred. Six hundred if you counted the far-away farms and a small bachelors community of laborers some six miles from the center of the village. Helen drew eyes as she walked. Her clothes were ragged and dirty, though her face and hair were well-groomed. Her skin was pale and creamy, and her eyes were bright poison-green. Her features were feline, and her movements were brisk and businesslike. More like a catamount's lope then the stride of a woman on her way to market. She carried some meat wrapped in the raw hides of the animals the meat had come from. She carried a bundle of fabric rolled up tight. She had a small pouch at her waist. Otherwise, the strange girl had no possessions. She looked neither right nor left as she blazed down the dry road with her bare feet raising small puffs of dust. She ignored the weight of the villager's stares. The villagers who lived in Kusta knew that the girl had come from the narrow rarely-used track that led to an unnamed backwards little commune on the edge of the great forest itself. She was strange in every way, and something about the determined set of those slender shoulders and the steel in those bright tilted eyes discouraged the villagers from trying to slow her down. --- Helen stopped in front of the little trading post. All of the buildings on the main street of Kusta were dusty and small, with some business, but not much. A pub, the trading post, and large stable that housed oxen, mules, and horses. Kusta was too small to need any large amount law enforcement, so there was a small stone building that was the head peacekeeper's office, courtroom, and gaol all in one. The rest of main street just held the large homes of the town's wealthiest. Helen entered the open doorway of the little trading post. The room was small, and she could survey the store in a single glance. Bins of seed and flour across one wall. Open barrels with tongs so you could take out whatever was within. One had pickles, one had salt pork, another salted fish, and the last had coarse brown sugar. A few bolts of cloth hung on a shelf, and another wall was devoted to farming tools and shears and plow blades and the like. The last wall was divided into three sections. One was horse tack, the other was a small grocery, with a small supply of fresh eggs and butter and dried meat and vegetables, and the last was taken up with the shopkeeper. Helen sized up the shopkeeper in a glance. He was an older man, the hair that was left on his head was iron grey, and he covered his bald pate with a soft cloth cap. He had a heavy grey mustache, and his face had both smile lines and heavy crow's feet, though he couldn't be older then fifty-five. He wore a simple white shirt and wool breeches, and over that a leather apron. He had been writing some figures down on heavy coarse brown pulp-paper with a carved ink pen that had the look of something made in the capitol. He looked like a kind man, Helen thought. And he looked like a lonely man. He smiled at her, and waved. "Hello young miss, you're from out of Kusta, aren't you?" Helen had a bit of flair for acting, she would discover. Her clever brain was already ticking away on how to turn her bare assets into something a little more substantial. Helen looked around the store and outside the dusty window. She flinched a little when he spoke to her, as if startled, and gave him a wide-eyed rabbity look. She took a moment to answer him, as if so distracted that she didn't know what to say. "Ah... Y-Yes. I'm from u-up the road." Helen had never stuttered in her life. Or spoken in such a strained, frightened voice. Already the shopkeeper was looking at her with his innocent, concerned eyes. Helen felt a pang of guilt, but it was small, and she needed his help. "Young miss? Are you alright? Come here miss, sit down and I'll get you a dipper of water." He got up out of his rocking chair and ushered her to sit in it, barely touching her. Helen saw his eyes briefly dart to the hint of cleavage at the top of her chemise. He didn't have a wife, she knew that out of a pure intuition, or perhaps some low-grade sixth-sense from her heritage. Either way, now she knew that he was interested in her, and that he was kind, and that he had no obligation to some wife. Now Helen only wished that she had loosened her vest and pulled down the chemise. He scooped up a dipper of cool water from the bucket near the door and came back to her. She drank very deeply (she really had been thirsty) and then wiped her mouth with a slightly shaking hand. "I'm so sorry Sir, I j-just... I just..." Tears welled in her eyes. Helen just had to think about her mother, not even a full day dead, and act distraught. The shopkeeper's eyes crinkled up with concern. Helen started to sob into her hands. The shopkeeper hobbled (he had a slight limp) to the door to close it and he rushed back to her, pulling a crumpled (but clean) handkerchief from the breast pocket of his homespun shirt. "There there miss... Please miss, what happened to fret you? Are you hurt?" He was so kind. Helen hoped that things would go well. "I... I'm so sorry Mister, I shouldn't b-bring you into this. I'm j-just so scared!" Helen's mind raced, thinking of the perfect story, while she broke into another volley of sobs and the shopkeeper worried around her, patting her shoulder with his hand, afraid to touch her too intimately. "Miss, if you don't have anyone waiting for you, please come back with me. I don't mean you any harm, but perhaps I can make you a cup of tea, and you can tell me what is fretting you so?" He sounded curious, and hesitant. Despite that glance at her breasts, this was really a kind man. Perhaps even too kind. Helen let her voice tremble, and she looked up into those gentle blue eyes with a look of pure gratitude and devotion. "W-Would you? Oh, thank you Sir! Thank you so much!" --- Helen stopped sobbing, but she did her best to look and feel fragile. The shopkeeper was named Carter, and she didn't tell him her real name. Instead, she invented a person to be. She did her very best, and soon she wasn't acting. She felt the fear and loneliness and betrayal of a girl named Elle. Carter sat on the other side of a small wooden table, sipping tea from a chipped ceramic mug and listening to 'Elle' as she told him what had happened. "Penelope? She always hated me. She hated me more when Andru, this man in the village, started courting me." 'Elle' choked a weak little sob into the well-dampened handkerchief and continued. "One day, when I was bathing in the stream, she saw me." She saw Carter blush a little, and felt more confident. "I have, a birthmark on my thigh, right here?" She drew her finger along the line of her thigh through the skirt, making the fabric dip between her legs to clearly show the shape of them. Carter would only look out of the corner of his eyes. He looked flustered, and his voice was a little hoarse when he whispered. "So what happened then?" "She started spreading lies to Andru, and to all of the villagers. She said that she saw me speaking to animals, and that she saw that I had the devil's mark on me. She turned enough of them on me. Th-they t-t-tried to have m-me b-burned at the st-stake!" 'Elle' dissolved into sobs, and Carter moved forward and hugged her into his arms. She threw herself at him and hugged him tight, pressing her body fully and frankly against him, so he could feel her breasts and so she could feel something against her thigh. He pulled from the hug with a little bit of panic, his cheeks flushed. "That's terrible!" He whispered. "I need to get to the next village, they will chase me here! How many miles is it?" "It's nearly forty miles to Patras!" Carter murmured. "You will have to spend two, maybe three nights in the wild if you walk..." Helen took a few deep breaths. "Mister Carter? I need supplies, but I promise to pay you! I can work hard..." Carter looked frozen. His eyes darted to her breasts, and then back. Helen knew that she almost had him. She was like a fisher, and he was the fish. She played him gently, carefully. If she played him right, she would have a bedroll and perhaps another set of clothes. 'Elle' looked down, a blush reddening her pale cheeks. "I... I am a virgin Mister Carter, but Andru and I..., he didn't want to make me pregnant." She lowered her voice to the softest little whisper, and Carter leaned in, his eyes wide and full of need. That look of lust was so strange on his mild kind face. "We did things." She whispered. "He taught me how... If I show them to you, may I please sleep here for the night? Please Mister Carter! I will do whatever you say, just please don't put a baby in me!" Helen was worried. She had tried to go for just the right mixture of humiliation and naivete and desperation. Carter was looking down, and she couldn't see his face very well. If he tried to insist on fucking her, things would be ruined. She was too sore to take him there for one, and he would also feel that she wasn't a virgin. His voice was strange and a little choked when he spoke. "Go through that door and into the bedroom miss. Close the curtains and blow out the lamp. I need to lock up the shop." The shopkeeper fled to lock up the door, and Helen breathed a massive sigh of relief as she stepped into the narrow bedroom. Out of curiosity, she reached under the waist of her skirt and the shorts she wore under it, and she was soaking wet. Part of her was eager and ready for this man, the part of her that the circle demon had unleashed. She blew out the lamp, singing her fingertip slightly on the hot glass surface. In the darkness she slid out of her vest and chemise, feeling the cool air bring up goosebumps on her sensitive breasts. Her nipples were like hard pink marbles. The door opened, and the shopkeeper slid into the darkness. Helen slipped forward, and reached for him. She could hear his breathing, ragged and fast. "It's okay mister." She whispered, making her voice soft and innocent. "It's okay. I'll do all the work mister." She licked her lips in the dark. She reached out and found his hand. She placed it on the firm young skin of her breast. He let out a wounded little moan and his hand began to squeeze eagerly. Helen moaned at the exciting feeling of his clumsily groping paw. He started to use both of his hands, squeezing her firm tits together, holding them up and letting them swing down, pinching the rock-hard nipples. Helen hissed softly with pleasure. "Oh mister!" She whispered innocently. "Oh, that feels so good, Andru never made me feel this way!" She was lying, Andru was real, but he had never touched her. Helen didn't feel the least bit guilty for leading this man on. It was really just a business transaction. He wanted something, she wanted something. He just needed a little convincing. He moaned with lust and buried his face in her chest. He was kissing and sucking, and it did feel very good. His tongue moved between her breasts like a slick worm. He was breathing loudly, and hoarsely. Helen hissed softly as he bit her nipple with his teeth, and she cradled his head in her hands, feeling the smoothness of his bald pate. She reached out to touch his chest, to feel his shoulder through the cloth of his shirt. He was gasping, mewling, caressing her breasts. Helen had to gently nudge his head away, so she could carefully drop to her knees on the dull carpet. He moaned and was unbuckling his belt and removing his apron. He was such a kind man, but his arousal turned him into something of an animal. His breath was very nearly a sob. "Mister?" Helen whispered, feeling guilty and aroused in equal measures. "Are you okay?" He moaned guiltily and shoved his erect cock into her face. Helen took ahold of his member and felt it with careful light hands. His cock was long and slender and smooth, she could feel the slightness of his circumcision scar. Precome oozed gently from the tip. Helen snuck her left hand under her skirt, and carefully nestled her first two fingers on either side of her wet swollen clitoris. When she leaned forward to wrap her lips around the slender turgid head of Carter's cock, she began to move her fingers in slow luxurious little circles. So with a hand between her legs and a hand resting on the slender shaft of his member, she continued to suck his hard throbbing cock. He was groaning loudly, the sounds were nearly comical, and she had to do her best not to choke with laughter. Maybe it was mean-spirited of her, but the shopkeeper just seemed funny to her. Her fingers started to move faster under her skirt and she moaned, slurping up and down on his cock. He tangled his fingers in her hair and started to shove her mouth up and down on his cock. The rough treatment turned her on, and she moved her hand so she was fingering her cunt with her first two fingers, still rubbing her clit with her thumb. He didn't last very long, she sensed that he was about to come, so she pulled away and continued sliding her hand up and down his cock in fast twirling motions while she vigorously rubbed her clit. Then the wet warmth of his come splattered on her face. Carter moaned. "Ooohh... Ooooohhh!" Sounding like a man in pain. Helen rubbed faster, panting softly. She stopped, startled when Carter thumped onto the floor next to her. In the faint light of the door, she could see the furrowed guilt and lust on his face. He pushed up her skirt and lowered his head. Helen grinned and yelped when he roughly pushed her thighs apart to attack her with his mouth. His tongue was warm and slick. Using far more pressure than her fingers. He pursed his lips to suck on her clit and Helen squeaked with pleasure. Helen leaned back so far that she fell onto her back and spread her legs wide. Carter moved so his hands were squeezing and massaging her inner thighs and he had unrestricted access to her sopping pussy. He flicked his tongue in and out of her cunt. He sucked and pummeled her clit, he even lowered his head to lap at her taut little asshole. Whatever guilt the kindly man had felt, it had not stopped him from his nearly feral assault on sweet virgin 'Elle'. Helen arched her back and screamed. --- "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." Helen lifted her head from she was resting on the floor. With a bit of guilt and a lot of annoyance, she observed that Carter was crying. Consumed with his guilt and his lust. She sighed, and put on her 'Elle' face. Wide-eyed, sweet, worried. Carter was sitting on the floor, naked, rocking. His limp cock drooping sadly in a thatch of thick grey pubic hair. He was surprisingly frail. His skin soft and wrinkled, no spare flesh save a small fleshy tummy. "Mister?" 'Elle' whispered. "Mister, are you okay?" Carter looked up. Helen's eyes had adjusted to the darkness, but his eyes were searching. He can't see me. Helen realized. She suddenly had reason to wonder if she didn't have a bit of night vision as well. The thought pleased her immensely. She cuddled into him, pressing her small breasts into his chest. "You made me feel so good..." 'Elle' whispered. "Much better than Andru... Don't cry." He sobbed into her shoulder, and Helen rolled her eyes. --- Carter was asleep. Helen was tired of the charade. Quieter than a mouse, she slipped down into the store. Light no longer leaked through the cracks on the tightly closed wooden shutters. She scooped up a thin linen sack of oats. Five big potatoes, some apples. She inspected a long bone-handled dagger, and exchanged it for her four-inch knife. Then a tinderbox, a cake of soap, and a woolen blanket that she rolled up tightly to tie under the rucksack that she put on her back. The weight was evenly distributed between the two canvas straps on her shoulders, and the canvas weight-bearing strap on her forehead. The wood-frame back had room for more. Before leaving, she caught a glance of a thin charcoal taper-pen and a ledger. She took the taper and wrote a brief note on the back of the ledger. 'If you want a woman so badly... You should go three miles up the road to my village, and then five mile directly to the left of the road. Directly west. You'll find something better. Make her promise not to hurt you, and promise to let you out after an hour. Otherwise she will fuck you to death. Tell the circle demon I keep my promises' She signed 'Elle' with a flourish, and slipped out of the store. It was evening, and the streets were near-empty. The eyes that were there were curious. Too curious for her liking. She barely had to walk for half a mile before she was out of the town and into the sparse farmland that Kusta had to offer. A kindly older couple saw her ragged appearance and insisted that she stayed with them. Helen donated the rabbits, which honestly would go bad soon if they weren't eaten. The couple mixed them into a creamy stew full of leeks and potatoes. It was the best meal Helen had eaten since before her mother died. They gave her a place to sleep in the hayloft. --- Helen bolted upright in the middle of the night. The pull. She could feel it. Had the circle demon escaped? Could he pull at Helen from so far away? She sprang awake. She wore her loose chemise but the vest was in the straw. So was her green skirt. The chemise hung just below her hips as she sprang lightly down from the hayloft like a cat. The knife was steel, no good. She snatched the hoe from the wall. Hefted it appreciatively. She hated iron. Touching it gave her a light rash. Now she knew why. The hoe wasn't shaped like a rectangle, like the hoe back on her farm. This hoe was shaped like a triangle. It had a slightly blunted but sharp point. She practiced a hooking swing with the hoe, and went towards the pull. She looked out into the turnips and leeks. Every hair in her body on end, her eyes wide and cat-green. The tendons on her slim forearms stood out in sharp-sharp relief from gripping the splintered ash handle of the hoe. It was magnetic. She jerked her head to the left and saw a single eldritch light. Suddenly, she saw through the light. It was a disguise, a skin, like when she turned herself into moss, or wood, or stone. When she spent hours subtly changing the appearance of her face in the reflection of a bronze pot. She looked through the disguise of the line of floating blue lights. "You're not fooling anyone. I can see you." She growled. The lights didn't dissipate or flash out, they simply disappeared while a small swarthy man appeared in their place. The man had a long horsey face and bright yellow goat-eyes. They made him look wall-eyed and bizarre. "Humans never escape him-from-the-circle. Now this one sees why this human could. This human is not quite a human at all, now is it?" The man appeared short not because of his normal sized torso, but because of his short muscular goat legs. Covered in thick matted red hair, and tipped with shiny black hooves. The hooves were polished and demon faces were carved into the surfaces. Gold rings hung from both of the large goaty ears that drooped from either side of his long face. His short bone-colored horns were polished and carved with a spiral pattern that went up each one. Helen hefted the hoe, spinning it in her hands. The goat-man bleated with displeasure, the frown making his long face even longer. "The half-breed does not fight honestly. The half-breed fights with bitter iron, not honest bronze, or sweet steel. Not with bone, or stone. The half-breed fights with lies and tricks." The Half-Breed's Journey Ch. 02 Helen gritted her teeth and spoke smoothly. "The half-breed is wondering why we have to fight at all. You seem to be a reasonable fellow. Why would you fight with someone you just met?" The goat-man threw back his head and laughed. He hopped back and forth, from hoof to hoof as he laughed. "There are always reasons to fight with people you meet. What is your name, half-breed?" Helen glared up at the goat. "You can call me Elle." The goat man stopped laughing, stopped hopping. "Lies and tricks, nothing but lies and tricks I get from you. That is not a true name." Helen's turn to laugh. "I didn't lie, goat. I said you could call me Elle. You could also call me Carter, or Hautzig, or slut, or sparrowhawk, if you so pleased. I've given you a lesson in lying. How about you tell me why I could feel you from the hayloft?" The goat-man stiffened. "Do not call me goat. I am a Satyr. You can call me Beel." Helen yawned. "Beelly goat. Tell me what I want, or I'll stick you with my hoe." The goat-man drew a long bronze knife. "Don't toy with me half-breed." Helen concentrated hard. It was time to test something. "I can toy with you all I want Beelly goat. You're too afraid to come near me with this." She brandished the hoe. Beel snorted and leapt. In three great bounds he was on top of the terrified dark-haired girl. He knocked aside the hoe and stabbed her deep in the chest. The wound was deep and well-struck, but no blood came from her soft white skin, and he felt no resistance of her breastbone. It was like a veil cleared from Beel's eyes, and suddenly he was staring blankly at the dark soil, his bronze knife thrust in to the hilt. "So it works on non-humans, too." The half-breed murmured, from behind. Beel whirled around, but there wasn't just one of her. There were three. One was leaning against a tree, cleaning her nails with the thin blunt edge of the hoe. One had stuck the hoe in the earth, and was leaning against the smooth ash shaft. The other was yawning. The goat-man's face darkened. "Don't insult me, Elle. You don't want to be an enemy of my people." All three of the girls looked at him sharply. He studied them, looking for discrepancies, something he could tell apart about them. The illusion was incredibly sound. Good, even compared to the standards of full Pixies. "You pulled me from my sleep! I could feel you sneaking around up in the hayloft. I didn't want to fight. I thought the circle demon was back for me. How did you do that?" "Idiot girl." Beel grunted, his yellow barred eyes looking from girl to girl. The one that had spoken was pacing barefoot on the stony soil of the field. The wheat was only tender green shoots. "I didn't do anything to you!" The girl that had spoken had a hoe with a smooth ash shaft. The girl leaning on the hoe had a hoe with a smooth ash shaft. The girl leaning against the tree... Splintery and split down the middle. Beel leapt for her. He grabbed her by her long black hair and yanked her head back, sliding the bronze knife down her throat, waiting for the gush of hot blood on his forearm. It never came. The girl in his arms laughed and dissipated like an armful of smoke. The other two girls grinned at him. Not even bothering to move. "I was wondering if you would notice the hoe first." One of them giggled, backing away. She pointed to a scratch on her arm. "I thought you would notice the scratch? Or maybe that that one is the only one that has green eyes." The speaking girl pointed to the girl to her right. The speaking girl had bright blue eyes. Beel screeched with frustration. He pounded his head with a fist. "Stop playing games, you fucking bitch!" Both of the girls disappeared, and a weight dropped down on his back. The sudden weight caused Beel to fall, his goat legs crumpling under him. He felt the cold ice-bane of the iron at the back of his neck, burning him, dissolving his tanned skin like acid. His hair was singeing. He let out a helpless screaming bleat of fear and dropped his knife. Cowering on the ground, and lapsing into a language that Helen (who had slipped into a tree as soon as she started the illusion) didn't understand. Helen withdrew the iron, startled. Her dinner did a slow greasy flop in her stomach. She hated iron. It made her have rashes, it was cold and yucky to the touch. She had not expected such a sudden and brutal reaction. Helen lightly leapt away, but kept the iron head of the sharp hoe hovering over the prostrate satyr. He lifted his head from the dirt. He suddenly looked a lot less frightening, in the wan light of the moon. He seemed very young. He was wall-eyed with fear, and trembling from the pain of the iron. The iron burn on the back of his neck looked black, with angry red veins leading away from it. "I want you to promise me a few things." Helen murmured. Softly. --- It occurred to Helen later that the circle demon, with all of it's whining, and complaining, had probably saved her life. When it complained about how she had lied, it had told her that all of the fey creatures couldn't lie. Beel promised not to hurt her. He promised not to tell anyone about her, human or not. He promised to answer her questions. With each promise, Helen drew the hoe further and further away. The goat took a handful of soil and rubbed it against his iron burn, panting softly. "Iron hurts you. What else hurts creatures like you. Pixies and Satyrs and demons, and whatever else?" Beel looked stiff and angry, but he had promised, so he reluctantly told her. "Rowan wood. Not as much as iron, but a Rowan spear will fester, and be poisonous. Water from a rowan bowl will poison all but the strongest. "What else? Don't try to hide anything from me." Beel glared at her. His fists opened and closed, but he looked warily at the hoe. He pointed to the sky, with the cold moon, that glimmered round and silver, like a coin flipped by a god. "Your illusions, all illusions, they are stronger at midnight and midday. They are weaker at evening and morning. They are weakest at new moon. An eclipse robs us of all our powers. The solstaces are when we all are strongest, not just our illusions. The quetzaal can fly higher, the satyrs can run farther, the pixies cast stronger illusions and play fouler tricks. The Merlee can sing louder, the demons have stronger magic, the incubi and succubi cast strong glamours." Almost as an afterthought, he muttered. "Don't let anyone know your name. Your birth name. If they know any magic at all, they can hurt you with your birth name." He fell silent, glaring at her sullenly. "How many of you are on the road to the capitol?" "Lots in the forest. Waifs and druids in the trees, Pixies in the thickets. Underlings in the quarry, centaurs in the high plains. Naga and Kelpies in the river. They'll all sense you. They'll all know you coming. Half-breeds are bad luck. They will hate you, and they will hunt you!" He blustered, and he glared at her with pure hatred. Helen stared back calmly. "I wasn't going to do this... But give me your earrings. All of them. Beel opened his mouth, but before a single word could pass through his bearded lips, pointed tongue, and gravestone teeth, Helen whipped the hoe down at him, drawing a very light scratch over the previous burn. He howled and went limp. "The bangle on your wrist as well. Quick about it, and I'll let you go now." The young satyr shook with rage and pain, but he gave up the jewelry sullenly. He had six gold rings in each ear. The bangle was as thick as three fingers, made of thin beaten gold, with a design of chevrons and crescents. Helen leaned close. "I made you promise not to hurt me and not to tell, but in case you find a loophole in that somewhere, I just want to tell you something. Beel looked at her face. She was such a tiny thing. When he had first seen her, he had been looking forward to catching her, throwing away the hoe, and bringing her home as a present to the other hunters. They would have raped her, all of them. Maybe one of them would have kept her as a pet, or maybe they would have sent her stumbling back, or maybe they would have killed her. Beel looked into those deep green eyes. No longer full of Pixie mischief, or human arrogance. "If you have any ideas in that empty goat-head, you would do well to stop. Because if you fuck with me--" Beel flinched back and shrieked. She had thrust the iron hoe into his stomach, so deep that it came out the other side... He screamed in agony and tried to rip it out... His stomach was smooth. The half-breed had a smile as cold as iron on her soft pink lips. It had been an illusion... But he had felt the pain. He had felt it! He stared at her with numb horror. What was this creature? "If you fuck with me. I will fuck you back." She stood up. She looked like a little girl wearing a nightgown. The chemise barely cleared her shapely little buns. In the ultimate insult, she turned her back on him, and walked lazily back to the farmhouse. Beel scrambled to his hooves, and bolted into the forest. The loss of his underling-forged bangle forgotten. The loss of his trophy-earrings forgotten. The burn on his neck, stinging but still forgotten. He was suddenly pitifully grateful just to escape with his own life. Helen breathed a sigh of relief. Despite what she now knew to be an indisputable truth, it was hard to turn her back on the muscular satyr with the long bronze knife. She did glance over her shoulder, to see the fleeing back of the satyr. With a small satisfied smile, she sent him a nightmare. When Beel fell asleep, he would dream about eating his fingers. Eating each of his fingers and crunching through the bones and blood until he reached his wrists. He would swallow his splintered fingerbones and feel his face drenched with blood from the spurting stumps. He would wake up sobbing and wringing his hands together to prove to his delirious brain that they were still there. That dream was a doozy. --- The elderly couple went to check on the strange guest. They found nothing but a small depression in the hay. They were missing their hoe, a rake, and a sharp rusty trowel. While the old woman started to cry, the old man knelt down in the raspy straw, and gasped when he found a small gold ring the size of one of his own arthritis-swollen knuckles. Helen meanwhile, had moved on. *Hey there. This might be the longest I've ever taken to do a second chapter, but in my defense, that was because I never planned this to be a series. Half-breed is a rambling sort of creature. Other than a very faint vision, I really have no idea where it is going. I have ideas for subsequent chapters. There may not be anything as wild as our friend the circle demon for a while. For those who are fans of my no-cunt-allowed stories, chapter three of Onus is progressing nicely. I have progress on sequels for two of my established stories. Kisses and Spanks, --Cruel The Half-Breed's Journey "More!" She moaned. Her words were slurred. Her mind was a fog of lust and need and a roaring black hunger that got larger with every touch. She was fleetingly thankful that she had demanded that it set her free, but in three hours? Helen wasn't sure what would happen to her in three hours. As one of the puppets lay down on his back and she was flipped to lie on top of him, she no longer cared. The man-puppet forced her into ferocious kiss, groping her breasts and grinding his huge cock against her stomach. Another man-puppet knelt by her head and grabbed hanks of her hair. The rough treatment just sent a wave of pleasure roiling through her drugged body and she groaned with need. His cock was in front of her face. She whimpered as the puppet below her took a mouthful of her tit and bit hard. The puppet by her face smeared his precome-soaked cock against her cheek and mouth, leaving a shiny smear on her face. She licked it up, and it tasted warm and salty. The puppet groaned and thrust his hips so his cock went between her lips. I have a demon's cock in my mouth. She had time to think. It was hot and throbbing, and it felt very real. Part of her kept expecting the demon to disappear, or turn into a monster, but he felt very human. The cock in her mouth aroused her even more, and she started to suck on it, feeling the salty precome flow into her mouth and dribble from her lips. He grabbed her hair and forced her head up and down on it. She gagged and her pussy dripped juice onto another man-puppet's cock. With her choking and gasping on a cock, she cried out with surprise and pleasure and pain when the puppet below her grasped her hips and shoved his cock into her slick pussy. She was so incredibly tight, the Demon spoke through it's puppets, growling. "Tight little cunt! Such a tight little virgin cunt!" Something inside her broke, and she let out a sharp cry of pain, but that heady burnt-sugar smell brought on waves of pleasure as well. The man-puppet began to fuck her. His huge cock stretched and filled her to the brim. If she hadn't been so wet, he would have been doing some damage, but as it was, she was well-oiled and loving it. She had nearly forgotten about the third man-puppet. Two thick fingers went between her firm silky buttocks and started to fumble with her twitching little asshole. The demon spat between her buttocks, and used the spit to lubricate it's fingers. The saliva didn't feel like human saliva, it was thick and oily and it made a good lubricant. She cried out as it worked two fingers inside her ass. The puppet by her head snarled and forced her head up and down by her hair. She choked on the fat taut head of his cock bumping the back of her mouth, and then she gagged as it went through into her throat. Her nose was squashed against the thick patch of pubic hair at the base of his cock and his heavy scrotum slapped against her chin. He started fucking her throat, and she could barely breathe. The one under her fucked her harder and harder, his cock blurring in and out of her gleaming pussy lips, his thighs flexing. He gnawed on her breasts hungrily, stimulating her sore reddened nipples. The one above her dribbled more of that oily spit into her asshole and knelt down. She screamed as the thick tapered head of his cock popped into the ring of her asshole with barely any warning. The sharpness of the pain dissolved into an insane pleasure. All of her holes. A cock in her mouth and pussy and ass. As the one on top of her started to stretch her out and penetrate her deep, she could feel the two cocks working inside of her. Almost as if they were touching inside. The one at her mouth pulled out briefly because she was about to faint. The thick smell of burnt sugar filled her senses and her dilated eyes opened wide and her wet mouth opened wide. "Fuck me harder you stupid demon! Fuck me! Make me come!" The demon was so shocked that the form of the man-puppets wavered slightly. Then they became solid, and all three had identical wolfish grins on their blank faces. Helen screamed as the two that sandwiched her started to move their hips at an insane rate. Humans could move this fast, but only for a second or two, and these puppets didn't tire. Like machines their hips pumped their thick wet cocks in and out of her ass and cunt. Her scream was cut off when the puppet by her mouth shoved his cock in again and started to fuck her throat at a slightly slower pace. Helen's juices covered the stomach and thighs of the one below her. She felt heat building inside her and let out a choked and broken cry as it rushed over her in an insane climax. Like the first one, it only made her want more. All of the man puppets cried out at once, and suddenly, thick slick come filled her. She felt the hot oiliness of it inside her cunt, and leaking out of her ass. She swallowed some, but most of it leaked down her chin. The man puppets suddenly disappeared, leaving her lying in a growing pool of the demon's clear come. Helen knew that come was white, but the stuff leaking out of her mouth and pussy and ass was like a fine clear oil, very slippery. She was drugged and delirious with lust. One hand worked mindlessly at her clit while the other smeared clear come around her nipples and played. "Come back you limp-dick pansy! Come back and fuck me!" Was that her voice? That drunken and furious slur that snarled obscenities at the demon? The air in front of her twisted as something materialized. Helen let out a moan of horror and arousal. The thing in front of her was vaguely human in shape. It was actually, a frail beautiful teenage boy. He had soft, girlish features and feathery blonde hair and a delicate white-skinned body. But at his crotch there was just a senseless meaning of long tentacles. Seven thick black tentacles. Helen had seen a dried octopus once, when the traders came, but these tentacles had two main differences. There were no suckers, and it didn't have a tapering end. Each limb was about four feet long and shiny with some sort of secretion. They were the same four-inch diameter from the base to the tip, which wasn't a tapered tip, but the shaped like the head of a cock. The tentacles writhed from the boy's crotch like living things, the tips turning towards her as if they could smell her. The boy opened his eyes, revealing them to be bright orange. This apparition was as much a puppet as the three men. The demon had taken the form of a lesser incubus, a male demon who took life force from the women he fucked. The circle demon was nameless, but shared the qualities of incubi and succubi. What it had that they didn't was greater power, greater intelligence, and the ability to be both male and female and change it's form. Helen growled as the lust took over and she stood an took shaky steps to the incubi-puppet. "Fuck me." She growled, her eyes manic and glazed. One hand worked at her clit in little circles and she moaned. The puppet moved for her, and she gasped at the feel of the seven tentacles caressing her body. One nudged into her mouth, and she sucked. It was smooth and hard and hot, but already slick. The tentacles secreted a less potent form of the aphrodisiac in the air. The boy's hairless chest pressed against her firm breasts and hard nipples. A tentacle moved in to fuck the rift between her tits as he did. She could feel tentacles nudging at her ass and cunt and wanted to let them in. The boy's orange eyes looked into hers and his tongue came out. A long tapered red thing that wriggled and flickered against her cheek. The tentacle in her mouth squirmed away and the tongue entered her mouth as it kissed her. The puppet held her shoulders, and she cried out as one of the tentacles started prying her open. These tentacles were even thicker then the cocks of the men-puppets. They were slick and well lubricated, and the entrance of the aphrodisiac coating the tentacles into her cunt was even more arousing. Pussy juices flowed down the tentacle, as it started to fuck her, slamming in and out, all the way to the bottom of her cunt. She screamed, and the incubi-puppet teased her clit with his fingers while his tentacle fucked her. One tentacle squirmed in and out of her pussy, and one fucked her tits. Another forced it's way into her mouth. The puppet forced her onto her back and another tentacle started to push it's way into her ass. The tentacles fucked her and she screamed as yet another orgasm ripped her body in two. After that orgasm, things began to get dark. --- Helen moaned softly. She was wet, and it was cold. She was so sore... She opened her eyes, and she was outside the circle. She tried to remember. She remembered the demon turning into not two or three, but seven women. She remembered the demon turning into a great hairy beast with horns and a penis that literally wouldn't fit inside of her, she had been licking and stroking the insane length, hugging her arms and body around it. She remembered a slender pale humanoid creature who had used his foot-long tongue on every hole. Every limb hurt. A low-grade agony came from her vagina and anus. Her jaw was sore. She felt with her hand, and moaned with the pain of just brushing her swollen clitoris. How many times had she come? Her head ached like the worst kind of hangover. Her body was covered with the demon's oily come. In every form, the come had been the same. Infertile and clear. She looked at her hand after gently penetrating her vagina and asshole. Clear come, saliva, her own juices, but no blood. The demon had kept it's word, and not hurt her. "Are you awake Half-breed?" The demon's voice was low and sated, nearly a purr. It would have fucked her to death, but at least after three hours it felt some sort of peace. She looked into the circle, and moonlight shone on the leaves that were gently swirling. "I am not hurt, but what did you just call me?" The leaves stirred. "You did not know? You are half-Pixie. During one of their revels, a drunk pixie snuck into the human village and fucked your mother. It happens all the time, they wipe the human's memories. Normally they are smart enough not to fuck one of the opposite sex. Your daddy was too drunk to find a boy, so he conceived you." The demon's voice was matter-of-fact, and a little disdainful. "Pixies are stupid, but they can be clever. They tease me." It sounded sulky. Meanwhile, Helen was dazed. This changed everything. This was why she could give boys nightmares, and why her coloring was so different, and why she could change her form. "Tell me more!" The demon longed for sex, but it had also spent five hundred years in solitude, so it was eager for any contact with a living being, even one who had outsmarted it. "I noticed your shifting, and it is weaker then the shifting of a Pixie, what are your powers?" "I can give people nightmares! I can turn into some things, but it makes me dizzy. I can make illusions, but sometimes I feel dizzy if they are too long or complex." "Can you lie?" The leaves were moving in six sets of concentric circles. "Yes, of course I can lie." "Pixies are excellent shape shifters. They can change into animals and people. You can just shift into inanimate objects, and it makes you tired. They can give illusions, but they cannot mess with peoples dreams, which means that the human and PIxie in you did something strange. You are unique. You can lie too!" The demon made a windy groaning sound. "If you told any fey on this earth that you were going to take away all of their abilities and give them one, they would chose the ability to lie. It gives you strength over every fey. That is why humans are the ones who cover most of the earth, and not us." Helen shivered in a sudden gust of wind. "You said you would give me anything you were able. I want rabbits, and I want you to give me fire, mine is certainly out by now. I want you to tell me where my camp and clothes are from here." "Yes Half-breed." It spoke respectfully to her, it's voice still sated and happy." She thought deeply as she watched it work. She watched a bundle of resiny sticks blow together and watched the demon materialize as a Pixie to tie the bundle of sticks together, perhaps in honor of her discovery. She studied the Pixie male in the moonlight. Tanned skin, dark hair, and eyes that constantly changed color. Four incandescent clear wings fluttered on his slim back. His ears were pointed and his features were sharp and catlike and clever. Three rabbits hopped into the clearing, the demon was luring them in. The instant they stepped into the circles, an invisible weight crushed their skulls, and an invisible force threw them out to Helen's feet. The Pixie walked to the very edge of the stone circle, and held the torch through the barrier, without putting his hand through. Up close the Pixie was very handsome. She took the torch from him, and the Pixie-puppet pointed through the woods, his voice was soft and high. "Your clothes are that way, I can send a were-light with you that will last the night, if you promise to see me in the morning. You are part human, so you can lie, but I am so lonely." "I promise demon, I will visit you in the morning." She stuck the end of the torch into the circle, and it lit on fire. A tiny sphere of soft white light broke away from the circle and floated about three feet off the ground. The Pixie disappeared, and the whispery voice of the demon spoke. "It will lead you to the spring. See you in the morning Half-breed." --- Helen started her fire, and bathed in the icy water of the spring before putting her clothes back on. She used her little four-inch knife to shave bark off of three green sticks, and to gut and skin the rabbits. She shoved the green sticks into the mouths of the rabbits and roasted the first one over the fire. She was so hungry that she just singed the first one before gnawing bites of half-raw rabbit into her mouth. After eating away one side of the first rabbit, she forced herself to cook the rabbit slow, until it was well cooked. The rabbits were tough, but juicy. She cooked the other two, but didn't eat them. The were-light floated benevolently above the spring, making her feel safe. Animals were afraid of the were-light, she could see the shadows of a raccoon far away, that hissed at the light. Other animals stalked even further so she couldn't see them, revealing only the pinpricks of light that reflected in their eyes. Then she lay on a bed of soft moss and covered herself with her shawl next to the fire to ward away the cold. All she had ever thought of doing was to go back to the village. But now she knew she was a half-breed, and she somehow felt wiser after the circle demon. She didn't want to live the rest of her life in a dozy little village where all of them feared and hated her. She wanted out, and the circle demon would tell her how. She closed her eyes, and did not dream. --- In the morning she prepared herself, she had nearly nothing. She ate a meal of a haunch of cold rabbit, and walked to the circle demon. The leaves swirled. The voice was needy again. "Hello girl, do you want to come inside again? I will make a promise, three hours?" "I want to ask you a question demon." "One hour? Half an hour?" "If you answer my question I will reward you." The demon moaned with need, the leaves swirled into the air in a huge rustling. "Yes yes, ask your question." "I cannot go back to my village, not after this. I need to get away, and I need to live a life that is not dull. I cannot suffer monotony again. Get up, look for herbs, widow Hautzig, work, sleep! That was my life, and I never want to have a dull one like it again. I want to travel, and see this word. I want to see others of my kind, my true kind." The demon sounded puzzled. "What is your question?" "I want to know where to find the nearest road. I want to go to Perth, and then Sygon, and Canton. I want to go across the Ocean and see the Hale Mountains. I want to do everything, and see everywhere." The circle demon sighed eagerly. "The nearest road lies five miles east of here, due east. Please girl, how long will you give me?" "None." Helen said curtly. I never want to lose control like that again. I will not be your whore." The demon raged. Leaves flew in frantic circles. "You lied to me!! You treacherous human bitch!" "I didn't lie!" That shut the demon up. "I said I would reward you. When I get to Perth, I will go to the bars and the whorehouses and the beggars and tell them about you. I will tell the lowlives with no money and no hope that there is a circle demon up here. I will tell them how to make you promise not to hurt them, and how to make you feed them. They will love it. You are like a skilled whore who pays her customers instead of the other way around." The motion of the leaves was suddenly energetic and excited, but the demon's voice was sulky. "They wont be beautiful. They will be disgusting and ugly." Helen rolled her eyes. "When you get desperate enough, I bet you lure in the rabbits and fuck them. Am I right?" Silence from the demon, she had struck a nerve. "These will be humans at least. If I spread the word, you will have your own little harem up here, maybe not the prettiest, but better then fucking the wildlife." On that note, she struck out towards the road. The circle demon sighed, and went back to sleep. --- Helen had nearly nothing, but she had her powers. She was contemplating how to use them if she was in trouble, and she had a pretty good idea how. The circle demon had given her the idea. She walked the five miles on her bare feet. Soon she would have to find some boots, but for now, her rock-hard feet would have to do the trick. She came to the road. The road was the only road Helen had seen in her entire life. It was the road leading from the tiny unnamed town she grew up in, to the slightly larger village of Kusta. After that, it was a few more towns, and then the Capitol, Perth. Now, the road was little more then a single pair of wagon ruts that had been carved a foot deep over hundreds of years. The area was grassy, and soft on her feet as she took her first step onto it. She looked to the left. There was everything she had ever known. It would be so easy just to start on her way back home, and live an easy complacent life in the outer edge of the kingdom, to live with the widow Hautzig, and make shawls and baskets to trade for food and tools when the traders came. To maybe marry some chicken-shit farmer who would fumble clumsily with her every night. To never know what was outside the village. She spat on the road in that direction, and started walking towards Kusta on the grassy strip between ruts. *Thank you for reading, please tear this to pieces in the comments section. Advice and suggestions are always appreciated!*