Delvers into the darkness beneath the world's surface will name many dangers. The ubiquitous and horrifying oozes, the massive worms that can consume tons of rock and any hapless adventurer nearby, the mysterious ropers with their twisted intellect and strength sapping tentacles, and much more that are much worse. 

Those that live within the world's flesh and bones will tell you there is but one danger within the dark places of the earth: starvation.

Those that creep and those which ooze are the most common and effective of predators; able to live for months, sometimes years while scavenging and devouring the most minute scraps and the most poisonous of flesh. Only just below those horrors lie the intelligent denizens of the underworld, and only within a society can such survive. Among all such societies there is only one fate worse than death, and that is exile. In exile is a condemnation darker and more unhallowed than any overworld necromancy, more cruel than the most exquisite of blasphemies, for one so exiled does not even get the scant comfort of allowing their own flesh to feed those they love or those they have harmed.

Even relatively close to the surface, what others see as 'laws' and 'rules' are simply the facts of survival in the underworld. To those who live in the darkness below the sunlit and moonlit world, all things must serve survival. Despite that, or perhaps because of it, the slightest of things can become the hinge upon which livelihood and happiness swings freely or traps one in a living hell. 

The kinds of serpent people that live in the world are varied, and their cultures vary even further. In one of the equatorial mountain ranges, where the sun burns hot enough that not even those high peaks see snow, there lives a nest of warlike serpent folk. They are called lamia by the common tongue, Keepers of the Spears of the Sun in their own tongue, and rattlers by their enemies. One youthful individual, Lays-On-Lake-Islands, had taken up arms, with her brothers and sisters, for the nest was under attack, and the precious hatchery requires even the youngest who can bear arms to defend the nest.

Lakailes was not the youngest, however; she was an adult by her kinds standards, even if only just.  A talented archer, she nocked another arrow to the sinew string and let loose, even as she rushed forward to intercept the invaders.  Duergar, the cruel slavers and miners of the deep world, seeking slaves and eggs.  Despite their attacking at night, for the Rattlers have openings to the outside world in their mountain stronghold which would burn the duergars' eyes to smoking holes were the sun still up, the nest was the most well guarded area of the keep.  

That meant little to practiced miners and shapers of stone in the darkness of the flesh of the world.  As they crawled and climbed out the holes they had broken out from the floors and walls of the hatchery they let loose with thrown axes and lassos, seeking to capture as often as kill.  Despite their clever plan, the resistance is clearly more than they expected, and these are not the calm, relaxed lamia of the upper world.  These are warriors, through and through 

Lakailes put an arrow through the gut of another invader, her slithering movement allowing her to keep an even shooting stance despite her speed, and she joined Call-To-Far-Pillars.  A few years her elder, Fapils was making good use of his wicked fauchard, often bringing an opponent down so several others could make quick work of the enemy with knives and fangs.  The disturbing, constant buzzing and whirring of the lamias' tails echoed through the caverns, both a warning and an alarm.

Placing herself nearly back to back with the young male she had been considering bonding with, Lakailes let loose another deadly arrow as Fapils grinned wildly at her, their bodies brushing along each other as they jockey for position.  She smiled back even as she prepared another shot, the two young knife carriers splitting up so they can assist either of the warriors in dispatching wounded enemies.  It doesn't take long before several duergar made for what they considered young prey.  

As a lasso drifted around her knife-friend, Lakailes sent an arrow winging towards the stocky, stoic raider which imbedded itself in his thigh before he tore it out and snarled viciously.  Though her arrows were poisoned with her own venom, the duergar tend to be a hardy folk and the poison was not as effective as she would have preferred.  A thrown axe took her knife-friend in the shoulder and he dropped his weapon as the duergar yanked him over and down, crying out in pain.  Cursing loudly, Lakailes raced forward, sliding between fallen allies and foes alike, as the raider started hauling the young lamia towards himself.  When her second arrow passed by his head, he wrapped the rope around his wrist and pulled a wide-bladed short sword and moved towards her.  

Despite her seemingly obliging movement to meet him, to the raider's shock Lakailes reared up and back, lifting her human-like torso out of the reach of his swing and allowing her to plant an arrow through his off-arm as he twisted away from her shot.  Lashing out with the wicked looking blade, he grunted hatefully, his beady black eyes trying to track her movements as she bobbed and weaved around him.  Despite her serpentine body remaining close, for which she paid several shallow but long cuts, her torso seemed to float up and down at random, always just out of reach as she nocked an arrow and sometimes getting closer just before she let fly.  

With another two arrows imbedded in his left side, the duergar cursed angrily, and while Lakailes didn't understand him, she understood the tone and hate.  She managed another arm shot, his sacrifice of his left arm to her arrows making it difficult to get a clean kill shot. Suddenly he changed tactics and slammed his blade down as she whipped past him again....but not at her body.  The blade bit deep and Lakailes shrieked in pain, her torso falling forward as the agony of severed flesh and sword-bitten bone burned through her body.  Rolling over as the duergar moved to finish her, she was gratified to see his shock as the already nocked arrow centered on his eye, before taking it and his life.  

Slowly pushing herself up and then rising to a more normal height, Lakailes pulled her tail around afraid of how deeply she was cut.  As she struggled to rattle her tail, the numbness of her tail-tip frightened her; the warm blooded bastard had severed nerves, maybe bone!  Only when she realized that she wasn't having to chase her own rattle did Lakailes understand how bad the damage was.  

Tears welled in her bronze eyes, as she slung her bow, heedless of the last few skirmishes occurring throughout the nest.  Her tail had not been cut – it had been entirely severed, the bone sheered through.  Only a trickle of blood spilled from the open end, as she lifted it slowly from the ground, an arms-length of dead meat with rattles limp and clicking softly.  It was still only tail meat, nothing vital to her survival, but the loss of her rattles was more than a matter of survival.

Sobbing softly, she cradled the end of her tail, sobbing softly as she realized what this meant, the pain a shadow compared to what her fate would be without the thing that set her kind apart from all other lamias.  She barely noticed as  Call-To-Far-Pillars slithered up behind her, and she did not see how his handsome face contorted into disgust, seeing her disfigurement, her shame.  Lakailes had not been quick enough, had suffered from a few seconds of vulnerability, and paid the price for it.  Such a callous, careless disregard for safety could not be tolerated among those who lived in the underworld, and even though it had not cost Lakailes her life, it had cost her all standing in her community. 

Fapils quietly slithered away, and Lakailes turned to call out to him, still gripping the remnant of her tail in one hand, tears streaming down her cheeks.  The backwards glance he gave her stilled her voice in her throat, his anger, his disgust clearly writ across his face, in his eyes.  

As the nest of the Keepers of the Spears of the Sun recovered from the brutal attack, Lays-On-Lake-Islands remained where she was, weeping, wondering what she would become.

While her dedication and efforts in the battle were recognized by the elders, a portion of the food and treasures given out to her family, it was clear to all that she had failed herself.  It was not something that could be hidden, an injury of such obviousness that left her a silent mute in many ways, at least among her people.  The respect of the elders for her accomplishments in battle were not enough to prevent the scorn or the disdain with which her fellow warriors looked and treated her with.  If they knew what she had added to her shoulder pouch, it would have been worse.

It did not take long for her to become shunned, rather than merely disliked or hated.  In many ways it was worse, especially for a young warrior who should have been entering into the broader, brighter world of affection, mating rituals, and bonding with other warriors in ways aside those of war.  She did not particularly blame them for their reactions to her; she herself would have been much the same, avoiding intimacy, closeness with one who could not be trusted to protect herself, much less the nest.  

The more Lays-On-Lake-Islands thought about it though, the less sense it made.  Wasn't a single warrior who could take a dozen trophies with only four more arrows than that number, who would dare fight an enemy up close with a bow rather than lose one of the precious young, wasn't such a person valuable in their own right?  Given a choice between allowing one of their own to be taken away, enslaved, or even slaughtered and eaten like a mammal, she had chosen to fight at a disadvantage.  Sacrificed safety and even flesh rather than the life of another potential warrior.  Even that child wouldn't look at or speak to her.

It didn't take long at all for the young warrior's despair and pain to turn to resentment and anger.

Though she was shunned, she was not ignored.  It would be impossible for her to take anything that was not rightfully hers from the nest and even if the opportunity arose, she would not take it.  The new, strange ideas that ran counter to the society she lived in were not that far apart from their origins.  Still, she had been successful in battle and there were prizes and gifts owed her.  Food portions, the metal for weapons, leather, and a few small and very prized gems for trade were all hers for the taking if not the asking, and it did not take long for her intent to become clear to those in charge of such matters.  

Unlike a typical exile Lakailes was permitted to take what belonged to her even though her food portions were only given up to that days allowances, not further.  Her remaining food would portioned to the clutch, given to the young as a gift in the same manner as that of a dying or dead lamia's would have been.  She did not begrudge them that; it was only fitting for one who was dead to her entire culture to be treated as dead, and that it would help her nest grow was a balm to her soul.  While she did not need much metal, wood was precious, and much of her allowance for metal was taken in the form of arrows, an entire second quiver's worth.  A single water skin was all she could carry, but water was not as difficult to find as food could be.  Only a few small, pretty gems were hers to take, but they would have to suffice, and she gave up one of those for a few pounds of salt.  A good trade, but it was all she could garner; salt was almost as precious as water.  Gold was largely useless, and silver too valued as a weapon, so those were not hers to take.

Only a few of her people saw her leave, one of them the younger knife-wielding child she'd saved the life of.  He did not speak, but he watched her go, which was vindication enough for her.  

It did not take Lakailes long to leave the territory claimed by the Keepers of the Spears of the Sun, as her only hope was to move deeper, rather than simply away.  Her kind preferred the slightly warmer caverns near the surface, where the sun could occasionally shine into their lairs; her decision to exile herself from their scorn and derision meant she would be considered an intruder, and dealt with just as harshly as any intruder might be.  Few societies beneath the surface considered the crime of poaching as anything less than a request to be added to the larder. 

Even burdened as she was with her supplies, Lakailes made good time though the caverns her people claimed as their own.  Partly because of familiarity and partly because she abandoned the dignity of moving with her torso upright much of the time, lowering herself to the ground and thrust forward like a true serpent might move.  She needed to be gone from her – no, their, those peoples' – lands quickly, just in case someone decided to take advantage of her youth and vulnerability.  

It would not be the first time an exile was 'accidentally' the victim of a hunting party of their own kind. 

As she neared the edges of their territory, she slowed, and became even more cautious.  Lakailes was as deep as she had ever gone, and beyond this place there would be no kindness of strangers, no calling for aid.  Which should not have bothered her as much as it did, she supposed, given that there was no way should could have done that after losing her tail.  Digging into her carry-sack, she pulled out a necklace and placed it about her neck.  A collarette made from bone and the carved remnants of her own rattle, held together with leather thongs. A grim trophy than now marked her as standing apart from all her kind. 

Survival was a hard thing to begin with in these lightless, ancient places even with the help of an entire community.  Lakailes quickly found herself hard pressed to move further and deeper into the flesh of the world.  Her first issue was the fungi.  Surface dwellers had to worry about poisons.  The lone lamia, only just an adult by her own kind's standards and probably less than that by surface dweller standards, had to deal with the fact that where-ever something had died, the spore-thick underworld air would give rise to patches of fungi.  Aggressive fungi, which would hunt her as much as she desired to eat it.  Invisible and mobile fungus, fungus that would lash out with rot-inflicting tendrils, fungus that would sap the living warmth right from her body, and fungus that would give rise to floating balloons of pressurized death.  

Still, she managed to collect goodly amounts of the mineral and vitamin rich mushrooms and mycelium.  They helped supplement her own supplies, for the moment.  Still, it wasn't long before she started seeing the evidence of the true rulers of the underworld.  

Chitin.  Claw marks.  Strands of tough but no-longer-sticky webbing.  

Every time she found such evidence she forced herself to examine it.  Was it wet, was it fragile, was it a discarded carapace, had it been killed by fang or sword or hammer?  Detail was critical, because it could mean the difference between stumbling upon the fresh kill of a giant centipede as long as she was and was thus no longer hungry, or the freshly moulted and starving hunting spider that was nearby, or the leavings of a swarm of cave ants that were tiny in size by themselves but in large numbers could decimate colonies of the sapient.

When she finally found a place to stay for some time, it too was carefully searched, top to bottom.  Every crevice examined, every source of water studied, every patch of wetness examined with tool and with hastily made fire.  For where there was water, there was life, and not all of that life was natural.  Though the mineral heavy water hurt the throat to drink, drink she did, after verifying that it was both truly water and did not play host to anything more dangerous than minerals and a few specimens of cave fish and the algae that fed them.  

She knew the place was far enough out of the way from her own home that she did not have to fear a hunting party, and it was also not in the direction of the dour miner-folk.  That did not mean she was safe from other sapient folk, or that there were not other creatures of intellect that haunted these caverns.  Still, she hadn't heard of many other creatures aside from the duergar that lived near enough to her own kind – no longer her people, only her kind – to be of note.  So she made this small living cavern her home, for the moment.  

A small patch of algae and a single cave-fish caught by hand and gutted atop the algae served as a starter, and she placed several caps of the edible fungi shed found earlier atop the mess.  As she munched thoughtfully on a stem, she started a very small fire, and began making a stew of mushrooms, roasted meat, and some tubers.  The fire was more to conceal the scent of the freshly killed fish than to heat the food; she purposefully left the stew bland.  Fires were rare but the scent of death was even more rare and drew much more attention.  She had been right about the crevices in the ceiling, for the smoke did not gather in her new home.  

While her community had measured their days by the beams of sunlight and moonlight, here there was no such way to keep time.  She slept when she was tired, and hunted or worked on tools and defenses for her home when she was not.  Hunting took up almost all of her time.  She had no idea how many days, weeks passed; she measured time by how hungry she was getting and how lean her serpentine form was getting.  Most of what she hunted were whip scorpions, which seemed to be the most common creature the caves provided for her to hunt in this area.  She did stumble upon a very large colony of drop-crawlers, what overworlders called executioner hoods.  They were actually the young of much deadlier floor or ceiling trappers, creatures that would spread themselves over an area and fold over whatever trod over or under or along side them.  It was these that seemed to be the most common prey of the whip scorpions.  

Most of her prey were only a foot or two across at best, but they were meaty creatures, their legs and jaws powerful and long.  Lakailes was thrilled when she caught a three-footer;  not only because of the meat, but because the longer and thicker leg chitin could be fashioned into arrow shafts.  Occasionally she would find more mushroom patches, which she was careful to launch arrows from a distance into to make sure there were no screeching fungi or phantom fungi.  Her own little patch she cared for, and it was this that told her that she had been alone for almost two months, more than anything else.

Lays-On-Lake-Islands had lost all of her fat in the time she had been on her own; her snake's body was slim and lean, and she'd grown almost an arm-length.  Her human-like torso was lithe and muscular, her arms and shoulders especially.  Her breasts had filled out a little, though that was mostly due to her use of a bow and her penchant for staying low to the ground as she explored and hunted rather than remaining upright – more muscle.  Her hair she kept in tight braids, which she let out only at home, and she had cured the leathery hide of her whip scorpion prey into bandeau tops and kilts along with leather arm bracers.  She had taken to leaving her urine in small pools in various places along her hunting routes, using the ammonia that it broke down to as both bait for the huge ants that wandered the halls and as bleaching agents.  She also kept a flask of some of the most ammoniac of the evaporated liquids as a counter-infection.  It had saved her mother's life once; that and she liked the white leather better than the black, though it only mattered to her, now. 

The first sign that her luck had changed was when she could not find any of the wind scorpions in her usual hunting territory.

By itself, that was not a bad sign; she had thinned out their population quite a bit, so their scarcity was not alarming to Lakailes.  When several days had passed and she'd been forced to dip into the cave-fishes to supplement her already meager diet, she hunted further afield.  She did notice that several patches of fungi had vanished, including one with a screeching fungus in it.  Still, there were several creatures that would obliterate a patch or two of threatening fungi, even other fungi.  

When she became desperate enough to hunt the leathery, tasteless, difficult to cook drop-crawlers she discovered how bad her luck had turned.  They were largely sedentary creatures, their parent's hatcheries often made near ant or spider colonies where they could survive for long periods of time.  When she arrived....it had been wiped clean.  Not a single drop-crawler, not a speck of guano, not a shred of hide nor drop of blood.  As if the entire nest had never existed.  

“Oh no. Ohno ohno ohno.  Noooononono....”  The echo of her own voice startled her; she hadn't heard herself speak in....she had no idea.  Her hearts raced, and her speaking lung felt like it was going to crawl out of her mouth and choke her.  She slung her bow – it was useless against the thing that now hunted here – and took out one of her few remaining torches.  Coiling close to herself, she scanned everywhere, trying to see everything at once, watching for the singular, sinister shifting of the environment that would be the only warning that the most dreaded denizen of all the underworld was coming for her.  Without light, there would be no shadows for it to lurk in, no glistening of its body, no reflection to give it away.  The bitter tang of terror and the surging of her hearts flooding with adrenaline made her shake as Lays-On-Lake-Islands worked her fire-starter with the desperation of someone who has only one chance to survive.  

Because she had exactly one chance to survive.  

The flames caught and she lifted the torch high, crawling over herself in terror, her eyes seeking the ceiling first, then the way she had come in from.  She looked at the other passages out, and saw nothing but rock.  No moving shadow, no black gleam of wetness.  From nothing, she fled, her eyes trying to look everywhere at once, trying to locate the horror before it found her.  

Oh, the surface dwellers spoke of their dragons, their aboleths, their cloakers.  Murderous, enslaving, cunning, brutal things.  The terrors of being held captive by drow, worked to death by duergar, eaten by lamia.  Things that could be spoken with, if not necessarily reasoned with.  Oh, how they reveled in their dealings with such creatures!  How wondrous, they could meet such terrors and live!

Lakailes hated them so much in that moment.  Hated their ignorance, their simplicity, their utter stupidity.  She envied them too, safe, ignorant, unwary.  As she made her way home by the most familiar routes, the safest routes, the ones she knew every nook and cranny of, she cursed them, cursed her people, cursed the creature than had put her in this terrifying situation, cursed his people, his way of life, his entire lineage forever. 

She paused at the entrance to her home, studying, looking inside.  Trying to see through the shadows made by her own torch, her tail twitching instinctively in her fear.  She slowly crawled towards the entrance, but movement stopped her cold.  Blackness fell from the roof of her home into the tiny pool where she had bathed, fed her little fish, grew algae.  A large black dollop of perfectly formed and utterly polished darkness that slipped into the pool.  There would be no more mushroom patch, no more leather sack, no spare arrows, no flesh or bone or leather.

The young lamia shrieked as the black pudding consumed everything within her home, and then started to surge out of the opening of her home, sensing her presence and hungering as only the purest, deadliest form of life in the world could do so.  She fled for her life, knowing that unless she found other prey for it to consume, it would hunt her until she could run no longer.  Then she would die, and there would be no trace of her left anywhere.  Lays-On-Lake-Islands slithered through the underworld as if the hosts of all dark places were after her....and in many ways, she wished they were.  

At least you could bargain with them.

The flickering blue and orange of the torch as she raced through the cavern was not a hindrance with her inhuman ability to see in the dark, but it reduced the effectiveness the torch had in detecting wetness.  Wetness, or the appearance of wetness, was often the only clue there would be that one of the amoebic creatures that ruled the underworld was present.  A patch of slime, a pool of water, the gleam of inky darkness; all things that could be harmless or be a painful demise as flesh and bone and blood were eaten away finger-length by finger-length, layer by layer.  If one was lucky the viscous life form would paralyze you or at the very least smother you.  If one was unlucky....or possessed of a large amount of flesh....then dying could take a very long and painful time.  Lakailes planned on opening an artery if it caught her.

Her best hope was to find a large living cavern, a place where there was plenty of moisture and fungus, and hopefully water.  The black ooze could climb with equal facility and water would be no problem to it, but she could swim much faster and water meant other creatures would be near the precious resource.  An inhabited lake would be ideal.  Even an aboleth would find itself hard pressed to cope with the nightmarish sludge that pursued her.  

Lays-On-Lake-Islands was already starting to run into trouble, unfortunately.  She was far from her hunting grounds, and the territories were new to her here.  Certainly she moved faster than the predatory ooze, but her lack of familiarity was starting to take  toll.  Sometimes she would be forced to backtrack, and other times she would nearly stumble into a patch of fungus.  Any patch of fungus would make for only a small pause as the voracious gelatin would consume it to the bedrock, while Lakailes had to cautiously move around it.  

There was no way to determine how long she had been fleeing from the creeping doom that had scoured her hunting grounds clean of life.  The torch would not show signs of use until it was on the verge of extinguishing itself, but she'd already been hunting for quite some time.  Her body was starting to ache from the effort of prolonged racing, even with the short periods of back-tracking and exploring of other passages.  Even though she had made her way through several narrower tunnels to find new caverns beyond – a risky investment of time and effort – there would be no safety until she had made sure that there was other prey for it to consume. 

When she did come across the first large living cavern – one with a small but swift flowing river which pooled in several places before continuing down passages she did not dare explore – she thought that she'd found an escape from the certain doom that followed her.  Checking several of the crevices and openings, she was profoundly disappointed.  Most were impassible to her, though she did take the time to relieve herself along one in the slim hope it might confuse they mysterious predatory slime.  The few that were not entirely impassible lead to places that gave her no exit, making them no better.

Taking the time to light a second torch, she left the first one wedged into a crack near the tunnel she had left her spoor at.  She then started climbing, but rather than straight up at a wall, she started climbing in a long, slow semicircle from where she left the first torch.  Though she often had to switch hands and occasionally use her mouth to hold the torch – for while her snakelike body was capable of climbing, the muscles and bones used to do so were entirely lacking in her human-like upper body – she managed fairly well.  

She was two-thirds of the way up to some ledges where she hoped there might be entrances to other galleries in the cavern network when the predator spilled into the cavern.  

At the time she was holding the torch in her teeth, clinging to the wall with hands and body, stretched out along the wall like some gigantic swath of reptilian paint casually wiped over the rocks.  Her whimper was small enough and she grit her teeth on the torch, making it twitch slightly, as she suppressed any further noise.  As high up as she was, about six or seven arm-lengths, she could not simply drop down; while her muscular body was capable of taking some heavy blows, that same weight made it dangerous to fall more than a few feet, especially given that all of her major organs extended through most of her lower body.

As the creature flowed through the cavern, a massive pool measuring some five arm-lengths across in every way and as much as one and a half arm-lengths in thickness, she held still and watched the living ink.  As she'd hoped it was making for the torch first, a source of heat within easy reach.  The thing surprised her by simply gliding over the surface of the water, apparently buoyant enough to keep itself along the surface.  The idea of being trapped under that was terrifying.  Drowning was definitely her choice if she had to chose, she mused. 

The ooze flowed around the torch, which immediately started to sink into the creatures body, and she heard the soft hiss a it seared the alien substance, a stench much like that of curdled milk and seared fats wafting through the cavern.  Fire could hurt it, but the things bulk made a battle with torches unfeasible for someone with Lakailes own bulk.  There was just too much of herself to defend effectively even holding two torches.  Worse, it didn't seem to care all hat much that it had been burned:  it slid into the cavern where she had left her spoor even as it finished every last bit of carbonized wood.

Transferring the torch to her hand she started climbing upwards as fast as she could, pushing and hauling her human portion up while her serpentine bod undulated and crept along after.  She was only two arm-lengths away from her goal when the horror slid out of the tunnel – not along the floor, but along the side of the tunnel, making a line for her on the wall.  Dropping the torch, she used every bit of strength and skill to climb the wall, even letting half her body fall and dangle below her, despite the immense strain it put on her spine and shoulders.  

Her risky maneuver helped, since it got her another three arm-lengths of clear space between her and it; half her serpentine body length.  The sludge was also not nearly as quick along the wall as it was on the floor.  It was just as implacable.

A mere arm-length from the ledge and she felt the first caress of the horror along her tail.  She bit back a scream, and pulled her tail away quickly, resisting the urge to slap the monstrous goo with her tail.  The cool touch quickly turned into fiery agony as the acid ate into her scales; slapping the creature with her tail would have been so much worse.  She forced her body up another two hand-lengths, dragging her serpentine form along the cavern wall.  Then a second touch and she did scream, the acids opening her blunted tail end and searing the raw flesh beneath.  

Then there was fire cascading down the wall at her, violet-red flames that poured like liquid and made no sound.  A strange female's voice spoke softly from above her.  “Do not fear the flames.  They are not real.”  Despite the reassurance, they felt warm enough as they boiled along the cavern wall, felt real enough that she turned her head and held her breath, expecting to be burned alive.  When she felt nothing but a faint warmth, she opened her eyes, the fires flickering around her and over her, coating her as they coated the wall.

The cessation of agonizing pain (rather, the reduction of pain from agonizing to merely awful) along her tail prompted her to look down.  The horror was recoiling from the flames as they approached it, the illusory threat enough to make the creature retreat.  She noted that the flames never actually reached the oozing sludge, but it retreated nonetheless.  After watching long enough to reassure herself that she could continue the climb without being overly wary, Lakailes started climbing hard and fast, pushing her body to the limits and scraping herself along the rocks painfully in doing so.

The fire chased the black ooze further away, into one of the side caverns.  Lakailes crawled to the edge of the ledge and watched, the fires held it there for a moment, but it was clear the creator could do no more with them than herd the creature away.  Suddenly the feminine voice began a potent incantation which echoed across the hall, the flames slowly fading as she turned her will to another working of magic.

Looking up, Lakailes was shocked to find herself gazing up at the svelte yet buxom figure of an elf, clad in silks and delicate chains, festooned with gems and gesturing magnificently as she called on the power of magic.  A quick glance back showed no others of her kind.  Or anyone else for that matter; no slaves, no warriors, no fellow adventurers.  Only the magic wielding elf, who conjured a roaring and much more realistic wall of violet and ruby flames to trap the deadly sludge away from them.  

Shaking from exertion, Lays-On-Lake-Islands gazed up at the elf, the very real fires of her latest spell showing the warrior her ebony skin under translucent white silk and silver chains.  Eyes like pools of water covered mercury gazed down at her and the full lips curled into a small smile.  “I have not had a young female cower at my feet in some seasons.  It does not suit you well, serpent, for all that it pleases me to see.”  Her decorous gems glimmered in the shifting firelight as she crouched, offering slender fingers of a delicate hand weighted with rings of white gold, mithril, and black adamantine.

Swallowing nervously, the lamia accepted the offered hand reluctantly, and allowed the drow to assist her in righting herself.  Once her human torso was upright and she had a length of her serpentine form underneath, Lakailes was able to stand on her own.  She curled her tail around and looked at the seared flesh eaten away by the acids of the horror that lay trapped behind the walls of flame.  That prompted a quick, nervous glance at the sheet of flames.  

“Yes.  It is not entirely real, but it is real enough to keep the ~renor s'lozan~ confined for some short while.  If you wish, you may accompany me for a time.  There is a safe place nearby I will take you to that is not within contest, my kind, yours, or other.”  Her lips glistened in the weird light, and the softness of her smile, the amusement in those nearly liquid metal eyes made Lakailes' heart beat faster.  Some of it was fear, and some of it was undoubtedly just loneliness.  

That was a good reason.  Loneliness.

Continuing the conversation in her own tongue, which the drow seemed to have a better than good grasp of, Lakailes spoke quietly.  Too quietly, at first, for the drow's ears flicked in response to the murmur, and the lamia blushed.  When she tried again, her voice was raspy, rough from both disuse and a parched throat.  “I must bind these wounds at once.  I do not want an infection.”  That would have been just her luck, however.  Rattle chopped off, her home eaten by black ooze, and now facing a drow sorceress who enjoyed subjugating young women.  An infection would have made for an ignominious yet so very appropriate end to her pathetic life.

The drow inclined her head faintly, but made no other effort to give Lakailes privacy or room.  The ledge was large enough for her to do so, but she remained where she was, far too close to the lamia for her to feel comfortable.  Digging in her pack, she withdrew some cloth and a pouch of her precious salt.  The latter she crushed several times over, between her hands, grinding the crystals into a finer powder.  A few swallows from her water-skin soothed her parched throat and then she poured some of the water over the cloth.  She hated the waste, but she was not about to climb back down and then up again just for some water she wasn't even sure was potable.

After she coated the cloth with the powdered salt, just enough to cover the two open wounds, she took several deep breaths, and then plastered the salt-crusted cloth over the injuries.  Her tail shook involuntarily but she pressed hard, breathing through pursed lips in short bursts as the agonizing pain of salt on raw flesh started to subside.  The drow watched with great interest, as she finally bound the plasters in place with leather cords from her hair, sinew cord she'd made from one of her prey animals or another.  Whip scorpion, she thought as she idly watched sparks float across her vision.  

The drow's mellifluous voice drifted through the haze of hyperventilation and pain.  “You are generous with your displays of cleverness, courage, abasement, and torment.”  Breathing slowly, Lakailes recovered swiftly from her self inflicted daze.  “I believe that I am in your debt, pretty serpent.”  The young warrior glanced suspiciously at the drow, who was already turning to enter one of the crevices that terminated at the ledge they were on.  It made little sense, this strange drow woman who wielded arcane magics to save the life of another, who offered succor rather than ensnaring and binding, and who made mention of a debt when nothing more than necessity was involved.

It was downright insane, is what it was.  

Still, she would have to be a fool not to accept even the dangerous hospitality of a drow when she had nothing save her life or her freedom to lose.  As far as Lays-On-Lake-Islands was concerned, she was already on borrowed time.  She still had her fangs, not to mention her bow and her dagger.  Slowly she followed the drow, who was just as cautious moving through the tunnels and caverns as Lakailes was.

They did not speak as they made their way through the caverns.  Lakailes noted that the drow did not try and backtrack or confuse her, though she did not point out any specific dangers that they passed either.  There was only one exception; in one of the living caverns, the drow warned Lakailes to avoid the water.  There were crystals from the water everywhere, and Lakailes noted that the drow cast another, though far less complex spell and animated a large  geode which had been broken open to reveal the hollow and crystal-filled interior.  The geode would submerge itself in the milky stream, and then pour water over the tracks they left.  

“The water contains alchemics that the ~s'lozan~ do not like.  They avoid this place, and several others nearby which are like it.  The alchemics will harm the skin and dry the lungs, so they are not safe for any but it is a price I am willing to pay.  Your scales are stronger and tougher than my skin so you will need not fear the alchemics.”  Her explanation told Lakailes a great deal about why she'd dared to stay and observe the hunting ooze and its not-entirely hapless victim.  Despite the idea of being used as entertainment by someone who could have helped her at any time, Lakailes couldn't truly condemn the drow.  After all, she wouldn't have rescued someone until the last minute either.  And it wasn't as though the horror had caused her any more damage than had already been done to her, she admitted bitterly.

Even near and within the alkaline waters of this cavern there was life, however; soft shelled cave-shrimp and strange floral creatures with short tentacles in riotous hues lived within the water, and odd crystalline creatures crawled along the stalactites and stalagmites of the acrid halls.  It took several minutes to pass through the strange caverns, and once they had the air cleared quickly.  A wind tunnel nearby, Lakailes suspected, one of many passages that kept the caverns free of toxic fumes.  

As they moved into more open caverns, Lakailes spotted movement in the upper reaches, and unslung her bow, nocked, and launched an arrow in swift, practiced movements.  There was a soft thud nearly simultaneous with the bright 'ping' of her arrowhead striking stone as she pierced her target through.  It did not fall so a second arrow finished the job; a whip scorpion fell from the ceiling, twitching in its death throes.  

She started towards her downed prey, but the drow stopped her with a surprisingly gentle touch upon her shoulder, one she nearly recoiled from.  “Allow my spell-crafted servant to perform the onerous task.”  The dead arthropod rose into the air, much as the geode had, and slowly floated to them.  As it accompanied them, Lakailes feeling slightly nervous at the idea that some invisible force was accompanying them that she was unable to see or sense in any way.  

The drow woman's amusement was clear in her soft, lilting voice.  “It is a simple spell, harmless.  Little more than a manifestation of my will upon the air.  A thing for menial and repetitive tasks I have no desire to perform myself upon the occasion.”  Her attempt at reassurance was not very effective though her voice was beautiful.  The drow's grasp of her language was mechanically perfect but very formal, elegant even.  

“Since it's your hunting ground, please accept a portion of the kill,” Lakailes murmured as she slung her bow.  Apologizing for the killing was out of the question – food was too rare to be allowed to escape.  There was also the unlikely possibility that she had been on the menu, but to discuss it would have been rude.  

The sleek woman glanced at the lamia, an odd expression on her face.  “Gladly will I accept it.  I have no great skill with the bow, and my magic is ill suited to the hunt.  Your generosity is appreciated.”  Lakailes tried not to stare at the woman.  Was ~she~ insane?  Was that why she was here, alone?  An outcast?  The idea that a drow could not fight well, or had magics that were limited in scope was just....bizarre, almost too much to contemplate.  Though hunting and fighting were two different sorts of problems, Lakailes admitted.  Still, the thought was strange. 

The transition from the natural caverns to those that the drow woman lived in was obvious, made only more so by the fact the elf walked though an innocuous cavern wall to reach them.  It was illusory, like the fires had been, but it did not dissipate or fade even when Lays-on-Lake-Islands understood that fact.  She paused as she felt the silk layered the floor in a thick carpet, only slithering onto it when she was sure it was well anchored.  The cavern walls were smooth here, and the few stalactites and stalagmites here were more decorously carved art pieces than random.  One was surrounded by a pool of clear water, the natural growth of the formation having been altered to allow for a continued source of fresh water.  A strange, very faint and nearly floral scent wafted through the rooms.  There were no stone partitions; there was a bathing area, another pool of water but perfectly clear, and heated by some magic.

There was a bed; it appeared to be a large, circular leather pad some three arm-lengths across and nearly one arm-length in thickness.  It was depressed in the middle, but held its shape strangely as though it had been formed somehow.  There were several shelves and chests of stone, some formed out of the rock floor or walls, others separate but of similar stone.  Many held bottles of strange glass and containing many strangely colored or marbled liquids, or folded pieces of clothing.  The only weapons were a sheathed, wide-bladed short sword and a spear leaning against a wall.  Curtains made of stands of silk with odd pearl-like beads, multicolored crystals, and coins of many kinds and metals and shapes helped partition the areas.  Fireless globes illuminated the room with a cool white light.  

There was only one area that was truly partitioned from the rest, Lakailes discovered – the drow woman said she could relieve herself there if needed though she did warn Lakailes not to touch the blue alchemical in the pit since it was highly corrosive and would dissolve flesh as readily as any other leavings.  The strange and not unpleasant scent emanated from that area.

The one thing that Lakailes did not see was a shrine, image, or even any icons of the dread gods that such people usually worshiped.  Anywhere.  It was another oddity among many.  

“Please make yourself comfortable in this place,” the slender drow woman said firmly.  “I will prepare something to refresh you.  Would you wish to keep your portion of the flesh of the prey?”  The silvery eyes sparkled at the look on Lakailes face, but the drow offered no explanation for her untoward and unexpected generosity.  Though she had mentioned a debt earlier.  

Shaking her head, Lakailes moved to where the bed was, and slid onto it slowly.  To her surprise it moved under her weight, but not much; the leather pad contained large grained sand or rounded gravel, it felt like, and as she coiled up on it, it shifted slightly to accommodate her body shape.  It was surprisingly comfortable and she placed her back against the wall, watching the drow prepare the whip scorpion and some tubers as well as fungus stems and caps, with the assistance of her still unseen servant.  

The young lamia was finding herself more and more discomfited by the drow woman's efforts on her behalf.  Assisting her in escaping the gruesome death that had nearly caught her; leading her to a home, a place of safety and comfort that was nearly palatial as far as Lakailes was concerned; and preparing food to share with her.  There were no slaves, no evidence of the worship of dark and alien gods.  The elf's lean body, despite her still feminine attributes showed that her claim at being a less than skilled hunter was somewhat accurate.  

It was very distressing, this....this ~kindness~ she was being shown.

It became even more complicated as she was now able to actually study the drow woman since she was in a place of relative safety.  She trusted the curtains to hide her bronze-eyed gaze from the drow, and she shifted uncomfortably.  Tall, in the manner of her kind, with full, firm breasts, but more lean than the few others of her kind Lakailes had seen.  On the other hand those had been fully armed, and often warriors.  Her hips were still nicely prominent, but Lakailes could only guess that her legs were deemed an attractive feature, as most creatures with two legs that she had seen were enemies or from afar due to her youth.  Her silvery eyes were unusual as well, most of the others she had met had possessed eyes of yellow, red, or white.  No sclera at all, only strange pupils that took up the whole of her eye like a mirror backed sphere.  Admittedly her own sclerae were lacking, as most of her eye was iris.

Those eyes glanced at her as she watched the drow prepare the meal they would be sharing.  More strangeness.  Servant duty, and sharing.  It was all very peculiar.  The situation made Lakailes nervous, as did the soft, alien voice singing lilting melodies.  There wasn't any magic in the signing as the drow's voice was too soft, her hands to busy with foodstuffs.  It didn't take a genius to figure out why she was starting to become nervous.  

The drow was not the only one who had been lonely, and worse, she had left just before her time of bonding.  So the rituals and activities the drow was performing, regardless of their actual intent, were similar in nature to those she might have performed or had performed for her by those who wished to make her part of their mating groups or hunting parties, or those she wished to join with in such groups.  The polyandrous social structure and lower female-to-male ratio of their particular breed made such groups necessary.  That she was ignorant of the fact that similar rituals could be performed by other races for very similar reasons was not remarkable but did result in her misconception being accurate by happenstance.

That misconception did, of course, lead her back to looking at the drow in another, stranger light.  

The light silk blouse and leggings the drow wore were loose, wide at the ankles and upper arms.  A thin net of chains draped across her shoulders, the connections bearing gems in baroque settings of many kinds.  Not all perfect, but many still beautiful and some quite large.  A similar netting as fastened about her waist, almost like a skirt or kirtle, and they chimed softly as she moved about the large living area.  The low stone table she had been working at was thick based and hollowed in the middle, a stone lid designed to keep her foods safely hidden and cool.  It also made her kneel to work at it, and she would often turn or crawl on hands and knees to do things at the fire with various dishes, pots, utensils.  

The display was perhaps not intended to be sexual by Lakailes reckoning, but it was very much so.  She had a vague understanding of how two-legged creatures sexes were designed, having seen such things naked before....but now she found herself curious and flustered by the efforts to please her the drow was making.  Would the drow consider her for bonding?  Was it a precursor to making her a slave?  When she bent over like that, was her vent exposed?  Where was her anus?  Did she have a cloaca, like the lizard people or the troglodytes?  

Not having to think on survival minute to minute left her with far too much to think about, Lakailes decided, and she slid off the sand-bag and onto the thick matting of spider's silk on the floor.  It was obvious now that the thick mat was to protect the drow's bonier limbs, her knees and hands and feet, from the hardness of the floor.  It was pleasant to move along as well, though she feared damaging it.  

The fireplace had a chimney sculpted of the strangely smooth rock, which drew the smoke well and kept the fire hot.  But there was no wood, only a variety of blackened and cracked stones that were as wide as Lakailes tail-tip....maybe two hand-lengths thick and several more long.  They smelled of the unrefined oil that her people used for distilling into trapping glue and actual lamp oil.  Iron racks were set in the fireplace, and on two of them were laid out steaks of the whip scorpion's flesh, and on another were tubers wrapped in some softened metal, glittering brightly.  The drow woman was slicing fungi into a strange and pungent oil and vinegar mixture that did not smell unappetizing.  

Before Lakailes could ask what exactly she was intending, the drow spoke up.  “You may place your weapons and carrying sack against a wall.  If you wish, you may also remove your armor.  The bathing pool will not hold your entire body, but you will be able to wash easily despite that.  Please be free with whatever will make you feel at ease.”

Further disturbed by the offers and requests, the young warrior coiled, her blunted tail-tip twitching rapidly in her alarm, though silent.  It was a cruel reminder of why she was not with her own people, alone, and unliked.  It made her hesitate to question the elf woman's motives.  She too was alone, unaccompanied, without even the slaves her kind prized.  What had she said, 'many seasons since a girl lay at her feet'?  There were no bones, no skill, no ritual grave urns....nothing at all to indicate there had ever been anyone else here.  

No books, no musical instruments, nothing to entertain herself with.  

Was that why she was here?  To entertain?  No, the drow said she had already done that, entertained her with her struggles and troubles.  Which suggested she was here to be entertained in return, the debt the drow mentioned.  Her tail stilled and she looked at the webbing coated floor, her hands behind her back, fingers interlaced.

“Thank you, lady.”  Ugh, she sounded so meek. 

The drow looked at her with those weird eyes, and her lips curled into a tiny smile again.  “Xanyae.”  

Perplexed, Lakailes looked at the drow, wondering what the word meant.  

The smile grew a touch wider.  “My name, warrior, is Xanyae.”  Lakailes blushed, her tail twitching silently again.  

“I am called Lays-on-Lake-Islands.  You may call me Lakailes, if you wish, lady.”  

“Then, Lakailes, you should feel free to do whatever would make you feel well and comfortable here.”  The drow then continued her work with other, different tubers and fungi, her silvery eyes gleaming.  

Feeling even more discomfited, the young lamia bowed her head, and slowly slithered towards the bathing pool.  The draw of hot water was strong, but it was also the place furthest from the drow that wasn't the midden.  There were two curtains between them meaning it was slightly more private, but that was not the real issue.  As she set her pack and her weapons aside, Lakailes worried over exactly what was happening here.  The woman was being kind, unlike anything she had heard of or seen of the drow culture.  She used arcane magics, admitted weakness, and offered not just succor, but food and comfort.  And worse, it was almost like a bonding offer among her own kind which was making her three kinds of nervous and excited all by itself.  

Maybe the woman called Xanyae WAS insane. 

But then....she was an exile.  So in that respect....she really had nothing to lose except what little life she had.  Which the elven woman had saved.  

Lays-On-Lake-Islands was totally confused and lost and a little bit more than inappropriately excited now, so she took off her meager armor, her kilt, and the padded tunic, and slid into the water, trying to drown her thoughts in the pleasure of heat and cleansing sand.  Leaning her human body along one side she could manage a third of her entire length in the pool which was deliciously hot and moved of its own accord, pressure from somewhere and an opening elsewhere making the water flow.  The glowing rocks in the pool were the source of heat, but they did not burn to touch, and there was plenty of sand along the bottom to be scooped up and rubbed through hair and along her skin.

It was the first SAFE bath that she had been allowed in a long time, months maybe, and the fact the water was hot was just sweetened cheese atop the mushroom cap.  So she made and effort at it, scrubbing her scales and removing a few stray patches of moult, washing her hair and face and breasts thoroughly, and – sparing a glance at the drow who was occupied at the fire....cleaning her disgustingly crippled tail.  The wounds were showing no sign of infection or contamination (which she was more than a little relieved by), and she rebound them with clean bandages from her pack.  

Then she extended herself along the wall, chin resting on her crossed arms, breasts against the smooth side of the pool, and her tail end lazily switching back and forth like a pleased cat might do.  Soaking up the heat and just....being horribly, totally, and perhaps foolishly lazy for once in her life.  Lazy enough that the heat, the sensation of being truly clean, and the fact that her long dagger was in easy reach allowed her to doze off a little, despite the scent of the food being prepared. 

She woke to the feel of a soft, long fingered, gentle hand sliding up along her back towards her neck under the water; soft lips lightly touching her ear; and the previously unknown sound of someone breathing in the scent of her hair.  Lakailes was frozen, paralyzed more by shock than fright as the dark elf moved closer to her in the pool. 

Lays-On-Lake-Islands' reaction was noticed by the ebon beauty; she made a soft amused noise as the young warrior stiffened under her touch.  “I think it has been some time since you have felt the hand of another upon you, Lakailes.  Is it so worrisome, this feeling?”  Both hands were now on the lamia's back, and the elven woman straddled the serpentine body as she worked the tight muscles with strangely gentle and surprisingly strong fingers.  “You looked altogether too pleasant to disturb unkindly.”  

It was difficult not to relax under the skilled touch of the drow's hands.  “I feel I should be frightened of a garrote or a blade, or that your fingers might become talons,” Lakailes murmured, her lower body shifting, flexing.  She felt the woman's leg along her body, space enough to move between for the moment.  The woman was kneeling behind her in the pool, her body upright and not touching the lamia's.  “All I've been told and all I've seen says your people are hard and cruel.  You're strange, and that worries me.  I don't know what you are doing or what to expect.”  A fight in the pool would be dangerous for either of them; while mass and skill might have been on Lakailes' side, her body needed more oxygen than the drow, and there was magic to worry about.

“Am I not acting properly in the manner of one forming a bond among your people?  The sharing of dangers was surprising since I was not aware you were in these caverns.  I do know that the sharing of food and the sharing of a home are part of that as well.”  The hands were slowly working their way up from back to neck, but the drow's claim caused Lakailes to turn around entirely to face the drow.  Pulling her hands away, the strange creature looked into the lamia's bronze eyes.  “Is there something more that I should perform to prove my intent to you?”  She was naked save for her rings, a collar of silver with large and fiery blue opals, and several bracelets of black adamant set with gleaming red and milky opals. 

The young warrior frowned at the insane elf.  She had to be insane, there was no other explanation.  Did being alone so long drive one mad?  “I'm not a male, so I cannot give you the part of the bond that you would want most with another person.  I am not much of a scholar, but I do know that much about your people.”  Drawing her dark hair away from her face, she studied the svelte form of the woman who knelt over her body.  “Why would you form a bond with me that doesn't give you what you seem to need most right now?”  Part of her anger was due to the fact that she was not entirely unmoved by the sleek, bejeweled drow before her.  She had been hinting, suggestive, even downright blatantly offering a bonding earlier by Lakailes culture, but to hear her speak of actually wishing to form one was a little shocking to the serpentine maiden.

There were no particular gender taboos among the lamia concerning sex, since it generally took an orgy for them to actually procreate.  Members of a bonded group were expected to be sexually active together regardless of gender, though it was largely by individual choice that it happened.  Lakailes understanding of legged folk were that such groups were never sexually active amongst the group, instead pair-mating only, and that it took a single male and single female to procreate at all.  They did form war-bonds or adventuring-bonds, but that was often no relation to any sexual bonding.

The weird silver eyes gleamed with amusement, and Xanyae reached back, drawing her long white hair from her face and shoulders to work it into a knot behind her head.  This had the very much intended side effect of presenting the firm, large breasts of the otherwise sleek drow to the young lamia, who blushed at the sight and then forced her eyes back to Xanyae's face.  “Your education is lacking in certain details about other peoples.  If you were a male, I would not be interested in bonding with you at all, in any way.”  

She moved close, extending her arms past Lakailes shoulders and setting them on the edge of the bathing pool, her breasts, nipples pebble hard, brushing lightly along Lakailes' small, firm breasts.  Lowering her eyes she gazed frankly at the youthful lamia's muscular torso and how her arms moved to protect her heart and breathing lung, not crossing but folding up along her chest.  It gave her a modest amount of cleavage, which was probably not intentional on her part, but it also let her caress the drow's larger breasts.  Perhaps equally not-intentional, but pleasant nonetheless.  

“You are a beautiful girl.  No, not girl.  Young woman.  You are a beautiful young woman of your people.  I admired your cleverness in attempting to escape the deadly threat, your strength to climb the rock wall even as it pursued.”  The drow moved lower into the pool, and Lakailes blushed more deeply, feeling the places between the drow's legs moving along her scaled belly.  Xanyae's hand moved into the water, along her hip, then her hard abs, tracing the lines of muscle under the soft skin.  “The courage to admit a weakness, to protect your life even though you could not trust me not to take it from you as you did so.”  

Lakailes was breathing fast now, her bronze eyes wide and unable to look away from the beautiful woman before her.  Her breath caught as the drow's hand moved down, caressing the first wide scales that lead to her belly, moving towards her unseen vent.  “The grace and speed of you when you killed our food.”  Bronze eyes shot up to the silver-glass eyes of the drow.  “Ours, yes.  If you will have me.  Your injuries, I know what they mean to your kind.  I too am unliked among my kind though it is my magic and not my body which chose me for exile.”  

The lamia jerked as the ebony fingers moved across the split scales that hid her vent, concealed her feminine places.  She looked down, confused, embarrassed....yet....her heart....it pounded for other reasons, and her breath was unsteady as the woman gently opened her vent, exposed it to the heated water which made Lakailes cry out softly.  She placed her hand over Xanyae's, the other grabbing the woman's shoulder; her eyes were closed and she bit her lip, uncertainty still written across her face.

Xanyae leaned close, lips parted, as her finger carefully slipped into the tightness of Lakailes' sex, bringing another and much louder cry from the young warrior.  “I will be your beloved mate then,” she whispered before she kissed the beautiful lamia, taking the fact that the stronger girl – no, woman, she corrected herself – did not try to stop her from the gentle invasion as assent.  There was no maidenhead to be broken, only soft, very slick warmth that pulsed around and pulled at her finger.  

Lays-On-Lake-Islands threw her arms around the drow's neck as they kissed, and while she was inexperienced, she was very enthusiastic.  Her serpentine body curled up, pressing Xanyae into her torso, sliding along her back in a massive, smooth, warm caress.  The finger slipped in and out slowly, exploring, gently investigating and Lakailes squirmed, her elongated form coiling along and against the woman's body, and firmly pressing the warmth between Xanyae's legs.  

The drow made a soft, pleased noise, and gently caressed Lakailes' lips with her tongue.  When they parted, more in surprise than anything else, she carefully gave the lamia her tongue....and was gratified to receive in return.  At least, until it coiled around her own tongue several times, which made it Xanyae's turn to whimper softly.  She slipped her finger deep inside, and the tongue swiftly but carefully recoiled so that Lakailes could beg in a husky voice, “More!”

Breathlessly, Xanyae laughed.  “As you wish, Lays-On-Lake-Islands....”  The single finger retreated, and three replaced it.  The lamia's 'hips' pushed into the drow' hand and hips, Lakailes pressing her breasts to Xanyae's as she threw her head back and caterwauled, a long, drawn out “Aaaauuuuuuu!” that did not entirely come from her speaking lung.  The tightness of the warrior's sex and the pulsing, drawing sensation was exotic and beautiful; Xanyae's thumb felt, explored just inside the opening of her lovers vent and felt a second opening.  The bronze eyes shot open and Lakailes' pupils spread wide as her breath caught.  Xanyae pressed her thumb inside and was surprised to feel that the tiny pocket stopped hardly an inch into the softness.  

Which is when Lakailes' grabbed her tight and bit her.  

To her credit Xanyae did not panic; it quickly became clear that this was not an assault, per se, mostly because Lakailes was thrusting her sex against the drow's fingers and thumb and screaming into Xanyae's shoulder despite the fangs buried in her flesh. There was no burn of venom either, only the thrashing young woman and the keening cry of her explosive and prolonged orgasm.  Xanyae held her tight, letting her have this moment, her other hand hugging the darling creature close.  She murmured reassurances in her own tongue, lilting whispers of love and comfort that while not understood, seemed to soothe Lakailes. 

The serpentine creature slowly relaxed, her coiling body sagging and her arms slipping from chest to waist to hips.  The clenching of her sex slowed, then stopped, and Xanyae carefully extracted her fingers; when her thumb slipped free so did the fangs.  Lakailes cried out, a yelp of agonized delight and her hand caught at the drow's wrist, her eyes tightly closing as she grimaced and bared her teeth.  There was barely a trickle of ruby from the paired wounds in Xanyae's shoulder, though the bruises left by her lover's other teeth would not fade for days.  

“I did not cause you harm then, I take it?” Xanyae murmured in Lakailes ear softly, her hands stroking the warrior's hair lovingly, the slender form trembling in her embrace.  

It took a moment before Lakailes could form a reply.  “No.  No, that was....that was beautiful.  That was my first.  I didn't know that you could do that.”  Males of her own kind had two organs for sex, and commonly one would perform the duty and the other the kindness.  That the drow had done so was quite a bit more than shocking.  Her glittering, bright eyes looked into Xanyae's, who smiled back warmly.  “There is a way for me to do the same for you?” she asked, her voice shy but her expression eager.

The drow resisted the urge to laugh, and slipped free of the lamia's embrace.  She rose from the pool, only to sit at the edge, her legs spread wide.  Lakailes moved close, her eyes upon the sorceress' face first and then slowly admiring as they drifted lower.  To that secret place at the split of the woman's body.  Lakailes' curiosity drew her even closer, and her hands moved to caress the firm thighs of the woman's legs, exploring, touching.  

The drow's vent was more like a slit, and her fingers gently spread the slit open, careful to not pull hard.  The opening bloomed, like lips parting, and there were other petals within, as well as two openings, a very tiny one and a slightly larger, deeper one.  Xanyae reached down, her finger first moving aside the hood of her firm clitoris.  “This is a very sensitive, very pleasure-bearing place.”  She moved it lower.  “This is not.  It is not meant to be penetrated unless to cause pain.”  Lakailes watched fascinated, attentive.  “This is also a place of pleasure, the birthing canal as well, much like yours.  It is not as sensitive as the nub above, but I will take pleasure in finger or tongue alike.”  

Lakailes looked up, her shining eyes curious and warm.  “Tongue?”  

“If you wish.  It will not harm you, though I would not appreciate your teeth or fangs, just yet.”  Xanyae smiled at the curious lamia.  “The place below....”  She lifted her legs higher, and Lakailes helped by supporting her buttocks as she showed the serpentine creature her body.  “It can be penetrated, but I would not suggest by tongue.  It can be pleasurable, or painful, but it is where I excrete from.”  Lakailes nodded seriously, and turned her attention to the slick, floral sexual organ of dark indigo flesh.  

Lowering her legs, Xanyae sighed softly as the lamia began gently caressing with her fingers the swollen petals of her sex, firm but not rough.  She shifted her hips slightly when the warrior touched an especially pleasant place, and cried out softly herself when the youthful Lakailes rolled her fingertips over the hardened button of her clitoris.  That brought the gleaming metallic eyes up, and then Lakailes once more used both sets of fingers to spread Xanyae's sex open.  When she extended her tongue, Xanyae stared, unable to prevent a shudder of anticipation.  

Lakailes tongue was over an inch thick in either direction, not split at the tip, somewhat squarish in cross section....and nearly seven inches long. 

She had figured out that the prehensile tongue was long from their involved kiss, but Xanyae had not expected the true length at all.  Her bemused wonder at why they would need such a length was cut short by the slow, careful stroking of that tongue along her moist sex and her mind fled from thought into experience. 

Lakailes' eyes were fixed upon the beautiful flower she tasted, explored with that hot length of flesh; typically she would be using it to draw the broken down flesh from the leg segments of their arthropod prey, but this was an intimacy that she could get used to as well.  The taste of her bond-mate was musky, and slightly spicy, but not at all unpleasant.  How Xanyae moved and reacted though....that would be worth an unpleasant taste.  Because Xanyae clearly enjoyed her exploratory tasting, especially when she caressed the hard little bump of flesh at the apex of her flower-vent.  

But when she extended her tongue into the soft, tight sheath that was oddly supple but only slightly contracting, her lover grabbed her by the braided hair and threw her own head back with a sharp cry of pleasure that made Lakailes' tail tip shiver delightedly under the water.  Her eyes looked up at the woman, who was breathing rapidly, her bosom heaving as the clever tongue slipped back and forth within her tight sex.  

A thought occurred to Lakailes and she pulled Xanyae a little closer to the edge of the pool, before she covered the entirety of the woman's sex with her mouth.  That brought a shocked noise from the drow woman, but it was nothing compared to the excited exclamations in her native tongue that covering the soft flower-vent with as much of her tongue as she could while she also licked the divot at the deepest point of the woman's sheath did.  Apparently tongue-sex was especially pleasing to Xanyae.

It took only a moment of sliding the base of her tongue back and forth over that nub for the woman's sheath to contract and pulse properly, though from the sounds she made and her clutching at Lakailes' shoulder, she seemed to be having an orgasm already rather than being ready for lovemaking.  Her hips thrust and she shook allover, her breaths deep and desperate.  Lakailes wrapped her arms about the woman's thighs, and stroked the quaking, spasm-wracked sheath with her tongue several times, which brought more shaking and another set of intense spasms, before Xanyae begged her to stop and weakly tried to push Lakailes' head from between her legs. 

Lifting her head, Lakailes smiled up at the woman, licking her face clean and asking softly, “Did I do well, then?”  

A shuddering, breathless laugh erupted from the drow and she fell back against the thick spider-silk padding of her floor.  Lakailes rose up slowly, and lay down along the drow's body and was pleased to be embraced as she did so, Xanyae laying a soft kiss upon her brow and her shaking fingers combing through the lamia's damp braids.  One of the drow's legs slid over the lamia's 'hips' and held her closer, a strange double hug that was comforting.  “Yes, my lovely girl, you did most well.  I am most pleasured by you!”  The wording was terrible, but the gist was more than enough for the young warrior. 

Lakailes eyes became wet, and she smiled, listening to the heartbeat of her bond-mate slowing.  “I am glad, Xanyae.  I am very glad.”  They lay so for a long time, taking comfort in each other's presence.  It was something they would do for a long time to come, in many ways.  

~XS