A Massing of Moths

The night air was quiet, unstirred by neither man nor beast, only the near silent flapping of delicate wings. Creatures ran through the darkness, feet landing in a silence reserved only for hunters.

Among the creatures ran one who was not one of their own in form though she joined them in spirit. Long streaming hair caught in a tight braid whipped around her leather clad form as she ran, dodging trees and pits as if she were one of the four legged beasts that ran on all sides of her body.

A howl ripped through the forests, shaking the woman out of her running, making her take stock of the forest around her. A flutter of wings near her ear, a whispered moth’s conversation, a nod on her part barely visible in the darkness. Light was rare, the sliver of a moon above competing with the bright stars for attention.

An intruder in her realm, a poacher in her domain, the moth’s message told her. She growled deep in her throat, the sound making her companions’ hackles raise. With gestures and growls she informed them of what she’d been told. Their eyes flashed angrily in the faint light as they clustered around her, taking orders.

There would be no mercy here, not for one who would dare invade her realm, kill her food animals, ignore all the warning signs. No more mercy then one afforded a deer when the pack needed to be feed. The intruder would pay for his transgressions, a life for a life.

Moving through the trees, dancing between the beams of starlight, they ran, pack, kin and kindred, united in the defense of their territory. Hunting calls stirred the quiet forest, making any that were not pack dart for the safety of their thickets and dens. There would be no such safety for the one they hunted this eve, the woman decided with a grim smile, easily matching the pace of her pack.

The alpha male and female flanked her, the fastest of the pack scouting ahead and howling back their reports. It was a single intruder, one of the two legged people the Mistress was from, the howls said. She was eating a deer she’d killed with her bow, the meat having cooked on a tiny fire.

Scenting the air, the wolves woman could smell the meat cooking, could smell the intruder. There was something familiar about the scent, she mused.

The small clearing the intruder had chosen for her camp was well placed for an ambush. Taking advantage of this, she silenced her wolves, sending the to enclose the clearing in a circle of teeth and fur. Nothing would escape this circle without either the Mistress’ approval or Death’s cold hand.

The intruder was a small woman with close cropped hair, shorter by a hands span then the wolves’ woman. She wore a set of black riding leathers though there were no horses nearby. Her close cropped hair shone black as a raven’s wing in the firelight, dim as it was. She cleaned a hunter’s knife with hands used to work, head bent to her task.

The wolves’ Mistress smiled wickedly. Perhaps this creature would not go for the pack’s bellies… perhaps a more pleasant use could be found for one so lovely as she. As if sensing her intentions, moths flooded from the forest to dance around the tiny fire, casting eerie shadows in the clearing. The hunter, for she must be so with that bow, tried to chase away the moths to no avail. They were a massing of moths, called by the forest Mistress’ intent and purpose and no other.

It was cloaked in the shadows that the Mistress emerged from the trees, the alpha male and female on her sides, both of their massively shaggy heads reaching her hips. She was tall for a woman, her skin darkened by the dim light to a deep honey color. It was the flashing of her pale blue eyes and long red braid’s silver bindings that caught the hunter’s attention away from the moths. The hunter gasped, hands going for her hunter’s knife in defense against this woman who had appeared from the forest’s shadows.

“What are you here,” the Forest Mistress asked, her voice soft and deadly, silk over steel. “You intrude and you poach upon my territory. Explain yourself, woman.”

Fear flashed through the hunter’s chocolate brown eyes. “I… I am but a humble hunter. I didn’t know this territory was claimed.”

“I find that doubtful,” the Mistress said, absently rubbing the ears of the female wolf to her right. “Perhaps you would care to restate that? I know my territory is well marked in multiple languages, both of man and of other creatures.”

“I meant no offense,” the hunter protested as wolves began to close in from all sides. “I had little choice. Men from the west chase me for the killing of man I’ve never seen before.”

“So you risk my mercy rather then suffer theirs,” the Mistress asked, her voice soft, deadly. “Perhaps you judged in error who would be the harsher punisher. Perhaps not. But- you took a life from my forest there for you own my forest and me a life. Yours shall do nicely.”

The wolves, from an minute cue, tightened their circle, snarling at the woman. The hunter’s eyes grew wider as she took in the pack though she didn’t panic. “I won’t die quietly- at least one of yours will go with me.”

“Maybe you would rather walk a path other then death,” the Mistress said, snapping her fingers. The wolves backed off, eyes on their mistress once more.

The hunter eyed the Mistress wearily. “What do you offer?”

“Life,” the Mistress said with a smile, changing from frightening to lovely with that one movement. “I offer you life in my service, to do with as I will for a span of four summers. At the end of your forth summer here, you may leave or stay, depending on my wishes and yours. Choose hunter- life or death?”

“You can keep those men from me?”

“Yes, I can. I am the Mistress of the Forest, you may call me Raelyn,” she said, a hand on her chest. “What should I call you, my little one?”

“I haven’t accepted your offer yet,” the hunter said. “I’m Kirynthia of Tre’u, Kira for short.”

“Then you choose to die,” Raelyn asked quietly, her voice cool as if it mattered little one way or the other which the hunter choose.

“I…” Kira trailed off looking at the wolves around her. There was no escaping- it was either death by being torn apart or serve the woman before her who commanded the beasts. “I will serve you, for four summers, springs, winters and falls.”

“Wonderful,” the Mistress said nodding. “I thought you were a smart creature. Come alone now- put out your fire well and let us go. My home is not far from here.”

“Yes, Raelyn,” Kira said, though the words sounded choked, as if they cost her.

Raelyn smiled as she waited, knowing the cost of submission by this strong looking hunter and valuing it all the more for the effort it took. She whispered in growls to her wolves, sending them to patrol the reaches of the forest for a few nights and days. Few mortals would dare her boundaries, but the death of a friend made men stupid and foolish. They would pay with their lives for that folly, Raelyn decided.

Kirynthia of Tre’u, now Kira of the Moth’s Forest, followed her new captor through the forest, tripping occasionally, but mostly surefooted as hunters are. Her movements were loud compared to Raelyn’s silent steps, as if the very forest swallowed the sounds she made and kept them.

Through trees, over a pair of rivers and around a huge hot spring, Raelyn ran at a light jog, keeping her new captive in her peripheral vision at all times. They reached the house in good order, though Kira had broken a sweat and was breathing hard.

Raelyn stopped on the large porch that encircled the chateau that was built between, around and even including trees. It seemed to rustle with a faint night’s breeze for a moment, startling Kira. She looked to her new Mistress, wondering why they had stopped outside.

Her voice was calm as she spoke, as she gave her first orders. “You will enter my house as befits one of your new stature. You are a slave, alive only for my pleasure and the pleasure of those I deem worthy of it. As such you will not enter my house wearing clothing I did not provide you. You can remove your clothing yourself or have it torn from you, either way works for me.”

The alpha male snorted from behind Kira, drawing her eyes. He licked his lips as he watched her, as if daring her to refuse the Mistress’ order. Kira turned back to the Mistress, a look of confusion on her face. “I am not a whore to be taken as one wishes. I am a hunter and would serve you as that.”

Her movements lightning fast, Raelyn has Kira’s hair in her hand, pulling the smaller woman over her knee, propped on the porch’s railing. A volley of sharp smacks upon her bottom had Kira howling almost as much as one of Raelyn’s wolves did on a full moon’s night.

Raelyn’s voice brooked no argument. “You were giving an order, my slave, and you will obey or you will be punished. Now- I’m going to release you and you are going to strip or there shall be a far worse punishment in store for you.”

True to her word, Kira was released from the iron like grip and set back on her own two feet. She shivered at the harshness of the words and the thought of walking anywhere naked. “I cannot walk into a house naked though, Raelyn.”

“You will not walk,” Raelyn said with an exasperated growl. “You will crawl, as befits a new slave. You hold no rank in my house other then what I give you! Now stripe or the price will be steep.”

Still the hunter held out, hands clutching her hunter’s leather jerkin and coat.

“Very well,” Raelyn said, snapping her fingers. The two alpha wolves, all that remained of the pack, closed in on Raelyn, jaws snapping, forcing her up the steps. The Mistress opened the door to the house, signaling the wolves to continue herding the hunter turned slave onward. Kira shied away from their snapping jaws quickly after the female bit her, coming away with mouthful of cloth.

“I do not joke in serious matters,” Raelyn explained as the wolves forced her captive through the house too quickly for her to take any stock of it. They forced her down a series of stone stair cases to a place deep below the surface. The doors slammed shut behind them, a bolt sliding home on the outside at a flick of Raelyn’s hand. “You are a slave, here for my pleasure. That will be enough, my lovelies.”

The wolves stopped their snapping and retreated to a set of thick rugs on the far end of the elliptical room. Devices lined the walls, odd chairs and tables lined with straps along one side, the other bearing objects that Kira couldn’t identify beyond basic whips, crops and floggers.

Raelyn pulled a crimson whip down from wall, testing it with a snap of her wrist. The crack sent shudders down Kira’s spine. Raelyn’s footfalls fell in a single line as she approached Kira, the whip playing about her.

“Now, for the last time, strip or I will strip you.”

“I…” Kira’s mouth went dry as she searched for the words. “I… can’t.”

“Very well,” Raelyn said with a wicked smile. “Remember, this was your decision to do it the hard way.”

Before Kira could answer the whip struck her across her thigh, slicing through the cloth like a hot knife through butter, leaving a red welt on the skin beneath. The captive screamed both in pain and fright, backing away from the advancing Mistress. There was no mercy in the whip’s falling as it sliced through cloth where ever it touched.

Raelyn’s eyes were calm with a hint of pleasure in them, though Kira saw them not, trying to escape the whip as she did. Her efforts were in vain though and she soon stood before Raelyn, the tatters of her clothing falling from her latticed body.

Still, even after the clothing fell away, Raelyn did not stop, guiding her captive to what looked like a pair of padded saw horses. Tossing the whip down, the Mistress threw her slave over the device and strapped down her torso and hips. Her feet were tied to the legs of the table, spreading her own legs wide apart. Arms were tied beneath her with enough give to be lifted to a lower pad, but not enough to untie herself.

Kira lay shuddering across the pads, sweat coating her skin, making it shine in the room’s magic stone light. Raelyn walked to her captive’s face, crouching on the floor to look her in the eye. “You have been quite disobedient and so you pay for it, Kira. I do not brook any insolence in those that serve me, as you learn even now. There is little mercy in me, and certainly none of it for you. You will behave or you will be punished. Just now was for refusing to disrobe. What comes now is for entering my house incorrectly, despite being told how to do so.”

“But I…”

The slap she received echoed in the large room. “Silence! You were not given leave to speak. When I desire to hear your voice I shall ask to hear it. Now you will be quiet or I will gag and blindfold you. Or should I do that now? Ah, no more of your impertinence, I see. Good.”

Raelyn rose gracefully to her feet and walked away, knowing Kira’s eyes were on her. From a hook on the wall she pulled down a large, broad paddle in a thick wood. She tested the heft, watching Kira’s face become scared anew before exchanging the board for a much lighter one. It wouldn’t do to bloody the novice already.

Approaching her captive once more, Raelyn smelled something she had not before. A scent of arousal, of desire on the air, floating from the neither regions of her captive. The Mistress laughed then, her voice tinkling in the room. She ran a hand over Kira’s buttocks, down her haunches to her knee and up her inner thigh to the apex. Her pubic curls were damp with juices, her body flushed. She thrashed against her bindings as Raelyn examined in close detail the area between her legs.

A very light lacing of black curls guarded her outer lips and mound, moisture glistening on the ones closest to her opening. Parting her labia, Raelyn could easily see her pink clit and was amused when it twitched as her breath caressed it. Parting the inner lips, the Mistress was not surprised to find a small, almost unused entrance to Kira’s core and above it the tiny brown opening of her anus.

Her hot breath upon the area made Kira gasp though the captive wisely did not speak, having finely resigned herself to whatever Raelyn planned. She was taken by surprise by the first fall of the paddle, falling squarely on her buttocks, gasping open mouthed.

“You will keep that pretty mouth shut unless I tell you to open it,” Raelyn growled at her captive, slicing the paddle through the air and onto the unprotected skin once more. Kira writhed beneath the blows, again and again the wooden paddle fell, its sharp smack accented only by the captive’s closemouthed moans and gasps.

For how long the paddling went on Kira had no clue. She entered a haze, crossing between pain and pleasure, agony and joy. Never before had she experienced such feelings, such sharp contrasts. Of course, she’d never been tied down and beaten by another woman for that matter, a small part of her mused as the blows rained. Any resistance to Raelyn she had, she lost in those first falls of the paddle, giving all of herself over to the beating, buttocks rising and falling as much as they were able with the blows.

Raelyn paused a moment to admire her handiwork, the deep crimson of her captive’s butt. The rest of her body was covered in tan, paler where her clothing would have been but still darker by far then Raelyn’s. Caressing the tortured skin, the Mistress spoke. “You are of northern stock are you not?”

“Yes,” Kira whispered after an initially failed attempt.

The paddle slammed down, much harder then before, on the reddened flesh and Raelyn’s voice was just as angry. “Care to rephrase that, slave of mine?”

“If it pleases you, Mistress,” Kira sobbed, noticing for the first time the tears streaming down her face.

“Much better, I rather like that,” Raelyn said with a nod. She replaced the paddle on the wall and removed a smooth chamois. After spreading an ointment of aloe vera on the chamois, she used it to rub down her captive’s buttocks and upper thighs, the cooling gel a welcome relief from the heat. Raelyn spoke as she rubbed Kira down with another clean chamois, her voice soft but firm. “Such is your life to be here. Behave and you will be praised and rewarded. Misbehave and your punishment shall be swift and painful, until I am satisfied that you understand what you did was wrong. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Mistress,” Kira said, trying not to lean into her touch and failing miserably. She flinched when she heard the buckles of her restraints released and remained in her place unmoving.

Raelyn unclasped the last restraint and smiled. “Very good- you will always wait for my command to remove yourself from a position you’ve assumed for punishment. You may stand, stretch, work out any kinks, slave.”

The word “slave” sent a flame of something indefinable through Kira, forced her to stand slowly. She rose up to her toes, stretching, then bent over, hands flat on the floor as she stretched.

Raelyn watched her movements, noticing just how flexible her new pet was. That could be of use in the future, the Mistress noted silently. And such resilient skin in addition to a desire to serve. “Have you ever been beaten as I just did before?”

“No, Mistress,” Kira whispered, looking at her new Mistress from under her eyelashes. On a sudden inspiration, she knelt before the Mistress, hands on her knees, expectantly looking up at her.

“Wonderful,” Raelyn said with pleasure. “Spread your legs- wider. There you go, hands on your thighs. You must never hesitate to assume that position when I summon you to my side or you’ve completed a tasking I set for you. Now- lets go get you something to drink. Heel.”

Raelyn walked a bit slower then usual, to let Kira get used to crawling on all fours behind her. All in all, it had been a rather pleasing night.