Content warnings: ~minotaur, naga, attempted non-con, puns
⁂⁂⁂
Many years ago, in the days of the Three Crowned Kings, there lived an ascetic with snow-white hair on the slopes of the Nilamalai. She practiced fearsome austerities there in an ashram she'd built, or perhaps found. She was so old she could no longer remember, nor her own name for that matter. The ashram lay on a forested terrace next to a white waterfall. Crumbling redbrick steps led up to a forest meadow and down to a plunge pool frequented by yakshini nymphs and serpent-like naginis.
The old sage had lived there alone for many centuries. She ate withered roots and fallen fruit and drank the morning dew. She harmed no living thing, and was harmed by none. Her ashram served as a place of rest for every kind of bird and beast. Even tigers, jaguars, and wild gaur oxen lived there together in peace, and the elements themselves conspired to spare her refuge from fires and storms.
The pool below the waterfall lay at the heart of a charming grove filled with flowering trees bearing mangos, black plums, jackfruit, and figs. The banks were lined with soft rushes and fruit-bearing bushes, and the mirror-like water was adorned with pink kamala lotuses and night-blooming nilotpalas. Spotted deer and antelope were always to be seen there, along with cranes and songbirds and every kind of waterfowl.
Between the stair and the pool, firmly rooted, grew
an especially magnificent mango tree. It stood over a hundred feet tall, presiding over all the other trees with its broad, regal crown. By some enchantment or special grace, it bore both green and ripe mangos all through the year. Every day, the hermit would leave the grounds of her ashram and climb down to the old tree with offerings of flower petals, fruit, and water.
One day, when she came to perform her customary service, she found an adorable, black-skinned baby girl nestled in the roots. The girl had piercing amber eyes flecked with gold, and she was delightedly playing with a cluster of fragrant white mango flowers. The ascetic took her to her ashram and called her Amramanjari.
She made inquiries through her occasional visitors, but no one ever claimed the little girl, and in the end she raised her as if she were her own flesh and blood. She taught her to read and write and all the branches the learning proper to an ascetic. The beasts of the ashram each taught her their particular arts, and though she seldom spoke when she was young, the birds taught her to sing wordlessly with unutterable sweetness.
As she grew older, Manjari's mother sent her to be fostered first by the herdsmen of the mountain pastures and then by the brave huntsmen who still dared to ply their dangerous business in the treacherous, demon-haunted forest. When she returned to the ashram, she had grown into a fine young woman. She was clever and brave, and well-versed in the practical arts. And she was temperate and prudent as well, except when it came to full-breasted yakshinis and fine-waisted naginis.
I'm her twentieth year, in the waning days of the monsoon, the kurinji flowers bloomed, blanketing the high pastures in purple and blue for the first time in twelve years. The sage announced that she was going on a pilgrimage. She prepared her meager belongings for the journey and then turned to instruct her daughter.
"Manjari," she said, "you know that you are as dear to me as life itself. You must take care to protect yourself from the vicious creatures that inhabit this forest while I am away."
"Of course, Amma."
"You are not to leave the ashram grounds for any reason. Now I know the blood of youth runs hot," she said with a bushy white eyebrow raised and a wrinkled palm squeezing each of her daughter's shoulders.
"Ugh, Amma!"
"But you are not to go anywhere outside the grounds. Not even down to the pool." She squeezed hard and released her, gazing into her eyes with deep affection. "Not for any reason," she added pointedly.
Manjari bobbed her head noncommittally. She bowed to her mother with hands cupped in reverence as she doddered off. She waited until she was sure she was quite sure her mother was gone and then flitted off down to the pool.
The sage was right to be worried. The valley had once been densely peopled, but fratricidal wars had emptied the towns and driven off the cultivators. In their place came fearsome rakshasas. Perhaps they'd been drawn by the rivers of blood shed in the fields, or the darkness of the milkwood forest that slowly reclaimed the valley. They seized every human they came upon, slaying the lucky with horns and claws, the unlucky with dagger-like teeth. A fortunate handful escaped with most of their skin still attached, and their tales of horror helped discourage interlopers. Between the hermitage and the few holdout villages along the great river, the forest hosted only birds, beasts, and nighstalking, blood-drinking rakshasas.
Now among the demons, there were three who excelled all the others in strength and wickedness. They were great friends and fellow hunters. The eldest was called Vadhakapungava. He went about with a form like a man, but of giant proportions. He had the head of a wild gaur bull, and the strength, surly temper, and dull wits to match. Despite his great strength, he was perpetually frustrated. The rakshasi women would not deign to touch him, who had neither charm nor beauty. Like all his kind he could take any form he pleased, but he lacked the wit to choose one more pleasing to the female eye. The water-born yakshinis of the springs and pools were happy enough to show off their bodies and mutual love play, but they were far too slippery for him and would melt away effortlessly at his approach, so that they served him about as well as a mirage in a desert.
The others were the twins, of whom more hereafter. But they were off on one of their murderous jaunts when the hermit set out on her pilgrimage.
Vadhaka was bathing in a deep basin in the foothills to escape the heat, none too pleased with the passing of the rains. As the wheel would have it, he'd chosen a pool claimed by a pair of unusually salacious and mischievous yakshinis, Ratipriya and her cousin Kamini. They were appalled by his ugliness and offended by the filth of his body, and resolved to punish him for trespassing in their home. They waited until he submerged himself all the way down to his pale muzzle and took their places on the bank, striking appropriately sexy tribhanga poses.
Up, up out of the water rose his ashy gray forehead, his brown-black head, and his mountainous shoulders. He blinked, cleared the water from his eyes, and met with the intoxicating vision of their all but naked bodies. They had lotus petal eyes under dark, curved lashes, and their jasmine-white teeth flashed in the morning sun. Garlands of orange and yellow flowers adorned their necks, and beaded necklaces hung down between naked, alarmingly heavy breasts. Sheer, wet silk clung to their wide hips and lovely thighs, clasped with superfluous golden ornaments around their narrow waists.
As may well be imagined, the sight of their moonlike faces and faultless curves drove the bull-demon half-mad with lust. He sprang from the water in a single leap, scattering droplets of shining water from his horns, his body, and his rapidly stiffening cock.
The barefooted yakshinis giggled and fled on foot. They led him ever upward, through brambles and dense thickets of bamboo, always careful to stay just out of reach. Even when he was blinded by stinging sweat or obscuring foliage, the tinkling of their arm bangles and ankle bracelets led the way.
