Author's note and warning: the following story contains subject matter for mature audiences only. I won't list all the possible "offending topics", I'll just warn you that I don't get offended by much and I tend to forget what things might offend other people.
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Lissa
Al'sia didn't bother to look around to see if anyone would witness her removing her boots. She'd been coming to this hidden pool and its little waterfall for years and no one had ever come along and caught her. The rules against being seen barefoot, or worse, nude, seemed arbitrary to her, anyway. Asking about them would only get her a spanking and she still wouldn't know why it was supposed to be bad. Pulling her old ragged dress over her head, she dropped it on the boulder with her boots and stretched out her arms, allowing the spray from the waterfall to cool her.
Sitting on the moss covered stone, she slipped carefully into the waist-deep water, gasping at the cold. Pushing forward in the closest thing to swimming she'd taught herself, she shivered. The cold seemed most intense in her private places. She liked that even though she wasn't supposed to think of those places. Being nude always made her think of those places and what they were feeling.
The pool was small, barely two hundred feet across in any direction, and fed by a waterfall that made more spray and noise than would be expected for only a twenty foot drop. Completely surrounded by a surprisingly regular ring of flat topped boulders, its bottom was formed of small smooth pebbles that gently sloped toward the waterfall, where it became too deep for Al'sia to risk exploring. She'd never found an outlet for the water but didn't worry much about it. Being raised with stories of magic and fae folk had taught her that things didn't always have explanations that made sense, although she'd been doubting the use of 'magic' as an explanation recently.
Taking a deep breath, she ducked under the water and pushed as far as she could go before the water pushed her back up. Ducking under the water was the easiest way to wash her five and a half feet of thick brown hair unless she could get her family to help, which brought other problems with it. Not that washing was a necessity. Most people didn't, since it would mean exposing their bodies and even at home there was the risk someone would see. Al'sia loved the feeling of soft, smooth skin and fluffy hair, even if it did bring suspicious stares, which she would get anyway.
Being only five feet tall at nineteen made her different, and different was not a good thing. Her tiny breasts contrasted with the large boulders most of the women her age seemed to carry in the upper part of their dresses (although she suspected most of that was not entirely natural, as the movement (or lack of) of the masses wasn't the same between different people). To make matters worse, from the villager's perspective, her skin and eyes were a golden brown rather than the usual pasty grayish pinkish sick-looking (to her) hue. It was her opinion that more sun and less clothing would improve their looks a lot. Altogether, she was a freak and nearly outcast, a blight on her family.
After scrubbing her hair and body with cold, clear water for a while she climbed out to lie on the boulder with her clothes and let the morning sun warm her. Stretching her arms out over her head, she dozed off.
"Well well well. What do we have here?"
A deep, soft voice woke her gently. It felt as if her whole body was vibrating with it. She started to reach for her dress.
"Be still."
Instinctively obeying, she lay back on the boulder, feeling her face grow hot in embarrassment.
"Haven't seen one of your kind around here in ages. And such a delicious looking morsel, too."
The voice belonged to a man of indeterminate age, clean shaven, with very long brown hair. The hair drew her eyes, as men didn't let theirs grow long. He was dressed as a boy, in a loose light tan shirt, knee breeches, stockings and simple leather shoes. At least his eyes were on her face, not staring at her body.
"My kind?" Al'sia couldn't make sense of that phrase. Kind of what?
"You may sit up, little bite." The man's smile was faint, but pleasant. He sat down cross legged where he would be in front of her when she did.
Accustomed to taking everything as a command, Al'sia sat up and assumed the same position. As the man looked her over her face flushed, growing warmer. It was improper to look at another person's body, but since it was illegal to show it the rule of etiquette didn't normally matter much. She wanted to put her hands in her lap to hide her hairless little mound but was afraid it would draw more attention to her nudity rather than help her modesty.
"Don't worry, little girl, I don't really intend to bite you. Well, unless you wish me to, but that can wait until I get to know you." He reached out and caressed her face. "How did you manage to find my little pool?"
"Um, your pool? I'm sorry, I didn't mean to intrude. I've never seen anyone here before." The touch of fingers on her face that weren't slapping it was a new, and pleasant, sensation.
He smiled again, more of the indulgent smile an adult would give to a child they were trying to coax into obedience than a sign of happiness. "That is not an answer, child. Neither to the question I asked nor to any other that would have been implied. How did you find your way here?"
"I, um, I just followed the deer trail, then walked around the strange tree and saw the path, so I followed it. The pool is so nice and private I started coming here a lot." She felt a need to talk but since she rarely did it was hard to think of things to say.
"There is no strange tree. They are all as they should be. Perhaps you could be more specific?" The man put his hand down on her knee, caressing the bare skin.
Shuddering, Al'sia closed her eyes. His fingers were soft as they stroked her skin lightly, not rough and calloused like her father's. "The one that looks like an oak with maple leaves and pine needles and shimmers a little when there's moonlight on it." Opening her eyes and glancing at his, since looking directly would be offensive, she noticed they weren't the usual faded blue, but a shiny grey that could almost be called silver. He was almost as different from the villagers as she was.
"Oh dear. I'll have to fix that. You say no one else has found the place for many years? How many?" The man seemed a little agitated.
"Um, maybe ten or eleven? I was just a kid when I first saw it. Back when I believed in fae folk I thought maybe it was a magical connection to faery." The man's fingers had gripped her knee firmly for a brief moment as she talked. "It makes a good landmark. Without it I wouldn't be able to find this place. I tried going different ways and never could."
"Ten or eleven years? That's not so bad. Then no one else comes up the way you do?" The man seemed to be relaxing again, his smile looking genuine as he put his other hand on her other knee.
"No, sir. Our house is the last one on the edge of the village. There were more, but they were burned down to make the wall. That was before I was born, though." Al'sia always thought the wall was rather stupid, as it was nothing more than a burned ring around the village sprinkled with salt four times a year. Salt was expensive. A waste of good money to keep nightmares away. "Nobody crosses the wall in this direction. If they need stuff we don't have they go south, and the hunters go east." To the west was a river too rough and rocky for boats, but that seemed obvious to Al'sia so she didn't mention it.
"Well, that does explain some things, it does." The man's hands cupped and caressed Al'sia's knees. "What is the wall for?"
"To keep out nightmares and imaginary creatures." Al'sia couldn't keep her voice from showing her disdain. A tinge of bitterness edged in as she added, "I don't know much about it, it was before I was born and nobody talks to me if they can help it."
"I see." The man caressed her knees again, sliding his hands up her thighs a few inches and making her shudder. "Then my pool is safe from interlopers, except for you, child?"
"I'm not a child. I'm almost twenty." Al'sia bit her tongue, too late, as she snapped at him. Being childlike didn't bother her, being called a child did.
"You are still a child." He looked pointedly between her legs, then at her chest. "I recall the twenty year celebrations, when your kind pass from childhood."
"That's sixteen. There aren't any celebrations, though. Maybe small parties if you have enough friends." She took a deep breath. His look at her private places and the motion of his hands were making her feel dirty as her body responded to them. "They're not my people. They don't like me."
The man moved his hands back to her kneecaps and rested them. "My apologies, little one. I'm afraid that your people don't really get to change the meanings of things, although I have an inkling as to why they tried in this case." He shrugged, "it's not important. It is more interesting that you do not consider yourself one of your kind." Raising his hand to his chin, he looked upward, as if in thought. "Perhaps you are an Outsider."
The way he said the word 'outsider' made it seem to be more than a description of her state of being shunned.
"Let us see! An experiment is in order." He leapt to his feet and grabbed her hands, yanking her to hers.
The man had seemed large while sitting in front of her, but standing he looked gigantic. He was easily two feet taller, and his hands seemed to have grown as they held hers. His chest had seemed unremarkable as they sat facing each other but was suddenly massive, like the woodcutter's and the blacksmith's. Looking up to his face, she thought his chin looked harder.
"Come, my child, we shall endeavour to discover things." His voice had taken on a childish excitement. Releasing one hand, he tugged her toward the path.
"My dress!" Al'sia had to leap off the boulder to avoid stumbling as he easily overcame her attempt to stop.
"It will be here when we return." He continued pulling her along the path.
Running to keep up, Al'sia giggled at the sensations running naked through the forest were giving her. They were bad, admittedly, but exciting and fun. Her feet seemed particularly affected; the feel of leaves and twigs and pine needles under them was a nearly overwhelming bombardment of pleasure.
"You need more experiences, little one. I think you have been deprived of sensation." Approaching the tree, the man pushed Al'sia ahead of him. "Tell me what you feel."
As she was pushed toward the tree Al'sia put her hands up to protect her face. Instead of crashing into the hard surface as she expected she found herself pushing at air. Nearly solid air, but air. The tree itself had turned transparent, the forest on the other side clearly visible through a faint image of the tree that had been there. As she was pushed harder the air became more of a thick liquid, molding around her body. She could breathe easily even though the thickness felt as if it were filling her mouth and eventually her lungs. Trying to distract herself didn't work as it pushed inside her bum and vagina, her mind flooding with some of the dirtiest feelings she'd ever had. She was no longer being pushed, but was completely encased in the odd tree. Closing her eyes, she wallowed in her bad thoughts, her body trembling and her breathing becoming ragged.