© 2023 E.P van Gelder. All rights reserved. The author asserts the right to be identified as the author of this story. This story or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author except for the use of brief quotations in a review. If you see this story on any website other than Literotica.com, it's been copied without the author's permission.
Dear friends, I hope you enjoyed the first installment. I really enjoyed editing the second. There wasn't as much fucking as I remembered but there definitely is some and we can feel some sparks starting to fly, along with other things. ;)
Again, comments and votes are always a motivation to keep going. Really would love to hear from you. Hope you enjoy!
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We had been together for centuries. After so long, our connection had become as close as any family. We had hoped that soon, our bond might strengthen enough to produce new life - a new generation to carry on our legacy. Yet there we were, counting down the hours we had left, trying desperately to make each moment matter. A tumult of emotions descended upon us like a summer storm: A giddy joy, because of what we knew shared, the love bubbling up like a fresh spring, but also grief at our impending separation and fear of the path that lay ahead for us all, stretching into the darkness of a future unknown.
We left our home, perched on the edge of a gorge in the Broken Crags, and descended on foot through the wet warren of mossy ravines where cloud drifted year round, shaded from the burning sun. High above, our people lived in caves in the rock face, and on platforms in the ancient pine trees that clung to the rock. It was, to us, the closest thing to a city we had. Although, unless you noticed the maze of wooden bridges suspended up high in the canopy, it would have looked like any other forest to the humans. To us, it was our most sacred place. Rather than flee and join our brethren in the rainforests beyond the mountains, it was here that we had made our last stance.
No enemy had ever tried to fight their way up the gorge and onto the crags. No enemy had ever penetrated our stronghold up here in the mountains. Or so it had been until the humans built their ballistas and rained fire down on our ancient trees. Their capacity for destruction continued to astonish us at every turn.
In the face of such an onslaught, surrender became our only option. A truce was struck. Or rather, purchased, the price paid with our most valued treasures.
And me.
While Lethiana arranged for our horses to be brought out and packed for our journey, I gazed back up at the place where I had spent my entire life. So little had changed in those centuries. We hunted, we practiced our stances, we tended the forest gardens, we fucked. To be honest, mostly we fucked. Yet we never conceived, never made an elfling to join our Zinthrasa. Now I wondered if maybe that had been for the best.
Before the humans finally came knocking, the fadal of the crags had lived in peace for nearly two thousand years.
The warning signs had been clear for decades. We watched as the blight spread across the land, burned and plowed it into a crude violation of life. One by one, fadal enclaves had fallen silent - their voices added to a growing chorus that none had heeded.
The infinite woodlands of our youth gave way to fields and we did naught but gaze on as idle spectators to the demise of our world. We did not act when action might still have turned the tide. Our long lives of ease and luxury had made us blind. Until the final hour was upon us, we refused to see what had long been coming. By the time word reached the crags of the army blazing a trail in our direction, it was too late. We could only brace for the inevitable, having squandered a hundred chances to avert the fate now upon us.
But what should we have done?
For a start, we could have not fucked them.
Old father's words echoed around in my thoughts and his and his companion's despicable actions shocked me afresh. But then the human, Waentsin, stood in my mind, smiling his smug, oily smile at my mother, while Old Father's words still sounded in my ears:
Their women... the pleasure we could give them.
Suddenly, I drew in a ragged breath and, expelling it again, I tried to quell the unexpected salacious thrill that bloomed somewhere at the bottom of my spine.
"Missing us already?" A syrupy voice that could only be Elliana's crooned behind me as I felt her body press into my back while her hand snaked down the front of my belly.
"I'm having a moment here, Elliana." I tried to keep the guilt out of my voice. Old father's secret felt like a heavy stone on my conscience.
"A moment?" she asked suggestively.
"Yes. Reflective... melancholy. Saying goodbye I guess."
"You're thinking about all those times you fucked your favorite wife? Hmmm?" She was impossible. Her fingers found my cock and ran along the ridge where the fabric of my breeches was stretched tight.
"Don't let Lethiana hear you use that word. Your jokes about the humans are wearing down her poise." I turned around in her embrace. "If she heard you claim to be my 'wife' she'd have a fit."
Her eyes were shining and when she blinked, a tear rolled down her cheek. But still, with all the courage in the world, she cracked a suggestive smirk.
"I want to be your wife though. Like a human servant. So you can use me whenever you want." She waited to let the words sink in. And sink in they did, rather rapidly, their weight already adding to the heft of my swelling cock. But then her smile faltered and her bottom lip quivered. "And... now you are leaving us."
"You know I have no choice, Moullin." I offered feebly.
More tears brimmed in her eyes and, suddenly, I was blinking back the same. "I'm sorry," I croaked.
She stepped closer and leaned her head against mine, thumping my chest softly with her fist.
"You are leaving and you have no idea when you'll be back."
Or if, I thought privately while I wrapped her in my arms, tight enough to still her fist. No words of comfort came to me, so I just held her tight against me.
A forest could stand for millennia. But a firestorm could burn it down in a day.
But the forest would grow again.
We would have to do the same. We were not lost. Not yet. But we'd have to adapt. And I think I could already see it then. I knew with grim resignation that as a hostage in Kinborg, I would be the one to change first.
Lethiana appeared from the stable, leading four horses. Sarlai gave her a puzzled glance when she counted one horse too few for our party.
"Elliana can ride with Athaniel," Lethiana said while she handed me the leather lead to a stoic looking steed. "And she can ride the horse back with us after we hand him over."
Elliana sniffled loudly and blinked away her tears.
"If she can still sit," Sarlai snorted affectionately, somewhere behind us.
Comprehension dawned on Elliana just as it did with me. She cast a wondrous glance toward Lethiana, who just hoisted herself up onto her horse.
"We still have a few hours," our leader grunted before she righted herself in the saddle. "No reason to let them go to waste."
"Just... don't make it too obvious what you're doing. We'll all be listening," Isani said as she handed her bow and a quiver of arrows to one of the young horse keepers.
"I can relieve your suffering when we get home?" Sarlai offered.
Isani stepped into the stirrup and swung her leg over the horse's rump. "You'll do that anyway, lover."
Elliana had always carried her feelings on her sleeve. I'd just seen her suggestive smile crumble in the face of tears. Now they vanished as she sucked on her lush bottom lip and let her eyelids grow heavy. "Hours?" she asked breathily, the word turning into a sigh.
I shrugged. "Better get on that horse."
No fadal would have ever been as excited about riding as she now clearly was. She hopped in the stirrup and threw her leg over the saddle, in such a rush that on this rare occasion she even forgot to use the obvious change in perspective to tease me. Nonetheless, she still presented quite the image as she mounted the beast. She slid forward in the saddle to make space for me and, with an artful arch of her hips, made the vacant spot behind her seem suddenly attractive in a way no mount ever had.