CW: questionable consent; non-human; forced orgasms; transformation; slime;
The cool evening air in Melmana drifted in through the window of our dorm, carrying the soft, citrus-like scents of the forest that sat at the base of the mountain. Sonja, despite the dark sky and the late hour, was finding it hard to sleep, and instead watched the clouds drift past from her window while her bunkmates slept.
The reasons she couldn't sleep were various, but they didn't make themselves too clear to Sonja. Sometimes her sleep was interrupted by the knowledge that, soon enough, she and her best friends would be graduating from the mountain-set college -
Melmana Instructionary
- and that her role in the realm would become her only life. Up until now, her need to keep the pretense of a normal life had bound her into a role as a school-going young adult, with normal friends and normal hobbies. Her life beyond the school was treacherous, and soon there would be no escape from it.
She wondered if there would be any
Sonja
after the next few weeks had passed, as opposed to simply
the Witch of Sun
.
At the base of the mountain, the rest of the town slept, calm and assured that the heroes that arrived each generation to hold off the terrors of the night were watching over them. The Dark Realm that hid, somewhere in the forest, shifting and moving and releasing creatures of all evil descriptions, had been fought back into suppression by Sonja and the two witches - her bunkmates. She knew them as Katarina and Maya, as did the town and the school and the people around them.
But history would remember them, as well as the ones who had come before them, as the Witches of Sun, Moon and Stars. Those who keep Melmana safe. Those who fight back the dark.
A noise startled Sonja from her daze, the fog of sleep that had started to set in around her field of vision snapping away, as the cold came back to her. She peered out of the window, through the clear glass, and saw movement in the trees. It was miles away, but the height of the mountain granted her and her bunkmates the sort of oversight that made their job easier than it would be down in the town, and even in the dark she could see the trees shift. Birds fled into the night sky, up into the moonlight.
Sonja knew this was her weakest time - but she
also
knew that Katarina, Witch of Moon, wouldn't thank being disturbed. Of the three of them, Katarina was the only one with a 'normal' relationship, separate from their Witchhood, with a boy in their year, Gabriel - and the two of them had been fighting.
Maya, on the other hand, Witch of Stars, was powerful in both night and day, but her powers shifted - in the day, her power was condensed under one star, the sun, whereas at night she was scattered with a breadth of many smaller powers, like pinpricks in the blanket of night. Sonja figured that many small powers wouldn't serve her well, and in any case, Sonja could do with a fight. Something to loosen her up, use up some of the nervous energy inside her, and help her sleep.
So, cracking her neck, Sonja swung her legs out of bed, and summoned a power from within her, and let the mountain pull her from her room.
The shifting through physical space had once been uncomfortable, but by now it had become second nature; she flew through reality to the heart of the mountain, to the source of their power, and let it consume her. She was engulfed in glowing hot light, yellow and red, before a streak of light sent her soaring into the night sky.
The magic within her was instinctive, following her whim - within its limits. As such, the fire of the sun burned within her, and followed her as she flew over the town, a spec of yellow in the sky above.
The buildings were a spinning web of stone and wood, pathways ancient as memory or as new as yesterday joining together bridges and walkways and houses and shops and mess halls and theatres. Most of it quiet by now, save for the last drunkards of the night stumbling home from the warmth of their pub to the cold of their bed.
Sonja passed it all by, the familiar route taking her above a bakery - in twelve hours, the air would be filled with cinnamon and smoke, but for now it was the quiet still of a calm night. Over the treetops she went.
Keeping enough altitude to find the mass of movement, Sonja watched as a thin, sickly tree was pushed over nearby, the fire in her feet turning her, skating her over the ground about a meter high as she chased down whatever creature might be daring the forest between the Dark Realm and Melmana. She smiled to herself, knowing this was a done deal, even alone, even at night.
She had done this a million times before.
Sonja approached the spot, and saw the crushed tree, and the thin trail of woodland destruction that marked it's trajectory out of the Dark - but no monster. No wolf, upright and feral; no demon whirling shadows like knives; no goblins chittering in the trees, gnawing on bones.
Settling into the dirt, Sonja listened for movement, but even the birds seemed to be holding their breath. Bugs had fallen silent, and the smaller critters of the woods had long-since fled. It was ghostly.
Then, as soon as she took the step toward the tree to investigate further, she felt it around her ankle - a thick, cold embrace that gripped her from under the thick of leaves and moss.
'Shit,' she managed to say, before it whipped, spinning her over.
Sonja caught herself mid-air, her feet blasting flames to scare off the tendril, fire scorching the air and catching her. She hovered, looking for the creature, but it slipped out of sight, between the trees.
The dark was working against her, so Sonja sank her will into her magic and illuminated the woods, the power of the sun glowing from above to shine out her enemies.
A shimmer to her left, just in the periphery of her vision, made her spin - but she over-clocked, and as her head went left the tree to her right moved, impacting her before she knew what it was.
It hit her stomach, making her double over, even as the shimmering gold of her outfit took the brunt of the power; whatever it was, it had some
power
behind it. Sonja hit the grass, cutting the fire before she ignited the woodland itself, and caught another tendril with a stream of sunfire from her fist. She saw it more clearly now - a tentacle-like sliver of lime-green, reaching in from the trees, keeping its distance.
'Come on, you coward,' she growled, her cool composure slipping. A
smack
to the back of the head caught her off guard, and as she fell forwards she threw fire downwards to catch her fall, pushing her back up - but a tendril slipped in from her side, cracking her wrist and making her yell.
It didn't leave, however - instead, it stuck to her wrist, gripping her in a vice-like hold, and yanked her arm upwards. The gift of the mountain-power gave her the garb of the Witch of Sun - her sleeves were long and looped around her thumbs in white and red-lined shapes, while her leggings coated her feet in thin shoes, vanishing beneath a skirt. It was designed to fight her enemies, but wasn't by any means invincible, which was being made clear as the tendril soaked into her sleeve.
Sonja watched in horror as the thing, shifting in shape like slime, engulfer her from fingertip to elbow, and the sleeve beneath it's grip began to melt away.
'Oh, no-' she mumbled, summoning fire to her fist. Within the slime, her hand ignited, burning off the tendril, but leaving her with a burned-off sleeve at the elbow, and dregs of slime coating her flesh. She almost had time to note the odd tingle it left on her flesh as another whipped out of the dark, not giving her time to recover.
This one snapped against her jaw, making her grunt - she quickly righted herself, though, and threw flames into the stark bushes it had reached from, the magical sunlight creating harsh shadows beneath the cover of leaf and wood.
Sonja spun, fighting off seemingly endless tendrils, cutting with blades of flame, breathing fire in long, controlled bursts, trying to fend the monster off - but it was ruthless, and whilst she tired it seemed to carry on, unperturbed.
Eventually, she faltered, and a green slab hit her back, sending her forwards. The slab melted over her, and in an instant she was engulfed. She blasted a hold from her mouth with fire-breath, but once she stopped the hole simply closed over - only for the slime to find her lips and force them to stay open.
Panic set in as the cold goo met her tongue, filling her mouth quickly. Another tendril caught her attack, wrapping around her ignited fist, smothering the flames before they were hot enough, before yanking it back behind her back. Sonja couldn't help but try to cry out as the slime found a deeper channel into her throat, that odd tingling following close behind, her cries choked off before leaving her throat.
The once-slab of slime cocooned her, as thick arms encased her body; she cringed as two slapped across her chest, the erosion quickly setting in and eating away at her clothing. Another two wrapped her legs, holding them together - a blink of fury shot through her as she felt the cold seeping between her legs.
Then, to her horror, she felt it.
She couldn't move her head down to look - her neck had been coated in the slime, and it was holding her fast, choking her from
inside
her throat, thick and fat - but she could feel the cold of the slime as it burnt through her top, as that cold, wet tingle settled on her chest. It wasn't painful - as she had expected - but instead, seemed to work the other way.
It felt, horrifyingly,
