Prickled And Pampered

The Murena Ranger Lodge was a bit of a sorry affair. With its population of nearly five hundred—not to mention the scattered hunting cabins nearby—Murena was one of the largest settlements on the island. And it had only three regular Toxin Rangers dedicated to its defense.

Of all the Northern Isles, Farillona, with its steep cliffs and rocky ravines, was substantially less prone to ordinary fey troubles. Nymphs and dryads generally preferred the forests, and while lust sprites, sirens and similar 'horrors' were an occasional problem in the caves, the concerns of the island lay more in occasional monsters than fey meddling. Fey were more like nuisances. There was little demand for Toxin Rangers.

Salia sort of wished she didn't have to work a day job where the company budget consisted of a weekly bag of bread and cheese, a bottle of non-fermented guava cider, and a handwritten note covered in hearts pinned to the door reading, 'Hang in there!' with a small drawing of a skittergoblin clinging to a branch.

Granted, she was pretty sure Ciarlo saved every single note in his desk drawer, so it wasn't as though they went unappreciated.

"Morning, Ciarlo." Salia strolled inside, pausing to make a quick scratch on a paper hanging on the wall to signal her arrival. "How's it treating you?"

"Could be better!" Ciarlo grimaced. Her fellow Toxin Ranger was a tall, brown-skinned man with unusually bright green eyes and an unfortunate bushy mustache marring otherwise handsomely androgynous features. And right now, he was up and about—not seated at his termite-eaten desk, which was a bit unusual, Salia thought—and sifting through one of the closets.

"Yeah? What's wrong?" Salia frowned, glancing around the cluttered, musty lodge space. She then noticed the unoccupied chair at the desk covered in wildlife books and small, taxidermied animals. "Where's Iane?"

"They had to... pop out." Ciarlo glanced back at Siarlo with a sour expression, scratching the unfortunate mustache. "

Fishing duty.

"

Fishing duty, Salia knew, consisted mainly of drifting around in the nearby inlet in a small canoe, making sure none of the mermaids were up to anything unsavory, and checking on the two pearl sprite couples to make sure nobody had gotten ensnared recently. It was, by far, the dullest part of being a Murena Toxin Ranger.

"Iane hates fishing duty," Salia said, her eyes narrowing to slits. Salia's father had always told her she had eyes meant to narrow—perhaps a comment on her particularly thick lashes, but more likely a comment on her attitude. "That lazy

fucker

. They got wind something was up, didn't they?"

Ciarlo let out a loud groan as he took from the closet a longbow. "

Supposedly

, they heard that a couple jelly maids were dealing with pirates off the bay. Wanted to check it out, make sure nobody's riling the fey up."

"Sure. I bet."

"They might have been serious." Ciarlo spoke with all the hollow-rattling conviction of a very polite guard explaining the situation to a prisoner on death row. "Maybe there really is something going on."

"I

bet

." Salia glared. "So what's the deal? What are we being stuck with?"

"

We

aren't being stuck with anything." Ciarlo raised an eyebrow as he strapped a quiver to his back. "

I

have to go to the Rose Well. Widow Tamma says there's some fairy mischief going on there. Fairies are probably just looking to steal some love potions again."

"Fairies at the Rose Well?" Salia shook her head, disgusted. "I can't stand those little insects."

"Now, Salia..."

She kicked her desk, wincing as the boards cracked a little. Damn termites. "Sorry, but

come on

. You hate them, too. We're supposed to find them endearing and cute while they go around tying people's hairs in knots and spooking herds and... and all sorts of mischief! Remember the shit Primrose got up to last autumn?"

"They come from a different culture, Salia. A very, very annoying culture." Ciarlo strapped on a pair of earmuffs. These were designed to hamper fairy whisperings. The outer pads of the earmuffs were covered in feathers to further deter any ticklish flutterers.

The feathers also made Ciarlo look kind of hilarious. Salia suppressed a giggle, covering it by brushing her long black braids back and tying them back in a quick, oafish knot. "Yeah. Okay, so

you're

dealing with the fairies so I don't, uh, antagonize them."

"Last time we spoke to the fairies, you literally called them mosquitoes."

Rolling her eyes, Salia stalked over and grabbed her satchel of supplies from her desk. Unlike Ciarlo, who was currently fumbling with his boots—these were to guard from the fairies stealing his feathers and tickling his soles terribly—she always kept all her supplies ready to go at short notice. "I didn't say they

were

mosquitoes, I said they had the

brains

of mosquitoes!"

"yes." he looked up from tying his laces. "They found that offensive."

"Well, maybe they should grow thicker shells!"

"Mosquitoes don't have shells. If you'd compared them to beetles, maybe..." Ciarlo threw up a hand to block Salia's smack. "Okay, but seriously, Salia, the reason you aren't coming with is because you have the important job today."

Salia blinked, her annoyance at Ciarlo's stupid jokes momentarily staved off. "Really?"

"There's a... a situation at the Cuddlebug Pub."

Salia hefted the satchel, snorting. "Someone slip something illegal into the drinks again?"

"Uh... not quite." Ciarlo sounded uneasy.

Salia's head tilted as she turned to look at him. He was tying the last lace and avoiding her gaze. "What? What is it?"

Ciarlo gave a weak smile as he headed for the door, hefting a large butterfly net over his shoulder. "They've got a small... goblin problem."

"I thought we had a truce with the queen."

"Um. Not skittergoblins, Sal."

"Oh, great. So there's fey in—"

"Not that kind of goblin, either."

Salia stared after him.

Her eyes narrowed.

"Oh, gods damn it!"

~~~~

"Gods, you're just... you're so

beautiful

." Malben's voice was slurred as he leaned back in his chair.

The gorgeous green-skinned woman beamed at him, fluttering bright red eyes. "Am I

really

?" She wriggled excitedly in his lap. "

Really

"

He let out a loud moan. Her pussy... fuck, it was

incredible

around his shaft. It seemed to draw cum out of him like it was sucking from a straw, and with that came so, so much pleasure. The handsome dark-haired man licked his lips, shuddering with the effort of simply forming cogent words. "Y-yes," he rasped. "So... so hot... so

soft

..."

"

Mmmm

." The goblin maid sighed happily. "Tell me more! Tell me more, my darling!"

Malben stared down at her. The creature in his lap resembled a human woman in all respects—all respects that mattered, anyways. Sure, she was green-skinned, and not quite even four feet tall, and she had notched, pointed ears like old rusty daggers, and her wavy bouffant hairstyle was a shade of green even darker than her fulsome, plump lips and heavy eyelids, and her skin was just a shade paler than emerald...

But her breasts were

perfect

. Perfectly round, soft and squishy, and just big enough to squeeze against one another. She had a bubble butt that was currently plopped right down in his lap as he let her bounce atop his shaft, and her

eyes

...

No, forget her eyes, her

cunt

...

"You," he gasped, feeling the orgasms pounding into him, feeling his head sinking into soft, warm, fuzzy bliss, "are... so...

hot

."

The goblin maid giggled, wrapping her arms around him. With one hand, the nubile little number slipped another piece of curry-dipped bread into his mouth. He ate mindlessly, feeling the spices sending his whole mouth aflame, only to give way to a burning need to kiss, to fuck...

She held up before him a dark chocolate truffle, and waggled her eyebrows. "Tell me more, loverboy," she cooed, "and

this

yummy little treat just might find its way into your mouth!"

His mouth watered. His cock throbbed. "You... b-big breasts..."

"You mean

these

breasts, sugar?" she purred, pressing her chest up against him.

"Yes!" he gasped. "An'... an' so... so... hot..."

"Yes?" She held the chocolate in front of him, giggling. "You are so

sweet

. But what else about me do you love, huh? Tell me!" She bounced excitedly in his lap. "You're so close! Tell me!

Tell me tell me tell me!

" Her pussy squeezed and sucked his cock in and out like a mouth, wet, tight, slick and wonderful.

"Uh... unh..." A stupefied smile slid onto Malben's face. His words started to dissolve into babbling moans. "H-hot... b-big... boobs...

f-fuck

..."

His mind was dribbling away, fading all the way away. The goblin kept bouncing, milking him until his mind went white with pure bliss, but her giggling had died down.

He heard her let out a low, sad sigh as he faded into pleasured unconsciousness, sinking deep into a fog bank of lusty dreams. "Oh... and here I thought my search was finally over. You were

so

close, sugar.

"Gosh damn it."

~~~~

Salia marched down the gravel trail, the air smelling strongly of dust, ash, and llama manure. The path was lined by bright pink flowers—lover poppies, best-known for their oil, which served both as a natural lubricant and an intoxicant for many fey. Mortals grew it to keep the fey busy. It often had a very different effect, considering what fey usually wanted to do most when they were intoxicated.

Then again, maybe that was the idea. Salia rolled her eyes.

It wasn't that Salia hated fey. They just pissed her off. A lot of things did. Ciarlo and Iane always told her she had a short fuse, but that implied she had a fuse to begin with.

Things just pissed her off in general. Especially people who tried to make her calm down, and that was what fey were all about—dampening your emotions and will until all you wanted to do was

fuck

. It was fucking

condescending

.

Salia tossed her head, thick black braids flying, as she heard a sound from up ahead.

A llama's bizarre, gargled alarm shriek.

Salia broke into a run. She wasn't anywhere

near

the Cuddlebug. What was—

Oh. She stopped in her tracks, recognizing the source.

On the outskirts of town, some ways off from the pub, stood an old goat stable. Travelers' dire goats were kept in this stable when the village had nowhere else to keep them. That scream was coming from Banshee, the old llama who guarded the stable in the caretaker's absence.

Salia ran to the door of the ramshackle structure and kicked in the door, knife in her hand, and was greeted by the screaming

baa

s of two dire goats trapped in their stalls. "Banshee!" she shouted.

And down the aisle came running Banshee, a jet-black llama, shrieking at the top of her lungs. She was pursued by three tittering little balls of blinking light.

Salia squinted at those lights. They were remarkably pretty. They really... caught the eye...

She dove out of the way just in time to avoid being trampled, nearly crashing into a thistlebush in the process. Banshee came pronking out, bucking and gamboling, swatting her head furiously at the three giggling fairies.

Salia got to her feet, brushing dust and sand off her face with a snarl. "Fairies!" she barked. "What the

fuck

's all this, then?"

"Oh!" sang one blue fairy, diving out of the way of Banshee's snapping teeth. "Hi, Ranger!"

"Whoops!" A green fairy fluttered just out of reach of the llama's mandibles. "What seems to be the problem, officer?"

They cackled.

Salia crossed her arms, not putting away the knife just yet. "

Primrose,

she growled.

And the third fairy, a brilliantly pink little fey with particularly wavy hair, danced out of the way of the llama's projectile spit as she turned to face Salia.

The spit arced, descended, and splattered right in Salia's eyes.

"Oops." Salia heard Primrose give a nervous giggle. "Sorry, Salia."

Salia reached up and slowly wiped her eyes with her sleeve, letting out a snarl. "

You lot

" she hissed, "are

creating a disturbance

."

"Oh, come on." The fairies tittered, gathering together in the air a few feet above Salia's head. They sparkled prettily, but Salia was careful to shade her eyes to block the bulk of the glare. "We were just having some fun, weren't we, Banshee?"

The guard llama let out an irritable wail.

"Ha ha." Primrose clasped her hands behind her back, drifting to the left along with her two lovers, wings fluttering rapidly. "Such a kidder."

Salia sheathed her knife briskly, nearly slamming it into its scabbard. "I'm pretty sure Iane and I had words with you about what'd happen the next time we saw you up to mischief, Primrose."

"Oh,

come on

." Primrose let out an irritating whine. With her squeaky voice, it was almost reminiscent of a mosquito hum. "We were just playing with the goats! We haven't even been working anything

major

."

Salia knew that by "anything major", Primrose meant "playing with humans' minds". The fairies were usually fairly good about that—they weren't usually crazy about mental domination—but Primrose had a habit of skirting the boundaries. There were always troublemakers. Last year, Salia and Iane had caught her trying to hypnotize a shepherd and a goatherd into eloping together.

And then there was Ciarlo's work today...

"You three," Salia said, scowling, "haven't been up to any shit with the Rose Well, have you?"

"Who?

Us

?" Primrose gave a mock-gasp of shock. "We know better than to play cupids, Salia! I

promise

, we have nothing to do with those troublemakers."

"Uh-huh." Salia's eyes narrowed. "I bet."

"I speak from the heart, Salia!" Primrose drifted to the right. Salia's eyelids fluttered slightly with the effort of keeping her eyes on the fairies, and she steeled herself against the influence of those lights. "No mind games! I promise! You

trust

us, don't you?"

Salia chewed her upper lip, rubbing her eyes slightly. The lights were making her eyelids feel awfully heavy.

The fairies drifted a little closer, and Primrose's voice took on a honeyed quality. "You can

trust

me," she cooed sweetly, her light spiraling down, down, down—

"Nah." Fighting the grogginess, Salia unstrapped a gooey mass from her belt and tossed it upwards.

The fairies shrieked with surprise, but they were too slow to dodge as the translucent sac of glue burst over them. They flapped desperately as the goo covered their tiny bodies, carrying them sharply to the ground in one large, sticky mass.

It splatted in the dust below.

"You bitch!" Primrose spat, one wing fluttering desperately to escape her glue prison.

Salia scowled down at them. "You can stay here," she said, "while I deal with a goblin

hussy

out looking for a husband. But when I get back, we can have another long

talk

, okay?"

"

Ugh.

Party pooper." The fairy crossed her arms and pouted.

Salia rolled her eyes and stalked off, returning to the path. She didn't have time for this shit. She knew Banshee would be able to settle things now that the fey were taken care of.

She had a goblin 'hussy' to handle.

~~~~

Primrose watched the ranger depart with compound eyes narrowed to slits.

Damn her.

Damn that sexy, toned,

goddess

of a ranger. One day she'd see how right Primrose was for her. How good a fairy could make a human woman feel.

But in the meantime, the fairy's mind boiled with schemes. How to get back at the ranger for this? How to teach that uppity human some

humility

? Some, gods willing, fucking

romance

?

Of course! Her eyes lit up. She looked back at her two girltoys, who were currently experimenting with the gooey mass, testing to see if they could enjoy each other while caught within. Evidently, they could. "Girls," she said, grinning broadly, "I think I've got

another

great id—"

SPLAT

.

Primrose and her lovers let out shrill squeals as Banshee the guard llama spat up a mass of disgusting spit right on them. The llama walked back into the stable with a bitter bray.

Primrose gagged, wiping her eyes with a miserable moan. "Oh, you realize, my sweet Ranger," she muttered darkly, "

this

means

war

."

~~~~

The tavern common room was chaos. Salia's eyes narrowed as she entered the building and saw a pair of young men, each lying belly-up on big, comfy-looking armchairs. Their eyes were closed, but they still twitched every now and then, their hard cocks dribbling out steady flows as pleasurable dreams bore them into brainless bliss. Their faces and necks were covered in blue lipstick kisses.

Definitely a goblin maid. Definitely a

lusty

goblin maid, if she was going through young men this fast. She'd have a husband soon, at this rate.

Not on Salia's watch. The ranger rested her hand by the pouches at her belt and advanced deeper into the tavern. These two young men were known troublemakers—dumb rakes who didn't know a pussy from a pussy willow. This goblin maid had likely taken on meatier fare by this point. The tables in herewere strewn with leftovers—smeared remnants of curry, pastries and spilled wine. She had been

busy

.

Salia held her breath as she entered the kitchen. It was said that, when seeking to avoid a goblin maid's attentions, the most dangerous place of all to be was her kitchen. But a job was a job.

Oh, gods.

It was a

disaster area

in here.

The counters were piled high with pies—cherry pies, peach pies, and worst of all, pies made with that strange rosy-red jam only goblin maids knew how to bake.

Piled

high. They were stacked so the pies on the bottom were sinking into one another. Salia had seen a few goblin maid 'rampages' in her day, but never this much production from a single young goblin maid out for a husband.

The worst part was how many empty and half-empty tins there were. It was pure decadence.

The oven was still baking, and Salia could smell spicy, creamy chocolate fudge inside. Sweetbreads and fruitcakes covered the table, matched in quantity only by the bowls of that strange goblin spiced curry they were so good at mixing. There were baskets full of fried savory turnovers, bowls of ruby-red soups, and curry mixtures with rice and all sorts of vegetables.

No meat, of course. The sharp teeth of a goblin maid weren't for ripping flesh—they were for tearing strips of cinnamon bark, and other such spices.

Salia wrinkled her nose. The Lovebug Pub's cook, a slender woman in her early thirties with wild black hair, lay with her back up against the corner, twitching and moaning. Her eyes were closed but fluttering, and there was a slick puddle on the tiles between her legs. Her face was covered in lipstick kisses, and a half-finished bowl of candies lay beside her, her hand still resting halfway within.

So this goblin maid wasn't just after men. That... could be...

"Oh, hello there, sugar!" Salia whirled around. Standing in the far doorway, dressed in tight-fitting cotton shorts, a black crop top, and a pink apron that read,

Kiss the Cook

, was a rather short young woman with large, pointy ears. She had a voluptuous figure, with large, perky breasts and highly prominent hips set jauntily to the side.

The new arrival's skin was a shade off emerald green, and her gleaming red eyes were heavy-lidded, calm, almost suggesting drowsiness. Her plush lips were painted a gorgeous cerulean blue, her eyelids a dark forest green. The goblin maid was dressed to kill—dressed to wed. And she knew it. Those eyelids batted alluringly as she took a tiny mock-sip of the violet-red wine in her glass. "You'll have to pardon the mess. I've just been

so busy

lately. You couldn't imagine."