Beyond the Maze was the forest, and through the forest ran a road, and across the road flowed a river. The road was a dirt track with deep ruts that spoke of wagons, no doubt whoever it was that repaired the outer wall of the Maze. The river was little more than a stream, though it was wide and shallow where it met the road.
I had walked for hours, my heart heavy with loss, my feet weary from the hard soil, my head hazy from lack of food and water. I had spied some fruits and berries growing near the road, but my instincts had warned me away. Their colours were a little too bright, their smells a little too sweet.
But the river answered my needs. The water was pure and invigorating, and burbled with such joy that I released at last my guilt over leaving Ana behind - and my anger at her choosing to stay. It hurt that her hunger for a hard cock outweighed all our years of friendship. How was I supposed to celebrate my escape from the Farm without her by my side?
The river cleansed me of dirt and sweat, but more importantly of mud and cum. Walking naked through the forest, the thought of being discovered in such a dirty state, my hair a tangled, clumpy mess, my thighs sticky from the cum that had leaked out persistently all day. The pixies had used my body well while I slept.
As I bathed, my feet sank into the rich, soft soil, my toes becoming roots that delved deep in search of minerals and nutrients that I hadn't realised how hungry I was for. The pleasure of it was almost orgasmic. I stood there swaying like a tree in an imaginary breeze, soaking up water and sustenance, until before I knew it the sky was dark and the air and water were cold against my bare skin, my roots retracting until my feet were feet again and I was almost human.
I needed to find clothes, and not just for modesty's sake. Anyone seeing my legs, increasingly green from the thighs down to my misshapen feet, would think me a monster. That the gate had permitted my exit from the Maze with notable reluctance suggested that there was something monstrous about me, even if ultimately I was still human.
I refilled my water sack, one of my few remaining possessions, and found myself a mossy shelter for the night. The cool air didn't bother me much, but as I drifted off to sleep, my thoughts returned again to the muddy fingers in the walls, pinching and poking, and to the rampact pixies crowding round my sleeping, helpless body. It awoke again that dirty, yearning emptiness in my ass, and I wondered if I would ever be free of the Maze's cruel corruption.
*
The forest ended at a lake, a wide and beautiful expanse of water like nothing I had ever seen before, with hills and forests beyond. I sat on the pebble shore just staring at the shimmering waves, the morning sun rising in the East and reflecting brightly off the water. Back home at the Farm, there was a place where the River was deep and relatively sheltered, and growing up we had often bathed and played there. But the lake was something else, big enough to drown in. It could swallow you up and not even notice.
The road from the Maze joined another road, one that followed the shore. This was a well kept road that clearly saw frequent traffic. Indeed, it was the need to hide from a swift, horse-drawn carriage that prompted me to leave off my tentative paddling and duck back into the eaves of the forest. The black carriage swept past without slowing. If the driver had seen my naked form from the distance, he showed no curiosity and showed no inclination to stop.
Keeping to the trees, I followed the road and the lake shore to the West, until the forest gave way to a field of wheat. Nearby was a field of potatoes in full flower, and I guessed that it was a crop rotation like we had at the Farm. Beyond the fields was a town, walled with a high palisade. The world that I had escaped into suddenly seemed a lot more dangerous.
I had fled the Farm to avoid the life sentence of marriage to a man. I had foolishly braved the Maze and had been groped and fucked and even mutated into something half plant, half woman. But the outside world was no utopian paradise. It wasn't the grand cities of wizards I had dreamed of. Instead it was farmers hiding within a wall all over again, as if I had never left home.
At least our wall kept out monsters. What did this one keep out? And what would these farmers make of a naked, half-human woman hiding in the forest?
As the ground snatched up around me, too quickly for me to react, I screamed, sure in that instant that some new, subterranean monster had risen to devour me. But it was just a net. A trap laid by humans.
And though I had a knife with me, and could in time have cut myself free of the entangling net, I was soon surrounded by armed men - with little kindness in their expressions.
*
They carried me to the town, but not within. They ignored my questions and demands, and ignored my pleading and tears, and in truth their words meant nothing to me. It was a shock to hear people speak a language other than the only language I had ever heard.
And yet... There were words that were almost familiar, as if hundreds of years ago our languages had been the same, but the men who carried me had expressions full of anger and suspicion, and were more interested in prodding me with fingers and poking me with sharp sticks than actually trying to understand me.
They released me from the net, stole my bag, and tied my wrists together around a thick post. "You might at least have given me some clothes first," I said wearily, tired of all the useless shouting back and forth.
They looked blankly at me, some staring at my green, inhuman legs, others staring openly at my exposed pussy and breasts. One grabbed the hard tent in his crotch and made some lewd remark that made the others laugh. "Bastards," I hissed, which only made them laugh harder.
They kept their distance, however, and eventually went their separate ways, the archers back to hunting in the forest, the swordsmen back to guarding their wooden fortress.
A while later, a group of women, young and old, emerged from the town and chattered excitedly as they studied me from a safe distance. They tried talking to me, and I to them, but without success.
The youngest of them, maybe only two or three years older than me, with long dark hair and deep blue eyes, studied me without saying anything. She was the one who returned an hour later, bringing me food and drink, and (blessing of blessings!) a skirt. It was a long, woollen skirt, dull yellow in colour, patched and stitched in many places, and with my hands tied I needed her to bring it up around my waist. Just as I needed her to feed me, and to hold the water skin as I drank deeply. It felt intimate, and my helplessness would have been humiliating were it not for the compassion in her eyes.
"Thank you," I said, smiling warmly. It was so good to have some clothing again, and the skirt did a good job of concealing my difference.
"You're a Farm girl, aren't you?" she asked, startling me. She had a strong accent, but I understood well.
"Thank the gods," I cried. "You have to help me! Please help me!"
