Inhuman Guardian, Dark Heir [Syene & Regina Minx]
<h1 id="title">Elliquiy Role Playing Forums</h1>
		<h2 id="linktree">Play-By-Post: Bondage, D/s, S&amp;M =&gt; Bondage: Exotic Solos =&gt; Topic started by: Syene on 29-10-2016, 06:05:23</h2>
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				Title: <strong>Inhuman Guardian, Dark Heir [Syene &amp; Regina Minx]</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Syene</strong> on <strong>29-10-2016, 06:05:23</strong>
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				Larissa moaned as she regained consciousness, her eyes fluttering slightly. Her whole body ached, her head worst of all. Sighing deeply, she lifted her hand to rub the sore spot, only to find that her hands were manacled behind her. Her eyes flew open and she tried to sit up, looking around as her most recent memories came flooding back. The men with warhorses outside the barn where she'd spent the night. Quickly throwing her few possessions into a bag and desperately hoping she had not seen them too late. Stepping outside a side door, only to find several well-armed men there. Starting to chant a spell that she hoped would stun them even as she tried to dodge past them. A glimpse of motion behind her. Pain as something struck the back of her head. Darkness. <br><br>Dizzily, she moaned and subsided back onto the ground, but not before getting a pretty good idea of her surroundings. There were several tents, a couple fires, and a variety of well-armed people. They reminded her of the people she'd caught glimpses of fighting her father's soldiers as she'd fled her home. A couple of the people sat close by, watching her, and her eyes briefly locked with the uncompromising gaze of one of the men for a moment before she had to close them and inhale deeply or risk vomiting. <br><br>"She's awake," a gruff voice announced. "Finally. You hit her too hard." <br><br>"Would you have preferred I didn't hit her hard enough?"<br><br>Larissa opened her eyes and sat up cautiously, watching the men warily. She took a few deep breaths, analyzing how she was feeling -- the general aches were not so bad but the headache, dizziness and nausea was worrying and the faint buzz in the air she recognized after a moment as an antimagic field sent a surge of fear through her body. She might not be a powerful sorceress, but she was no warrior -- magic was her best defense and likely her only means of escape. <br><br>"Now, Princess," said the man with the gruff voice, "We don't want to hurt you. We just need some information about your father's treasure vaults..." He was older than most of them and wore well-maintained but frequently used armor. It seemed likely he was one of their leaders. <br><br>Normally Larissa might have nodded, but she had the uneasy feeling that it would make her dizziness worse, so she only turned her head slightly to face him and glanced into his eyes. She was pretty sure that he was lying. Occasionally, she'd catch a few words from elsewhere in the camp and she was certain she'd heard someone say, "kill her." <br><br>She sighed and licked dry lips. "May I have some water?" she asked, hoping for a few moments to try to figure out how to handle this. She could easily believe that they wanted access to her father's vaults -- she sometimes daydreamed about how much easier even a few of the treasures she could find there would make her life, but she knew that she had no chance of reaching the center of ruined Darkheim alone and no prospect of finding trustworthy allies. She missed her life in her father's fortress so desperately that she sometimes woke up crying and while she knew she was never getting that back, there had to be something better than this. She was certain these men would have killed her as soon as they'd seen her if they didn't believe she was the key to marvelous treasures. There was a considerable price on her head. <br><br>The man with the gruff voice shrugged and stepped closer, holding a waterskin to her lips. She closed her eyes and drank thirstily, thoughts spinning through her head. She'd never seriously considered the possibility of opening her father's vaults, but these were actually the sort of people that might be able to reach them. She didn't trust them and she doubted they'd ever trust her, but the possibility that she could use them to get access to the vaults was still an intriguing thought. She had no ambitions to follow in her father's footsteps, but she longed to be powerful enough that she didn't have to be constantly hiding and living in fear. Her first priority was to convince them not to kill her. Her second was to convince them that she was, if not trustworthy, then at least sufficiently cowed that she might be believed. The first was easy enough -- she needed to convince them that only her father's heir could open the vaults. It had the added advantage of being true. A sick feeling that had nothing to do with the concussion she suspected she was suffering from grew in the pit of her stomach as she considered the best way to achieve the second. She needed to goad them into hurting her until she could believably admit the truth as though it was under duress.<br><br>She sighed and licked her lips. "I don't know how to open them. Do you really think I'd be here if I did?"<br><br>The man with the gruff voice shook his head as though disappointed, "Don't lie, princess. You were his heir and the only person your father trusted enough to keep that secret." <br><br>She shook her head, regretting it as it sent a wave of dizziness through her. <br><br>The other man man, thinner and younger than the first, slapped her face. "Stop lying, bitch!" <br><br>Dizzily, Larissa lost her balance and fell back on the ground, wincing at her stinging cheek and inhaling deeply. "I don't know..." she said, letting her distress enter her voice as she looked up at them. <br><br>"Domitian!" scolded the man with the gruff voice. <br><br>The younger one shrugged in reply and said, "I say we kill her now and settle for the reward money." <br><br>Larissa was pretty sure that they were trying to manipulate her with the older man playing a reasonable fatherly type and the younger man a hothead with a cruel streak. As long as she was a good enough liar to hide that she realized what they were doing, she was pretty sure that her plan had a good chance of working. It was just going to hurt. <br><br>"Please don't hurt me! He never told me, I swear!" she gasped. <br><br>Domitian kicked her in the side and she cried out in pain. She didn't think he'd broken anything, but she was definitely going to have a nasty bruise. <br><br>"Come now, Princess, tell us how to get into the vault and we'll let you go..." <br><br>They shouted her for a while, Domitian occasionally hitting her, before the man with the gruff voice gave a disgusted sigh, "Very well, princess. Since you're not going to be reasonable, I'm afraid I'm going to have to let my friend here try it his way..." He turned to Domitian, "Take her out in the woods. Even knowing who she is, I don't have any stomach for watching you torture such a pretty little thing." Larissa wasn't sure if that was true or not, but it didn't really matter because she was certain that Domitian was enjoying tormenting her and she really didn't want him to have free rein.<br><br>"No," she gasped breathlessly, hoping that this was going to work. "I'll tell you... Just don't let him hurt me anymore... Please!"<br><br>She shrieked as Domitian hauled her to her feet by her tangled blood auburn hair, squeezing her dark eyes shut as she dizzily tried to keep her balance. <br><br>"Oh?" the man with the gruff voice inquired, suddenly looking interested. <br><br>Larissa was a little bit glad she hurt so much, or she might have smiled. "I'll show you a safe path and tell you the passwords," she promised, "but the final door is locked against anyone without his blood in their veins..." <br><br>The man with the gruff voice considered, watching her carefully. "Good girl," he finally said, before glancing at his companion. "She's completely untrustworthy, but I think that's actually true. You still think you can break her?"<br><br>Larissa went instantly from tentatively confident to certain that she'd lost control of the situation. <br><br>"I'm looking forward showing this evil little bitch her place..." Domitian promised, ripping open the front of Larissa's dress to expose her firm, white breasts.<br><br>"No!" she shrieked in real terror. "Please, I'll do what you want... I promise..." <br><br>The man with the gruff voice turned away. <br><br>She stumbled dizzily behind Domitian as he started to drag her into the woods, listening with increasing panic as he ranted about how he was going to do the things to her that her father's soldiers had done to his sister. She wasn't a virgin, but she'd never had much interest in men and she was scared witless. 
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				Title: <strong>Re: Inhuman Guardian, Dark Heir [Syene &amp; Regina Minx]</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Regina Minx</strong> on <strong>30-10-2016, 05:32:06</strong>
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				Even to the eyes of the elves, which saw best by moonlight and starlight, she would have passed undetected only a foot away. Through the black, drifting waters of the river Anduin she drifted, sometimes swimming when clouds bathed even the unlit lands between cities in shadow. But always moving, away from the fall of Darkheim, her great, coiled bulk describing a sinuous path through the water that disturbed its turbulent surface but little. The suit of mail that had been given to her by the Dark Lord, who was called Sseth in the secret tongue of the lamia, had been left behind when she'd taken to the waters to escape the siege, and she carried only her sword Witherbrand in an oilskin wrapping to keep it dry and loose in the sheathe.<br><br>Ten days she had drifted and swam, guided by the course of the river towards the sea. She had fought against the fall of Darkheim; where the first battles had opened in the outlying towns, she had been there, striking from concealment and killing captains and officers and preventing messengers from carrying orders, sowing confusion in the ranks. Then they had fallen back, and and her bow had sang from the walls of the Black Gates as the ogres threw great seize stones, and the goblins overturned the buckets of boiling oil. Witherbrand had done grim work in the halls of the castle, but for all her deadly skill and burning venom, it had not been enough.<br><br>The lamia Sesha, the last of her kind, daughter of a fierce race of twisted women-snakes stretching back to the First Age, had been the last to turn against Sseth and live to tell of it. In the absence of the power and the will of the Dark One, his union of fell races had disintegrated. Orc had turned on goblin, troll hunted man. The wyvern pen was emptied, and the skies over Darkheim congested with lieutenants and captains fleeting by air. More than once, she'd drawn Witherbrand against those that had been her allies, and by skill and viciousness and the black will to survive, she'd traveled to the river and trusted her fate to the waters. <br><br>On the tenth day, she'd emerged from the waters, cold and hungry. She was not a woman, for all she resembled one, and needed food and rest less often than did humans, but ten days was the limit of her ability to endure. Her skin, normally a milky white, had been stained by river mud that had coated her feminine upper half like living clay, and only a pair of bright yellow eyes gleamed forth from the earthy mask she wore. A tongue flicked out, tasting the air, and her body writhed to face south-west. Another flick of a forked tongue, and she confirmed what the first sampling had told herm. Men. Suitable hunting. Suitable food. So she had gone, drifting over the muddy fens and rotting vegetation with less noise than a mouse. <br><br>A feminine torso she had, lithely muscled and beautiful, should the grime and dirt be cleaned from her. But two inches below the naval, her lower extremities was a long serpent's tail, armored by thousands of coppery scales and thick as a great man's waist. From head to tail, Sesha measured fifteen feet, and the bulk of her serpentine body was a thick band of muscle weighting many hundreds of pounds. It was impossible for such a creature to move with grace and silence, but she did. Alive with purpose, she drives from shadow to show, and from tree to tree, disturbing the ground in such a way that not even a ranger could have followed her. Until she found the company of men. She was too far away to make out the details, but she heard voices raised in anger, and heard a high-pitched cry of a woman. Sesha's heart was stone to the pain of women; screams were nothing new to her, and she had been the cause of them more often than not. She cared only for the opportunity the scene presented, and when one of the men lead off the woman to question her more pointedly, Sesha had gone across the tops of the trees.<br><br>When the woman had been thrown to the ground, there was a light rasp, steel on leather, as Witherbrand drew forth, gleaming with its unhealthy bone-white glow beneath the light of the moon. Sesha waited, knowing with predatory instinct when the prey was most vulnerable. It came as Domitian&nbsp; unbuckled his pants, and all of his thoughts were on the spear between his legs, and landing it in the soft flesh of the girl in the torn dress. Domitian had a brief warning, the feel of the air pressing down on his head as the lamia let herself drop from the tree branch overhead. His chin had just started to rise when Sesha fell on him.<br><br>For all that she had the traits of an asp; the long, hollow fangs and the venom that could kill a dragon, there was as much of the constrictor about Sesha. She fell on Domitian, and flexed her great, muscular bulk, squeezing him in the tight band of muscle from knee to chest, and <em>squeezed</em>. The man's breath came out in a great rush, and bones cracked, and still the lamia squeezed. Blood exploded from his mouth as his face twisted in a silent parody of a scream. And Witherbrand was at Larissa's throat, hungry steel ready to end her life and give the lamia a chance to eat man and woman both, when the assassin's blade was held.<br><br>"Princess?" hissed the lamia. Her voice was a soft, musical whisper. Her native tongue was a combination of spoken phonemes and hisses, pheromones and positions and movements of the coils that other beings could not speak. But when she had learned the tongue of Sseth, her native means of communication had left her with a unique accent, and even if the familiar voice and cadence did not remind Larissa of his father's pet snake, the flicking forked tongue surely would. "You live," she said. In her coils Domitian died. He did not die quickly, but he died silently.
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				Title: <strong>Re: Inhuman Guardian, Dark Heir [Syene &amp; Regina Minx]</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Syene</strong> on <strong>30-10-2016, 08:56:27</strong>
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				Larissa was far too distracted by pain and focused on Domitian looming over her to hear the whisper of steel and leather, especially as he reached to unbuckle his pants. Her breath heaved in great gasps and her dark eyes were wide with terror as she looked up at him. She dreaded this as much as anything she'd experienced in her short life, but she couldn't think of any way to escape it and wasn't sure she'd survive it with her mind intact. <br><br>Although she was far better positioned to see the lamia as she fell upon the man, Larissa only tore her eyes away from what he'd pulled from his pants at that last moment. She screamed in terror at the sight of Sesha's great coils wrapping around the man who'd been intent on raping her, struggling to comprehend what she was seeing. <br><br>For a moment, as she heard the cracking of bones and saw the blood pouring from her tormentor's mouth, she smiled in delight, not yet aware of the blade pressed against her throat. There was something immensely satisfying about watching the man who'd beaten her and had intended to rape her die painfully. She didn't flinch as his blood splattered against the bare skin of her face and chest. <br><br>It was only as she inhaled deeply, preparing to drag herself to her feet and try to run that she realized there was a blade at her throat. Her body tense and still, her eyes flew up, seeking whomever it was that held the weapon. <br><br>Her brow furrowed as she found a rather grimy woman who addressed her as "Princess." With circumstances that were so dissimilar to the few times she'd seen Sesha and an awful headache that was making it hard to think it took her a moment to remember where she'd seen her before. <br><br>"Yes," she replied, her voice unsteady and soft. "You're... Sesha?" She considered elaborating, but she stopped herself at the last moment, remembering that the snake woman might not have served her father willingly and might not like being reminded of it. There were more than a few of her father's former allies who wanted to see her captured or dead as much as the forces who'd defeated him did. <br><br>She inhaled and asked bluntly, "Are you going to kill me?" From what she recalled hearing of the assassin, no amount of begging or pleading would sway her and while Larissa definitely didn't want to die, she couldn't deny that a quick death would probably be more pleasant than what she'd been facing since she'd been captured and it was pretty much impossible she was going to escape Sesha. 
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				Title: <strong>Re: Inhuman Guardian, Dark Heir [Syene &amp; Regina Minx]</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Regina Minx</strong> on <strong>30-10-2016, 20:55:38</strong>
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				Witherbrand had been meant to silence the scream of a peasant, not to menace Larissa. Sesha considered, but then returned her sword from its sheathe and adjusted her great bulk so that she was no longer pinning the princess to the ground. Her tail gave an experimental shake, and the man in her clutches appeared dead enough for her satisfaction, and so she released him and let his corpse fall where it would while she began searching him. Larissa's presence here changed things. She had not known that the girl had survived, and the odds of finding her in the capture of these soldiers struck Sesha as so unlikely that she feared the intervention of powers beyond her ken had been responsible for her coming across the girl.<br><br>It was with some irony that Sesha noticed that both of them were nude. When she had lost her armor, she had not bothered to keep the padded tunic or breast-wrappings. And Larissa hadn't even been given the choice, as the man had torn into her clothes as if he wished it was her flesh. A month ago, they both had access to wealth and power in the service of Sseth, and yet here they were. Naked and surrounded by enemies, and their entire list of assets included one sword and one corpse. The sheer ignobility of it all made her smirk.<br><br>"I am not going to kill you," Sesha hissed. Her tawny, slitted eyes and flicking tongue took in the crusted blood on the back of Larissa's head, as she evaluated the fitness of the girl to travel. "Give the order and I shall slay these men. Or if you would flee, I will carry you if you cannot run yourself. But if it is to be murder or flight, we must decide now, before one man comes to check on this one, and sounds the alarm."<br><br>Despite the implication that she would serve Larissa as she'd served Sseth, Sesha had not yet decided what to do with the Dark Lord's heir. She might be valuable in trade, either to the armies that had risen against her father, or to the powers in the Fell Army that survived and were greater than she. When it came right down to it, at the extreme end of need, she might decide that Larissa's best purpose was to serve her as a meal and sport of an afternoon. Regardless of what she decided in the end, all paths required that the princess travel with her and trust her. Appear as the loyal minion. Speak in soft words, as she'd done to Sseth, all the while the bitterness of her captivity and slavery burned in her gut. 
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				Title: <strong>Re: Inhuman Guardian, Dark Heir [Syene &amp; Regina Minx]</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Syene</strong> on <strong>30-10-2016, 23:08:49</strong>
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				Larissa gave a soft sigh as the sword was lifted from her throat and the lamia adjusted her mass so that she was no longer pinned to the ground. She looked up at the lamia, taking in the sight of her bare breasts and her thick, serpentine body. From the mud that smeared her and the lack of anything but her sword, Larissa suspected that she hadn't had it much easier since the fall of Darkheim. She reminded herself that while Sesha might look like a beautiful, human woman from the waist up, she was still an inhuman monster. <br><br>She inhaled deeply and cautiously sat up, the manacles on her wrists clinking faintly. She grimaced and closed her eyes as a wave of dizziness washed over her, taking a few deep breaths as she tried to steady herself. <br><br>She gave a small nod. She did not trust Sesha. Mostly, she didn't trust her apparent subservience, since she had a vague recollection her father had somehow forced Sesha to serve him, but she also suspected that she would not hesitate to kill her later if it became more expedient. Larissa was delighted that Sesha had rescued her, but she knew that she'd betray the lamia to save her own skin if it became necessary. That was the way things had worked in Darkheim and she saw little reason to think it would change now that her father's citadel had fallen. <br><br>"Kill them," she said after considering briefly. "I want them dead, but more importantly I think we could use their supplies." Frowning, she added, "I won't be much help unless you happen to find a key to these damn chains on him and even then I'm not sure... They hit my head pretty hard when they captured me and it's making it hard for me to concentrate." Her father had taught her not to reveal her weaknesses, but with so little at their disposal, it seemed even more foolish to try and hide it. <br><br>More to herself than her companion, she muttered, "What I really want is a hot bath and a comfortable bed, but since I'm apparently not going to get either, I might as well at least enjoy a little bit of revenge." 
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				Title: <strong>Re: Inhuman Guardian, Dark Heir [Syene &amp; Regina Minx]</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Regina Minx</strong> on <strong>31-10-2016, 23:23:25</strong>
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				Kill them. Kill them all. Sesha had been commanded to do just that many times in her service to Sseth. She had never failed to obey, nor let live those her lord had commanded must die. It was not even required that she know the reason why death must flow from her hands and her fangs. This time was different, though. For the first time, the lamia took the order from someone other than Sseth, and wondered about it. Her tongue flicked the air as she contemplated, looking the girl over closely. She was not a soft creature, to order the death of so many in one go. Was there a hint of excitement in her eyes, to know that men would live and die at her command? Larissa was an unknown quantity to the lamia, who had scarcely seen the child over the years since she'd been hatched. Perhaps she shouldn't have been surprised that Sseth's daughter was as hard as he'd been, and would make those that had opposed her pay as deep a price.<br><br>It did not matter to Sesha whether these men lived or died. And if by killing them she was able to convince the princess to accompany her, it was worth the effort it would take. "I obey," the lamia said. Over the years as Sseth's personal assassin, she had learned small tricks of magic; nothing compared to what the mightiest wizards of the age could manage, but sufficient to her purposes to enhance her skill with the blade. She hissed and made a gesture with one clawed hand, and the air around her rippled as shadows seemed to absorb the lamia's coiled mass into them. With a blink, she was invisible but for the barest hint of the light of the nighttime moon on black scales. Another blink, and she was gone as she slithered back to the company of men.<br><br>Sesha counted eight men gathered in the cluster of tents built around the campfire. Though she rued the loss of her armor, she did not think it likely that she would suffer any great hurt in this battle; the element of surprise would aid her, and once Witherbrand began to work, its bloody business finished with nightmarish speed. Realistically, Sesha knew she would only have to kill five or six men. When fighting a group, the last two, at least, always ran. Men were not equipped to fight monsters, and her form of attack; with coils and blade and poison, all at once, was an overwhelming terror even in the battle hardened.<br><br>She came close enough to the first target to lick his ear before the killing began. From the place where she had been left, Larissa heard a terrible scream, a clash of steel, and a great clamor and angry shouting. And then she heard a terrible silence. <br><br>Sesha re-appeared with a key in hand and her sword dripping with blood and viscera. Her shoulders heaved with an exertion of breath, and sweat had left trails of white flesh visible beneath the mud coating her nude torso. Her yellow eyes were shining with excitement, though, and her lips broadened into such a fierce and terrible grin as to show her fangs. "I left one alive, my Princess, to question as pleased you."
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				Title: <strong>Re: Inhuman Guardian, Dark Heir [Syene &amp; Regina Minx]</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Syene</strong> on <strong>02-11-2016, 05:06:37</strong>
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				Larissa smiled with almost childlike delight as Sesha melted into the shadows with a hiss and a gesture. Although Larissa had a pretty strong gift for magic, she was young and inexperienced and she'd never seen that trick before. She wanted to learn it -- if she'd known how to do something like that, she would have had more options when the soldiers had cornered her in the barn. <br><br>She sighed and closed her eyes, content to wait for Sesha to return. Her head ached and her hands were still manacled behind her, but no one was hurting her or threatening her and she finally had a chance to breath. She knew it might not last, but it felt good in the meantime and she had a feeling she should savor that while she could. She missed feeling safe. Her lips quirked in a hint of a smile as she hear a scream, shouting and then a final silence. She didn't feel guilty about asking Sesha to kill them -- they'd kidnapped her, beaten her, and had been complicit in an attempt to rape her. It wasn't so much that she thought those were horrible things to do as that they'd done them to her. <br><br>She opened her eyes at the whisper of sound as Sesha reappeared, her eyes widening faintly as she took in the sight of the lamia's bloody sword and white skin exposed by trickles of sweat down her athletic body. The fierce grin that exposed her fangs was intimidating, but the excitement in her eyes was intoxicating and Larissa smiled as she saw the flash of the key in her hand. <br><br>She smiled as Sesha explained that she'd left one alive to question and shrugged sheepishly. "Excellent. I suppose I should have thought of that."<br><br>She lifted her hands slightly and the manacles clinked. "Would you unlock these for me?" The thought of Sesha behind her made her feel vulnerable, though she knew it was completely irrational given Sesha's skill.&nbsp; <br><br>"What do you think we should ask him?" she asked, figuring she should take advantage of Sesha's superior knowledge and welcoming the distraction from her aching head and slight unease around the lamia. "Maybe about other soldiers in the area?" Her education hadn't been particularly military, but she was pretty sure that learning whatever they could about the movement of other troops in the area would be useful. 
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				Title: <strong>Re: Inhuman Guardian, Dark Heir [Syene &amp; Regina Minx]</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Regina Minx</strong> on <strong>09-11-2016, 20:48:31</strong>
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				The Princess had no more asked but the lamia had put the key to the lock and removed the manacles, letting the iron, biting shackles fall to the ground to rust and be forgotten. Sesha knew that if Larissa was going to run from her, she had just made it easier for the girl to do so; and yet she betrayed none of her suspicions and lack of trust to the young woman. She merely turned away and slithered back to the clearing where she had carved corpses from men. She did not stop to think about Larissa's modesty; having none herself, she did not understand, or did not choose to do so at this time, why it might be shameful for the princess to travel in the nude. <br><br>The men had been cut down where they stood, by and large. Steel had sliced deep into armor and flesh, exposing the tender meat beneath the steel shells. It was a ghastly sight, one that Sesha seemed all but inured to. She looked at the carnage with neither pleasure nor revulsion; merely a mute sense of self-satisfaction that she had been able to do her job with such gristly efficacy. Those that had tried to run had been cut down from behind; like most serpents, the lamia was capable of frightening bursts of speed, and her great bulk was no obstacle for her to chase down a man that fled on foot or even on horseback, over short distances. The one survivor was the same bearded man that had lead the questioning of her. The bearded warrior lay on the ground, his moans and cries almost constant as he clutched his shoulder. The pauldrons of his armor had been pulled away, and his tunic ripped to reveal the skin underneath. Two bloody fang imprints stood out on his leathery skin, and from the impact points black spiderweb veins radiated outward. If Larissa watched the man's skin, she could actually see the spread of the lamia's venom as it sped its way to his heart.<br><br>"Normally my venom kills in an instant. But he received only a dram. My fangs were well milked by the time I got to him," Sesha said as she prodded the man in the shoulder. His moans turned into a fierce scream as the pressure made him feel as if he was being burned from the inside out. "I do not yet know if he had enough to kill him, or if he shall merely wish for death over the course of many days. My Princess, I suggest you ask him quickly, and make promise of commanding me to deliver the antidote, if he speaks to your satisfaction. You will want to know, of course, where the nearest camp is, how many are there, about patrols and about safe passage through the Forlorn Mountains." Larissa might have thought of that, she might not have. But by giving the task to her, and by phrasing it as reminding her of something she already knew, might invest the girl with a sense of power and purpose, and make her more likely to go along with Sesha as the two drew away together.
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				Title: <strong>Re: Inhuman Guardian, Dark Heir [Syene &amp; Regina Minx]</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Syene</strong> on <strong>10-11-2016, 05:23:42</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				Larissa gave a long sigh as the manacles fell away from her hands. She immediately pulled her wrists in front of her, looking down to see the damage and delicately rubbing her wrists. It wasn't anything more serious than the scrapes and bruises on the rest of her body. She sighed and slowly climbed to her feet, watching Sesha disappear back toward the camp.<br><br>After a moment to assure herself that she wasn't going to loose her balance, she followed the lamia toward the camp. She paused as she encountered the first of the bodies, a man she suspected had been struck down as he fled, his armor cut in twain. She was accustomed to a certain amount of blood and violence, raised as she had been in her father's court, but nothing like this ruthless efficiency. It was shocking and a little frightening considering how easily Sesha could turn on her. <br><br>She frowned as her torn dress slipped off her shoulder. She wasn't accustomed to going naked or particularly comfortable with it. She wanted clean, comfortable clothing, not this dirty, torn thing. Still, she didn't intend to let it hinder her. Her father would not approve of that. She shrugged out of the tattered remains of her dress, dropping it on the ground behind her as she passed another bleeding corpse.<br><br>She stalked up to the moaning man who lay on the ground and looked down at him, tilting her head as she took in the sight. She wondered if he found the sight of her naked and blood-smeared frightening -- her father had always said that many men were afraid of powerful, sexual women. She hoped he did. <br><br>She nodded at Sesha's explanation, her lips twisting into a dark smile as the man screamed. It was a little satisfying to know that he was suffering after the way he'd helped torment her, but mostly she wanted to make it look like she was enjoying it. "Antidote? Very interesting," she said casually. "That looks painful..." <br><br>"Thank you, Sesha," she said with a smile for her new companion. She didn't trust Sesha, but she had to admit she was being helpful, at least for the moment. <br><br>She looked down at the bearded man. "I suggest you answer my questions. Sesha served my father loyally for many years. She will not aid you, no matter how you beg, unless I am satisfied. If you tell me what I need to know, I will let you live." She was lying -- even from a purely practical standpoint, it made no sense to leave witnesses. <br><br>"Quickly, before it is too late, tell me about your patrols and where the other camps are. You do not have time to waste." <br><br>She listened intently as he spoke, making mental notes of everything he said and analyzing it for inconsistencies. She couldn't identify any, though it didn't mean that he wasn't lying to her.&nbsp; <br><br>"Now, tell me how you were planning to get through the Forlorn mountains. Don't deny it. That's the quickest route to Darkheim and I know what you intended to do with me."&nbsp; She nudged his blackening shoulder with a toe clad in a ragged but once fine shoe. She waited for him to stop screaming. "Quickly." <br><br>She watched him intently as he answered her questions, then glanced over to Sesha. "What do you think?"
			</dd>
		</dl>
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