OOC: I will be creating an NS version of this thread shortly. Obviously, this version of the thread is not subject to NS' PG-13 content restrictions. The purpose of both is to provide an area to put posts/short stories that take place in our nations but aren't part of the ongoing main threads. Posts can take place in any time period. I will start it off with Part 1 of a story I've been working on for a very long time.
The wind rustled through the high grasses and reeds, carrying with it scents of various late blooming flowers that dotted the muddy riverbanks, along with the underlying odor of the red soil itself. The river flowed slowly here, though it still flowed, its color in the twilight even more reddish, giving it an unsettling appearance, like blood rather than water. Almost. So quick the recovery had been, since the glacial collapse during the summer, and resulting flood. Sounds of cicadas and the awakening night birds filled the evening air. Far away, the howls of wolves began, intermittently. From the sound, there were packs of both types in the area, the timbre of the larger, more dangerous variety clearly identifiable. On the western horizon, the sky filled with the crimson hues of the sun’s retreat. Earlier and earlier each passing day, light vanished. Summers were short in this land, and autumns even shorter. Soon enough, it would be winter. And so that was why, though the hour grew late, Fyrre lingered here, despite the dangers, as so far he had not caught any fish and he was loathe to return to the village empty-handed, save for his net.
He sighed as another attempt proved unsuccessful, frowning at the net as if to blame it for his failures, though he knew better. Perhaps it would be best to return, despite the disappointment his kin would make known through mockery. Before he could make a decision, however, he found himself falling backwards, his feet swept out from under him by an impact unforeseen. Then Fyrre was on his back in the cold, dark red mud. Disoriented, terror gripped him as he, all too slowly, he felt, realized the peril he might face. There were all sorts of creatures that might feel inclined towards devouring him, the fact that he hadn’t seen the blow coming or heard the approach of his unknown aggressor, it was probably not a bear, nor even wolves. No, there were worse things, and they were silent.
When the hapless fisher looked up, propping himself on his elbows, his most dire fears were confirmed. The attacker was rising, slowly, apparently unthreatened, from a semi-crouched position that she’d taken to trip Fyrre, and strolled toward him. Tall, with skin as pale as the winter snows, crossed with various shapes apparently inked into her very flesh, and long hair blacker than a moonless night in the dead of winter, fine enough to occasionally rustle in the breeze. A moroii, Fyrre thought, his mind oddly clear in what was likely his final moment of terror. As the creature approached, he saw that her large eyes were as black as her hair. Of course, she was naked, despite the chill. Moroii always seemed to be, from the few times Fyrre had been unlucky enough to see them closely enough to take note of that, though this was certainly the closest he’d ever been to one in the light. Clearly, this one was used to and comfortable in her nudity, despite the chill, shielding neither her startlingly dark nipples, nor her lower female parts, which seemed to protrude obscenely, despite the thick black hair between her legs.
As if his body was only now capable of responding to the terror flooding his mind, Fyrre struggled to rise, but the moroii was upon him now and before he could more than try to push himself up, the predator’s long leg whipped out and her foot was pushing down upon his chest, and the unfortunate fisher was once again down in the mud. He struggled a bit, but his protests were futile. It would take him a great deal of effort to rise, while for the moroii, keeping him down took very little, and she seemed to be as strong or stronger than Fyrre was. After a few minutes, he stopped struggling. Perhaps his attacker would let up after a while, thinking him fully cowed. She would have to, eventually, to feast on his flesh. This close, Fyrre could see her in more detail, despite the fading light. To his surprise, he found that she was quite attractive, or at least, would be, in a sort of hard way, had she not been about to kill him. Even in this situation, she had a sort of dark, eerie beauty. With her legs parted, with one foot on his chest, her scents also now reached Fyrre. Strong and heady, for some reason not unpleasant as the fisher had expected. It made little sense. This was a vile creature, which no doubt had eaten of the flesh of those from his own village, women, men, children even. He should find her presence nauseating, sight and smell both… but he didn’t. Instead, disturbingly, Fyrre found the moroii oddly intoxicating.
Apparently, this hadn’t escaped her perception, as her nostrils flared briefly, she crooked her head quizzically, and then her foot slid slowly down Fyrre’s torso, stopping at his groin. At the arousal she found there, her lips pulled back in a feral grin. It was the most frightening thing Fyrre had seen so far. The moroii’s mouth hadn’t seemed so large when her face had been expressionless, as if her lips had some strange elastic quality, stretching back to reveal more of the teeth beneath than should have been possible. A carnivore’s mouth, truly, dominated by the two long fangs pointing down from her upper jaw. While not as obviously pointed as the canines, the rest of the teeth appeared somehow sharper than Fyrre’s own as well.
Confusion joined terror. The hapless fisherman hadn’t expected to last this long, but rather that the moroii would be upon him immediately to tear out his throat. Was she intending on… playing with him as the monsters in this area were said to do with their food? Apparently still amused at Fyrre’s uncomfortable arousal, the creature slowly, casually reached to play with her womanhood, a truly lewd display, intentionally showing the baffled fisherman her “button,” as some of the women in Fyrre’s village called it… though such a word seemed somehow insufficient to describe that of the moroii, far larger than seemed normal, like her lower lips. As her thin, but clearly strong fingers worked nimbly, she made what could best be called a quiet growling sound... grinning all the while. Fyrre’s nostrils were subjected to a fresh assault of the creature’s scent, and he stared, transfixed at the grotesque sight before him, until the moroii eventually stopped and took away her hand, her bits jiggling slightly at the sudden loss of pressure, fluids dripping down, and extended her apparently very long tongue, licking her fingers. This, the fisherman couldn’t tell whether was for his benefit or the monster’s own, as in doing so she seemed almost to forget he was there. Not for long, though.
The creature placed her left hand on her chest, between her breasts, and to Fyrre’s shock, said “Yzterens,” before extending the arm, palm upwards, fingers relaxed, in an elegant motion, seeming to point at the fisherman. When, too surprised to speak, Fyrre said nothing, she repeated the gesture. Hand went to chest, she spoke “Yzterens,” and then outstretched arm indicating Fyrre, an eyebrow arched in question, the moroii seemed to be asking that the fisherman identify himself. “You?” confirmed that this was her intention, although startling Fyrre even more to hear a word of his own language coming from this monster’s pale lips. The voice was… not what he’d expected. Certainly inhuman, a strong hissing sound accompanying it, giving it an otherworldly sound, the voice was otherwise a sensual one, low and with a bit of huskiness to it.
As the monster was beginning to look annoyed, Fyrre blurted out his name, having realized that the longer he humored her… curiosity… for lack of a better term, the longer he’d stay alive. “You… understand me?”
The creature… Yzterens, apparently, nodded.
It was a strange thing for Fyrre to think of a moroii as having a name. They were monsters, after all, a terrifying, violent force of nature, to be more carefully avoided than even the huge bears and cats that hunted the largest prey in these areas, for moroii, unlike other predators, were out for human blood specifically. “How?” the fisherman dared to ask.
“We watch your… your…” she seemed frustrated, as if lacking the word. “Where you live. And others. So to choose.”
This made some sense, though it was a frightening revelation that the moroii were so near their village at nights as to be able to hear and witness conversations, apparently enough to learn their speech. “Village. Choose?”
“Choose food and workers. Taking the wrong ones will weaken the herd,” she said, as if explaining the most innocuous subject. Then again, for her it wasn’t murder, it was dinner. It made sense, in an appalling fashion. The moroii were apparently intelligent enough to know that they needed the village to persist in order to survive.
“Workers?” Fyrre was curious.
“We don’t eat all we take. We raise some to work... and provide when we thirst.” All in the same matter of fact tone, made more eerie by the otherworldly hissing quality of Yzterens’ voice.
So servants. And a supply of… blood? Perhaps that was why they fed on his people specifically? But by this point, Fyrre found he could not contain his curiosity, as overwhelming as it had become. “Why haven’t you killed me yet?”
The moroii squatted down, close enough that the fisherman could see that he’d not been mistaken about her eyes. They were jet black… there was no way to discern iris from pupil. She looked the man up and down, as if reconsidering the question. Fyrre hoped he had not reminded her of lingering hunger. Finally, Yzterens spoke again. “I have an offer.”
A confusing development. “An offer?” The idea seemed bizarre. Moroii took things… lives, flesh, sometimes children… they didn’t give anything, except despair.
She nodded. “Yes.”
“For…?”
Yzterens gestured to him, then broadly to the direction of the animal skin tents and few mud huts that he and his people lived in. “You, your… village” she said, trying out the word, saying it slowly. “Your people.”
The unsuccessful fisher raised an eyebrow. “An offer of what? You don’t have things to exchange, as far as I’m aware of, like the village a few days from here.”
“A few days from here?” the moroii balked. “A night only.” She waved a hand dismissively. It occurred to Fyrre that, from her gestures, the creature appeared to be left-handed. “Not things. Not like you can hold in your hand. More important things.”
“What exactly do you mean? What kind of things?” He had an odd feeling about this. Clearly whatever it was, it was not something she enjoyed saying. “And why would I, or we, accept an offer from those who kill us?”
The monster looked annoyed that Fyrre had not guessed. Perhaps whatever her side of the bargain was wounded her pride. “Things like your lives. That is why you would accept.”
Despite his surprise, Fyrre immediately responded, not one to be left dumbstruck. “Why wait until now? Couldn’t you stop killing us at any time? I’ve never understood why you do. It can’t be easier than hunting aurochs and sloths. Even I have managed to wound one of you.”
She looked away. Not towards the fading light to the west, but to the approaching darkness in the east. “We hunt other things as often as we can… but we need your kind from time to time…”
“Why?” While moroii were without a doubt stronger than the fisherman’s people, and faster, and able to run for longer, he and his kin put up a good fight when the moroii came. They had killed some. He had wounded one, once. He thought, anyway… it had been dark, so he hadn’t gotten a good look at the creature. It had been just a shape in the darkness. A fury of teeth, nails, and screeching.
Still not looking directly at him, as if contemplating the nightfall, Yzterens took a moment to respond. “Your blood. We need it. We do not know why it is needed, only that it is.”
It sounded strange to Fyrre. Why would they need blood specifically? “Then how will you live without hunting us?”
She looked back at him, pale lips tracing a faint smile. The fisherman realized, somewhat to his astonishment, that he was beginning to see her as… a person. Her voice carried extra hiss, now. “That is your part.”
“You expect us to give up our blood to you? And will kill us if we don’t?” Voice not quite angry, but still with a trace of indignation.
Yzterens laughed, a cruel sound, yet almost endearing in the seeming incongruity of jollity from a killer. “We already kill you. Did you expect to get something so important for nothing? We both get to live. You should be happy.”
The man glowered, self-conscious about his tone now. “It’s just it seems a lot to ask of us… people may find it humiliating?”
“I do not know that word.” Her brows furrowed. She rose, letting her foot off of him. She looked at the empty net, chuckling. “You are a not good at this.”
“Hmmm? Oh.” The fisherman frowned at the moroii’s pointing out his lack of skill. “No, I suppose I’m not good at fishing. The fish somehow always manage to avoid my net.”
The woman nodded. “Come, I will catch some for you. Then we will eat and you will take the rest back to the village.” She waded into the river, apparently unmindful of the frigid water on her legs. “Tell me, what is humiliation?”
Fyrre sat up, now that the pressure was off his chest. Watching the moroii step into the water, her back now to him, he could not but notice the sway of her hips, the motion of the muscles just under the skin of her buttocks with every step, and more lewdly, the faint outline of her womanhood, beneath and between. At the same time, no longer directly under her power, the man considered running. He would have a head start, with the water impeding her first steps. Casting his gaze in the direction of the village, he thought… but no, the moroii would still manage to outpace him eventually. Besides, despite being with the most dangerous animal he knew of, he did not feel he was in any immediate danger. Well, not much, anyway. “Humiliation is…” he began, trying to describe such a concept, “when a person is made to feel less, and be seen as less. When their standing falls in the eyes of others and their own as well… such as if they are forced to agree to something unfair to them.”
Nodding, the woman stood waist deep in the water now, eyes intent on its surface. Fyrre had no idea how she could possibly see anything in the growing darkness, but said nothing. Features hidden by locks of her long hair, some touching the water, the moroii leaned close to its surface, watching. Without warning, arm snapped down, blindingly fast, her muscles rippling and tautening like rope as her hand came up with a fish, which she unceremoniously tossed over to where the man whose task she was performing sat on the bank. “Ah,” Yzterens said, then, finally turning to look at her companion for the evening, black eyes gleaming slightly. “But how is what I offer unfair?”
“Because it’s a threat. If we don’t agree, you’ll keep kill us,” he said. “People won’t like how that sounds.” Taking hold of the weakly flopping fish, he noticed that there were small wounds in its sides from where Yzterens’ fingers and thumb had been.
The moroii shrugged, turning back to the water, watching for a time, and then arm lashed out again, catching a fish by its tail, other hand immediately assisting in securing a hold on it before tossing it to Fyrre, who at first did not catch it, having been distracted by the movement of her pert breasts, and so had to chase after it, before stuffing it in the bag he’d brought, along with the first. “So make it sound better. If you don’t accept, nothing changes. It is fair. Without what I offer, more of you will die. Without your blood, my kin and I will die. If both agree, neither has to die. It is easy, not hard.” Not content with only two fish, Yzterens continued her hunt.
“Some will not see it that way,” he shook his head. Watching the woman hunt, he finally asked “How do you do that? How can you see well enough to just reach in and grab them?”
She did so just then, tossing him the slippery prize. “I just watch them and see where they will go next, and remember that things appear different in the water,” Yzterens said, turning back to her work. “They are easy for me to see. Your kind are as blind as infants at night, I think.”
“Can all moroii see so well in the dark?” He stashed another fish in the bag. Another was soon headed his way.
“All my kin. I am sure others can see just as well,” the huntress said, pulling another fish out of the water and tossing it to the bank.
Managing not to drop this one, Fyrre nodded. “So there are other moroii, then? Ones who are not your kin?”
“Many clans,” Yzterens said. This time she caught two, tossing them one after the other.
“But you speak only for your own?” By now, having developed a bit of a rhythm, it was easier to get the fish.
“Yes.”
For a time there was no more conversation. Yzterens caught fish, and Fyrre put them in his bag. After a while, the man spoke again. “Won’t the moroii who aren’t your kin still kill us?”
Having just threw another catch to Fyrre, Yzterens paused halfway in her motion, only half leaning over. She straightened, looking at him. A fish drew her eye, and she grabbed it, but held it, walking back to the shore. Water streamed from her. “Come, make us a fire,” she said, walking a bit further up the shore to a drier area. She selected an area near a shallow pool, secluded by rocks from the rest of the river. Here, Fyrre tied off and deposited the bag, and gathered what dead wood he could find. As he did so, the moroii sat down and casually cut open her still living prey with a fang. Reaching inside, her slender fingers swiftly gutted the fish, and she set the dying meal down on a rock near the small fire that Fyrre was getting going.
At the weakly flopping fish, bereft of its entrails, the main looked over, eyebrow raised. “We usually cut the head off, first…”
Untying and then reaching into the bag for another fish, Yzterens looked at him, baffled. “But that part is so good!” she exclaimed, then repeating the process from earlier.
Fyrre said nothing, looking back to the fire. Each fish he speared on a stick, giving one, the larger one, back to Yzterens. As they roasted their meals, neither said anything, though they both sat on the uphill side of the fire. Occasionally, smoke would blow into their faces, but then the wind would change again. Looking over at the moroii, Fyrre was surprised to see that the black hair in the pit of her extended left arm was matted with sweat, despite the evening chill. Perhaps even if it was not that difficult to see the fish, it was still somewhat an exertion.
Silence was broken as she pulled her fish away from the fire… quite prematurely, in Fyrre’s estimation. “It’s still raw, you have to leave it in longer,” he said. For some reason it had not occurred to him that perhaps the savage did know how to cook fish.
Ignoring him, the woman bit into the still mostly raw, only warmed flesh. “Mmmmm” she moaned slightly, apparently quite happy with the result. “No, it is best like this.” She continued tearing off chunks with her teeth, the still-present blood running down her chin.
Eventually, Fyrre’s was done, too, and so he began eating, much less messily than Yzterens, who was most of the way done with hers. “What you said is a problem.”
The man glanced over to her. “What I said?”
“Yes. Other clans will still try to kill you,” the moroii said between mouthfuls. “Maybe we help protect you from them.”
“That would help soften the idea of giving you…” a gulp, “our blood.”
“Other food, too, we will protect you from. Others of your kind who try to kill you,” she looked over at him. “I have seen this happen. Other beasts as well, such as the tall bears,” she said, referring the enormous bears that fed on mammoths, but occasionally attacked Fyrre’s people, seeing them as smaller, weaker, easier prey, “they sometimes attack your homes. Better sounding to your kin?”
Fyrre nodded. “I would say it would be much better sounding, yes.”
Turning what remained of her fish over in her hands, Yzterens said “this is why you leave the heads on,” displaying it to Fyrre. “First you suck out the eyes like this.” She placed her mouth over one dead fish eye and hollowed her cheeks, sucking the orb into her mouth. “Mmm,” she chewed. For his part, the fisher only stared, mouth agape, as she did this, and then repeated the action. “It is good!” she insisted, then opening her jaws horrifyingly wide, lips peeling much further back than Fyrre would have guessed they’d be able to, and chomping down on the head. There was an audible crunching as she chewed up the bones and tiny fish brain.
“What if my kin don’t believe me?” Fyrre asked. It had only just now occurred to him that to most of his village, the idea of speaking to a moroii would sound far-fetched. They might even laugh at him. What would his family think? Perhaps they’d assume his wits were addled.
Still chewing the crushed up head of the fish, Yzterens thought for a moment, as if she, too, had not previously realized the possibility that her liaison might not be believed by his peers. “Tomorrow come fishing again, but not alone. Bring one or two others with you so that they may also witness.”
The man nodded. Looking up, he saw that night had now completely fallen, the stars forming their brilliant patterns above. “I should probably be getting back.”
Nodding agreement, the monster made to rise. “I will walk with you. Put the fire out.”
Fyrre looked at her in confusion.
“You are male. You can point your water better than I can, without having to stand right over the fire,” the woman explained.
The fisher blushed slightly, taking one burning stick from the fire to take back to the village. No sense wasting an already kindled flame. Feeling self-conscious, he undid his trousers and did as Yzterens had asked. That done, they began walking in the direction of the village, a bit apart. The moroii explained that her sight would be better in the dark with the still burning stick a distance away. She carried the fish.
It was not especially long until they came to the lights of Fyrre’s village. Handing the bag off to the man, Yzterens spoke quietly “We will not hunt you tonight, or tomorrow, or as long as you take to consider the offer.” She returned the man’s nod of understanding, and then suddenly sprinted off. The speed with which she departed served as a reminder of what she was, and why Fyrre’s people lived in terror of her kind. Standing there for a moment, he took a moment to take stock of the strange evening. Looking up, he watched the stars wheel overhead, for a time, the bright lights nearly the same as they were last night and the night before, their annual progress across the darkness apparently unaffected that happened here on the ground. He looked back down at the village, the fire at its center, though not large, seeming like a beacon in the surrounding darkness of the plain. Whatever happened tomorrow, he thought, at least he had something to show for the entire afternoon and evening he’d spent at the river.
Blood Pact - Part 1
The wind rustled through the high grasses and reeds, carrying with it scents of various late blooming flowers that dotted the muddy riverbanks, along with the underlying odor of the red soil itself. The river flowed slowly here, though it still flowed, its color in the twilight even more reddish, giving it an unsettling appearance, like blood rather than water. Almost. So quick the recovery had been, since the glacial collapse during the summer, and resulting flood. Sounds of cicadas and the awakening night birds filled the evening air. Far away, the howls of wolves began, intermittently. From the sound, there were packs of both types in the area, the timbre of the larger, more dangerous variety clearly identifiable. On the western horizon, the sky filled with the crimson hues of the sun’s retreat. Earlier and earlier each passing day, light vanished. Summers were short in this land, and autumns even shorter. Soon enough, it would be winter. And so that was why, though the hour grew late, Fyrre lingered here, despite the dangers, as so far he had not caught any fish and he was loathe to return to the village empty-handed, save for his net.
He sighed as another attempt proved unsuccessful, frowning at the net as if to blame it for his failures, though he knew better. Perhaps it would be best to return, despite the disappointment his kin would make known through mockery. Before he could make a decision, however, he found himself falling backwards, his feet swept out from under him by an impact unforeseen. Then Fyrre was on his back in the cold, dark red mud. Disoriented, terror gripped him as he, all too slowly, he felt, realized the peril he might face. There were all sorts of creatures that might feel inclined towards devouring him, the fact that he hadn’t seen the blow coming or heard the approach of his unknown aggressor, it was probably not a bear, nor even wolves. No, there were worse things, and they were silent.
When the hapless fisher looked up, propping himself on his elbows, his most dire fears were confirmed. The attacker was rising, slowly, apparently unthreatened, from a semi-crouched position that she’d taken to trip Fyrre, and strolled toward him. Tall, with skin as pale as the winter snows, crossed with various shapes apparently inked into her very flesh, and long hair blacker than a moonless night in the dead of winter, fine enough to occasionally rustle in the breeze. A moroii, Fyrre thought, his mind oddly clear in what was likely his final moment of terror. As the creature approached, he saw that her large eyes were as black as her hair. Of course, she was naked, despite the chill. Moroii always seemed to be, from the few times Fyrre had been unlucky enough to see them closely enough to take note of that, though this was certainly the closest he’d ever been to one in the light. Clearly, this one was used to and comfortable in her nudity, despite the chill, shielding neither her startlingly dark nipples, nor her lower female parts, which seemed to protrude obscenely, despite the thick black hair between her legs.
As if his body was only now capable of responding to the terror flooding his mind, Fyrre struggled to rise, but the moroii was upon him now and before he could more than try to push himself up, the predator’s long leg whipped out and her foot was pushing down upon his chest, and the unfortunate fisher was once again down in the mud. He struggled a bit, but his protests were futile. It would take him a great deal of effort to rise, while for the moroii, keeping him down took very little, and she seemed to be as strong or stronger than Fyrre was. After a few minutes, he stopped struggling. Perhaps his attacker would let up after a while, thinking him fully cowed. She would have to, eventually, to feast on his flesh. This close, Fyrre could see her in more detail, despite the fading light. To his surprise, he found that she was quite attractive, or at least, would be, in a sort of hard way, had she not been about to kill him. Even in this situation, she had a sort of dark, eerie beauty. With her legs parted, with one foot on his chest, her scents also now reached Fyrre. Strong and heady, for some reason not unpleasant as the fisher had expected. It made little sense. This was a vile creature, which no doubt had eaten of the flesh of those from his own village, women, men, children even. He should find her presence nauseating, sight and smell both… but he didn’t. Instead, disturbingly, Fyrre found the moroii oddly intoxicating.
Apparently, this hadn’t escaped her perception, as her nostrils flared briefly, she crooked her head quizzically, and then her foot slid slowly down Fyrre’s torso, stopping at his groin. At the arousal she found there, her lips pulled back in a feral grin. It was the most frightening thing Fyrre had seen so far. The moroii’s mouth hadn’t seemed so large when her face had been expressionless, as if her lips had some strange elastic quality, stretching back to reveal more of the teeth beneath than should have been possible. A carnivore’s mouth, truly, dominated by the two long fangs pointing down from her upper jaw. While not as obviously pointed as the canines, the rest of the teeth appeared somehow sharper than Fyrre’s own as well.
Confusion joined terror. The hapless fisherman hadn’t expected to last this long, but rather that the moroii would be upon him immediately to tear out his throat. Was she intending on… playing with him as the monsters in this area were said to do with their food? Apparently still amused at Fyrre’s uncomfortable arousal, the creature slowly, casually reached to play with her womanhood, a truly lewd display, intentionally showing the baffled fisherman her “button,” as some of the women in Fyrre’s village called it… though such a word seemed somehow insufficient to describe that of the moroii, far larger than seemed normal, like her lower lips. As her thin, but clearly strong fingers worked nimbly, she made what could best be called a quiet growling sound... grinning all the while. Fyrre’s nostrils were subjected to a fresh assault of the creature’s scent, and he stared, transfixed at the grotesque sight before him, until the moroii eventually stopped and took away her hand, her bits jiggling slightly at the sudden loss of pressure, fluids dripping down, and extended her apparently very long tongue, licking her fingers. This, the fisherman couldn’t tell whether was for his benefit or the monster’s own, as in doing so she seemed almost to forget he was there. Not for long, though.
The creature placed her left hand on her chest, between her breasts, and to Fyrre’s shock, said “Yzterens,” before extending the arm, palm upwards, fingers relaxed, in an elegant motion, seeming to point at the fisherman. When, too surprised to speak, Fyrre said nothing, she repeated the gesture. Hand went to chest, she spoke “Yzterens,” and then outstretched arm indicating Fyrre, an eyebrow arched in question, the moroii seemed to be asking that the fisherman identify himself. “You?” confirmed that this was her intention, although startling Fyrre even more to hear a word of his own language coming from this monster’s pale lips. The voice was… not what he’d expected. Certainly inhuman, a strong hissing sound accompanying it, giving it an otherworldly sound, the voice was otherwise a sensual one, low and with a bit of huskiness to it.
As the monster was beginning to look annoyed, Fyrre blurted out his name, having realized that the longer he humored her… curiosity… for lack of a better term, the longer he’d stay alive. “You… understand me?”
The creature… Yzterens, apparently, nodded.
It was a strange thing for Fyrre to think of a moroii as having a name. They were monsters, after all, a terrifying, violent force of nature, to be more carefully avoided than even the huge bears and cats that hunted the largest prey in these areas, for moroii, unlike other predators, were out for human blood specifically. “How?” the fisherman dared to ask.
“We watch your… your…” she seemed frustrated, as if lacking the word. “Where you live. And others. So to choose.”
This made some sense, though it was a frightening revelation that the moroii were so near their village at nights as to be able to hear and witness conversations, apparently enough to learn their speech. “Village. Choose?”
“Choose food and workers. Taking the wrong ones will weaken the herd,” she said, as if explaining the most innocuous subject. Then again, for her it wasn’t murder, it was dinner. It made sense, in an appalling fashion. The moroii were apparently intelligent enough to know that they needed the village to persist in order to survive.
“Workers?” Fyrre was curious.
“We don’t eat all we take. We raise some to work... and provide when we thirst.” All in the same matter of fact tone, made more eerie by the otherworldly hissing quality of Yzterens’ voice.
So servants. And a supply of… blood? Perhaps that was why they fed on his people specifically? But by this point, Fyrre found he could not contain his curiosity, as overwhelming as it had become. “Why haven’t you killed me yet?”
The moroii squatted down, close enough that the fisherman could see that he’d not been mistaken about her eyes. They were jet black… there was no way to discern iris from pupil. She looked the man up and down, as if reconsidering the question. Fyrre hoped he had not reminded her of lingering hunger. Finally, Yzterens spoke again. “I have an offer.”
A confusing development. “An offer?” The idea seemed bizarre. Moroii took things… lives, flesh, sometimes children… they didn’t give anything, except despair.
She nodded. “Yes.”
“For…?”
Yzterens gestured to him, then broadly to the direction of the animal skin tents and few mud huts that he and his people lived in. “You, your… village” she said, trying out the word, saying it slowly. “Your people.”
The unsuccessful fisher raised an eyebrow. “An offer of what? You don’t have things to exchange, as far as I’m aware of, like the village a few days from here.”
“A few days from here?” the moroii balked. “A night only.” She waved a hand dismissively. It occurred to Fyrre that, from her gestures, the creature appeared to be left-handed. “Not things. Not like you can hold in your hand. More important things.”
“What exactly do you mean? What kind of things?” He had an odd feeling about this. Clearly whatever it was, it was not something she enjoyed saying. “And why would I, or we, accept an offer from those who kill us?”
The monster looked annoyed that Fyrre had not guessed. Perhaps whatever her side of the bargain was wounded her pride. “Things like your lives. That is why you would accept.”
Despite his surprise, Fyrre immediately responded, not one to be left dumbstruck. “Why wait until now? Couldn’t you stop killing us at any time? I’ve never understood why you do. It can’t be easier than hunting aurochs and sloths. Even I have managed to wound one of you.”
She looked away. Not towards the fading light to the west, but to the approaching darkness in the east. “We hunt other things as often as we can… but we need your kind from time to time…”
“Why?” While moroii were without a doubt stronger than the fisherman’s people, and faster, and able to run for longer, he and his kin put up a good fight when the moroii came. They had killed some. He had wounded one, once. He thought, anyway… it had been dark, so he hadn’t gotten a good look at the creature. It had been just a shape in the darkness. A fury of teeth, nails, and screeching.
Still not looking directly at him, as if contemplating the nightfall, Yzterens took a moment to respond. “Your blood. We need it. We do not know why it is needed, only that it is.”
It sounded strange to Fyrre. Why would they need blood specifically? “Then how will you live without hunting us?”
She looked back at him, pale lips tracing a faint smile. The fisherman realized, somewhat to his astonishment, that he was beginning to see her as… a person. Her voice carried extra hiss, now. “That is your part.”
“You expect us to give up our blood to you? And will kill us if we don’t?” Voice not quite angry, but still with a trace of indignation.
Yzterens laughed, a cruel sound, yet almost endearing in the seeming incongruity of jollity from a killer. “We already kill you. Did you expect to get something so important for nothing? We both get to live. You should be happy.”
The man glowered, self-conscious about his tone now. “It’s just it seems a lot to ask of us… people may find it humiliating?”
“I do not know that word.” Her brows furrowed. She rose, letting her foot off of him. She looked at the empty net, chuckling. “You are a not good at this.”
“Hmmm? Oh.” The fisherman frowned at the moroii’s pointing out his lack of skill. “No, I suppose I’m not good at fishing. The fish somehow always manage to avoid my net.”
The woman nodded. “Come, I will catch some for you. Then we will eat and you will take the rest back to the village.” She waded into the river, apparently unmindful of the frigid water on her legs. “Tell me, what is humiliation?”
Fyrre sat up, now that the pressure was off his chest. Watching the moroii step into the water, her back now to him, he could not but notice the sway of her hips, the motion of the muscles just under the skin of her buttocks with every step, and more lewdly, the faint outline of her womanhood, beneath and between. At the same time, no longer directly under her power, the man considered running. He would have a head start, with the water impeding her first steps. Casting his gaze in the direction of the village, he thought… but no, the moroii would still manage to outpace him eventually. Besides, despite being with the most dangerous animal he knew of, he did not feel he was in any immediate danger. Well, not much, anyway. “Humiliation is…” he began, trying to describe such a concept, “when a person is made to feel less, and be seen as less. When their standing falls in the eyes of others and their own as well… such as if they are forced to agree to something unfair to them.”
Nodding, the woman stood waist deep in the water now, eyes intent on its surface. Fyrre had no idea how she could possibly see anything in the growing darkness, but said nothing. Features hidden by locks of her long hair, some touching the water, the moroii leaned close to its surface, watching. Without warning, arm snapped down, blindingly fast, her muscles rippling and tautening like rope as her hand came up with a fish, which she unceremoniously tossed over to where the man whose task she was performing sat on the bank. “Ah,” Yzterens said, then, finally turning to look at her companion for the evening, black eyes gleaming slightly. “But how is what I offer unfair?”
“Because it’s a threat. If we don’t agree, you’ll keep kill us,” he said. “People won’t like how that sounds.” Taking hold of the weakly flopping fish, he noticed that there were small wounds in its sides from where Yzterens’ fingers and thumb had been.
The moroii shrugged, turning back to the water, watching for a time, and then arm lashed out again, catching a fish by its tail, other hand immediately assisting in securing a hold on it before tossing it to Fyrre, who at first did not catch it, having been distracted by the movement of her pert breasts, and so had to chase after it, before stuffing it in the bag he’d brought, along with the first. “So make it sound better. If you don’t accept, nothing changes. It is fair. Without what I offer, more of you will die. Without your blood, my kin and I will die. If both agree, neither has to die. It is easy, not hard.” Not content with only two fish, Yzterens continued her hunt.
“Some will not see it that way,” he shook his head. Watching the woman hunt, he finally asked “How do you do that? How can you see well enough to just reach in and grab them?”
She did so just then, tossing him the slippery prize. “I just watch them and see where they will go next, and remember that things appear different in the water,” Yzterens said, turning back to her work. “They are easy for me to see. Your kind are as blind as infants at night, I think.”
“Can all moroii see so well in the dark?” He stashed another fish in the bag. Another was soon headed his way.
“All my kin. I am sure others can see just as well,” the huntress said, pulling another fish out of the water and tossing it to the bank.
Managing not to drop this one, Fyrre nodded. “So there are other moroii, then? Ones who are not your kin?”
“Many clans,” Yzterens said. This time she caught two, tossing them one after the other.
“But you speak only for your own?” By now, having developed a bit of a rhythm, it was easier to get the fish.
“Yes.”
For a time there was no more conversation. Yzterens caught fish, and Fyrre put them in his bag. After a while, the man spoke again. “Won’t the moroii who aren’t your kin still kill us?”
Having just threw another catch to Fyrre, Yzterens paused halfway in her motion, only half leaning over. She straightened, looking at him. A fish drew her eye, and she grabbed it, but held it, walking back to the shore. Water streamed from her. “Come, make us a fire,” she said, walking a bit further up the shore to a drier area. She selected an area near a shallow pool, secluded by rocks from the rest of the river. Here, Fyrre tied off and deposited the bag, and gathered what dead wood he could find. As he did so, the moroii sat down and casually cut open her still living prey with a fang. Reaching inside, her slender fingers swiftly gutted the fish, and she set the dying meal down on a rock near the small fire that Fyrre was getting going.
At the weakly flopping fish, bereft of its entrails, the main looked over, eyebrow raised. “We usually cut the head off, first…”
Untying and then reaching into the bag for another fish, Yzterens looked at him, baffled. “But that part is so good!” she exclaimed, then repeating the process from earlier.
Fyrre said nothing, looking back to the fire. Each fish he speared on a stick, giving one, the larger one, back to Yzterens. As they roasted their meals, neither said anything, though they both sat on the uphill side of the fire. Occasionally, smoke would blow into their faces, but then the wind would change again. Looking over at the moroii, Fyrre was surprised to see that the black hair in the pit of her extended left arm was matted with sweat, despite the evening chill. Perhaps even if it was not that difficult to see the fish, it was still somewhat an exertion.
Silence was broken as she pulled her fish away from the fire… quite prematurely, in Fyrre’s estimation. “It’s still raw, you have to leave it in longer,” he said. For some reason it had not occurred to him that perhaps the savage did know how to cook fish.
Ignoring him, the woman bit into the still mostly raw, only warmed flesh. “Mmmmm” she moaned slightly, apparently quite happy with the result. “No, it is best like this.” She continued tearing off chunks with her teeth, the still-present blood running down her chin.
Eventually, Fyrre’s was done, too, and so he began eating, much less messily than Yzterens, who was most of the way done with hers. “What you said is a problem.”
The man glanced over to her. “What I said?”
“Yes. Other clans will still try to kill you,” the moroii said between mouthfuls. “Maybe we help protect you from them.”
“That would help soften the idea of giving you…” a gulp, “our blood.”
“Other food, too, we will protect you from. Others of your kind who try to kill you,” she looked over at him. “I have seen this happen. Other beasts as well, such as the tall bears,” she said, referring the enormous bears that fed on mammoths, but occasionally attacked Fyrre’s people, seeing them as smaller, weaker, easier prey, “they sometimes attack your homes. Better sounding to your kin?”
Fyrre nodded. “I would say it would be much better sounding, yes.”
Turning what remained of her fish over in her hands, Yzterens said “this is why you leave the heads on,” displaying it to Fyrre. “First you suck out the eyes like this.” She placed her mouth over one dead fish eye and hollowed her cheeks, sucking the orb into her mouth. “Mmm,” she chewed. For his part, the fisher only stared, mouth agape, as she did this, and then repeated the action. “It is good!” she insisted, then opening her jaws horrifyingly wide, lips peeling much further back than Fyrre would have guessed they’d be able to, and chomping down on the head. There was an audible crunching as she chewed up the bones and tiny fish brain.
“What if my kin don’t believe me?” Fyrre asked. It had only just now occurred to him that to most of his village, the idea of speaking to a moroii would sound far-fetched. They might even laugh at him. What would his family think? Perhaps they’d assume his wits were addled.
Still chewing the crushed up head of the fish, Yzterens thought for a moment, as if she, too, had not previously realized the possibility that her liaison might not be believed by his peers. “Tomorrow come fishing again, but not alone. Bring one or two others with you so that they may also witness.”
The man nodded. Looking up, he saw that night had now completely fallen, the stars forming their brilliant patterns above. “I should probably be getting back.”
Nodding agreement, the monster made to rise. “I will walk with you. Put the fire out.”
Fyrre looked at her in confusion.
“You are male. You can point your water better than I can, without having to stand right over the fire,” the woman explained.
The fisher blushed slightly, taking one burning stick from the fire to take back to the village. No sense wasting an already kindled flame. Feeling self-conscious, he undid his trousers and did as Yzterens had asked. That done, they began walking in the direction of the village, a bit apart. The moroii explained that her sight would be better in the dark with the still burning stick a distance away. She carried the fish.
It was not especially long until they came to the lights of Fyrre’s village. Handing the bag off to the man, Yzterens spoke quietly “We will not hunt you tonight, or tomorrow, or as long as you take to consider the offer.” She returned the man’s nod of understanding, and then suddenly sprinted off. The speed with which she departed served as a reminder of what she was, and why Fyrre’s people lived in terror of her kind. Standing there for a moment, he took a moment to take stock of the strange evening. Looking up, he watched the stars wheel overhead, for a time, the bright lights nearly the same as they were last night and the night before, their annual progress across the darkness apparently unaffected that happened here on the ground. He looked back down at the village, the fire at its center, though not large, seeming like a beacon in the surrounding darkness of the plain. Whatever happened tomorrow, he thought, at least he had something to show for the entire afternoon and evening he’d spent at the river.