Homecoming

By Ives Benton Eaton

You wish to explore the world? Why just one? A world lives in every tree in the forest.

—Chesirā, veldami of the Shāhūnā

The Shāhūnā village was hidden up in the canopy of the rainforest, a web of vines and woven branches and hanging bags for storage and platforms with braced and waxed leather rain flies to keep them dry. They used knotted ropes and hoists to reach their homes, both of which were pulled up when not in use to keep a foe from seeing them or their concealed village from the ground.

Like almost all wild elves, the Shāhūnā shunned contact with other sentient races, living primitive lives within the Velnēs, their name for the great equatorial jungle and rainforest that humans called the Wetweald. The Velnēs provided all they needed: there was plenty to hunt, and roots and fruit to gather. While it could be a harsh existence, it was not without its leisure: there was song, and dance, and games among the branches. A favorite of the juveniles was gwīnthōr, or vine swooping, in which younger elves would swing back and forth on vines or hemp ropes, attempting to grab one another or avoid being grabbed. A boy who grabbed a girl (or vice versa) was entitled to a kiss. A couple of village sorcerers were on hand to cast slow fall spells if a vine broke.

Sometimes, if the kiss was good enough, the couple would leave the game and find a hammock to share more than just kisses. No one thought anything of it: the adolescence of elves lasted decades—not years as it did for humans. Trying to suppress the sexuality of these younger elves until adulthood would have been terribly cruel. Also, post-pubescent female elves only ovulated about once a year, so even without easily available contraceptive magic, pregnancy was rare. No elven society in memory had ever tried to oppress the sexual appetites of their juveniles. Only consent was strictly enforced. All children were planned and considered an adult elf’s highest responsibility. Beyond that, elf parents tolerated sexual behavior of their near-adult youngsters that would have shocked human parents of almost any society.

Diseases, sexually transmitted or not, were generally not a problem: a tribal veldami, or green-witch, had magic to deal with such. In the Shāhūnā, the chief veldami was Yessanth, and had been so for almost two centuries. She bore the honor of being shāhēn, a snake-woman, for she was not only a veldami, but her spirit animal and animal companions were constrictor snakes, often very large ones. Snake-women were thought to be potent veldami for good reason.

As she sat on a tree limb and scratched the chin of her new companion snake, Yessanth watched the adolescent elves of her tribe playing gwīnthōr. She mused over warm memories of playing that game in her youth. She was mother now to five children, all grown, three of whom still lived.

Perhaps only two. Zōēā, her youngest, had been gone for weeks. She, too, was veldami and shāhēn, her only child to follow in her footsteps. She was wise enough in the magic of veldami to have sent an animal messenger—if that messenger could survive the trek through the Velnēs to reach her.

Or if Zōēā was still alive to cast the spell.

Yessanth tried to put that dark thought from her mind. Travel through the Velnēs was slow on foot, even with a veldami’s magic; so it was not yet time to worry about her youngest. She was veldami, she was an adult. Oh, she could magically spy on her to see if she was all right, but she wasn’t quite that desperate yet.

Yet.

Turning from the game, she leaned down to lift her companion’s head in both hands, look her in the eyes, and mutter to her, “She’ll be back, won’t she, Ēānōga?”

Ēānōga was a huge python with deep green, shiny smooth scales, except on her underside, where they were a deep yellow that inspired her name, which meant “golden belly”. The python tasted the air, taking in the familiar and comforting scent of her mistress, but ventured no reply. Yessanth knew the magic that could awaken intellect and speech in animals and even trees, but such a creature would no longer be her companion, so Ēānōga would have to muddle along with a bestial, if trained, intelligence. The snake seemed content with that.

Yessanth’s head snapped up at the sound of a raucous bird call, a signal from one of the tribe’s sentries that meant “stranger approaching”. All of the wild elves, even the younger ones playing gwīnthōr, immediately fell silent and motionless as they waited to see if the stranger would pass them by. The reclusive elves did not welcome strangers but preferred to remain unseen and unknown rather than to kill intruders. The village was very well camouflaged in the forest canopy, so this was often enough.

Soon a sentry made his way silently along the village branch-paths to Yessanth. Short of breath, he gasped, “Veldami, your daughter Zōēā has returned and brought a strange elf with her.”

* * * * *

The Shāhūnā were of two minds on first seeing the strange elf. They were suspicious of an outsider knowing where their village was, but he was accompanied by Zōēā, who had her animal companion, an emerald green python named Būshān, draped across her shoulders. Despite the strange clothing she wore—a tan cotton halter and shorts rather than the hide bandeau and loincloth she had left with—she was veldami and shāhēn like her mother, and no elf of the Shāhūnā would lightly cross Yessanth.

The strange elf wore leather buskins and a jerkin left open. His worn cotton trousers were of a tougher weave than Zōēā’s shorts. Both that and the lighter cotton blouse he wore were patterned in shades of green to blend with the jungle. His auburn hair, drawn back in a ponytail, contrasted with Zōēā’s golden-blonde locks; his eyes were ice-blue and his tanned skin still much lighter than Zōēā’s mahogany or the even darker umber skin of many of the Shāhūnā.

Yessanth came down to meet them, along with several suspicious hunters and the tribal chief, Haleforn. Zōēā encouraged Būshān to slide down to the ground. She is getting too heavy to carry, Zōēā thought. Haleforn stepped up, his face stony and serious, but before the chieftain could begin to interrogate Zōēā and the strange elf, Yessanth swept past him to greet her wayward daughter with a warm hug. “Oh, Zōēā, it is good to see you. I take it your adventure was a success? And who is this handsome young elf with you?”

“Yes, it was a success. I shall tell you all about it soon,” Zōēā turned to her companion with a shy smile. “This is Langōval,” said Zōēā. “He was very helpful during the adventure, and he wanted to explore the Velnēs.”

It was then that Yessanth noticed the golden serpent torque around Langōval’s neck—one that looked very similar, if not identical, to the one she had given to Zōēā before she became a veldami. It wasn’t quite the same: Langōval’s torque had a talisman formed of a red and an ice-blue semi-precious stone. She turned and looked at her daughter’s neck to see her torque and saw that an identical talisman had been added to it. Yessanth gasped and broke into an even broader smile. “Zōēā!” she exclaimed in delight. “You brought back a boyfriend! How marvelous! Is he a good lover?”

“Mother!” Zōēā exclaimed in not-quite-mock outrage and embarrassment.

“You’re right, it is a silly question. A daughter of mine would never bring home a clumsy lover. At the very least, she would have trained him first. Well, let’s not stand about here, come on up to the Shāganta.” The Shāganta, or “House of Snakes”, was the home of the chief veldami in the tribe. “You must meet my new companion Ēānōga, she’s a darling—oh, there she is! Come here, precious, and meet my daughter and her new friend.”

Ēānōga had slithered down the tree to rejoin his mistress. She turned to taste the air. Zōēā, her embarrassment forgotten, skipped up to the green and yellow snake and spoke to it, using the new animal speech spell on her torque. “You are beautiful. You are good. You are strong,” she told the snake.

The serpent spoke back. “Food for me?”

Zōēā could not tell if Ēānōga referred to herself, Langōval, Būshān, or some combination of the three of them, or just food in general. Zōēā grinned. “No, not now. Mistress feed you soon.”

“Hungry. Good food. Food good. Yesyesyesyesyesyesyesyes,” the snake crooned as Zōēā scratched scales at the back of its head.

“She’s gorgeous, mother. She’s also hungry.”

“Again? Greedy gut. Well, we’ll scare up something for her soon. But there’s so much to talk about! Come on up.”

“Wait,” Haleforn declared. “Your daughter has brought a stranger to the tribe. He must be questioned.”

“Oh, don’t be a bore, Haleforn. Do you really think my daughter would bring an enemy to our home?”

“That is what I intend to find out. Now—”

“Haleforn, my daughter is home after weeks of travel. She’s no doubt tired and hungry. Her dear little snake, Būshān—my, how she has grown!—is likely hungry. Her friend Langōval is no doubt tired and hungry. And Ēānōga is hungry. If you want to doubt my daughter’s judgment and interrogate this young elf later, well, I suppose you must—but after dinner. If you keep us waiting, I might let Ēāna snack on an overzealous chieftain.”

Ēānōga tasted the air in Haleforn’s direction, gazing at the chieftain—one might say rather expectantly.

Haleforn bristled but relented. “If you and your daughter vouch for him, then his actions are your responsibility. Go, then.”

Yessanth’s smile was mildly sardonic. “I am so glad we could come to an agreement. Come, young ones.”

* * * * *

Langōval’s journey to the Shāhūnā village had been an experience of one bewilderment after another. To be sure, the experience of exploring the Velnēs had been much the same ever since he and Zōēā set forth from Ass End on the Sward. The jungles and rainforests were a constant source of wonder, and Zōēā was forever pointing out sights that he, as a trained elven hunter, should have seen first: birds of brilliant plumage; snakes of all sorts, including one that she warned him away from because it could spit deadly venom into one’s eyes; panthers and a tiger or two, several dinosaurs; crocodiles and hippopotami that swam the wide, slow, muddy Rafavel River; flowers of stunning beauty and entrancing scent; carnivorous plants of several sorts including ones large enough to eat an elf; and the insects! If Zōēā did not know remedies to repel them, Langōval swore that they alone would have eaten him to the bone in millions of tiny bites. Yet some of these were a wonder to behold as well: massive woolly caterpillars with long, colorful hairs but poisonous to touch, butterflies and moths of brilliant hues and fascinating patterns, enormous beetles, ants both malicious and beneficial: all of these were but a fraction of the wonders of the Velnēs, beautiful and deadly.

The one thing he didn’t have to fret about was the heat. The enchanted torque Zōēā gave him that kept him cool was a blessing for that alone.

Sometimes they traveled through jungle so thick that Langōval would have to hack through it, leading their horses. Zōēā never had to do that; she had an uncanny ability to slip through the worst undergrowth, even thorns, without slowing or suffering a scratch. Other times they walked through rainforests whose gigantic trees blotted out the sun. This was the Velnēs in which Zōēā’s tribe lived, where much life never touched the ground, living from birth to death halfway to the sky in the branches of the forest.

Then, one afternoon—it was hard to be sure under the thick canopy of trees—Zōēā simply said, “We’re here.”

Langōval was about to ask where “here” was when dark-skinned elves rappelled down the trees and surrounded them with leveled spears. Zōēā waved them off, but a couple remained on watch. It was then that he met her mother, whose companion was an enormous python that could easily have crushed—and, if so inclined, eaten⁠—any elf present. Zōēā treated it just like a beloved pet—as she did her own snake, which had grown large enough to be dangerous despite its lack of poison. Throughout all this, Langōval hadn’t said a word; he had none equal to the strange occasion. He bowed politely when introduced, and looked in bemusement at Yessanth’s argument with Haleforn. When Zōēā’s mother beckoned them to join her at the Shāganta, all he managed to say was, “Thank you, my lady.”

* * * * *

The Shāganta was aptly named. The tree-house was a primitive but artistic weaving of flowering vines and branches near the trunk of a massive tree, the floor made of smooth but crude planks. Langōval instinctively ducked even though the roof was a few inches over his head. It was woven of branches and thatch and huge leaves of a sort he could not place. A few narrow cots and low seats made from coarse fabric stretched across wooden frames made up the furniture.

Everywhere, there were snakes.

Ēānōga was certainly the largest, the floor planks creaked and sagged with her passing. But there were plenty of others, in all manner of patterns and colors. They came and went through the gaps in the foliage; they slithered underfoot; they hung from the ceilings and walls. None of them were poisonous⁠—but anyone with even latent ophidiophobia would have died of fright on the spot. Zōēā and Yessanth thought nothing of it; they stepped among the serpents without treading on a single one. Langōval trod carefully, his eyes darting everywhere.

Yessanth noticed and laughed. “They won’t hurt you, but if you would be more comfortable, I will ask them to leave.”

“I would not be ungracious to my hostess,” Langōval said, “but their numbers are somewhat⁠—overwhelming.”

“Is it alright if Ēānōga stays? I shall have to feed her soon.”

“As you wish, my lady.”

Zōēā used her animal speech to shoo the snakes outside, leaving only Ēānōga and Būshān. Yessanth sat on a coil of Ēānōga with her back against another coil; the python’s head lowered into her lap. “You’re just a big old baby, aren’t you, Ēāna?” Yessanth crooned as she scratched scales behind the massive snake’s head. The snake hissed quietly in contentment. “Yes-s-s. Just a big old baby.”

Zōēā settled on a cot and Būshān wrapped around her waist, similarly placing her head into Zōēā’s lap to be scratched. Langōval sat gingerly on one of the low stools, trying to relax.

Yessanth looked up from Ēānōga. “One of my sons, Tregalin, will bring a meal and drink for us soon. In the meantime, I am famished for the story of your adventures.”

And so Zōēā, with Langōval filling in details, related the story of her journey north to Ass End, meeting with Manfrid the wizard, who couldn’t be bothered to do enchantments at the time because a thief had stolen a valuable magical dagger from him. The thief had been eaten by a gargantuan tyrannosaurus before Manfrid could hunt him down; the dagger was still inside the monster, intact. The wizard led three ill-fated expeditions against the dinosaur; Zōēā accompanied him on the third. She offered to recover the dagger if the wizard would add the enchantments she wanted to the torque her mother had given her. She did, and he did.

Langōval had been the guide on the third expedition. It was there that he and Zōēā met.

As her tale concluded, Tregalin and his wife, Wannāth, brought dinner over—a variety of meats and root vegetables spitted and roasted, fruits such as guava and grapefruit, fresh water and an odd fermented beverage Langōval couldn’t place. Since Zōēā had done most of the talking until then, Langōval felt compelled to add to the dinner conversation by relating stories of his own adventures and stories from the north he felt might entertain his hostess.

His audience devoured his stories with as much delight as they devoured the generous meal. Tregalin almost choked on his meat laughing when Langōval related the story of the drunken Elyzhain sorcerer who mistook a crocodile for his dragon familiar. He told the haunting tale of the exiled elven princess of Amberoth, the stirring ballad of the breaking of the siege of Tirintor, how the druids of Deepwold defeated Treebane and his kryg army, and how the infamous gnomish wizard and prankster “Rednose” Rudiger stole the famous clock tower in Dorsano. He spoke of sailing the Midland Sea, of visiting the famous wizard’s city of Spellkeep, of riding with halfling caravans across the Azure Plains. Zōēā used light spells from her torque to keep darkness at bay in the Shāganta well into the night until the he had to ask the pardon of the others to let him rest.

“Oh, before you go, Zōēā, I have a gift for you, now that you’ve learned to take on animal form.” She reached into her bandeau and retrieved a short gold chain with two clasps from her cleavage. “This is a wilding clasp,” she said, attaching it to Zōēā’s torque on each side of the talisman. “Now, when you change shapes, your torque will remain around the neck of your new form instead of merging with it and becoming useless until you change back to your elf form. That way you can continue to make use of it as long as the form you assume has something like a neck. The torque already magically expands or shrinks to fit your form, so you needn’t worry about that.”

“Where did you get this, mother?”

“I made it while you were gone.”

Zōēā mouth opened, and she gasped in exasperation. “Mother! I just traveled for weeks to find a wizard in Ass End to have enchantments added to the torque! Are you telling me you could have done them all along?”

Yessanth smiled wickedly. “You aren’t accusing your mother of being a liar, dear one? As it happens, I decided to learn how while you were gone. A wizard couldn’t have made this anyway, and I wanted to be able to enchant a new torque. It’s more convenient than I first thought and I might want to make another. Who was that dwarf in Ass End you had make Langōval’s collar again? I may want to look him up.”

Zōēā was still irritated but she concluded that nothing was to be gained by arguing further about it. “Darrow is his name.”

“Thank you, Zōēā. Don’t be angry. After all, you wouldn’t have met Langōval if you hadn’t gone to Ass End, now, would you? Your adventure worked out for the best.”

“I could have been killed!”

“Well, yes, that can happen on adventures. It can also happen just living, particularly in the Velnēs. Would you rather have stayed home? Zōēā, I can’t protect you from the world, as much as my heart cries out to. You know you would chafe if I tried: you are an adult, a veldami and a shāhēn as I am. What is more, you are developing faster at the last two than I did. I am proud of you, my daughter. There will come a day when you will surpass me. You could very well be chief veldami someday—if not of the Shāhūnā then some other tribe. You may have children of your own, perhaps even a daughter to follow in your footsteps. What will you do when adventure calls to her?

“Now show our guest a place to rest and think on that. I have to feed Ēānōga. Oh, that reminds me—could you look in on Urntīg sometime soon? I haven’t been able to get to the Glade for a red moon. I’ve been too busy with work for the tribe and making your new clasp and getting Ēānōga acquainted with her new home. Oh, and be a dear and bring a skin of water from the lake there, I need it for an enchantment.”

Zōēā blinked; she understood the hidden message in her mother’s request to visit Urntīg. She dutifully answered, “Yes, mother.” She turned to Langōval. “I’ll show you a place we can trance.”

Zōēā led Langōval to a netted and padded pallet in the trees where they both went into meditation until dawn.

When her family and Langōval had left, Yessanth turned to her companion snake. “Are you hungry, Ēāna, baby?”

The python hissed in agreement.

Yessanth lay down on a mat, face up. “Well, here I am. Now remember—you don’t need to bite hard. No, go to the other end.”

Ēānōga moved from Yessanth’s head to her feet and opened her jaws. Yessanth raised her legs slightly and the snake took her feet in her mouth.

“That’s a good Ēāna,” Yessanth purred as her pet began to devour her. I’ll have to use the hasty stomach spell to speed Ēānōga’s digestion, she thought as the serpent took in her shins. She had to be through Ēāna and back to her normal form by noon tomorrow.

Should I suggest using the spell to my daughter? She should be able to cast it now. She thought about it and rejected the idea. She could figure it out on her own. “Ow. Watch the teeth, Ēāna. I’m not going anywhere but your tummy, you don’t have to bite so hard. Yes, that’s better. Yes-s-s…”

* * * * *

It took two days for Zōēā to make arrangements to go out to the Tiendrāsa.

The main problem was convincing Langōval not to follow her. She explained to him after their trance that she had to perform a sacred ritual—which was not a lie, but she still couldn’t bring herself to tell him the nature of that ritual. She was afraid he wouldn’t understand. She feared that he wouldn’t love her any more if he found out.

Langōval could sense that Zōēā wasn’t telling him something. She wouldn’t tell him what the ritual was, and he supposed that it wasn’t a thing shared with outsiders like him, but there was something else in the tone of her voice, something that worried him. Was the ritual dangerous? She wouldn’t say.

There was no question of following her—not just because she asked him not to, but because he couldn’t. He considered himself a good tracker—even for an elf—but he couldn’t track Zōēā because she never left a trail. He had even seen her walk through thick mud without leaving any footprints. When he asked her about it, she had replied, “It is a veldami thing.”

Worse, even if he could track her, she would almost certainly see or hear him. He thought his senses were sharp but hers bordered on the uncanny.

However, if he could not track her, he might be able to guess her destination. There were nature magics he knew—not as powerful as a veldami’s, but useful nevertheless.

The one he had in mind had already served him in the Velnēs: it was a spell that divined the surrounding landscape for as far as fifty miles around him. He had it prepared already, but before it would do him any good, he had to have some idea what he was seeking. What did he know about that?

Well, Yessanth had mentioned a glade and a lake. It was likely to be within fifty miles since travel by foot in the jungle was not especially rapid and Zōēā said she would only be gone a few days. He knew that she could change her body into a faster animal form, but that was something she had only recently learned, so he could discount it, since she had likely been to this glade before she had learned to do that. A lake that was sacred to an elf would have clean water, so it would not be fed by the Rafavel, which was usually roiled and muddy. It would not be easily seen by a casual observer on the ground, which meant that it was probably surrounded by thick jungle rather than a rainforest canopy. Also, the lake would be no mere puddle or pool that his spell would overlook—or so he hoped.

Yessanth had also mentioned someone or something called “Urntīg”. Since the name meant “Iron-scale”, and since Zōēā and her mother were both shāhēn, snake-women, it did not stretch the imagination to assume that Urntīg would be a snake. He would have to be careful not to alert it; he knew that Zōēā could talk to animals.

So he decided to leave before Zōēā did, saying that as long as she was going to be busy that he was going out into the Velnēs to get some samples of wood to test their utility in making bows, musical instruments, and objects of art. This was certainly credible because he’d told Zōēā he planned to do that when they first met—and had been, as they traveled through the Velnēs. He said that he would leave his horse because he wanted to rely on stealth to avoid larger predators, something Zōēā would and did respect. In truth, he did not want his horse to give him away.

He chose a moment when he was not observed and cast his spell. He was surrounded by a faint green aura for a moment as the spell divined the location of all significant landmarks within its fifty-mile range, filling in a map in his mind. After less than half a minute, the aura had faded, but he had found the spot he believed to be the glade and had its direction and distance. There were no real meadows in the canopy that dominated the Velnēs, but there was one place—a finger of land extending into a small lake—that might be open enough to call a glade.

He gathered his belongings, found Zōēā, and drew her into a kiss and a hug. “I’ll see you when we both return,” he smiled. She hugged and kissed him back with enthusiasm. “I love you,” she breathed into his ear.

“And how could I not love you?” he responded. With that, he turned and left, careful to travel in a direction moving away from the glade until he was well out of sight. He missed using his horse, but his boots were enchanted to give him extra speed, and he took full advantage of them once he was sure none of the Shāhūnā could see him, turning toward where he hoped the glade would be.

* * * * *

A bit over an hour later, Zōēā began her journey to the Tiendrāsa. As she traveled the miles between her tribe’s village and the glade, she thought about Urntīg.

Urntīg was her mother Yessanth’s previous animal companion, awakened to sentience by her magic to become guardian to the Glade of Thought after the former guardian, Ameldēān, died of old age. He was a huge reticulated python, brown with tan-bordered black patches, exceeding thirty feet in length.

Zōēā found Urntīg to be rather formal, even stuffy; Ameldēān had been grouchy on occasion but she had a sense of humor. It was often acerbic, but present. Urntīg’s scales certainly were not as beautiful as hers had been. He had taken to his role as guardian readily enough, though.

Langōval had approached the glade most carefully, picking his observation post with exceeding care. He saw the slab of moss-covered stone at near the end of the grass-covered rocky peninsula that thrust into the center of the small lake. He certainly noticed the gigantic oak tree, its golden yellow leaves seemingly in autumn even though there were no fallen ones around it. Such a magnificent tree was definitely out of its element here; it had to be unique to the Velnēs. Moreover, oaks were sacred to sierfāen; how could such a tree not be sacred to the veldami? This had to be the Tiendrāsa. He deduced that if Zōēā was coming here, the stone would be where she would go: he espied many tracks of a massive serpentine creature around the stone and the oak tree. He selected a tree downwind of the peninsula that would give him a view of the mossy slab and carefully concealed himself among the leaves.

Less than an hour later, Langōval saw Zōēā and dared breathe a sigh of relief. He had chosen correctly.

Zōēā went to the slab and doffed her halter and shorts and sandals and placed them on one corner of the stone; she had selected the emerald green ones to wear. She then removed her spirit pouch from her neck and laid it atop her clothing. Dressed in nothing but her torque, she looked into the crystal clear, lily-covered waters for a moment, then dove in. Langōval could see her rippling, mahogany-skinned form contrast with the lake’s pebbly bottom where it was visible among the lilies.

She swam back to the peninsula and pulled herself up out of the water. She stepped up to the center of the slab, seated herself cross-legged, and waited, drying in the warm sun.

After several minutes, Urntīg slid down the great oak tree that veldami called the Gladrā. As he slid up to the stone slab, he raised his head to the level of hers and declared in an oddly soft voice, “Do you give yourself to me?”

Zōēā smiled but did not laugh; Urntīg would have been offended. “I do, of my own choice,” she replied formally. Urntīg slid forward and circled around her once, then twice.

“I accept your willing offer. You shall experience what it is to be prey. Present yourself as you wish to be taken.” His head rose once more in front of her.

Really stuffy, Zōēā thought. She laid face down on top of his coils, her breasts nestling between two loops, her arms at her sides and her hands under her hips. She could feel beads of moisture near the center of her sparse pubic hair as she looked up into Urntīg’s gaping jaws, eagerly anticipating what was coming. “I am your prey. I am your food. Let it be so.”

Urntīg completed the words of the ritual: “Let it be so.” The python’s mouth gaped as he slid his lower jaw under Zōēā’s chin, lifting it slightly as he took in her head. She could see the pale flesh of his palate and throat, feel his tongue sliding under her chin to lap at her cleavage. Mother’s taught him a new trick, she thought as she purred in pleasure.

Langōval could scarcely believe his eyes. Zōēā had willingly offered herself to the snake as its food! He knew the kwurdāin and air-making spells on her torque would protect her, yet it was all he could do to keep himself from leaping from his hiding spot and attacking the python. Not that he would fare very well against such a huge snake—he would likely end up swallowed himself, and without the protection Zōēā’s torque offered. Moreover, she wouldn’t thank him for interfering.

He watched in horrified fascination as the huge serpent’s jaws opened wide and started working its way over Zōēā’s shoulders, her cries muffled in its throat. At first he thought they were cries of fear, but then he saw her hands working at her loins, saw her buttocks and legs quiver and ripple, saw her toes flex and push against a coil of the snake, sliding her shoulders a fraction of an inch further into the jaws of her devourer. He had been her lover long enough to know that she was in the throes of climax.

He gaped almost much as the snake’s jaws did as they moved left and right, taking in her breasts inch by inch. His mind reeled. How could this be? How could being eaten by this monster excite her so? She must have done this before: the words were ritualistic; she showed no fear of her fate. Indeed, she was a willing participant, her feet pushing against the serpent’s coils again as it slowly unwound to admit more of her shapely body into its gullet.

The creature’s mouth was now past her ribs and sliding toward her navel when her hands shifted aside to her thighs and her legs spread. Langōval watched as the serpent’s tongue emerged from between them and flicked in and out. Zōēā felt it pass over her clitoris and along her labia, to slide over her puckered anus. Her hands clenched and unclenched and her feet started to drum on the moss as she went mad with delight. Langōval heard her muted cries of joy from the snake’s throat. It seemed as if she were in continuous orgasm as her belly disappeared into the python’s hungry mouth. The last of her golden blonde tresses, plastered to her back by sweat and saliva, vanished into its voracious maw.

Langōval was profoundly disturbed. How could the woman he loved find such joy in being food for a snake? How could she let the creature molest her so? Did she feel the same way when the tyrannosaurus had swallowed her weeks ago? Was she insane?

Worse, was he insane? For despite the grotesque display, he found he had an erection that felt hard enough to pierce steel. He wanted to rush down there and put it where the snake’s tongue was licking, copulating until her hips disappeared into the beast’s gullet. He was disgusted with himself, yet he could not look away.

With a muffled squeal of ecstasy, Zōēā collapsed panting as the snake’s tongue withdrew. She lay in exhaustion as Urntīg’s mouth continued past her waist and started to take in her hips. Langōval stared as the serpent’s upper jaw gnawed over his lover’s posterior, seeking to consume those firm, curved mounds of flesh that the elf hunter himself had caressed and fondled as he and Zōēā shared love so many times the past several weeks, ever since the night before the tyrannosaurus swallowed her.

Peristalsis continued to draw Zōēā’s limp body down the long throat, pulling her thighs together and inward as the python finished swallowing her hips. As she revived, Langōval could see her toes curling every time the snake pulled a bit more of her legs into itself. He imagined his lover masturbating in the wet, fleshy confines of the beast’s gullet as it slowly worked her toward its stomach.

He could stand it no longer. He knelt and opened his trousers and his erection sprang free. He grabbed it as if it were a wild beast to subdue, then froze as his dagger tipped out of its sheath and fell to the ground.

The serpent paused. Its tongue slithered out from between Zōēā’s legs for a moment, tasting the air, retracted, and emerged again. After a few more flicks, it withdrew. It resumed its consumption of Zōēā, its jaws gaping and closing as her legs slipped in inch by inch.

Without thinking, Langōval had started to pump his hand along the shaft of his engorged flesh as he watched Zōēā’s thighs sink into the serpent. He started to pant as he watched the lump sliding toward the snake’s belly shudder and saw Zōēā’s feet again twitch in orgasm. Almost as a sympathetic reaction, Langōval’s tumescent flesh gushed his jellied seed into the air to fall across the back of his gripping hand and into the undergrowth. His hand clenched his twitching, drooling shaft as her shins were drawn in. Her feet passed the creature’s jaws and they settled back into place, closing as her toes disappeared into the beast’s throat.

Zōēā was now entirely wrapped in the body of Urntīg. The muscles of his esophagus rippled and palpitated her body everywhere, urging her toward the snake’s waiting stomach. She imagined she could hear it gurgling as it prepared itself for her tender flesh, readied itself to break her down layer by layer until she was sludgy goop draining into the snake’s intestines. She smiled to herself; it would not happen in quite that manner, but the end result would be much the same. Zōēā eagerly contemplated this approaching communion with Urntīg in his role as an avatar of nature—and as predator—and her role as veldami—and as food. She could hear the python’s breathing and the beat of its heart as she slipped deeper and deeper into him, her nether lips again becoming engorged with lust as they slid against the warm, flexing flesh of the carnivore’s gullet. The talisman that had been added to her torque kept her at a comfortable temperature; it would have been almost unbearably hot inside the snake otherwise. Fresh air was fed to her by a conjuration spell on her torque; she would not asphyxiate inside of Urntīg. She had learned to inhale when the snake’s throat slackened, and exhale when its peristalsis pressed her ribs as it slid her ever closer to her destination.

Zōēā’s hands moved to caress her loins again as she reveled in a world of warm, wet sensation. They and the rippling massage of the muscles of Urntīg’s throat brought her toward another peak of passion. “Oh, yes,” she moaned. “I am your food. Bring me to your stomach and make my body yours. Let me nourish you this day and on many days to come.”

She climaxed again as her head reached the ring of flesh separating the snake’s esophagus from its stomach and began to push through. She wriggled and trembled with lustful joy as she was squeezed into the place where she would fulfill her role as food: first her head and shoulders, then her twitching torso, then her squirming belly and hips, and finally her luscious legs slid through as she slopped face-first into the thick gastric fluids awaiting her in the curved and convoluted chamber of convulsing and clasping flesh. She rolled over in the dark sac and summoned light from her torque. It was a new experience to actually see the inside of a serpent’s stomach, to look at the massaging folds of pink flesh pressing against her and the syrupy juices it secreted to reduce her to wholesome chyme.

“I wonder what Langōval would think if he saw all this,” she wondered aloud.

To her surprise, Urntīg answered. Normally, the gigantic python would not deign to speak to his food after he swallowed it. He thought it improper and undignified and not at all in keeping with the nature of the ceremony. “You may very well get a chance to find out. Was it him I tasted on you? I tasted the same odor in the air nearby as well after I heard an unexpected noise from the edge of the jungle. He may have been watching us for some time.”

A frisson of fear passed through her. If that is so, what must he think of me now? He must know I am in no real peril, yet he now knows that I offered myself willingly as food for Urntīg. What must he be feeling? Revulsion? Disgust? Will he leave me?

With difficulty, she put those thoughts aside. Words would either bring him around or they would not, and she could do nothing for it right now. She would have time to reflect on it soon enough. Already she could feel the tingling of the gastric liquids on her skin. For the moment, she would live in the moment. She began to bathe in the fluids, washing them over her skin as Urntīg’s stomach kneaded her flesh. Her passion reignited as more and more of her body soaked in the oozing enzymes and acids, forming into a slimy gel spread over her skin and hair. Her world contracted to her body and the squeezing stomach that worked to reduce it to pulp and send it to the intestines bulking up to process her.

Outside that world, Langōval watched as the lump that was his lover slid down the snake’s lengthy gullet to settle in its belly. He could see that belly quiver and shift from time to time. Was it caused by the serpent’s stomach working to break down the flesh of his lover, her lustful writhing within it, or both? He could not know. He settled down to watch. It would likely be hours, but hunters learned patience, and that of sylvan elven hunters was legendary.

He would wait. He had questions.

Zōēā, in the meantime, was again in timeless passion, riding her pleasure from peak to valley to peak again as she soaked and squirmed in the snake’s slimy, shifting, squeezing stomach. She could feel the tingling on all of her skin, from the roots of her hair to the tips of her toes, rise to a prickling; she knew it would not be long now. Her excitement rose to a frenzy as she cried out:

“Digest me! I am your prey, your food, freely offered and gladly taken. I went willingly into your mouth, trembling with joy down your throat, ardently into your stomach. I will gratefully flow into your entrails to nourish you. Digest me! My flesh is yours. Melt me into mush for your sustenance, make me a broth from which you grow strong and healthy. Digest me! Let me slide through your bowels, let that of me unworthy to be part of your body become your poop. Digest me! Squeeze me out to join the Velnēs. Digest me!”

Her pleasure and the prickling of her skin spread deeper into her body, then reached its apex. The kwurdāin spell triggered, beginning her rapid change into chyme and sending every nerve in her rupturing body into rapture. Zōēā screamed, “Oh thank you thank you thank you—!” as waves of ecstasy pulsed through her, her body coming apart under the spell’s transformation. She shuddered in eldritch delight as she saw her skin redden and peel and dissolve, her muscles loosen and flow, her organs liquefy and run through her sagging ribs into the stomach juices, her arms deform and sink into her torso, her legs bend like rubber and their softening bones dislocate and pile against her pelvis, then nothing as her eyes melted. In moments her torso and head slumped into shapeless ooze. Her last cry of joyous gratitude faded into a gurgling that roiled the surface of the stew that her body had become within Urntīg’s churning stomach.

Langōval had almost slipped into trance when he thought he heard muffled screaming and saw the lump in the middle of the python begin to shrink as Zōēā’s rich, soupy form drained through the snake’s pylorus. Bile mixed with what moments ago was a beautiful elf woman but now resembled a thick, nutritious chowder as it passed into the duodenum. She was squeezed through the small intestine at a leisurely pace, gut bacteria and villi teasing what nutrients they could from her as she settled in to think, enjoying the feel of the narrow tube’s fondling as she was pushed through that tangled tunnel of flesh.

What shall I say to Langōval? What can he possible be thinking right now? To the veldami of the Shāhūnā, this is a sacred communion, an affirmation of the Ring of Life, a joyful ceremony of offering and rebirth. But to him? Is it a strange and twisted display of lust and gluttony? A dark, perverse, bestial, lewd ritual to some evil ophidian god?

She worried these thoughts as her pulpy body was worried by Urntīg’s gut.

Langōval finished his trance and took up his vigil again. The snake had not moved from where it was coiled on the large stone slab, apparently satisfied with the security of the place as it digested Zōēā. The elf’s thoughts were a maelstrom; he tried to pull threads from them to make sense of his feelings.

Do I confront her with what I’ve seen? She told me not to follow her. Could I possibly act like I have not seen what I have? She is no fool; she will notice the change in my demeanor, and I will not lie to her. So what do I say? That I watched as she joyfully fed herself to that beast to become hot porridge in its bowels? That I was jealous of a fat tube of a snake as I watched her writhe in ecstasy sliding down its throat? That I was aroused as I watched her being devoured and pleasured myself as her quivering legs disappeared into the serpent’s maw, knowing that she would emerge as its dung?

Shame flushed over his tanned face at that last thought. Am I any less perverse in enjoying the sight of her being eaten as she is in enjoying the act itself? Would she stop offering herself to the snake if I asked it of her? Do I even want to ask it of her?

Zōēā drained slowly from through Urntīg’s caecum into his colon where her fluid form gathered and excess water was removed from her. As she thickened into a paste then a mushy solid, she decided what she would do.

I shall confront him. Let there be no secrets between us. If I had not feared how he would react, I would have told him of this weeks ago as we entered the Velnēs. If he will no longer be my lover, so be it. Better to know now.

Langōval had similar thoughts as he watched the snake, awaiting Zōēā’s emergence. I shall confess to her and speak of my confusion and misgivings and perverse feelings. If she will no longer be my lover, so be it. At least I will not be held in suspense.

As the lovers contemplated their next meeting, the bolus of waste that was Zōēā was pressed into Urntīg’s copradaeum. The serpent soon noticed the pressure and started to uncoil, sliding off the mossy slab. Langōval noticed this and sat up, watching intently.

When all but the Urntīg’s tail had left the slab, it paused and started to quiver. Slowly, a coil of Zōēā began to push through the snake’s anus and droop downward. She felt the snake’s muscles massage her and squeeze her out and warm moss beneath her as the first lump of the poop she now was dropped, to be followed by another, and another. Logs and loops of snake dung piled up as the serpent purged its cloaca of her. When the last bit of Zōēā fell onto the pile, the snake fastidiously laid its tail down to one side of the settling mound of the once and future elf girl and slithered off into the lake.

* * * * *

Langōval waited until the snake crossed the lake and disappeared into the jungle, then slowly climbed down from his perch and walked across the peninsula.

Both moons were high, and red and white motes of light dancing on the breeze-rippled water as he approached the stone slab. He could see—and smell—the fetid mound on it start to elongate, taking the rough form of a woman. The details and texture changed to become a significantly thinner but far more pleasant-smelling Zōēā. She blinked and looked up at Langōval. Rolling over, she reached for a pouch in her clothing and withdrew a few fresh berries she had picked on the way to the Glade. She cast a spell on them and swallowed them, then drank from the lake. Langōval sensed that she was ravenous and dehydrated from her experience and did not interrupt. He had seen her use the berry spell before: each of those berries so enchanted were as nourishing as a complete meal.

When she finished drinking, she cast a restoration spell on herself. Feeling less light-headed from what the snake took from her as she passed through its bowels, she finally spoke.

“So,” she said sullenly. “You followed me.”

He shook his head. “The finest hunter in all the world has not the skill to track you, my lady. But using meager clues and a minor magic, I was able to deduce where you were going and await you here.”

“And now you have seen.”

“I can never unsee it, yes.”

“Is this good-bye, then?”

“Do you wish it? How can things remain the same between us?”

“That depends on what you think you saw.”

“I saw—I saw the woman I love offer herself as a willing meal to a huge snake that could speak. I saw that woman writhe in passion as that snake swallowed and digested her. I saw that snake excrete her remains and those remains become the woman again.”

Her heart fluttered. “Wait. You said ‘love’. Don’t you mean ‘loved’?” Could he be forgiving her?

“I—believe I spoke truly. Yet I am sorely confused. How…” He sat down on the slab.

“Yes?” Did she dare hope?

“How can being eaten by that beast excite you so?”

Zōēā thought a moment. “I will try to explain it to you.” She reached to the front of his trousers and undid the ties and opened them. She pushed his knees apart, then took his phallus in hand and started to massage it.

“What you saw is a sacred rite of Shāhūnā veldami. I first experienced it the day I became veldami, not knowing my mother’s torque would protect me.”

“You must have been terrified!” Langōval blurted, his loins stirring.

“I was, at first. For all I knew, Ameldēān was a sentient serpent who saw me as no more than food. She spoke as if that was all I was. I fully expected to die, either suffocated or slowly digested in Ameldēān’s stomach. Her intent was to show me what it was like to be prey, as most creatures are not hunters, but the hunted, and understanding the hunted is at least as important to being a veldami as being the hunter.

“But as she started to swallow me, my fear subsided and my passion ignited.” Zōēā lowered her head to Langōval’s hardening shaft and started to lick it. He leaned back, placing his palms against the stone. When his shaft was fully erect, she pressed it to her lips, kissing it then taking it into her mouth slowly until its tip reached her pharynx. She raised her head from his groin and spoke again.

“Did you delight in that?” she asked impishly.

“Oh, yes.” He wanted to grab her head and pull it back down, but he refrained.

“Now,” she said, her voice sultry as she lowered her head to lick his glans, “Imagine your whole body is like your happy little fellow here, sli-i-iding into my mouth. Every inch of your skin feels like this—” She lowered her mouth over his shaft again, licking as she engulfed it inch by inch until he could feel her tongue on his scrotum. She slowly withdrew, her chin just above his throbbing flesh. “Sli-i-iding further and further into eager, wet, welcoming, fondling flesh that wants nothing more that to taste all of you, to engulf all of you—” Again, she took in his tumescence, now not just licking, but puckering her mouth and cheeks to squeeze and massage it. This time, she did not withdraw all the way, rising until it was just his glans in his mouth being fondled by her tongue, then down again, her tongue sliding side to side, her mouth embracing his flesh, her head gently twisting to shift left and right around his erection, his glans sliding into her throat, then up until moonlight bathed his shaft again, then down, his engorged, twitching flesh being consumed, the greedy teeth nibbling their way gently down to his loins—

With a cry, he released his semen; it pulsed into her throat as her lips pressed into his thin pubic hair. Her face rode his groin as if it were a bucking horse; she took every last drop he had to offer. He fell back on the mossy stone as his erection slowly deflated in her mouth.

She released him and stood, the rising white moon behind her giving her golden-blonde hair a radiant aura, the red moon flashing on the amber flecks in her green eyes and shining off her grinning teeth. In that light, she looked to be a woman who had just revealed herself as a succubus, a female demon of lust. As he lay there panting, he was not sure that she wasn’t. All she lacked were small, curved horns emerging from her skull, bat wings spreading from her shoulder blades, and the tail trailing from the base of her spine, flicking back and forth behind her lovely legs.

She ran her tongue over her lips, still grinning. “Now do you understand?”

“You’ll be the death of me, my lady.”

“Oh, I hope not,” she giggled as she climbed onto the rock and straddled him. “I’m not through with you yet.”

Afterword

This is Zōēā’s third story; the first was “Food Chained” and second was “Talk to the Animals”. As stated in the afterwords of those stories, this story can be rendered in terms of a Dungeons and Dragons® version 3.5 game. Let’s face it, it’s well suited to erotica and vore: swallow whole attacks, alter self and polymorph spells, all sorts of kinky possibilities. For those of you keeping score, Langōval would be just under a fourth-level ranger and Zōēā just short of sixth-level druid.