Chapter 24.75 - Sweat & Whiskey & Guilt
On the Gauntlet’s penultimate night, Nym broods. Hattie’s and Mae’s laughter echoes down the hallway, sliding in under her door like an oozing slime, but it’s the third laugh — throaty and warm and overpowering — that really gets Nym fuming.
This stupid contest has gone on far too long. All day Alyx is busy losing contests right along with Hattie, and when night comes along and Nym tries to get even a second of her time it’s just Mae, Mae, Mae.
Sorry, Nym, I’ve made plans with Mae. I need to hang out with Mae. Mae’s the best woman in the world and I want her, not you.
If that’s not bad enough, she’s not seen Syrene or Kivali since that first night, the one that was painful and blissful in equal measure, so here she is with a brand that means she’s not allowed to fuck anyone without Syrene’s express permission, and Syrene won’t even show up to tell her what is or isn’t allowed.
Not Alyx. That’s the one thing she’s made clear. Never Alyx.
Because Alyx actually makes her feel good. Alyx whispers sweet things in her ear while she’s seven inches deep, whereas Syrene only treats her like a fly she wants to rip the wings off. Nym’s got no doubt that if she found another woman who hated her, who hurt her, then Syrene would be happy to hand her off and wash her paws of the whole thing.
All this to say Nym’s not getting fucked, and she needs, very badly, to get fucked. It’s a racist (and really quite problematic) stereotype that all wood elves have hyperactive sex drives — one that arose from a series of fetishistic serialised pulp novels. But in this case, with this specific wood elf, it’s entirely true.
For some Illusionists, that’s no issue. You don’t need sex when you can just weave a few spells and have anyone you want fucking you however you like. (The best Illusionists can even cum from this, totally hands free, no real stimulation at all.) But Nym got bored of that years ago, and now finds only the real thing satisfies her. If the real thing’s seven inches and thick and expressly forbidden to her, all the better.
But then again, Syrene doesn’t even fucking come into it, because this stupid deer bitch spends all her time with Mae, or Vila, or Hattie. Hattie won’t even let her hit!
Nym pulls the splendid inkfowl feather quilt over her head and screams into her pillow. The last time she fucked Alyx — when she was all upset over being moved to Reason — it was just the deer using her throat, and she didn’t even get to cum. (This is, also, exactly what happened the time before that.) Yet, here she is, thinking about all the things she’d do for Alyx, thinking about how whenever she sees her drunkenly swaggering about the halls her first thought is, fucking unaccountably, I love you.
More laughs. What a sick joke. Forced to sit here and endure this. Surely there’s someone on campus, someone, who appreciates Nym. She’s fit! She grew up in the harshest forest, where you needed to stay fit to survive, and she was a Godsdamn good hunter who’s always stayed plump but muscled, underneath the cushioning, and if you ask her her ass looks fucking great, just like her golden tits, and when she’s in the Dragon Tender uniform she’s sexier than any other woman on campus.
But it doesn’t matter what Nym says. What Nym thinks. It only matters what Alyx thinks — and Alyx thinks Mae’s the only thing worth having.
Thilas slithers around her wrist and curls up her arm, his forked tongue brushing skin. His reptilian eyes betray no emotion and offer equal comfort. He’s really not good for anything, because that mouse bitch slowed her down in the forest and she didn’t even have time to get a good Familiar, and now her desperation isn’t even hot anymore because there are tears down her cheeks and sobs in her throat.
Thilas disappears somewhere else in the room — he loves hiding beneath the furs. Nym’s left to cry alone, which she does, over and over. It’s usually comforting, to be naked beneath her blankets, but there’s no comfort now.
She cries so much she doesn’t even notice when the laughter stops. She doesn’t notice the quiet knocking on her door. The tap-tap-tap gets ever more insistent until, at last, Nym, raises her head from the pillow and covers up her puffy eyes and stuffed nose with a quick glamour. So not in the mood for it, she opens the door.
Alyx stumbles through reeking of whiskey, totally naked but for a pair of green lace panties she’s currently straining against. For a heartbeat Nym expects to be swept up and carried to the bed, but her hopes are dashed as Alyx barrels past her and collapses onto the bed alone, groaning and, even though she’s got a naked Nym to look at, stroking her cock while staring at the ceiling.
“She’s such a fucking tease,” she says. “Making us play strip Gamage — which she sucks at, by the way, so like, get this, there we are, kicking her ass, and she’s down to the yellow bra and panties she’s fucking bursting out of, but she keeps saying ‘look but don’t touch; look but don’t touch’ like anyone could resist.
“By the by, Hattie’s real fucking good at Gamage. Don’t let her trick you. Her deck is fucking busted, dude.”
Nym cranes her head into Alyx’s view, and the deer’s actually surprised to see a face of fury instead of keen interest. “I don’t give a fuck!” she screams, much too loudly, but she’s well past caring. It’s so fucking insulting that the glamour drops. “I don’t care about your stupid game!”
The cogs in Alyx’s head turn so ponderously you can almost hear them grinding. When a look of keen consideration settles over her cervine face, Nym thinks, for a moment, that she’s finally going to get an apology that she well deserves. Instead, Alyx hooks her fingers around Nym’s thigh and drags her down to the bed next to her, shifting onto her side in the same motion. “You been crying? It’s kinda hot.”
Nym hates that she blushes, she hates so much that she blushes, the worst thing she could possibly do is blush, because she needs to be strong and fight and advocate for herself and-
“You wanna fuck?”
Yes! She almost screams it. It’s only the brand on her stomach that stops her. At least Syrene has given her this small snatch of dignity, this one moment where she’s grateful to have a permanent womb tattoo etched on her body by a woman who hates her. “I can’t,” she says, pointing to it.
“You said that last time and we made it work.”
Nym shoves Alyx, but the deer just kind of jostles, her small tits not so much jiggling as jolting. “Are you mad at me?”
Of course she’s mad! How dare she! The way they ‘made it work’ last time was for Nym to lock herself in an illusion, one where she was sleeping peacefully — which Alyx like, full on exploited, because the understanding was pretty clearly that she’d fuck her, but instead when the spell dropped her throat hurt, her tongue tasted of salt, and her lips were covered in spit. “Go away!”
“You’re fierce,” Alyx says, the way one might say it to a dog brave enough to bark at every loud noise. “Makes me glad we met here and not in the forest. You might’ve ate me.” (A wood elf stereotype that is entirely true.)
“Go-”
“But maybe not.” Alyx shifts her weight suddenly, rolling on top of Nym and pinning her. “Maybe you’d bite off more than you can chew…”
“Alyx-”
“Shhh, no, shhh, you don’t know my name. Just like I don’t know yours. Why would I? You’re just some elf hunting me. Or trying to.”
“I don’t-”
But then Alyx is inside her, and Nym, the kind of girl who just can’t help getting steamrolled, crumples like paper in the rain. She moans, hot and heavy, as Alyx nips up her neck.
“How can you go back to your tribe after this?” Alyx says. “Fucked by a deer? They’ll forever know you as the most pathetic hunter. Nnf, especially when your belly swells and they realise I gave you fawns.”
There’s a part of Nym, far off now, dimly aware that she should not be letting Alyx say these things to her; a much louder part, far closer, relishes in how she definitely should not be letting Alyx say these things to her, how it’s a total betrayal of her basic dignity — she wishes it weren’t, but sadly, that’s hot.
“What’s a matter? Nothing to say? I thought elves were ‘sposed to be so haughty.”
Alyx is getting really close to the line here, and the worst part is she could leap right over it so long as she keeps fucking her, just like that, just keeps pushing deeper inside and stretching her out, keeps breathing hot, alcoholised breath on her face, keeps those strong hands around her wrists so she can’t slap her.
“No? Nothing? That’s okay — I can think of a better use for that pretty elven mouth.”
“Get off me, venison!”
To her credit, Alyx is no hypocrite; indeed, the look of satisfaction in her eyes makes Nym’s heart race. “Look who found her backbone.”
“When the others find you-”
“Awh, what’ll they do? Get on their backs like you? Exhaust me to death?”
Before Nym can find a retort, Alyx pulls her into a kiss. She says something, around the elf’s mouth, but Gods know what. When the kiss breaks Alyx ends up with her face beside Nym’s head, panting. “Woof. That whiskey’s… really starting to feel it. You just, nnf, fuck, take it.”
Since her face is buried in the sheets, the deer doesn’t notice Syrene, standing just by the door. Nym does, though, but her shout of shock comes out silent. She’s about to frantically try push Alyx off, because she’s about the only person who might stand a chance against Syrene and if she doesn’t move fucking quick that slim chance becomes nothing, but the mouse shakes her head so decisively that Nym knows her only hope is to stay very still.
With stolen magic, Syrene pumps Nym’s head full of emotion, just as Nym did, back in the forest, at their first encounter. Instead of desire, it’s guilt, the kind of heart-rending, stomach churning guilt that makes you feel like vomiting, so intense and overwhelming that Nym cannot help but think herself quite literally the worst person in the entire world. As if that’s not bad enough, it’s also kind of annoying that Syrene can do this from such a distance when Nym needs to be right up close.
It’s okay, she thinks, even though it’s not, it’s the furthest thing from okay, Syrene is so lovely and pretty and devoted, can’t Nym see that, can’t she see how devoted she is? Doing this to her is sick, twisted, evil. Just cruel, really. IT’S OKAY!
She retreats. Runs away from the emotions and armours herself with sensation. Feeling. Yes, she might be awful, just fucking awful, the lowest of the low, but Gods, how can anyone blame her? It feels so good, it feels-
It feels like nothing at all. Strange, like having a painless knife inside you. Syrene, meanwhile, twists with pleasure and slides down the wall, knees trembling. Maybe she’ll understand, now that she knows how good it feels, Nym thinks, but only for a moment — a moment of cope amidst the roil of guilt. The only thing to understand is this: Nym is awful, wretched. She’s betraying someone who loves her. She deserves nothing but scorn, and despite it all Syrene’s willing to stick by her, to love her even as she runs off to get fucked by Alyx, which only makes the guilt all the worse.
Alyx, meanwhile, notices nothing, and Syrene’s cloaked herself in invisibility by the time the deer cums (inside, again) and rolls off her. “I, uh, woof,” she says, “I’m feeling fucked up. You mind if I sleep here? We could like, cuddle.”
If it weren’t for this heavy blanket of guilt weighing on her like gravedirt, Nym would throw her arms around the deer and wake up happy. Instead, she stammers something about needing rest, and a surprised Alyx says, “Oh. Sure.”
When she’s gone, Syrene climbs into the bed and puts a hand on Nym’s throat. “Let’s talk,” she says, in their shared voice.
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