Night of the serpent

Daelana and Christina shivered as they sat at the bottom of a dune, eating the rations of dried meat they had found on the men they had killed. They had not expected that the night would bring with it such frigid winds that the searing heat of the day would be pined for. They clung to themselves between bites of food, rubbing their arms and pressing their legs together in their best attempts to stave off the cold they were so woefully unprotected from.

"How can it be this is the coldest I've ever felt: in a desert?" said Christina, "We traveled through frozen lands. The touch of ice and snow wasn't as bad as this!"

"Well, we weren't walking around the frozen lands in basically our underwear," said Daelana.

"Oh, yeah, good point," said Christina.

Christina chowed down on the last bite of her food around the same time as Daelana who gulped hers down voraciously before quickly occupying her hands with keeping herself warm. Christina followed suit, but there was nothing she could do to keep her mind off of how freezing it was. Her desperation gave her an idea, one that she was hesitant to speak out loud. But with every passing second as the cold grew, she felt that attempting anything would be better than continuing to suffer through it.

"Hey, Daelana," said Christina, "Do you mind if I... hold you?"

Daelana turned to Christina with a confused look. "What?"

"Well, it's like you said. We're basically in our underwear," said Christina, “Maybe we can make the most of it and… use our body heat to keep warm.”

Christina blushed, already regretting saying that out loud. She was certain that the incredibly serious dark knight would find the idea ridiculous or go on to think of Christina as a pervert afterwards. She looked away awkwardly, hoping that the two of them could simply move on and forget that she said anything.

“Are you sure?” said Daelana, “Are you okay with doing that with me?”

Daelana saw as Christina perked up, looking surprised. Daelana was more worried about what Christina would feel about getting close to her, the only one who had physically hurt one of their own. With the things she had done to Lila, Daelana worried none of the girls would even want to go near her ever again.

“Uh, yeah,” said Christina, “I’m fine with it.”

Though ready to throw the idea away, Christina couldn’t ignore the growing cold more than her own pride. If Daelana was open to it, surely it wouldn’t be weird. Daelana looked forward with a blank face, deep in thought, before opening her arms to Christina.

“Fine,” said Daelana, “It is cold after all.”

Christina gulped, nervous now that she was actually taking action. She began scooching closer to Daelana, right into her arms. As their skin made contact, Daelana roughly grabbed Christina and pulled her in with little tact. Christina yelped softly as the embrace was a bit tighter than she expected. The dark knight’s strong arms held her firmly. She responded by wrapping her arms more gently around Daelana’s waist. Daelana looked down, trying to hide her blush in the darkness.

“Are you scared of me?” asked Daelana.

“What?” said Christina.

“You have every right to be scared of me,” said Daelana, “I won’t get mad if you say so.”

Christina looked at Daelana with concern. Even in the blackness of night she could see the sad expression in her profile. She could feel the warmth of the body Daelana would always claim was cold like her heart. But Christina didn’t believe it.

“I used to be,” said Christina, “Back when we were adventuring with the others, you did scare me. I was light and you were dark. I thought that for each choice I made to be kind, you would be compelled to do the opposite. But now… honestly… this is the least scared I’ve ever been of you.”

Daelana turned to meet eyes with Christina. Their faces were so close they could feel each other’s breaths. The cold started to leave their minds as they began to focus on the warmth of the other’s body providing them with comfort in the harshness of the night. They inched closer to each other, feeling their bare skin press up against each other more and more. They grasped each other a bit tighter as their lips inadvertently inched closer together.

Then out of nowhere, the earth began rumbling. The two were pulled out of the moment and looked around in confused panic as the sound of crashing sand got louder and louder.

“What’s that?” said Christina.

As Christina continued to freak out, Daelana calmed herself and listened for the source of the noise. She found it was coming from above the dune they were lying on. She looked up as the rumbling was reaching its apex. At the height of its noise, a great scale hide swung in from over the dune and sent a wave of sand crashing over them. Christina screamed but Daelana put a hand over her mouth, knowing that the last thing they wanted to do with some mysterious beast nearby was make noise. Daelana then grabbed Christina’s hand and led her away from the falling sand as fast as she could. They jumped forward to avoid getting buried, only smatterings of sand and dust covering their backs as they laid prone. Daelana looked back and saw the scaly hide continue slithering onwards through great orange clouds it had kicked up.

“What was that?” said Christina.

“Some monster,” said Daelana, “Keep still and quiet. I think it’ll pass us.”

Christina silently nodded as the two of them continued lying on their bellies, trying to ignore to bigger and bigger clumps of sand that were being kicked up and landing on their backs.

***

Tyra and Lila shook as they sat naked in the camp that their captors had made. They were both tied to a post that had been stuck into the earth with tremendous **** so that Tyra with all of her strength could not pull it out if she tried all night. A fire had been built along with some tents. But the flames were just far enough from the girls that its heat was not quite touching them and no tents were provided for them either. Axrogol and the other man enjoyed the fire’s warmth while Tyra and Lila remained tied where they were.

Tyra observed the two men. They were looking out in the distance at something. Once Tyra squinted, she could see it too. A long figure was moving across the desert far away. It slithered back and forth in a hypnotizing motion. Tyra’s eyes went wide as she realized it was a giant snake. Her heart pounded, hoping it wouldn’t come closer. The men didn’t seem worried though, so she assumed they had made camp out of the way of the beast. That was the most she could hope for in her predicament.

Tyra looked over to Lila. She was more than overwhelmed by the situation. Cold and naked, she had no idea what fate awaited her as a prisoner of these men. The same could be said since the moment she entered the games. She could do nothing but curl up as much as she could and sniffle softly. Tyra wished she could say something to comfort her, but knew that she would probably only make it worse as she always did.

The other man got up from the fire and lazily stumbled up to the two girls. Lila recoiled in fear while Tyra stared at him in contempt. The man stared back with a mixture of anger and lust.

“Hey Axrogol!” said the man, “We’ve got nothing to do here! Normally we’d have more slaves to keep ourselves warm on these cold nights.”

“I told you, we are to deliver them to the devil queen unspoiled!” said Axrogol.

“She won’t know the difference!” said the man, “I’ve been wanting to try out the little redhead this whole time!”

The man smiled deviously as he moved towards Lila, his hand reached outwards ready to grope her. Lila looked absolutely terrified. She shuddered as she wet the sand below her pussy and peed herself, all in plain view of the man due to her nudity. The man laughed, making Lila feel embarrassed as well as scared.

“You think that’ll stop me from ravaging you girl?” said the man, “It won’t!”

Tyra grew mad, snarling at the man but unable to do anything with her hands tied. Still, her heart ached at Lila’s pain and she resolved to do whatever she could.

“You fucking asshole!” said Tyra, “You’ve got a lot of nerve! You basically pissed yourself when I killed that friend of yours!”

The man turned his attention to Tyra.

“What did you say, whore?” said the man.

“You heard me clearly!” said Tyra, “And what’s more, I’m not even a virgin like my friend here! I’ve been with some real pathetic sacks of meat and you might be the most pathetic of them all!”

“You big-tittied bitch!” said the man, “Good to know you just gave me permission to **** the shit out of you! Axrogol won’t even get mad if you’re not a virgin! And just for my fellow warrior’s ****, I’ll make sure it hurts real bad for you!”

Tyra kept a permanent scowl on her face, but she had gotten what she wanted. Even if she had to suffer a bit, she would rather the man focus on her than Lila. And whatever he could throw at her, it probably wouldn’t be much worse than what she had just recently gone through the other night. She saw the man approach her and she closed her eyes, bracing for impact.

But instead Tyra simply heard the man wince and groan. She opened her eyes again and saw the man’s hands twisted in pain as his whole body convulsed. Her eyes shifted behind him and she saw Axrogol holding his thorny staff once again, fresh blood already running down it. Axrogol clenched his free hand into a fist and the man screamed to the heavens, arching his back and shaking his whole body wildly. Suddenly, great red spikes came shooting out of his body, covering Tyra with blood that shot out from him. He was left suspended by the spikes as his body went limp. Then the spikes became liquid and fell into pools of blood around the man. And as they ceased supporting his weight, the body fell down to the ground, splashing into the puddles of red. Axrogol put his hand down, looking at the body with disgust.

“Disobedient cur,” said Axrogol.

Tyra spat some of the man’s blood out of her mouth. Lila also got some of the blood on her body and she shook with disgust. Axrogol approached both of them.

“Do not think I have saved you from your fate,” said Axrogol, “I care only that the devil queen has perfectly fresh toys to play with. Once the time is right, you shall both be ravaged as befits a ****!”

Axrogol then turned around and retreated into his tent for the night. Tyra shifted uncomfortably, having no way to wipe the blood off of her. Lila looked to Tyra, who had blocked most of the blood from her as she had blocked the man from focusing on her. The disdain began to fade from her stare.

***

Angelica sat down with her legs curled up to her chest. She held herself tightly as the cold winds blew around her bare skin. She looked over to Athalia who was lying on her belly and looking over at the camp. Angelica wondered if she was unbothered by the cold as she wasn’t making any attempts to cover herself. Then she saw Athalia shiver slightly with a straight face. It seemed that she was getting cold but just didn’t want to show it.

Angelica crawled over beside Athalia to take a look at the situation with the camp. She saw Tyra and Lila still tied naked to a post, a small tent and fireplace, as well as a dead body near them. She also just caught a glimpse of the bald man with the thorny staff entering the tent for the night. Then her eyes darted just over the horizon and her heart jumped as she saw the giant snake that slithered past the landscape further beyond the camp.

“Saw the serpent too?” said Athalia, “Quite the beast, eh? Glad we’re not in its way.”

“Yeah,” said Angelica, “But what happened in the camp? Why’s that guy dead?”

“It seemed he tried to have some fun with our dear friends Tyra and Lila and the mage took offense to that,” said Athalia, “Cast some sort of spell and killed him on the spot.”

“He… protected them?” said Angelica.

“Don’t be so naive,” said Athalia, “He’s a slaver. He wants to sell his merchandise in the best condition. Of course, he would have no way of knowing that Tyra’s actually not a virgin. Lila on the other hand he actually got a pretty good deal on.”

“Don’t talk about them like that!” said Angelica, “Anyways, he’s alone right now. I’m gonna go rescue them.”

“I would advise against that,” said Athalia, “If you saw what I saw, you’d be hesitant to fight that mage even with an advantage. He shot one thing of magic at him and he simply contorted until great spikes grew from his body. I don’t want to fight anyone with powers like that, especially while we still don’t know how magic works here. As far as we know, he could snap his fingers and turn you into a puddle of blood.”

Angelica sighed. “You really don’t want to help them that badly?”

“This is of no lack of want,” said Athalia, “I believe my reasoning was quite logical.”

“And why would you be sharing that with me?” said Angelica, “Wouldn’t you want me to go down there and throw my life away?”

“You think so little of me!” said Athalia, “I told you that you’re more useful to me alive than dead. You think I’m still lying?”

“Yeah, I wonder why,” said Angelica, “Lies are such a part of your nature that even our alliance was based on a lie. A lie to the dark lord.”

“I didn’t think you’d care if I lied to your great enemy,” said Athalia.

“But that’s just the thing,” said Angelica, “You lie to everyone, good or evil. I mean, why? Why betray the dark lord? And why grovel to him now?”

“You really ought to know that by now,” said Athalia, “Fate was on your side back then. Now it’s not. I back the winning team. Always.”

“That’s not all, was it?” said Angelica, “Did you not tire of living under his shadow? Did you not want to free yourself from his iron grasp? I don’t care if it was just for the purpose of taking his place and doing more evil. You must’ve wanted to be free of him!”

“I see what you’re getting at,” said Athalia, “Yes, I wanted to be free of him. But I never needed to be. Would I like to rule the land of shadows as a dark lady? Of course I would! But if I must remain at the dark lord’s side to survive, that is what I will do! I will not throw my life away for pride’s sake! Only a fool would do that! Understand?”

Angelica was taken aback by her directness. The last person she imagined a lecture from was Athalia. Athalia herself looked shaken, suddenly speaking with her emotions rather than cold calculations. She must’ve realized this and quickly hid her passion away again, putting on a blank face instead. She turned back to watching the camp.

“We should go to sleep soon,” said Athalia, “We need to wake up before they do so we can keep following them.”

Angelica remained silent. She saw no reason not to oblige Athalia’s request. Angelica laid down on the sand, getting as comfortable as she could to fall asleep. Her mind raced with thoughts. She knew she wasn’t like Athalia who cared more for herself than any ideal. Angelica had never had survival for survival’s sake in her mind. She went out on a foolhardy quest to save the world, and she did. But now she couldn’t save the world. She could only save herself.