Day 13: The Snake Encounter

Relief / Self-Bondage

On a windswept night, the sky winked at the ageless sands with its many stars as eyes. The endless stretches of undulating dunes glowed white in the full moon, which after a night’s journey found itself fixed at the south.
Finally. Rob’s watch was over. He had been holding his bladder in since his shift began, but at last he could leave his post at the entrance of the Order camp. Just as soon as the next guy came to relieve him.

He hadn’t arrived yet, but surely he would come at any moment.
Any moment now…

…

For crying out loud.
That’s a joint army for you. Soldiers come together from across eight kingdoms of the Order and three republics, speaking no less than thirty-one languages to fight for one cause. And then everyone gets shocked when logistics and communication issues pop up everywhich way.

It’s not like he could leave his post unattended, even for a moment. Until his relief arrived, Rob was stuck at the gate. Complete with three stones of armour hanging off his frame, and a spear leaning on his shoulder.
The cold he could handle. And the sleepiness. But he was just about to burst. Oh, the stench if he soiled his armour! He'd be stuck with it maybe as long as a week before he could clean it off.

He looked around. No enemy in sight. No commanding officer either. If he could just slip away into the ruins, then who would ever know? It would only take a second.
And if the enemy did slip inside… Well, at least it wouldn’t be his fault.
He waited for a second more, just in case, then made the bold move and ran to the towering ruins. Thousands of years back, it may have been a palace or the temple dedicated to some primordial god. On that day, however, it was Rob’s latrine.

“Ahhh…”
It was as if a great burden had been lifted from him. Never could he have imagined that taking a leak could feel so good. He aimed at a wall which the wear of time had leveled, now a jagged perimeter buried halfway in the sand. He could still see the relief inscribed in the wall. Something like a middle ground between a statue and a drawing. Each person in the relief was depicted in profile, preoccupied in all manners of activity both familiar and alien. Ritualistic baths. Wars. Some kind of trial with a mysterious scale. But on a pillar next to him, there was a particular relief which caught his eyes. One of a lone woman, engaged perhaps in some kind of dance. She wore a low cut top and a short skirt that stuck out compared to the outfits in the other images. What’s more, the picture stood out as far more elaborate than the rest of the reliefs, both in detail and expression.
He leaned in for a closer look, when he found her winking at him.
Rob shook his head. He looked back, but the relief was once again frozen in place. Just as a slab of stone should be.

“...And just how certain are you that you have dug to the center of their camp?”
Rob pulled down the hem of his gambeson. He wasn’t alone?
The voice was husky and commanding for a woman, yet spoken with deliberation. She spoke in kemetian, the tongue of the locals which he had picked up during his stay.
But who would go that far into the desert? Except, of course, for idiotic madmen like their commander.
It didn't concern him either way. In fact, he took that as a sign to start making his way back to camp. The less witnesses to his little exegesis, the better. Except there was one thing gnawing on him while he started to sneak out. Where were the footprints? If there were people there in the sands, they should leave tracks. And there just weren't any.
No. There were. He saw lengthy furrows drawn pairwise and heading towards the heart of the ruins.
Now he really had a bad feeling.

“Hey, hey, now! I’m a professional, donctcha know? I put a pair of used panties in their laundry so I could tell their location by smell from underground! So yep! I’m absolutely positively sure!”
Rob followed the tracks towards the voices. He snuck behind a fallen pillar and peered out to have a look.

Those were lamia.
Snake women, nine in total. Each had the upper body of a beautiful woman, but with snake-tails of various colours in place of legs. Their tails were all longer than their respective upper body at least by a little, but some of them reached over three times the length of an average person’s height.
Some of them were tall, while others were short. Some of them were curvaceous in their builds, while others were lithe. Some of them had huge racks, while others had hips to spare, and others still had neither while there were those who had both. They didn't have a lot in common beyond their serpentine features, yet they all had firm midriffs on full display. None of them wore anything more than a bra, mostly with the same pattern as their snake tails, and it sure didn't seem like they had anything to hide. You could grate cheese on them abs! Normally he didn’t consider the stomach to be a sensual part of a woman, but somehow they drew more attention than their giant snake tails.
They did not gather in neat circles like humans do for discussions. Instead, their cord-like bodies spread across the environment, clinging lazily to the terrain and the ancient structures. They found the most curious places to relax, even as they crawled onto each others' space and slithered over their bodies. In fact, they seemed to relish the touch of their sisters as they strarted rubbing their hand sensually over each others' muscled skin. Like an eager, almost explorative massage. Rob could see them shiver in pleasure, sandwiched between the sand and the equally soft yet athletic form of their fellow snake as she slowly traced her curves with her gentle touch. It seemed to him their touch was firm yet delicate. Made him wonder if this type of reptillian was naturally as nimble as a snake, or if they needed their joints constantly tended.

“Excellent.” The one who spoke appeared to be their leader. She was the one with a huge rack and shapely hips. What’s more, her skin was a distinct hue of purple, while her unblinking eyes glowed like the moon, and distinguished themselves from those of other lamia by their vertical slits. She really did look like a snake given human form.
She continued, “We will mobilize shortly. Then we strike at midnight. The Order is not welcome here in these ancient lands. They will know what happens to those who set foot on sacred grounds uninvited.”

The one who had evidently dug the tunnel was an energetic looking snake girl, with lithe build and pink hair fashioned into pigtails.
She clapped her hands giddily, “Oh~! And then we take all the adorable boys for ourselves!”
Their leader nodded.

Well, ironically it seemed going off on his own had uncovered an enemy ambush. If Rob could warn the camp, he might just save them all from becoming the boytoys of some hungry reptilian gals.
He looked back at the lamia, just to make sure he hadn’t been spotted. It seemed they were preoccupied elsewhere. He did notice there were only eight of them. He was sure there were nine before. Was one of them missing?
He looked around himself for any trace, but found no more snakes of any kind anywhere.

“Yohoo, sailor.”
He froze up. The voice came from above. He raised his head. Slowly.
A lamia with dark complexion and silver hair had wrapped her brown and orange speckled tail around the pillar next to him, looking down at him lazily over him.
She pointed at him, all the lamia’s gazes fixed on the one man in present company.

Rob tried to draw his sword, but no sooner had it left his sheath when it got swatted out of his hand. The leader snake had whipped the tip of her tail with incredible precision.
He ran. But he did not get far. That purple tail shot out and promptly yanked him back by his wrist. No matter how much he tugged at it and writhed, it wouldn't budge. Only got tighter. He was about to scream, when her coils wrapped around his whole body from top to toe. Complete with the very tip covering his mouth.
"Going somewhere, my love?" The snake leader teased.
“Mmmphhh hmmhhpph…”
The other girls all fawned around him, adoring his gagged muffling as he squirmed in her grip. The leader herself did not look amused.
“Now, what were you doing just now over there, hm?” She rested her hands on her hips, “Spying on innocent ladies. Tsk… Now what to do with this prospecting peeping-tom?”
“HMmhhhhhpphh…”
“Set you free? And let you spoil our fun? I do not think so.”
“Oh, oh, oh!” The pink-haired lamia shot up her arm and bounced on her coils, “How about we all gang up on him, slither all over his body and show him an intimate time!”
She was clearly way too immersed in her fantasy, her face turning ever more red with each word.
“Later. For now, we are on a tight schedule. Let’s just leave him here, and come back to him when we have finished up our business with his friends.”
“So… You’ve got anywhere to keep him until then, chief?” The one who spoke was a lamia with astronomically sized boobs, whose long black hair cascaded over one of her eyes.
The leader looked about thoughtfully, then pointed at a corner.
“Over there.”

Rob had noticed that the lamia did not move by slithering across the sand, but coiled their tails into vertically undulating hooks which she used as makeshift legs to move around. That hardly made it suitable to move with a man trapped in their coils, so instead the leader threw him up, before the next snake lady plucked him from the air with her tail spun around him. She then tossed him in a similar fashion.
Again and again, they threw him between themselves. He screamed through the air at every turn, trying to fight himself out of their nasty machinations. But all for naught.
The final lamia gently rolled him into a far chamber at the bottom of some stairs. Rob scrambled to his feet as he tried to get out, but they shifted a stone wheel in place before the entrance, trapping him inside.

“Don’t you worry, sweet-pea~” The pink lamia said through a gap, “We won’t forget you. In fact, we’ll think about you aaaaaaall night long. We’ll be back to give you the snake-pit treatment!”
They laughed as they waddled off into the night, until he no longer could see their presence in the moonlight.