In kindness vengeance melts

Valentina was pale.

She wasn’t allowed dignity, even in sacrifice.

Nor in ****.

She was given as tribute to the dragon, and her apparent **** had been used as an excuse by the very same family who sent her away.

“I’ll kill them.” She growled, a nearly inhuman sound.

Gesch furrowed her brow, a mixture of confusion and concern. “Kill who?”

Valentina took too long to respond, staring ahead at the ground. Not responding until the older woman shook her.

“Who did this to you, Val?” Gesch asked, setting a hand on Valentina’s shoulder.

Valentina hadn’t revealed her full name. Nor that she was the murdered princess. And now, she didn’t look it. Some wild and feral thing, wearing scraps and a laborer’s belt. Gesch didn’t make the connection, even with those words.

Valentina looked up, looking across Gesch’s scarred face. “I’ll never forgive them.” Words of violation. Words enough to ward off most questions. Words that emphasized the **** of blood and cum splattered across Val herself.

“Are they chasing after you?” Gesch asked, looking through the forest instead of to the sky.

“No. I don’t think so.” Valentina said, shaking her head, remembering the expected range of human motion after too much time with a guarded dragon. It was the dragon who plied her with blood and seed, and she had brought ruin from him all the same. Yet she had an arrangement now with Vakenroth.

A renegotiation of the fate Valentina’s parents sold her too.

“I think the beast is gone.” Gesch offered, not having heard Vakenroth or seen him overhead for some time. “Let’s get you inside. I can heat up a bath. The only clothes I can offer you are some hose to cover your feet.”

Valentina nodded, saying nothing. It had been weeks since she had seen soap.

The two of them walked first to a nearby well. Gesch was still watching the sky for threat. Valentina for signs of her lover. Gesch saw nothing, but Valentina had learned better how he moved in the sky. He was far above.

But he would not harm Gesch unless Valentina asked him to. At least Valentina was somewhat certain of that. The two of them had reached an accord of how they treat each other. There was no agreement on how they would treat others.

Still, Vakenroth did not descend. He seemed content to watch from above, coasting along the high thermals.

“You don’t have to talk about them.” Gesch offered.

Valentina nodded.

Gesh started drawing water up from the well. Two full buckets, which she hefted up with visible effort.

“I can carry...” Valentina started to offer. Such a burden would be easy for her now.

“Nonsense!” Gesch countered. “You are half-starved and can barely walk. Worry about burdens later when you are well.”

Valentina looked away. Annoyed, even if such an impression helped keep her hidden. And it wasn’t entirely untrue. She was half-starved, and without the magic of her belt and boots she might not have been able to walk at all.

She followed after. With a strange obedience. Gesch was a peasant, a skilled laborer perhaps, but well below the regard of even the lowest noble. Before, Valentina had only ever had to follow the commands of her parents and siblings, and what servants spoke with their authority. While the clutch of tyrants was small, it was all too confining for her liking.

When she was offered to Vakenroth, Vakenroth was set to be her master instead. Yet the dragon's appetites did not include her obedience. And after pressing the issue, Valentina found the situation much reversed, claiming Vakenroth as her consort with her thighs and teeth. Making him bleed the blood of maidenhood on their wedding night.

Valentina was in isolation, free. A sovereign of a lonely mountain.

And yet, the first human she encountered in a month gave her commands?

She considered for a time ripping out Gesch’s throat. Or commanding Vakenroth to descend and devour the peasant whole.

But what was the point? Gesch despite just having met Valentina cared for her more than most had. The older woman was clearly worried about Valentina’s health, and likely her sanity as well. Even now, the scarred woman was likely imagining all sorts of **** and ruin that Valentina had survived.

Valentina paused.

She had survived **** and ruin.

That she had triumphed over it did not change either Vakenroth or her families intent. Had King Alfraud expected the dragon to **** her to ****, or just eat her alive? Had the king cared? Had he been hoping to have her killed?

Valentina surviving capture would have endangered his plans.

Valentina growled again. Wishing that she could expel steam from her nostrils in the same way her lover did.

Vengeance set aside, Valentina had no reason to kill Gesch. Whatever passing command the woman had set upon her was stated out of an almost matronly concern. Or perhaps a matronly concern outright.

Valentina was small. Had Gesch assumed her a child? Valentina dismissed the thought. She was clearly anything but.

Valentina was stuck in her mind, not paying attention. Following along without protest. Without words beyond the occasional growl. They reached Gesch’s house without Valentina even noticing.

The taller woman opened the door. “Come on in.”

Valentina paused a moment at the threshold. The house was so small. The whole of the structure could have fit within Valentina’s old bedroom. Yet, looking through it, the home was two rooms, and perhaps a larger hut than many could claim.

The walls were wattle and daub. Reinforced to keep the cold out in the winter, to provide shelter from the elements. Nothing as grand as the stone and wood that Valentina grew up on. But it was oddly comforting after living in a cave a month.

She stepped inside slowly. Carefully. As if expecting some monster to reach out and strike. Some betrayal behind every corner. But there was no betrayal.

It was mostly just brown.

The house packed with baskets for storage. Dried foods.

Gesch had been stocking up for winter. There might have been more stored in some manner of root cellar. There were also clothes here. Multiple sets.

A strange thing. Gesch said she had nothing to share.

Valentina focused on the clothing a moment. The tunic was far too large for her.

Too large for Gesch too.

A man’s tunic, perhaps.

And enough food to last two through the winter.

Valentina scanned the room for this missing man. But she found no sign of him beyond this textile shadow.

She glanced to Gesch, a silent question asked.

Gesch wrinkled her lips and set her hand on Val’s back, nudging her inside. “We won’t be interrupted.” And that was all the answer to that.

Valentina entered the room. It was the first time she was a guest in so small of a home. Where did one stand? Where did one sit? She moved to a farther corner, on the threshold between rooms. Out of the way enough for Gesch to bring the water inside.

Gesch looked back at her once, almost forming a question, but turning back to the fireplace, the only construction of stone in the entire hut. She set the buckets down and crouched down to start working on the fire. She had plenty of wood. As she sparked the steel, she spoke back towards Valentina.

“Where were you headed?” It wasn’t as direct a question. It didn’t require Valentina to discuss horror. But it put an emphasis on what came next.

Valentina paused. Sorting through her thoughts. She had visited the charcoaler to find out about the armies. And she largely had. She knew what her family was up to, she knew why the armies had been summoned, though she did not know where their end goal was. Gesch wouldn’t know more about a king’s intrigue.

So why was she still here? She could walk out of the hut and find her dragon and leave. If she didn’t want word spreading, she could have Gesch killed. She could kill Gesch herself. Valentina opened and closed her hand. She didn’t want Gesch killed.

“Wilder places. Towards the mountains.” She answered. It was a true enough answer. She didn’t intend to stay. She didn’t trust the towns, or the castles, even if Gesch had offered her hospitality without treachery.

Gesch nodded as the fire started to burn. Gesch filled a pot with water above it. The peasant let the conversation lull as she worked. And finally, she turned towards Valentina. “There can be safety there. But are you prepared for the mountains?” The older woman studied Valentina’s equipment. There was warmth in those boots, in the cloak. Maybe even in the patchwork tunic, but the exposed legs were still a problem.

And Valentina didn’t have tools. “You don’t have a knife. Or a whit of food on you. Or even a waterskin. What are you going to drink?”

Valentina frowned, anger and embarrassment rising, “I’ve got a pot.” She paused. Back home in her cave. “Elsewhere.”

“A pots too heavy to carry for long. Not good for travel. Barely good for staying still. But at least you can boil the water. Do you have flint and steel elsewhere? Do you have an axe to chop wood?”

She studied Valentina’s slender arms, finding no sign of strength. “Do you have the strength to chop wood?”

Valentina let out a lingering noise of frustration. Almost a growl. Almost despair. She was more prepared than Gesch assumed. She had a dragon. She had magic tools. Valentina had a cave full of wonders. Yet even with that, her life, her survival was tied to that dragon, tied to that dragon’s hoard.

She wasn’t fully free. And Gesch had seen this, even without knowing about her dragon tie.

“I’ve survived this long.” Valentina offered. Still off-balance. Still feeling in some way like a scolded child. That much at least seemed to line up. Valentina had never really been raised by her parents. They were there, and they had grand lessons for her, they had designs for her. But most of the raising had been performed by servants.

By women like Gesch.

If perhaps a bit less scarred. A bit less handsome.

“And good that you have.” Gesch offered, wheeling out a tub from the wall where it had been leaned against. She poured in the colder bucket of water first. And then carefully added the heated water from the fire.

“It isn’t easy running away. Taking that risk.” She continued, before gesturing to the bath, and then deliberately looking away. “But you got away, at least for the moment. And thirst and the elements will kill you dead just as much as knives. And your gentle upbringing hasn’t prepared you for that.”

Valentina had started to undress. She had undone her belt. Nervous about removing that latent strength, but she wanted this bath. Needed to get cleaner than she could have back at the cave. She unbuckled the belt, and nearly collapsed outright. Valentina had been relying on the belt to walk at all.

That hunger hadn’t been sated by dragonflesh alone.

Gesch turned back with concern, looking at Valentina long enough to make sure the girl hadn’t fallen. Valentina held onto the edge of the tub and steadied herself. “Do you need help, girl?” Gesch asked.

Valentina shook her head, and Gesch went back to looking away. The once noble shrugged off her cloak next. Letting it fall to the ground. That was easy enough. The tunic was harder. She tried to reach up to pull it up and free. Over her shoulders and head. But she couldn’t remove it and hold onto the tub. Valentina tried to brace herself against the tub with her legs, but again nearly stumbled.

Gesch didn’t wait for Valentina to ask to help. She moved around the tub. Gesch wrapped one arm around Valentina’s waist, helping hold the girl up, while with the other, she tugged the tunic up and over.

Leaving Valentina naked in her grasp. Trembling. From the chill and something else.

“It’s alright girl. Just the boots now.”

Valentina nodded, leaning on Gesch more than she would have liked. She stepped on one foot with the other, enough pressure to pin the boot down and wiggle her foot out. More of her stability leaving her as she slipped free from the magical enchantment. And then she raised a bare foot and stepped on the other boot. Finally stepping free.

“Do you need help up?” Gesch asked Valentina.

Valentina nodded.

Gesch reached down, and with notable strength, scooped Valentina up into her arms. Like a bride. Like a princess. Being careful not to touch anything dear. And to not remark when her hand or arm brushed across what stains Gesch knew to be a man’s seed.

Gesch lowered Valentina now bare slowly into the tub.

“There. Better now girl?”

Valentina nodded. Strangely quiet. Confused. Looking around the room. She had grown used to Vakenroth’s company. She had grown used to the Dragon’s expressions. The Dragon’s mindset. She had been so disconnected from her family, she thought herself no longer human.

But here Gesch was. Caring for her. Like a human from her stories. Like a knight, perhaps. Or a handsome prince.

Gesch was hardly a prince in profile. An older woman. In her thirties? Or forties perhaps? Maybe even old enough to be Valentina’s mother. Her body aged in struggle. Her skin a touch darker than Valentina’s own. Tanned and a touched burnt from long days in the sun. And patches of her skin turned, boiled from heat and flame.

Looking like the roof of a dragon’s mouth.

Gesch was an ugly woman, perhaps? But not one whose appearance Valentina found unpleasant.

Valentina slowly settled into the bath. Sinking below the water. Hiding herself for a time. Both her own form, now bare of all adornments. But also her reactions to the older woman.

Gesch herself looked on. If she had looked away, it might have suggest something for Valentina to be ashamed of. To grant the girl modesty was to suggest that there was modesty to be violated. Gesch just looked at her, as if it was normal to see another naked woman.

Valentina looked back occasionally, to see that older woman watching. She wasn’t able to entirely hide her form beneath the water, beneath the film of soap. And after a time she stopped trying. She looked around, and Gesch passed her a rag. And Valentina started to scrub herself.

She rubbed the rag with harsh soap, and then washed it over her arms. Scrubbing and flaking free the caked on blood, the caked on cum. Even some of her own fluids mixed in with the rest. How many times had she slept with the dragon now?

Even with his absence, it now felt excessive. As if she had a month of orgies with the dragon alone, and kept up with the ferocious beast. The idea of her past being exposed now, of Gesch being aware of it, in assumption, even if not in truth, made her blush. And then look away again. What would this woman think of her?

“You don’t have to hide.” Gesch offered, reaching out and taking the rag and soap. She worked up a greater lather than before, before extending the rag out again. Holding it in front of Val. A question unasked.

“Yes.” Val answered, and Gesch moved in to bathe the younger woman. Scrubbing with a strength that Val couldn’t muster. Not without her belt. With a stamina that Val might not have matched even with it. Scrubbing along the arms. Scrubbing clean the old stains. Revealing Val’s pale skin between. But she didn’t stick with the arms either. She nudged Val forward and started to scrub along the girl’s neck. Along her back.

Handling Val.

“You have the look of a girl confused.” Gesch offered in that smoked voice of hers. “You have been through your own private hell. And there are parts of it that you look back on, with what might even be fondness.” Gesch said, intuiting too much.

Val nodded and whispered “Yes.”

Before Gesch scooped up two handfuls of water and dumped it over the girl’s head.

“Nothing to be ashamed of.” Gesch scrubbed at Val’s hair. Digging her fingers into it, running through the remains of old braids. Slowly picking them apart and letting the hair run truly free. And rinsing out much of the built up gunk in-between.

“What do you mean?” Val asked, shrinking a bit in that tub. The strength of Gesch staggering compared to her bare form.

“Wish me to speak plain, princess?” Gesch asked.

Val nearly squeaked.

But it seemed that Gesch spoke largely in metaphor. “Your hands haven’t known honest work, but you ran away from home. And this filth on your body tells a terrible tale. Now, I don’t know if it was your family that betrayed you like this, or travelers on the road who took advantage of your flight. But it’s clear you went through something you never asked for.”

“No... I didn’t ask for it.” Val responded slowly.

“But you have mixed feelings about it. Maybe it was your first time. Or your head decided to enjoy it. If you have to suffer through it anyway, you might as well have a thrill for yourself? But now, you are free of that horror, I hope for good.

But your thoughts are messy.”

Gesch sighed. “It’s okay to like horrible things. To be aroused by them even.”

Val had trouble answering that.

“If you get aroused by that sort of thing, it’s best to claim it on your own terms. Don’t just bend over for any man that asks.”

“I wouldn’t!” Val protested.

“Good. But also don’t shame yourself for wanting to bend over anyway. You have been through enough hell to start blaming yourself for what happened. The only one who violated you is them that did it. You aren’t to blame for this mess.”

Val was silent for a bit. Even as Gesch started scrubbing her chest. There was no spot of her that was untouched by the hell that Gesch imagined.

“I didn’t do it.” Val finally said. “It wasn’t my choice.” Not at first.

“But now I’ve brought my mess here. I didn’t think about it.”

“You were thinking about bigger things.” Gesch laughed, ruffling Val’s hair with honest affection. “Hardly the only mess I’ve had in my cabin. Though I might get you to help clean the towels once we are done.”

“I can do that.” Val offered. Hopefully. She hadn’t done laundry before. Soap and hot water was involved. She knew that much. Though Gesch had already sussed her out as some sort of Highborn. Maybe she could teach the girl how to clean clothes as well?

Gesch finished scrubbing Val’s chest. There wasn’t much to wash. Valentina’s form had always been slight, her breasts even more so. Boyish in her sister's words. But Gesch had made no comment, either about Val’s form, nor any special note of eroticism of scrubbing them. No comment at all, until the older woman started scrubbing deeper, along Val’s belly.

“Thank you.” Val said. Trying not to cry.

She failed. Valentina was strong. Had been strong. She had survived horrors. She had been betrayed. Her life had been under constant threat for a month. She had tapped into inner reserves and triumphed. She had won all of her battles.

But she wasn’t something alien. She wasn’t something inhuman. And the sturdy branch had grown brittle under the strain. Valentina reached her arms out, hugging Geschs arm. Holding the older woman with all of her strength. Clinging to her.

And for a moment, that charcoaler felt strong enough to hold off a dragon. To hold off armies. To hold off the Sword Kingdoms themselves. But the moment passed. She opened her eyes, looking at Gesch.

Gesch had paused in washing the wayward princess. She had given Valentina a chance to grieve. To break down. To shatter. But in shattering, Valentina understood something new.

The sturdiness of Gesch’s limbs was much like her own. Gesch was strong because she had to be. “You speak from experience.” Valentina stated.

Gesch nodded. But never directly answered in words. “I expect everyone is a little broken around these parts. If it's not dragons, or pillaging bandits, it's the armies who are worse. Let alone if a few noble boys find you out in the woods.”

“What do you do?” About the dragons. About the armies. About the nobles.

“What you can. The fires still need tending. Dinner still needs cooking. Lost girls still need baths.”

Gesch paused. Valentina’s belly was scrubbed clean. But the worst of the mess lay below. Between Val’s thighs.

“Do you want to?” Gesch asked.

Valentina looked away a moment. This time she hid her blush better. Part of her wanted to feel that strong arm against her. To feel what Gesch knew of lust. To find what the charcoaler had learned to enjoy.

But it didn’t feel time yet. “I can.”

She took the rag gently, and started to clean. To scrub and flake away everything Vakenroth had done to her. While Vakenroth himself flew in lazy circles up above that hut. Waiting. But did dragons grow impatient?

Did dragons grow bored?

Would his greed manifest as jealousy as well?