An Indecent Proposal

The Shaman looked at her, bringing Fuu to attention so that she wouldn’t miss an order. After a moment he looked around at the assembled tribe before turning back to Gruul. “Why this one? I have more that would be eager to carry your pups.”

Gruul scoffed. “I don’t want eagerness. I want strength.”

The Shaman frowned and scratched under his chin in thought. “Fine. You perform the ritual here and you will not return here once you have left.”

Gruul paused for a minute, looking at Fuu before nodding. “I can do that but you will confirm the ritual. With real magic and not your lies. I will know.”

The Shaman grumbled something before nodding. He turned to Fuu who waited tensely for what was going to happen next. The Shaman handed her staff back to her, much to her shock. “You will go to him, perform the ritual, and be bred like a good bitch.”

Fuu felt dread pool in her stomach. “What ritual?”

The Shaman waved his hand to disregard her question. “The Mating Ritual.” He pulled her closer and whispered in her ear. “When the pup is stable enough to move, you will kill him and return to me.”

Fuu nodded immediately before she was shoved out of the cave. The sun blinded her for a moment, causing her to stop and feel the sun bake the semen covering her body into her skin. When she could see clearly, she stared at Gruul. He was saying something in his native tongue, causing many cackles and barks from the Gnolls surrounding them. The Gnolls slowly left the cave and fanned out in a semicircle around Fuu and Gruul. The armored Gnolls remained by the Shaman in the darkness of the cave but the others began to sing.

Fuu couldn’t come up with another word for the sounds she was hearing as she slowly approached her ‘buyer’. Rhythmic chanting bouncing between Gnolls around them with a constant background hum from the Gnolls that weren’t chanting. The Shaman, barely visible in the darkness of the cave, was waving fetishes and reciting some kind of ritual. As she reached Gruul, the similarities of the ritual clicked into place in a truly horrifying idea. “A wedding?”

“Yes.” Said her soon-to-be mate, shattering any idea that she had read the signs wrong. Fuu stared at the Gnoll and swallowed. She had been ordered to do the ritual and she had to fulfill her oath. Could she follow through with that order?

A marriage was also a binding vow. Fuu didn’t know what the Gnoll ritual was but it surely involved protecting and caring for one’s partner. She signed her body and soul away to the Shaman already. Wouldn’t the ‘Mating Ritual’ require something similar. Would her Goddess punish her for that? Especially if she had been ordered to kill her mate after she was thoroughly pregnant?

Was she already damned?