Sounds in The Night

Arimneste found herself awaking in the middle of the night, she had no idea why, wondering to herself if some sound had not awoken her. She lay still for some time before she heard something that might have been what had awoken her. It had sounded like a gasp coming from where Thanos had been sleeping.

Trying to push herself upright she found her limbs feeling heavy, as if they had huge stones slung to them. Clumsily she managed to force herself up into a sitting position, as she moved she was oddly aware of the sensation of her clothing moving against her skin. Particularly of the movement across her nipples, it was a strange sensitivity that she had never felt before and with the heaviness of her limbs she began to wonder if something was not wrong with her.

However, before she could start to worry about that a sound came to her from outside of the tent. Straining her ears she listened for it again, after a few moments she could just about pick it out from the background noise.

Was that a, gasp? Was Thanos having a nightmare or maybe there was something else wrong with him?

Despite the tight ball of feat that was forming in her gut and the leaden weight of her limbs, she managed to slip between the folds of the cocoon she had built and out into the chill coastal air.

The moon was already starting to wane after the full moon of a few nights before but it cast enough light for her to see by. The spot where Thanos has bedded down was hidden from her view. Stopping for a moment she tried to listen for the sound again.

There it was again! That same tiny gasp, but this time there was something else to it. A odd little wet sound that she felt like she should recognise, as she began to try and pull herself up onto her feet her mind nagged at the sound.

Her legs did not want to do what they were told, gripping tightly onto the edge of the chariot she stood on legs as shaky as a newborn lamb. Why the hell am I like this? She wondered to herself as she managed to take a single step towards the sound. Was I drugged?

The possibility of that made her skin crawl as she managed to stumble against a rock, her legs threatening to give out at any moment. She had been told tales of young ladies who, stopping at a Inn for the night, had been drugged and sold into sex slavery.

Yet if that was the case then how had she been drugged and why had she awoken? Had Thanos fought them off whilst she slept and now lay dieing just beyond this rock?

The thought sent a spike of fear into her heart, the idea of Thanos dieing was far far too horrible to even imagine. Not that she would ever admit it to anyone, least of all the man himself.

Finally, her legs rattling and arms screaming in protests as if she had just climbed a vertical rock face, she slipped around the rock and laid eye on where Thanos had went to sleep.

It took her a second to understand what she was looking at, where she had hoped to see his sleeping form there was instead a large dark mass. Panic nearly took her then, only the dulling effect of what ever drug was coursing through her veins allowed her to stay in control as she looked over the scene.

What she had taken at first to be a single black mass was actually moving, sliding gently back and forth. The movement causing moonlight to gleam dully off of a multitude of scales. Arimneste’s eyes traveled along the outline of the creature, its massive tail hung loosely over the rocks around the camp, it was easily a dozen meters long. It came to an end at its widest point, the scales giving way to the dark flesh of human seemingly just below the crotch. As her eyes travelled upward any question as to the sex of this monster were answered by the pair of ample breasts that it was pressing down onto the chest of Thanos.

Thanos! The realisation that he was trapped under that monster was enough to snap her out of her shock at suddenly seeing a creature she had thought only myth a moment before.

“Hey!” She called out, grabbing a stone from the ground around her and very nearly falling over as he did. She threw the rock at the monster with all the effort she could muster, it landed short bouncing off the ground and barely tapping the creature on its side.

She might as well have stabbed it in the side. With a low hiss that sent ice down Arimneste’s spin, the creature slipped off of the prone Thanos and vanished into the night. Only the sound of its scaled body audible as it slipped into the mess of rocks and vanished from sight.

Arimneste watched it go, shaking like a leaf as the adrenaline in her system fought the effects of the drug. Thanos wasn’t moving and she wanted to go to him, to make sure he was ok yet she was smart enough to wonder if the monster was not simply circling around to come at her from behind.