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Description

To a great many of the eyes of the Edge, at least those that would not simply identify a tasty meal delivering itself up, the actions of Malacia would doubtless have seemed suicidal. Mostly because of all those many hungry eyes that could be watching from behind each bough and shrub, her current circumstances –strolling through the trees, humming, beaming up at the friendly yellow sun as it played peek-a-boo with the foliage- would have seemed dangerous indeed. But Malacia was a Slaughterer, and her bright red skin had felt the shade of Deepwoods boughs since childhood, and she was unconcerned.

To her mind, if something wanted to come out and have a go at her, whether Skullpelt or Rotsucker or Hoverworm, it would know where to find her. Her towering plume of vivid orange and red hair was tragically hard to conceal in a world painted from a thousand different greens, and in profile it made her look like nothing so much as a candlestick of red wax, wearing a small waistcoat, breeches, and a snug chest-wrap. You wouldn’t need to be Kobold the Wise to see her coming, and her best defence would probably be to hope she was mistaken for an impending forest-fire.

But she carried on humming her snatches of songs and enjoying the sensation of the omnipresent moss between her toes as each step sent her cherry-red foot squelching deep into the soft greenery. Her long, flexible pointed ears twitched right and left, but found nothing more hazardous than the hooting of Woodowls in the distance. Furthermore, as she enjoyed her day off and a lovely stroll away from her village, she knew where she travelled. This area had once been the hunting ground of a fearsome Bloodoak, and its matching Tarry Vine. The men (really, this activity separated them from the boys like nothing else) had cleared it out not too long ago, and had lost not a single man. With the fearsome creature felled, this glad would be safe for a while. The Deepwoods was home to uncounted fearsome predators, and virtually not a one would dare to come within reach of the Tarry vine once they knew where it probed.

So Malacia hummed, and all but skipped along, enjoying air that for once didn’t smell of the tannery, adoring the shade-cooled air as it breezed over her bare midriff and arms and upper chest. Her plume of hair bobbed with every hop and skip, and then it suddenly rippled back on itself as she face-planted into the moss.

“Lack-a-do-lally, of Madame Sally, forsure your husband’s a- oof! Glozer!”

She rolled in the moss, pretty red face screwing in on itself as she kicked at the foliage she had tripped on. Some kind of slender root, poisonous green, she had gotten her ankle completely tangled in it. Just her luck.

“Come off there, you,” she groused, and kicked at it. She had trod into it so hard that it actually pressed tightly in around her calf, so she gave it a good whack with her heel. But though she pressed up a sizeable length of the root or whatever it was, it was still lax. “How could I have tripped on you, when you’re not even tight into anything?” Her hair wobbled as she shook her head.

And then her brown eyes burst wide as the vine suddenly tightened and twisted and her leg felt like it was going to be yanked clean out of its socket and the moss was sliding along under her seamless as a slide and she could see the clouds through the treetops spinning around and around overhead. She yelped and rolled to dodge tree-trunks that slid past her like she was the one caught in a stampede, and then yelped again as her foot was yanked up and onto an exceedingly ugly tree-stump, right in her path.

“What the-ow, great sky! Yeeuuch!” she squealed in disgust as the root hauled on her foot, and it was yanked greedily into some orifice in the middle of the stump. It wasn’t wet or anything, but it felt like far more than a natural tear, and yet too regular to be the lair of some burrowing animal. “What the Snag!”

She made to lean forward, to try and yank her leg free, but her plump bottom slipped on the moist dirt and in any case the angle was awkward. She was flexible, but her leg was hiked up almost waist high in the air and then plunged down into this thing, and she would need to get her other leg under her to pull it out.

She was just about to do so when, with a jolt that ran through and materialized a ball of ice just below her navel, her leg was sucked forward another few inches. It didn’t merely sink, she could distinctly feel a moving, squeezing ring of force pull her another handspan deeper.

“The Glozer?!” she swore, bracing her other foot against the stump and trying to pull back, but the angle was bad for that as well and she couldn’t extend her leg. Malacia’s face, creased with irritation and surprise and anger, began to discover an increasingly nervous cast as she began to feel a rising tide of nerves froth up within her, the whitecaps on an ocean of uncharted dread. “What in the Woods is this thing?”

She whimpered as she felt it pull her slightly deeper, and then blinked as her foot suddenly twisted about, feeling open air –hot, moist, but unconstrained- on all sides. It had plainly plunged into some kind of cavity. She wasn’t sure what to make of that, but she knew she very much did not want any of her extremities in any mysterious moist cavities inside sucking tree-stumps with animate roots, no siree, no today. But the thing was squeezing in tightly against her, from ankle to knee, like a big tourniquet (though not tight enough to be painful), and she was refusing to make third-eye contact with a thought that was trying to catch her attention like one of the most bitchy village girls with some malicious gossip to taunt her with.

What if you can’t get out? That thought would have said if she had acknowledged it. You don’t have anything on you that can cut through this much wood. You’ll be trapped. You’ll starve, or have to cut your own leg off- or, most likely, you’ll just be sitting pretty here for a day or two, until some wandering predator finds you, and that will be that.

“Alright, that’s enough of that, Mr. Stump,” growled Malacia, and finally got her left leg under her. Shakily, she wobbled to a half-crouch. “You can just let my leg alone and I won’t” Her voice cut out with the mechanical click of an unattended microphone. Deep down inside the stump, out of sight, centre of mind, something small and pointy yet with a rounded tip, had traced its way directly down the centre of her naked foot.

Malacia’s face was frozen, mouth half-open in horror. The only thing that moved were her pupils, which shrank like the tail-ends of retreating rockets. The sensation –too sharp to be called tingling- had shot right up the inside of her leg than out in all directions, to her toe-tips, finger-tips, ear-tips, a special bolt peeling off and striking her squarely under where the legs of her breeches met her body.

After a long moment, she breathed again, gingerly twitched her foot, which had frozen in place like a terrified prey-animal, and resumed trying to work her leg free. She certainly didn’t want to provoke another reaction like that again.

“Okay, almost there,” she whispered aloud, even though she wasn’t even close to being ‘almost there’.

Then it came again, slower, just under her toes, tracing along the top of the ball of her foot. Almost playful. She flinched, eyes squeezing half shut, mouth twitching in an unwilling grin that, combined with her ever-tousled hair and tiny pupils, made her look quite manic. There were two of them, whatever they were, tracing over her foot, moving tauntingly slowly. Her chest heaved harder, and she felt her stomach clench as the points of sensation moved over her trapped extremity, felt the urge starting to bubble up within her.

“Okahahahy,” she snickered. It was more of a whimper. “That’s not- thahahat’s nothing.” But it was. It was very much something. Whatever her foot –her by now furiously twisting, flailing foot- had become trapped in up to the knee thought it was doing, it was certainly tickling her. “Oh nonohoho no nonono noho Glohozer no!”

There was suddenly a third point of sensation, walking idly over her heel, and Malacia gasped, leg jerking madly, foot twisting, unseen but just a few feet away between the impenetrable wooden barrier.

“Stohop ithihihiit stohop that! Let goho of my leheleg!” She knew she was talking to a stump –not a peptalk directed at herself to calm her nerves at the appearance of unsettling phenomena, but actually talking to it- and she didn’t care. But the (gullet) shaft under the (mouth) orifice had squeezed her leg in tight, and it wasn’t going anywhere. Her right leg felt like a lightning rod, waves of ticklish energy coursing up it and then fanning out in all directions. “Eeek! Noohoho, quihihit it!” she pleaded, falling back on her left knee, pressing her bare arms into the stump as she tried to pry her leg free.

“Oh, cohohome on!” She wiggled her toes randomly, already feeling her calf muscles tiring. Three of the devilish little points or nubs were tracing at will over her foot, and the thing just wasn’t stopping! Oh, Gloamglozer, what if it didn’t stop? What if it didn’t stop? She couldn’t do anything about it! Being eaten by a monster might be her best bet after all!

This wasn’t yet nearly as bad as when her brother or sisters or the other girls of the village cornered her, pinned her down, and tickled her to tears (which sounded cruel, but in fairness it took them well under 5 minutes), but then this wasn’t something she could beg off. Not that her begging or threats had done much good when she felt herself being pressed full-length into the grass by half a dozen sets of willing hands all over her body, heard the gleeful chuckles and giggles and knew she was in for it now, but at least then she could offer something else. There was no chance of hoping for a spot of mercy from this thing!

“Leheheht me ouhout!” she screamed, beating one fist on the side of the stump. She successfully hurt her hand. Her frantic reaction was a bit overdone, but all Malacia could see was her own silhouette still stuck here as the sky turned red and the forest grew darker, and the thought sent a tidal-wave rippling through that rising ocean of fear. Ball, arch, toes (tightly scrunched), heel, arch- she could feel exactly where each and every point was tracing as if it were hovering in the air in front of her. Tingle, tingle, an electric itching in all her muscles.

And then her eyes flicked towards the stump in horror as she felt a line of pressure under her big toe, inexorable, pressing in. Her ears stood up stiff as she felt her toe forced back, very much against its will, felt her foot stiffen in place as her sole duly tightened. There was another electric point of contact, ever-so-fine, in the midst of her arch, and what had been a great annoyance the first time suddenly set her teeth on edge. Her toes were being forced back! Soon, she wouldn’t even be able to move her foot at all, for all the good that had done her.

“Ohoh nonono you dohon’t!” she cried, and heaved her free leg up onto the stump, muscles standing out stark and back screaming in protest as she tried to rip her leg free.

Instead, the orifice suddenly widened again, and for just a blessed second the pressure on her leg eased- just long enough for her to scrabble for purchase, for her other leg to slide neatly in beside its fellow, and then it squeezed shut, two thirds of the way down her shapely thighs. She was so shocked she forgot to be horrified.

And then the tendrils or tongues or animate roots or whatever flared up into another attack on her feet- pressing in harder, moving faster- and the horror returned full force.

“Aaaiii! Nohohoho! Hehehelp! Ithihihit’s gohohot meee!”

The tendrils began skating and running all over her feet, pressing in fiercely, moving in random patterns over the shapely appendages, even as a matching duo snaked across under her toes and began to press upwards, forcing her soles taut. Malacia was aware of every second of the process, and she threw back her head, shrieking laughter, hair bouncing madly.

“Yahahahaha ahahahehehelp mee-hee-hee-heeeheehe!”

The Slaughterer girl went into a frenzied shimmying dance on the spot, bottom swinging back and forth, coat-tails flapping, hair bouncing frantically. She pounded first the flats of her palms and then fists down on the edge of the stump, struggling to even kick her legs at all. But her toes were held back cruelly, and from mid-thigh to ankles she was caught tight, not even able to wriggle.

She was so distraught, she didn’t even notice as the green vine, for it was certainly a vine, not a root, came swopping in to arrest her arms, coiling about her wrists as neatly as any of her fellow villagers lassoing a hammelhorn. She felt her back arch as it pulled tight, eyes wide with fear and forced mirth, and then she only struggled the harder as more darted at her, wrapping tight across the curves of her body and stilling her struggles, with mixed success. Her arms were extended behind her, shoulders together, chest pressed out. She could still struggle somewhat, which Malacia did to the fullest possible extant, but she wasn’t going to be drumming her nasty little fists on anything for a while.

“I’m sohohorhorry!” she screamed, eyes squeezing shut, feeling the tickling blasting up her legs, making sides ache and her chest heave under the tight confines of her wrapping. “Lehehehet meeheheh gohohoaahahaha!”

She made a strangled noise as the vine dove under her bouncing ass-cheeks to burrow between her thighs, emerging from between her legs and squeezing tight up over her hip. She rubbed against it with every one of her frantic struggles, and the indignity of what to the plant probably just seemed like convenient way of restraining her made her want to shriek harder.

Made her want- what actually got her to do it was the sensation of the vine-tip, the impossibly fine, very hard and pointy but not at all sharp tip, digging in just below her navel, making her scream all the louder. It was playing all over her belly! With her arms tied back, she couldn't defend herself! Oh, Glozen, a vine, a stump with a throat- she had been caught by a Bloodoak! A new one, an immature one, one that hadn’t teethed yet! It was trying to eat her, but she was too big for it! Surely, it had to realize that and regurgitate her at some point, right? Right?

So Malacia hollered and swayed and screamed, powerless as the tiny Tarry vines played at will over her feet and body, tickling and tickling with reflexive ruthlessness. Her red body shone with sweat and her orange hair was matted, and soon tears etched deep grooves in her face as it went on and on.

Finally, just after sunset, the plant apparently decided it couldn’t eat her after all, and she suddenly felt herself thrown with a great gagging heave clear of the plant to splash down in the moss again.

By the time she staggered home, the young Slaughterer was so weepy and frantic and discomfited, even her own parents could hardly find it in themselves to scold her for wandering in the forest alone.

---

You know, you hardly ever see any Edge Chronicles fanart, you ever notice that? Also, I can never seem to find anybody else ever talking about that series, even though it was absolutely fantastic. Dark As The Pit, but still awesome. Especially if you like horrible tragedies. And one of the most creative and yet real-seeming settings I've ever seen, anywhere. Anyways, there's this place on the Edge, called the Deepwoods. It's very deep. It's got wood in it. And it has plants called Bloodoaks, and these people called Slaughterers (they're actually very friendly), who are very unusual on the Edge for sometimes looking like something you'd be DtF (unless you are very adventurous, then they're all like that), so I decided it was high-time someone put together a nice young Bloodoak and a nice young Slaughterer and see what happened.

Dull background, dull foreground, and tried some new and risque risky things, like tilting the head up and doing a side profile. Her hair was lots of fun, but turned out looking more like a bee-hive then I intended. Anyways, it doesn't look like what I was going for at first, but I am mildly happy with how it turned out. Still too embarrassed to say how long it takes me to get these things form prelim sketches to shaded.

Thanks for stopping by, feel free to leave a comment, and have a great day! If you've ever read part of this series, please tell me what you thought of it!

JD

Description

To a great many of the eyes of the Edge, at least those that would not simply identify a tasty meal delivering itself up, the actions of Malacia would doubtless have seemed suicidal. Mostly because of all those many hungry eyes that could be watching from behind each bough and shrub, her current circumstances –strolling through the trees, humming, beaming up at the friendly yellow sun as it played peek-a-boo with the foliage- would have seemed dangerous indeed. But Malacia was a Slaughterer, and her bright red skin had felt the shade of Deepwoods boughs since childhood, and she was unconcerned.

To her mind, if something wanted to come out and have a go at her, whether Skullpelt or Rotsucker or Hoverworm, it would know where to find her. Her towering plume of vivid orange and red hair was tragically hard to conceal in a world painted from a thousand different greens, and in profile it made her look like nothing so much as a candlestick of red wax, wearing a small waistcoat, breeches, and a snug chest-wrap. You wouldn’t need to be Kobold the Wise to see her coming, and her best defence would probably be to hope she was mistaken for an impending forest-fire.

But she carried on humming her snatches of songs and enjoying the sensation of the omnipresent moss between her toes as each step sent her cherry-red foot squelching deep into the soft greenery. Her long, flexible pointed ears twitched right and left, but found nothing more hazardous than the hooting of Woodowls in the distance. Furthermore, as she enjoyed her day off and a lovely stroll away from her village, she knew where she travelled. This area had once been the hunting ground of a fearsome Bloodoak, and its matching Tarry Vine. The men (really, this activity separated them from the boys like nothing else) had cleared it out not too long ago, and had lost not a single man. With the fearsome creature felled, this glad would be safe for a while. The Deepwoods was home to uncounted fearsome predators, and virtually not a one would dare to come within reach of the Tarry vine once they knew where it probed.

So Malacia hummed, and all but skipped along, enjoying air that for once didn’t smell of the tannery, adoring the shade-cooled air as it breezed over her bare midriff and arms and upper chest. Her plume of hair bobbed with every hop and skip, and then it suddenly rippled back on itself as she face-planted into the moss.

“Lack-a-do-lally, of Madame Sally, forsure your husband’s a- oof! Glozer!”

She rolled in the moss, pretty red face screwing in on itself as she kicked at the foliage she had tripped on. Some kind of slender root, poisonous green, she had gotten her ankle completely tangled in it. Just her luck.

“Come off there, you,” she groused, and kicked at it. She had trod into it so hard that it actually pressed tightly in around her calf, so she gave it a good whack with her heel. But though she pressed up a sizeable length of the root or whatever it was, it was still lax. “How could I have tripped on you, when you’re not even tight into anything?” Her hair wobbled as she shook her head.

And then her brown eyes burst wide as the vine suddenly tightened and twisted and her leg felt like it was going to be yanked clean out of its socket and the moss was sliding along under her seamless as a slide and she could see the clouds through the treetops spinning around and around overhead. She yelped and rolled to dodge tree-trunks that slid past her like she was the one caught in a stampede, and then yelped again as her foot was yanked up and onto an exceedingly ugly tree-stump, right in her path.

“What the-ow, great sky! Yeeuuch!” she squealed in disgust as the root hauled on her foot, and it was yanked greedily into some orifice in the middle of the stump. It wasn’t wet or anything, but it felt like far more than a natural tear, and yet too regular to be the lair of some burrowing animal. “What the Snag!”

She made to lean forward, to try and yank her leg free, but her plump bottom slipped on the moist dirt and in any case the angle was awkward. She was flexible, but her leg was hiked up almost waist high in the air and then plunged down into this thing, and she would need to get her other leg under her to pull it out.

She was just about to do so when, with a jolt that ran through and materialized a ball of ice just below her navel, her leg was sucked forward another few inches. It didn’t merely sink, she could distinctly feel a moving, squeezing ring of force pull her another handspan deeper.

“The Glozer?!” she swore, bracing her other foot against the stump and trying to pull back, but the angle was bad for that as well and she couldn’t extend her leg. Malacia’s face, creased with irritation and surprise and anger, began to discover an increasingly nervous cast as she began to feel a rising tide of nerves froth up within her, the whitecaps on an ocean of uncharted dread. “What in the Woods is this thing?”

She whimpered as she felt it pull her slightly deeper, and then blinked as her foot suddenly twisted about, feeling open air –hot, moist, but unconstrained- on all sides. It had plainly plunged into some kind of cavity. She wasn’t sure what to make of that, but she knew she very much did not want any of her extremities in any mysterious moist cavities inside sucking tree-stumps with animate roots, no siree, no today. But the thing was squeezing in tightly against her, from ankle to knee, like a big tourniquet (though not tight enough to be painful), and she was refusing to make third-eye contact with a thought that was trying to catch her attention like one of the most bitchy village girls with some malicious gossip to taunt her with.

What if you can’t get out? That thought would have said if she had acknowledged it. You don’t have anything on you that can cut through this much wood. You’ll be trapped. You’ll starve, or have to cut your own leg off- or, most likely, you’ll just be sitting pretty here for a day or two, until some wandering predator finds you, and that will be that.

“Alright, that’s enough of that, Mr. Stump,” growled Malacia, and finally got her left leg under her. Shakily, she wobbled to a half-crouch. “You can just let my leg alone and I won’t” Her voice cut out with the mechanical click of an unattended microphone. Deep down inside the stump, out of sight, centre of mind, something small and pointy yet with a rounded tip, had traced its way directly down the centre of her naked foot.

Malacia’s face was frozen, mouth half-open in horror. The only thing that moved were her pupils, which shrank like the tail-ends of retreating rockets. The sensation –too sharp to be called tingling- had shot right up the inside of her leg than out in all directions, to her toe-tips, finger-tips, ear-tips, a special bolt peeling off and striking her squarely under where the legs of her breeches met her body.

After a long moment, she breathed again, gingerly twitched her foot, which had frozen in place like a terrified prey-animal, and resumed trying to work her leg free. She certainly didn’t want to provoke another reaction like that again.

“Okay, almost there,” she whispered aloud, even though she wasn’t even close to being ‘almost there’.

Then it came again, slower, just under her toes, tracing along the top of the ball of her foot. Almost playful. She flinched, eyes squeezing half shut, mouth twitching in an unwilling grin that, combined with her ever-tousled hair and tiny pupils, made her look quite manic. There were two of them, whatever they were, tracing over her foot, moving tauntingly slowly. Her chest heaved harder, and she felt her stomach clench as the points of sensation moved over her trapped extremity, felt the urge starting to bubble up within her.

“Okahahahy,” she snickered. It was more of a whimper. “That’s not- thahahat’s nothing.” But it was. It was very much something. Whatever her foot –her by now furiously twisting, flailing foot- had become trapped in up to the knee thought it was doing, it was certainly tickling her. “Oh nonohoho no nonono noho Glohozer no!”

There was suddenly a third point of sensation, walking idly over her heel, and Malacia gasped, leg jerking madly, foot twisting, unseen but just a few feet away between the impenetrable wooden barrier.

“Stohop ithihihiit stohop that! Let goho of my leheleg!” She knew she was talking to a stump –not a peptalk directed at herself to calm her nerves at the appearance of unsettling phenomena, but actually talking to it- and she didn’t care. But the (gullet) shaft under the (mouth) orifice had squeezed her leg in tight, and it wasn’t going anywhere. Her right leg felt like a lightning rod, waves of ticklish energy coursing up it and then fanning out in all directions. “Eeek! Noohoho, quihihit it!” she pleaded, falling back on her left knee, pressing her bare arms into the stump as she tried to pry her leg free.

“Oh, cohohome on!” She wiggled her toes randomly, already feeling her calf muscles tiring. Three of the devilish little points or nubs were tracing at will over her foot, and the thing just wasn’t stopping! Oh, Gloamglozer, what if it didn’t stop? What if it didn’t stop? She couldn’t do anything about it! Being eaten by a monster might be her best bet after all!

This wasn’t yet nearly as bad as when her brother or sisters or the other girls of the village cornered her, pinned her down, and tickled her to tears (which sounded cruel, but in fairness it took them well under 5 minutes), but then this wasn’t something she could beg off. Not that her begging or threats had done much good when she felt herself being pressed full-length into the grass by half a dozen sets of willing hands all over her body, heard the gleeful chuckles and giggles and knew she was in for it now, but at least then she could offer something else. There was no chance of hoping for a spot of mercy from this thing!

“Leheheht me ouhout!” she screamed, beating one fist on the side of the stump. She successfully hurt her hand. Her frantic reaction was a bit overdone, but all Malacia could see was her own silhouette still stuck here as the sky turned red and the forest grew darker, and the thought sent a tidal-wave rippling through that rising ocean of fear. Ball, arch, toes (tightly scrunched), heel, arch- she could feel exactly where each and every point was tracing as if it were hovering in the air in front of her. Tingle, tingle, an electric itching in all her muscles.

And then her eyes flicked towards the stump in horror as she felt a line of pressure under her big toe, inexorable, pressing in. Her ears stood up stiff as she felt her toe forced back, very much against its will, felt her foot stiffen in place as her sole duly tightened. There was another electric point of contact, ever-so-fine, in the midst of her arch, and what had been a great annoyance the first time suddenly set her teeth on edge. Her toes were being forced back! Soon, she wouldn’t even be able to move her foot at all, for all the good that had done her.

“Ohoh nonono you dohon’t!” she cried, and heaved her free leg up onto the stump, muscles standing out stark and back screaming in protest as she tried to rip her leg free.

Instead, the orifice suddenly widened again, and for just a blessed second the pressure on her leg eased- just long enough for her to scrabble for purchase, for her other leg to slide neatly in beside its fellow, and then it squeezed shut, two thirds of the way down her shapely thighs. She was so shocked she forgot to be horrified.

And then the tendrils or tongues or animate roots or whatever flared up into another attack on her feet- pressing in harder, moving faster- and the horror returned full force.

“Aaaiii! Nohohoho! Hehehelp! Ithihihit’s gohohot meee!”

The tendrils began skating and running all over her feet, pressing in fiercely, moving in random patterns over the shapely appendages, even as a matching duo snaked across under her toes and began to press upwards, forcing her soles taut. Malacia was aware of every second of the process, and she threw back her head, shrieking laughter, hair bouncing madly.

“Yahahahaha ahahahehehelp mee-hee-hee-heeeheehe!”

The Slaughterer girl went into a frenzied shimmying dance on the spot, bottom swinging back and forth, coat-tails flapping, hair bouncing frantically. She pounded first the flats of her palms and then fists down on the edge of the stump, struggling to even kick her legs at all. But her toes were held back cruelly, and from mid-thigh to ankles she was caught tight, not even able to wriggle.

She was so distraught, she didn’t even notice as the green vine, for it was certainly a vine, not a root, came swopping in to arrest her arms, coiling about her wrists as neatly as any of her fellow villagers lassoing a hammelhorn. She felt her back arch as it pulled tight, eyes wide with fear and forced mirth, and then she only struggled the harder as more darted at her, wrapping tight across the curves of her body and stilling her struggles, with mixed success. Her arms were extended behind her, shoulders together, chest pressed out. She could still struggle somewhat, which Malacia did to the fullest possible extant, but she wasn’t going to be drumming her nasty little fists on anything for a while.

“I’m sohohorhorry!” she screamed, eyes squeezing shut, feeling the tickling blasting up her legs, making sides ache and her chest heave under the tight confines of her wrapping. “Lehehehet meeheheh gohohoaahahaha!”

She made a strangled noise as the vine dove under her bouncing ass-cheeks to burrow between her thighs, emerging from between her legs and squeezing tight up over her hip. She rubbed against it with every one of her frantic struggles, and the indignity of what to the plant probably just seemed like convenient way of restraining her made her want to shriek harder.

Made her want- what actually got her to do it was the sensation of the vine-tip, the impossibly fine, very hard and pointy but not at all sharp tip, digging in just below her navel, making her scream all the louder. It was playing all over her belly! With her arms tied back, she couldn't defend herself! Oh, Glozen, a vine, a stump with a throat- she had been caught by a Bloodoak! A new one, an immature one, one that hadn’t teethed yet! It was trying to eat her, but she was too big for it! Surely, it had to realize that and regurgitate her at some point, right? Right?

So Malacia hollered and swayed and screamed, powerless as the tiny Tarry vines played at will over her feet and body, tickling and tickling with reflexive ruthlessness. Her red body shone with sweat and her orange hair was matted, and soon tears etched deep grooves in her face as it went on and on.

Finally, just after sunset, the plant apparently decided it couldn’t eat her after all, and she suddenly felt herself thrown with a great gagging heave clear of the plant to splash down in the moss again.

By the time she staggered home, the young Slaughterer was so weepy and frantic and discomfited, even her own parents could hardly find it in themselves to scold her for wandering in the forest alone.

---

You know, you hardly ever see any Edge Chronicles fanart, you ever notice that? Also, I can never seem to find anybody else ever talking about that series, even though it was absolutely fantastic. Dark As The Pit, but still awesome. Especially if you like horrible tragedies. And one of the most creative and yet real-seeming settings I've ever seen, anywhere. Anyways, there's this place on the Edge, called the Deepwoods. It's very deep. It's got wood in it. And it has plants called Bloodoaks, and these people called Slaughterers (they're actually very friendly), who are very unusual on the Edge for sometimes looking like something you'd be DtF (unless you are very adventurous, then they're all like that), so I decided it was high-time someone put together a nice young Bloodoak and a nice young Slaughterer and see what happened.

Dull background, dull foreground, and tried some new and risque risky things, like tilting the head up and doing a side profile. Her hair was lots of fun, but turned out looking more like a bee-hive then I intended. Anyways, it doesn't look like what I was going for at first, but I am mildly happy with how it turned out. Still too embarrassed to say how long it takes me to get these things form prelim sketches to shaded.

Thanks for stopping by, feel free to leave a comment, and have a great day! If you've ever read part of this series, please tell me what you thought of it!

JD