Poppins’ Return

Chapter 15 – Amber

Sometimes, you just want to crawl into a hole for a while. This was one of those times. Not only had I basically ignored most of the remaining Fae “royalty,” but I had also forgotten about Marly. When I realized what a complete shit I was, I lost it. I fell to my knees and sobbed into my hands, unable to look into the eyes of the creatures around me.

It was Ananha who came to me. Kneeling in front of me, she lifted my face in her hands. Some part of my brain knew that she was using magic, but it was her eyes that brought my spirit back from despair. They were filled with warmth and understanding, and the sight of them caused me to suck in a deep breath.

“You’ve been close to death today,” she said with concern. “Your soul is very weary. Too much is being asked of it too quickly.”

“I’ll be okay… But we have got to find Marly.” With Ananha’s help, I stood up and more formally acknowledged the various forest folk that had gathered around me. It was quite a sight. Most were naked, like my faerie lover, and all had an air of dignity that identified them as keepers of Lands or better. One pair did stand out though. At first I thought it was a faerie standing next to the rather large black man at the far edge of the circle, but her proportions were slightly wrong. She had the same ears, but she just didn’t fit. Ananha saw my confusion and whispered, “nymph” into my ear. Still, they were a weird pair. For one, she was naked save for a pair of dark sunglasses. Rayban’s I think. The man, who looked human as far as I could tell, was dressed in jeans and a corny-looking t-shirt that read, “MAKE MY DAY.” I shook my head and decided to deal with that later. A few introductions were made, but were cut short so that we could get to the problem at hand. Saving Marly’s life.

The task was composed of three distinct phases. The first was obviously finding her. Ananha explained to the others what I had heard about X’carin, and I saw several cringe back in horror. A dryad’s tree wasn’t movable, but its location was a well kept secret. X’carin had enough of a reputation that her location wasn’t an issue. Many others had found her, and one or two had even lived long enough to tell the rest of the Fae. Which brought us to the second phase, freeing her.

Before that moment, I had no idea what it meant to be “fed” to a tree. A faerie with a large welt down the left side of her body stepped forward to explain.

“X’carin will first strip her, then position her inside a large cavity in the tree. Once there, Marly’s hands and feet will be bound in amber. Secured, she will be helpless as her body is little by little, covered with runnels of the tree’s blood.” I assumed she again meant amber, but the visual I conjured up was frightening.

“It takes quite a while, but I beg you to move as soon as possible.” We all waited for her to continue. “Part of the spell causes the amber to act with a lover’s touch…”

“A lover?!” I interrupted. “What do you mean by that?” Ananha placed her soft fingers on my shoulder.

“I’m sorry, I meant no offence. It’s just that everywhere the amber touches her, Marly will experience intense pleasure. Eventually, that pleasure will overwhelm her. When that happens, even if she hasn’t been completely covered in a prison of hardening tree-sap, there will be nothing left of her soul to rescue.”

I got the impression that the faerie had seen this first hand, and that the scar on her side was somehow related. Ananha felt that with the help of a couple of sprites and a whole lot of magic, she could get Marly out of the amber. My face brightened, but my happiness was short-lived as I learned the third phase of our rescue. It was the one that would most involve me… Keeping X’carin at bay while we did this.

Obviously, the dryad wasn’t going to just sit there and let us take her prize. The second we touched her tree, she would come running, ready to take our heads off. And since fighting her wasn’t really a great option, we had to use trickery instead. But how do you fool an entity that has managed to remain alive against that kind of attack for over a century?

Something occurred to me and I turned to Ananha.

“Why do the dryads keep the location of their trees a secret,” I asked. The whole group was silent and I suddenly felt like an idiot child.

“Mark, a dryad’s tree is her soul. What happens to her tree, happens to her.”

“That’s what I thought. So why don’t I just bring an axe and start hacking away? That ought to throw her for a loop!”

I think that about half of our troop paled, and then looked to Ananha with wide eyes.

“It might hurt her a little, but their trees are tougher than that. It will also be protected by powerful magic, making such an attack all but fruitless. About all it would do is really piss her off.”

“Hmmmm..” I replied, scratching my chin. “Maybe we can still use that.”

“How?”

An idea had formed, and it was risky as hell. But then, our only other option was to let Marly die and wait around for X’carin to finish off for Bazerith. I wasn’t about to give up, but my plan required that I return to Brightly House for a few things. I also needed to speak with that sprite again. If what I had in mind was going to work, I needed to consult with an expert.

: Marly :

By the time the fuzzy, detached feeling had faded enough that Marly was aware of her surroundings, X’carin was already pressing her hands into a semi-soft pocket of amber above her head. It felt like her fingers were sinking into sticky pastry dough, and she tried unsuccessfully to raise her head to see what the strange substance was. Instead, her somewhat blurry eyes could only focus on her own naked body; her neck still being limp in the grasp of the powerful drugs that were slowly fading from her bloodstream.

And then, to her surprise, her head did come up. When a face came into view, she understood that someone was helping her by holding her chin. Gradually, her eyes locked on to the figure and she struggled to refocus.

“Awake? Good,” said a female voice in front of her. “I wouldn’t want you to miss this, human.”

She wanted to respond, but her mouth still wasn’t working. Who was this woman, and what was she talking about? Marly tried again to get the face to sharpen.

“At least your mother put up a fight,” she continued. “You’re hardly worth the effort.”

The mention of her mother caused adrenalin to flood her body, and mind and her vision cleared a bit. Suddenly, she recognized the entity before her.

“X’carin…” She mumbled, fighting for control.

“You remember me. How nice. As I recall, you ran away the last time we met, yes? Not today. Your days of running are over.”

“Wheresh Mar… Mark?…” She asked, not quite responding coherently.

“Ahh, the legend. Yes, you and he have been quite intimate lately. He was very promising. Too bad he was so hopelessly devoted to you. He might have made a nice addition to the Sluagh.”

Anger infused her cheeks at her words. “If you’ve hurt him…” she started to threaten.

“I’ve done nothing to him. Bazerith, on the other hand, is most likely ending your courtship even now.” The dryad’s evil smile caused her breath to catch.

“You lie!” She yelled, with as much force as she could muster. In her heart though, she knew that the dryad was telling her the truth. Tears threatened her eyes.

“How does that make you feel, Poppins?… To have your lover’s life ended in the arms of another…”

“No…” she whimpered.

“…His last thoughts, not of you, but of Bazerith, as she fucks him into eternal bliss.”

“No… please! NO!”

“Yes. I’m sure he’ll enjoy himself though. She’s very sensual, that one.”

“NOOO!!” She screamed, strength momentarily returning. She pulled at her hands to lash out at the dryad, but they were stuck tight in the now magically hardened amber shackles. Exhausted, she slumped back down and wept, her head dropping again to her chest.

“But don’t worry,” continued X’carin. “You both shall be finished soon enough.”

Marly looked up at her tormentor. “Just kill me and be done with.”

“Oh no. Your eternity is along a different path. Tell me, human, do you recognize where you are?”

She looked at her prison, and her heart suddenly filled with fear. “Your tree…” she said in a whisper.

“That’s right. You have the rare privilege of becoming part of me; to feed me. By sunset, your soul, as well as your body, will be mine.”

“Oh my god…” she gasped, struggling again. That was when she started to feel the first slow runnels of semi-clear amber liquid oozing down her arms.

“That’s right. By dusk, you’ll be screaming in ecstasy. By nightfall, your very spirit will have been absorbed into me, and your body will forever be sealed inside my tree. Just think, Marly… After all you and your petty Seelie Court have struggled for, you are going to end up working against them.”

“Oh god.. no,” she whimpered, the amber moving very slowly down her arms, over her shoulders and down her chest. There, it took the path of least resistance and quietly dripped down between her breasts. Marly noticed that wherever the sticky liquid covered her, her skin began to tingle. She knew the feeling wasn’t natural, but rather magic-based. The sensation was quickly turning sexual, and she swallowed hard when the amber from above quickened, sending dozens of new streams creeping down her arms.

“I wanted your mother as part of me as well, but was forbidden because I was still young.” The dryad was standing before her, her eyes roaming over Marly’s body hungrily. “But at least they allowed me to wear her down first.”

The redhead’s eyes widened, and her gaze snapped to X’carin’s.

“It was YOU??!!”

I wide grin formed on the dryad’s face. “You didn’t know that, did you? You never knew who it was that brought down the greatest of the Adepts…”

“You LIE!! You never knew my mother!”

The tall woman reached out and placed her hand on Marly’s bare hip.

“Oh, I knew her. I knew her very, very well in fact. They never told you how I befriended her, earned her trust, and then seduced her? Could they have sheltered you for so long?”

“I don’t… ughnn… believe you!” She spit back at the woman. The amber was starting to become quite distracting.

“This is better than I thought,” said the dryad, happily. “You simply must hear the whole story!”

“No!… ughmmm…”

“Your mother came to me that night, alone, and totally unaware of what was to happen. Like you, she was a delight to behold… and to touch.” X’carin’s fingers lightly traced across Marly’s belly until they reached her middle about the same time as the first serious runnel of thick honey. Gently, she spread the amber over Marly’s skin, her other hand joining in. Now, not only did she have the tingling of the amber to worry about, but the very erotic touch of the dryad as well.

“Ughmmm! N-nooo… ughhh…”

Concentrating on her foreplay, X’carin quietly coated her helpless victim. Her hands slipped up over her breasts, and Marly gasped in sexual arousal. Her nipples hardened to stiff nubs under the other’s fingers.

“I led her to a grassy knoll with a view of the very lake she was later thrown into. There, I laid her back and gave her a taste of what was to be her undoing. Not an hour before her body sank to the bottom of that lake, your mother was calling out my name in ecstasy.”

“Ahhh… n-n-nooo…UGHN…You’re …mmmm… a liar!”

The dryad’s hands moved down her legs to her ankles. There, the powerful entity pushed her feet apart and then backward. Marly felt them sinking into a soft, clay-like substance and suddenly understood that it was more of the semi-hard amber. She struggled a bit, but in the end, her lower body was trapped, much as her upper extremities. Standing again, X’carin continued her story while she watched her captive start to squirm under the sexual torture.

“I waited until she was at her greatest distraction before I let loose my spell of bindery. She hadn’t even stopped gasping before her body was wrapped in a hundred thin vines, each eager to continue her pleasure. Bound and helpless, I guided the earthly lover I had created for her in hour after hour of dizzy arousal. Your mother hardly even knew what was happening before she started to peak again, and she never really stopped until the vines finally let her limp body loose once again. By then, she was little more than a lifeless doll, her soul not quite shattered yet. She had just enough consciousness to see the others as they gathered her up and headed for the water.”

As she spoke, the dryad’s fingers spread the thickening amber over every surface of her skin. Then, as Marly started to feel the first rumblings of orgasm in her loins, the female leaned forward and brought her lips to her captive’s.

Marly’s mouth was already open in arousal, so X’carin’s kiss caught her completely off guard. And although the dryad was nearly a century and a half old, she was as supple and beautiful as her very birth; for she was a being created from the Earth by the Powers, and so did not age like a human. Her tongue pressed into Marly’s mouth just as her left hand slid between her thighs; her amber coated fingers dipping into the redhead’s flower, causing her to launch immediately into sexual ecstasy.