By: Velthra
PART 1: Fatal Misstep
The air in Aristandor Veythar’s ritual chamber still shimmered with the residual energy of his latest conquest. Dust motes danced in the sliver of moonlight cutting through the high window, illuminating the intricate embroidery on his grey robes – threads of silver depicting arcane constellations. He brushed a speck of non-existent dust from his shoulder, a satisfied smirk playing on his lips. Another minor demon bound, another testament to his unparalleled mastery. The damp, mossy ruin was beneath him now. What he required was a decent vintage and the obsequious service found only at… well, the nearest tavern would suffice. Temporarily.
"Egressus ad proximum tabernam, sub lunae argenteo oculo," he intoned, his voice resonating with practiced power. He gestured sharply, fingers weaving complex patterns. Before him, reality warped, tearing open a swirling vortex of purple and black light – his portal. The scent of ozone cut through the damp stone smell. Aristandor adjusted his cuffs, ensuring the fall of his robe was perfect. No time for the slow routes like common peddlers. He stepped forward, chest puffed out, ready to emerge dramatically in the tavern’s common room to the inevitable awed silence.
His polished boot landed not on solid floorboards, but on a treacherous patch of slick, wet moss hidden by the portal's glare. His ankle turned violently. A sharp gasp tore from him, more surprise than pain, but utterly shattering his concentration. The intricate weave of the portal spell, held taut by his will, snapped like an over-tuned lute string.
"Wha—?!"
He pitched forward, headfirst, into the unstable tear in reality. Instead of a graceful step-through, it was a graceless plunge. The disorientation was instant and stomach-churning. Colors swirled violently, pressure squeezed his skull, and then—
CRUNCH-THUMP.
The world stopped spinning with abrupt, jarring finality. Cool, rough-hewn wood pressed against his cheek. Smoke, stale ale, roasting meat, and unwashed bodies – a thick, pungent miasma flooded his senses, replacing the ozone and damp stone. Raucous laughter and the clatter of mugs assaulted his ears, horribly loud and close. He blinked, trying to clear the lingering purple afterimage from his vision. He was face-down. Immobile. Panic, cold and sharp, stabbed through his gut. He tried to push himself up. His arms wouldn’t obey. He couldn’t feel his arms. Or his legs. He could only feel the press of wood against his face and chest, the rough grain scratching his fine robes.
A horrified murmur rippled through the noise around him. "Gods below!" someone gasped. "What in the Seven Hells is that?" "Is... is that a head?"
He was stuck. Trapped mid-transit. Only his head, neck, and a sliver of his torso protruded through the solid tavern floorboards. The rest of him… somewhere else. Utterly helpless. Humiliation burned hotter than any spell-fire.
Brigdis Harlowe was polishing a stubborn ale stain off the far end of the bar when the crash reverberated through The Tipsy Griffin. Not the usual dropped mug, but a deeper, more structural thud that silenced the room for a split second. Her head snapped up, hand instinctively reaching beneath the bar for the weighted cudgel she kept there. Her braided auburn hair swung over her shoulder as she scanned the packed room.
Near the central hearth, where the floorboards were worn smoothest by countless boots, a bizarre sight greeted her. A section of the floor shimmered faintly purple, like heat haze over stone. And protruding from it… was a man. Only from the chest up, embedded unnaturally in the wood. Face down. Her heart hammered against her ribs, a primal fear at the unnatural squeezing her lungs. An invasion. A monster? A failed spell?
She moved quickly, the cudgel now firmly in her strong, calloused grip. Patrons scrambled back, forming a wide, nervous circle around the spectacle. Brigdis approached cautiously, her boot heels clicking on the boards. The man groaned, a low sound of pain and disorientation. He tried to lift his head, revealing a sharp profile pressed against the wood, short-cropped blonde hair dusty. He managed to turn his head slightly, just enough to look up. Grey eyes, wide with panic and fury, met hers. Grey eyes she knew. Grey eyes that had looked down a long, aristocratic nose at her countless times, dismissing her, her tavern, and everyone in it as insignificant filth.
Aristandor Veythar.
The fear vanished, incinerated by a sudden, white-hot surge of pure, unadulterated rage. Years of his sneering condescension, his scathing remarks about the ‘common stench’ of her establishment, the way he’d snap his fingers demanding service as if summoning a dog – it all flooded back. Now he was the one pressed into the dirt. Her dirt.
A slow, predatory smile spread across Brigdis’s face. It held no warmth, only a cold, hard satisfaction that made the patrons nearest her shuffle back another step. She lowered the cudgel, not needing it for this.
"Well, well," she drawled, her voice cutting through the hushed murmurs. "Look what the cat dragged in. Or rather, look what the floor coughed up." She planted her hands on her hips, looking down at the trapped mage. "Trouble with the shortcuts, Lord Veythar? Portal a bit too… slippery?"
Aristandor’s face, already pale from shock and exertion, flushed crimson. "You!" he spat, his voice muffled against the wood. "You peasant wench! Get me out of this immediately! This is intolerable! Do you have any conception of who I am?"
"Oh, I know exactly who you are," Brigdis said, her voice dangerously calm. She took a deliberate step closer, her shadow falling over him. "You're the arrogant prick who thinks polishing his fancy arse on my barstools makes him better than the folks who pour his ale." She leaned down slightly, her voice dropping to a low, venomous whisper only he could properly hear. "You're the bastard who sneers at my patrons, who treats this place like a necessary evil beneath your notice. Remember last week? Telling Old Man Hemlock his coin was 'barely fit to touch'?"
Aristandor struggled harder, his shoulders straining against the impossible grip of the floorboards. Sweat beaded on his forehead. "This is irrelevant! I demand—"
"You demand nothing," Brigdis cut him off sharply, straightening up. Her gaze swept the room. She saw the faces of her regulars – Hemlock, the miller's son, the weaver’s widow. Faces that had borne the brunt of Aristandor’s disdain. An idea, dark and deliciously vindictive, crystallized in her mind. It wasn't enough that he was stuck. He needed to feel it.
The silence Brigdis imposed wasn't just an absence of sound; it was a thick, muffling blanket thrown over his consciousness. Aristandor could still feel the vibrations of the tavern – the thud of emptied mugs hitting the bar, the scrape of chairs, the low rumble of departing voices. He could smell the stale beer soaked into the sackcloth pressing against his nose and mouth, thick with dust and the faint, acrid tang of burlap. Panic flared, raw and primal. He strained every muscle, a silent scream trapped in his immobilized body, trying to force air through the stifling fabric, to buck or twist or do something. But the floorboards held him like stone, and the silence spell clamped down on his throat tighter than any physical gag. He was reduced to a trapped, suffocating statue, his furious thoughts ricocheting inside his skull. Peasant bitch! Filthy sack! Release me! I'll incinerate this hovel! But the only thing that emerged was the desperate hitch of his chest against the unyielding wood.
Time stretched, an eternity measured in ragged breaths and the diminishing sounds of the tavern shutting down. The warm glow from the hearth dimmed. The last call was shouted, the final patrons shuffled out with farewells Brigdis returned with weary cheer. The heavy oak door thudded shut, the bolt scraping home. Blessed quiet descended, broken only by the crackle of dying embers and Brigdis’s measured footsteps approaching.
The sack was ripped away with brutal efficiency. Aristandor gasped, sucking in great lungfuls of the smoky air, blinking furiously against the sudden return of dim light. Rage, humiliation, and pure terror warred within him. The words exploded out, a torrent of vitriol.
“YOU VILE, UNWASHED SLUT! HOW DARE YOU—! My robes! My face! That sack was crawling with vermin! You’ll pay for this! I’ll have you flayed! I’ll turn your pathetic tavern into a smoking crater! I am Aristandor fucking Veythar, you ignorant cow! You—!”
Brigdis didn’t flinch. She didn’t even look at him. She simply wiped her hands on her apron, her expression one of profound boredom, as if he were a fly buzzing against a windowpane. His impotent fury washed over her without leaving a ripple. She turned her back, busying herself with stacking tankards, the clink of pottery a deliberate counterpoint to his ravings. His insults grew more desperate, more obscene, laced with threats of magical retribution that sounded increasingly hollow even to his own ears. She rinsed a mug under the tap, the water splashing loudly. He called her lineage into question, the legitimacy of her birth, the nature of her relations with livestock. She dried the mug with a cloth.
When his voice started to crack, hoarse from shouting into the uncaring air, she finally turned. Not to address him, but to contemplate the patch of shimmering, unstable reality that held half of him prisoner. She raised her hands. Not with the grand, sweeping gestures Aristandor favored, but with a series of sharp, precise flicks of her fingers, almost dismissive. Her lips moved silently, weaving threads of power invisible to the untrained eye, but Aristandor felt it – a sudden, immense pressure in the air, a vibration that hummed through the floorboards and into his trapped bones. The shimmering portal outline flared briefly, then solidified, the chaotic energies snapping into a rigid geometric frame.
Then, impossibly, Brigdis gripped the solidified edge of the portal. Not just touched it, but took hold. Her knuckles whitened with strain, tendons standing out on her powerful forearms. She grunted, a low sound of effort, and began to lift. The portal, and Aristandor embedded within it, rose from the floor like a grotesque, living painting ripped from its setting. Wood groaned, the laws of physics screamed in protest, but the portal held firm, lifted by will alone. Aristandor’s tirade died mid-insult, choked off by sheer, stupefied disbelief. His grey eyes bulged. This… this was Transmute Spatial Anchor. A spell requiring power and finesse he’d only read about in theoretical grimoires. Impossible for a tavern wench!
“H-how?” he rasped, the word barely a whisper escaping his paralyzed throat. “That spell… it requires… the Weave’s Ninth Harmonic… stabilized by…” His mind reeled. Who was this woman?
Brigdis ignored him utterly. Breathing heavily, sweat beading on her forehead despite the tavern’s cooling air, she maneuvered the portal frame and its trapped occupant. She carried it – him – not with reverence, but with the focused effort of someone shifting a heavy keg. She positioned it squarely in front of the main bar counter, adjusting the angle until Aristandor’s head, neck, and upper chest protruded at the exact height of the barstool seats. His feet dangled uselessly somewhere in the void behind the shimmering frame, leaving his head and shoulders presented like a grotesque offering on the counter.
Aristandor stared up at the polished wood grain of the bar top, inches from his nose. Comprehension dawned, cold and terrifying. The barstools. His position. His helplessness. “No,” he whispered, then louder, voice cracking. “NO! You cannot! This is an abomination! BRIGDIS! Release me this instant! I command you!” He thrashed his head, but the portal frame held it rigidly in place. “Filthy peasant cunt! Touch me and I swear by every power, I will make you scream for mercy you don’t deserve! I’ll bind your soul! I’LL—!”
Brigdis walked calmly around the bar to stand behind it, facing him. Her expression was granite. She reached over the counter, grabbed a heavy clay tankard, and dunked it deep into the ale cask. She pulled it out, dripping, foam spilling over the rim. She straightened, holding the frothing mug. Her eyes, hard as flint, locked onto Aristandor’s. Without a word, without breaking eye contact, she stepped forward.
Then she sat.
Not beside him. Not near him. Directly onto his face.
Her full weight descended, the hard curve of her pelvic bone slamming into the bridge of his nose. Her strong thighs clamped down on the sides of his head, pinning his ears. The rough, sweat-dampened homespun of her skirt pressed instantly against his mouth, his nostrils. She wriggled slightly, settling herself firmly, grinding her backside down to achieve perfect, crushing contact. Aristandor’s world exploded into dark, suffocating pressure and overwhelming sensation.
His head was wrenched sharply backward, his neck straining at an unnatural angle against the unyielding portal frame. Air became a luxury. His nose was flattened, mashed painfully against her pubic bone through the layers of skirt. His mouth was forced open by the pressure, the coarse fabric instantly invading it, tasting of dust, woodsmoke, salt, and something deeply, intimately her – the rich, earthy musk of a hard day's labor. It wasn't the floral perfumes of court ladies; it was sweat, pure and animal, sharp and salty, laced with the faint, ever-present scent of ale and roasted meat that permeated her clothes and skin. He inhaled desperately, but the fabric clogged his nostrils. Each ragged breath sucked the rough weave deeper into his mouth, tasting her musk more intensely. Her ass cheeks, solid muscle padded with resilient flesh molded by years of hauling kegs and scrubbing floors, pressed heavily against his cheekbones and jaw, warm and unyielding. The pressure was immense, constant, threatening to crush his skull. He could feel the heat radiating from her core through the skirt, an oppressive, smothering warmth.
Muffled screams, choked gurgles, and frantic attempts to thrash erupted from him, but they were buried beneath her body, absorbed by her skirt and flesh, emerging as pathetic, damp grunts barely audible even to himself. His lungs burned. Spots danced behind his closed, watering eyes. He forced himself to stillness, realizing frantic movement only consumed precious oxygen faster. He had to be quiet. He had to endure. To breathe. Small, shallow gasps through the minimal gaps in the suffocating fabric. Inhale the pungent, humiliating scent of her. Exhale a whimper.
Brigdis shifted slightly, a tiny adjustment that sent fresh waves of pressure and that raw, animal smell flooding his senses. Her voice came from above, calm, conversational, as if discussing the weather, but laced with cold, hard steel. It vibrated through her body into his trapped head.
“Shut your fucking hole, Veythar,” she began, her tone chillingly matter-of-fact. “Just shut it. Save your breath. You’re gonna need it.” She took a slow, deliberate sip of her ale. He heard the wet sound of her swallowing. “You come in here. Week after week. Acting like your shit doesn’t stink. Looking down that long nose at Hemlock, at Gerda, at Tom the stableboy. Like they’re dirt beneath your fancy boots. Like I’m dirt. Snapping your fingers. Demanding service. Insulting my ale, my food, my customers.”
Aristandor tried to shake his head, a feeble denial smothered against her crotch. He managed a desperate, muffled groan. Not true! Filthy lies!
“Oh, it’s true,” Brigdis continued, as if she’d heard him. She took another sip. “Every fucking word. And tonight? You literally crashed through my floor. Brought your chaos right into my house. Thought you’d just waltz out? After all that?” A cold laugh, devoid of humor. “No. You needed to learn. You need to feel what it’s like. To be beneath. To be used. To be… furniture.”
She settled her weight more firmly. Aristandor felt the hard edge of the barstool-like surface she was essentially sitting on – his face – dig into her backside, and she accommodated it, pressing down harder. He whimpered, a thin, desperate sound lost in the damp fabric. Breathing was becoming a complex, terrifying struggle against the relentless pressure and obstruction.
“So here’s your lesson,” Brigdis stated, her voice dropping lower, colder. “Tonight? I’m tired. Been on my feet since dawn. You’re going to serve as my stool. My nice, quiet, comfortable stool. While I finish this fine ale you always sneer at.” She shifted again, a subtle grind that made him gag on fabric. “You’re going to hold me up. And you’re going to shut the fuck up while you do it.”
Aristandor trembled, tears of panic and rage leaking from his squeezed-shut eyes. He couldn’t move. Could barely breathe. The thick, intimate scent of her filled his head, a humiliation deeper than any physical pain. He focused everything on drawing thin, whistling breaths through the microscopic gaps in the weave.
“And tomorrow?” Brigdis’s voice held a terrifying promise. She took a long, slow draught of ale. He heard the liquid gurgle, felt the minute shifts in her body as she swallowed. “Tomorrow, when the Griffin opens… you stay right here. My new barstool. Every farmer, every carter, every ‘common stench’ you ever insulted? They get a turn. They can rest their weary arses right here.” She patted the top of his head, a gesture of mocking ownership. “On you. Until you learn some fucking humility. Or suffocate. Whichever comes first.”
The casual brutality of it, the absolute certainty in her voice, sent a jolt of pure, icy fear through Aristandor that momentarily overrode the suffocating pressure and the smell of her sweat. He believed her. This wasn't a bluff. He was going to be sat on by every peasant in the district.
Brigdis leaned back slightly, sighing with apparent satisfaction. She took another deep sip from her tankard, the ale’s coolness a sharp contrast to the oppressive heat radiating from her body into his trapped face. “Ahhh,” she breathed, the sound vibrating through her. “Good ale. Quiet night. Comfortable seat.” She relaxed her weight fully down onto him again.
Aristandor froze. The pressure intensified. The rough homespun ground into his lips and nostrils. The thick, salty-sweet musk of her labor-filled day filled his senses, thick as fog. He could feel the faint thrum of her pulse through the layers pressed against his skin. He held himself rigid, utterly still, every fiber of his being focused on the agonizingly slow intake of air – tiny sips drawn through fabric that tasted of her. Each breath was a victory, a reprieve from the crushing darkness threatening to engulf him. Making a sound, even a whimper, required effort he couldn't spare. Oxygen was life. Silence was survival. He could only lie there, entombed by her body, the once-arrogant Archmage reduced to a terrified, suffocating footstool, listening to the slow, deliberate gulps as Brigdis Harlowe enjoyed her well-earned beer.
The hour stretched, an eternity measured in the ragged suck of his breath against Brigdis’s skirt and the slow, agonizing throb building in his neck. His spine screamed from the unnatural backward arch forced upon it. Every swallow was a battle against the coarse wool invading his mouth. The thick, intimate scent of her laboring body, sweat and musk mingling with woodsmoke and ale, was the only air he knew. His jaw ached, clenched tight around the fabric to avoid biting down in panic. Tears of rage and suffocating helplessness had dried into salty trails on his cheeks. He was reduced to a thing, a support, a piece of furniture absorbing the warmth and weight of his captor.
Then, blessedly, the pressure shifted. Brigdis grunted softly, the sound vibrating through him. Her weight lifted, incrementally at first, then all at once. Cool air rushed across his wet, fabric-imprinted face, shockingly cold after the oppressive heat. He gasped, a raw, wheezing sound, gulping down the smoky tavern air like a drowning man. His neck muscles screamed in protest as they tried to unbend from their tortured angle. He could barely lift his head, his vision swimming with dark spots and the afterimage of Brigdis’s rough-woven skirt.
"Comfortable?" Her voice was dry, devoid of warmth. She stood over him, stretching her arms above her head, her back cracking audibly. She looked down at him sprawled helplessly beneath the bar, his face flushed and tear-streaked, hair plastered to his damp forehead. A flicker of something – satisfaction? contempt? – passed over her features. "Good night, Lord Barstool. Hope you’re rested. Big day tomorrow." She turned without another word, snuffed the last lanterns near the bar, plunging that corner into deep shadow save for the faint, dying glow from the hearth embers. Her footsteps echoed on the wooden floor as she walked to the stairs and ascended, leaving Aristandor alone in the echoing silence.
He lay there, trembling, every nerve ending raw. The humiliation of her departure, the casual dismissal after using him as furniture, burned hotter than the physical pain. He strained against the portal’s grip, a pointless, exhausting effort that yielded nothing but fresh spasms in his neck and shoulders. Eventually, exhaustion, both physical and emotional, claimed him. He slipped into a shallow, nightmare-haunted sleep.
Dawn arrived not with gentle light, but with the jarring scrape of the tavern door’s bolt being drawn back. Aristandor jolted awake, blinking blearily. Sunlight, sharp and dusty, streamed through the high windows. Before he could orient himself, Brigdis was there. She moved with brisk efficiency, hardly glancing at him as she began her morning rituals: sweeping ash from the hearth, wiping down tables, arranging stools. The smell of fresh bread baking somewhere deeper in the building began to mingle with the lingering scents of smoke and stale beer.
"Morning, Veythar," she called out, her tone unnervingly cheerful as she hauled a heavy crate of tankards onto the bar. "Sleep well? Ready for the breakfast rush?" She didn’t wait for, or expect, an answer. She just moved on, humming tunelessly, the picture of mundane industry. Aristandor seethed, impotent, his dry throat refusing to form the curses burning on his tongue. He watched her, the mundane cruelty of her routine, the absolute indifference to his suffering. The reality of her threat – every farmer, every carter – settled on him like a physical weight heavier than her body had been. Panic, cold and sharp, began to prickle beneath his rage.
The tavern door creaked open again. Aristandor’s eyes, gritty and sore, snapped towards the entrance, expecting a farmer in muddy boots or a carter smelling of horses. Instead, silhouetted against the bright rectangle of daylight, stood a figure that sent a jolt of a different kind of dread through him.
She stepped inside, letting the door swing shut behind her. Tall, lithe, moving with a predatory grace that cut through the tavern's homely atmosphere. Black leather pants, impeccably tailored, clung to long legs and the curve of her ass like a second skin. A matching black leather jacket, open over a simple, dark tunic, hugged her torso. Her hair, the color of midnight, fell in a sleek curtain to her shoulders, framing a face of sharp, aristocratic beauty. High cheekbones, a straight nose, and eyes the unsettling green of deep forest moss. Eyes that swept the room with detached assessment before landing, with chilling precision, on the head and shoulders protruding grotesquely from the floor beside the bar.
A slow, vicious smile curved Selindra Veynar’s lips. Recognition flared in those green eyes, cold and sharp as broken glass. She crossed the floor silently, her leather boots making no sound on the worn boards. She stopped directly in front of him, looking down. Aristandor had to crane his neck painfully to meet her gaze, a position that instantly reignited the agony of the previous night.
"Well," Selindra purred, her voice a low, dangerous melody that somehow cut through the morning quiet, sharper than Brigdis’s bustling. "Look who we have here."
PART 2: Leather Justice
Selindra’s smile widened, a slow, predatory curve that didn’t reach her cold green eyes. She crouched slightly, bringing her face level with Aristandor’s trapped, upturned head. He tried to recoil, but the portal frame held him fast. Her fingers, cool despite the morning chill, traced a mocking path along his jawline, rough with a night’s growth of stubble. "I was told you were in this predicament," she murmured, her voice dripping with saccharine disdain, "but I wouldn't believe it until I saw it." Her touch lingered, a deliberate insult disguised as intimacy, her fingernail scraping lightly over his cheekbone. "The great Aristandor Veythar. Reduced to ordinary stool."
With those words, she stood smoothly, turning her back on him completely. Aristandor found himself staring directly at her ass, impossibly close. The black leather pants were a second skin, molding to every curve with obscene precision. They pulled taut over the perfect, heart-shaped swell of her butt, the material shining faintly under the tavern’s morning light. Her hips flared dramatically from a narrow waist, the leather stretching across the powerful bottom, creating an undeniably perfect, commanding ass presented inches from his helpless face. The powerful lines of her thighs tapered down to calves encased in the same unforgiving black leather. The view was deliberate, devastating.
"This," Selindra said, her voice thick with cruel amusement, "is going to be so much fun." She glanced back over her shoulder, meeting his wide, terrified eyes. "Get ready, Veythar." Without preamble, she stepped back and lowered herself down onto his face just like she would onto a normal barstool, facing the bar.
Aristandor’s world exploded again. Her full weight slammed down, brutally bending his already sore neck back at an agonizing angle. A choked gasp escaped him, instantly muffled. Her leather-clad ass pressed squarely onto his mouth and nose, the hard material unforgiving. His nose bent painfully sideways against the firm curve of her buttocks, the leather creaking faintly under the pressure. Her crotch, a dense, hot pressure point, settled directly over his mouth. He could feel the distinct seam of the leather pants pressing into his distorted face. Air became a desperate struggle. Only thin, whistling gasps could he draw through his flattened, deformed nose, each breath bringing with it the overpowering scent of expensive, treated leather mixed with a faint, underlying tang of sweat and dust from travel. It was the smell of her power and his utter degradation.
"Brigdis! An ale, if you please!" Selindra called out, her voice remarkably steady, betraying no strain from her unusual perch. She shifted her weight slightly, grinding the hard leather deeper into Aristandor’s features, eliciting a muffled whimper lost against her crotch. "The Griffin’s finest."
Brigdis appeared behind the bar, wiping her hands on her apron, a satisfied smirk playing on her lips. She pulled a clean tankard and dunked it into the ale cask. "Morning, Selindra. Traveling through?" She placed the frothing mug on the counter within Selindra’s easy reach.
Selindra took a long, appreciative sip. "Heard the most fascinating rumour at the Crossroads," she began, her tone conversational, almost light. She shifted again, deliberately rocking her hips back onto Aristandor’s imprisoned face, the leather squeaking faintly against his skin. He gagged silently, fighting for air through the leather-smothered nostrils. "Had to see it for myself. Didn't disappoint." She patted the air above Aristandor’s head. "Fucking fantastic, Brigdis. Truly inspired."
Brigdis leaned on the bar, genuinely smiling now. "Seemed fitting. Poetic, even. Payback’s a bitch, they say. And he’s been a right bastard to everyone." She watched Aristandor’s trapped form tremble beneath Selindra’s weight.
"Oh, you have no idea," Selindra chuckled, a low, dangerous sound. She took another slow sip, savoring it. "Remember the Blackroot Mines? Four days trapped with this arrogant fuck." She emphasized 'fuck' with a sharp downward grind of her hips, making Aristandor’s head press harder against the unyielding frame. He saw stars. "Constant sneering. My spellwork was ‘pedestrian’. My tactics ‘lacked finesse’. Took credit for my kill on the Shadow Lurker, the prick."
"Asshole move," Brigdis agreed, refilling her own mug from a pitcher.
"Exactly!" Selindra exclaimed. "Acted like carrying his robes made him king of the fucking midden heap. And the time he ‘accidentally’ dispelled my wards during the Wyvern hunt? Nearly got Grashnak turned into paste." Another deliberate shift, another muffled, desperate sound from beneath her. "Told me I should stick to ‘simpler magics’. Fucking condescending prick." She sighed dramatically, a sound of pure, vicious satisfaction. "So yeah. This?" She patted the air again, indicating Aristandor’s trapped head serving as her seat. "This feels pretty fucking good. Long overdue." She settled her weight more firmly, ensuring every inch of his face remained buried beneath her leather-clad ass and cunt, a living monument to his fall. "Cheers to poetic justice." She raised her tankard towards Brigdis, her voice dropping to a low, dangerous purr as she addressed the man beneath her. "Enjoy the view, Lord Veythar. It’s the only one you’ll get for a while."
Selindra’s words hung in the smoky air, a promise of prolonged torment. Aristandor tried to scream, to curse her treacherous lineage, but the hard leather pressed so firmly against his mouth and nose it felt like a suffocating seal. His defiance became a frantic, useless gurgle, muffled into oblivion against the tight black material covering her cunt. Brigdis merely refilled Selindra’s tankard and returned to polishing mugs, the rhythmic scrape of cloth on pottery a mundane counterpoint to Aristandor’s silent, internal scream.
Time lost meaning, measured only by the agonizing pressure grinding his face deeper into the unforgiving leather and Selindra’s relentless monologue. She recounted every perceived slight, every condescending remark he’d ever made during their ill-fated adventuring partnership. “Remember when you called my fireball ‘cute’?” she hissed, punctuating the memory by slamming her hips down hard, driving the prominent seam of her pants directly into his already flattened nose. White-hot pain exploded behind his squeezed-shut eyelids. “Or when you told everyone my scouting report was ‘adequate, for a woman’?” She ground herself against his mouth in brutal circles, the leather slick now with his own trapped saliva and the persistent heat radiating from her core. The thick scent of her sweat, musk, and expensive hide filled his nostrils with every shallow, whistling breath he managed through his crushed sinuses. Her weight was constant, oppressive, a physical manifestation of his downfall.
She didn’t just sit. She tormented. Periodically, she’d lift herself slightly, just enough for a gasp of air to wheeze into his burning lungs, only to slam back down, crushing him anew, sometimes with a jarring little hop that sent jolts of agony through his neck and spine. “Fucking bounce on that arrogance, Veythar!” she snarled once, her voice thick with venomous glee as she repeatedly, forcefully drove her pussy mound down onto his trapped features. Each impact forced the leather deeper into his mouth, distorted his nose further. He choked, tears mixing with sweat on his temples. His world shrank to the overwhelming sensations: the creak of leather under strain, the dense heat of her body, the suffocating pressure, the bitter taste of the hide invading his mouth, and the ceaseless, humiliating litany of his past failures echoing from above. The shame was a physical weight rivaling hers, crushing his spirit as her ass crushed his face.
The tavern door creaked open frequently now, letting in bursts of colder air and louder chatter. The breakfast rush had begun. Aristandor heard the scrape of stools, the thud of tankards, Brigdis’s sharp commands to the serving girl. Patrons talked loudly over him, their conversations punctuated by gruff laughter. He caught snippets: crop yields, a lame horse, the price of salt. Mundane, common, beneath him. Yet here he was, a trapped, muffled obscenity beneath a woman’s ass, invisible and irrelevant to their world. The sheer, mundane horror of it gnawed at him deeper than Selindra’s viciousness. Old Man Hemlock’s wheezing chuckle seemed to come from right overhead, a final twist of the knife. Each laugh, each scrape of a boot near his prison, felt like a kick.
The noise swelled around him, a tide of common life surging over his buried head. Sunlight climbed higher, painting bright rectangles on the dusty floorboards near his immobile field of vision. He smelled roast fowl now, mingling nauseatingly with the leather and Selindra’s sweat. Brigdis’s voice cut through the din, sharp and practical. “Selindra! Need anything before the lunch rush hits? Gotta refill the casks!” Selindra shifted above him, a long, luxurious stretch that made the leather groan and tighten against his face. She took a final swig, the tankard scraping on the bar. “Shit, is it noon already? Damn. Time flies when you’re… comfortably seated.” Her voice dripped with cruel amusement. “Gotta hit the road, Brigdis. Eastern pass won’t clear itself.”
With a sudden, jarring movement, Selindra stood. Air, blessedly cool and unobstructed, rushed over Aristandor’s devastated face. He gasped, a raw, sucking sound, his neck screaming as it tried to move from its locked, agonizing angle. Vision blurred by tears and swelling, he could only perceive a dark shape leaning over him. Selindra crouched, bringing her face shockingly close to his. Her elegant features were alight with vicious delight. She stared into his eyes, swollen almost shut, then scanned the ruin of his face.
His nose was grotesquely flattened, a livid red-purple smear across the bridge, the distinct, perfectly straight line of the seam from her leather pants deeply imprinted into the flesh. His lips were puffy, split in one corner, crusted with dried blood and saliva. His cheeks bore the rough texture and red outline of the leather grain. His grey eyes, bloodshot and swimming with tears of pain and utter humiliation, stared back at her, wide with dawning horror at her scrutiny.
A peal of unrestrained, mocking laughter burst from Selindra, loud and sharp in the tavern noise. “Look at you!” she crowed, her green eyes dancing with sadistic glee. She poked his distorted nose with a cool fingertip, making him flinch and whimper. “Absolutely fucking ruined! That’s the face of the mighty Archmage now? A fucking leather-stamped barstool! Looks better this way, honestly. Suits your true station.” She leaned even closer, her voice dropping to a venomous whisper meant only for his mangled ears. “Remember this feeling, Veythar. Remember the smell of my cunt on your flattened face. Remember every peasant arse that plants itself here today. You’re nothing now. Nothing but furniture.” She spat, a gob of saliva landing wetly on his bruised cheek. Then, with a final, contemptuous flick of her midnight hair, she straightened and strode towards the door, her laughter echoing behind her.
Aristandor lay there, exposed. The raucous tavern sounds crashed over him – the clatter, the shouts, the laughter. But it all receded into a dull roar. The physical agony was immense – his neck felt broken, his face felt like pulped meat, every breath through his battered nose was a stab of fire. But it was the echo of Selindra’s laughter, the image of her cruel delight stamped onto his retinas, that truly broke him. A low, broken sob escaped his ruined lips, a sound of utter despair. His arrogance, the bedrock of his being for four decades, crumbled into dust under the weight of that laughter and the terrifying promise of what was still to come. He was Aristandor Veythar, and he was nothing.
Silence pressed down after Selindra’s departure, thick as the ale-soaked sawdust on the floor. Aristandor lay pinned, the tavern’s cacophony – clattering plates, boisterous laughter, Brigdis’s sharp commands – washing over him like a wave over a drowned corpse. His face was a landscape of ruin: nose a swollen, purple ridge stamped with the unmistakable seam-line of Selindra’s leather, lips split and crusted, eyes mere slits swimming in bruised flesh. Each shallow, whistling breath through his blocked nostrils was a dagger of fire. The lingering scent of expensive leather and Selindra’s contempt clung to him, vile perfume for his shame. He was adrift in a sea of pain and utter degradation, the echo of her mocking laughter the only sound reverberating in his shattered skull. Nothing. Furniture.
The heavy oak door groaned open again, cutting through the midday clamor. A shaft of harsh sunlight momentarily blinded him. Then, a small figure stepped into the tavern’s smoky dimness, letting the door swing shut with a soft thud. Silence rippled outward from the entrance this time, a different quality to it – wary, watchful, tinged with uneasy surprise.
Zyrrika Noshk surveyed The Tipsy Griffin. Her large, luminous eyes, the color of swamp gas, flickered with cautious intelligence as they swept the room. Petite even for a goblin, she barely reached the top of a barstool. Dark green skin, smooth as river stone, contrasted sharply with the vibrant crimson and ochre beads woven into her dark, intricate braids. A simple tribal skirt of tanned hide, dyed a deep forest green and stitched with geometric bone patterns, swung around her knees, revealing sturdy leather boots laced tight up her calves. Her pointed ears twitched faintly, catching the sudden drop in human chatter. A lifetime etched by human brutality lived in the wary set of her shoulders, the way her small hand hovered near the bone knife strapped to her thigh.
Her gaze swept past the stares, past Brigdis wiping the bar with calculated nonchalance, past the clusters of wary farmers and traders. Then she saw it. It froze her instantly. Protruding grotesquely from the floor beside the bar, framed by the shimmering, solid energy Brigdis had conjured, was a human head and shoulders. But not just any human. Recognition sparked like flint on tinder in her wide, green-gold eyes.
Aristandor Veythar.
The name tasted like poison on her tongue. Memories flashed – the sneering human mage who’d dismissed her knowledge of the Whispering Caves as 'primitive superstition', who’d used a minor kinetic burst to knock her into a mud puddle while his companions laughed, who’d looked at her with the same disgust reserved for dung beetles. She’d seen him here before, preening at the bar, radiating disdain like a bad smell. Now, he was trapped, broken.
A slow, predatory grin spread across Zyrrika’s face, revealing small, sharp teeth. It wasn’t Brigdis’s cold satisfaction or Selindra’s vicious glee. This was darker, older, etched with the collective memory of goblin suffering. Her eyes lit with a fierce, feral joy. The sudden silence deepened as every human eye tracked the small goblin woman stalking towards the trapped mage. Her boots made soft, deliberate thuds on the worn floorboards.
Aristandor, sensing the shift, managed to pry his swollen eyes open a fraction. Terror, cold and fresh, spiked through his haze of pain as he recognized the petite figure standing besides him. The goblin. The one he’d humiliated near the river ford. Her large, glowing eyes held no pity, only a terrifying, ancient malice. "Fuck," he rasped, the word mangled by his ruined mouth.
PART 3: Goblins Golden Claim
Zyrrika’s grin didn’t waver. It widened, stretching her green lips over sharp little teeth, her luminous eyes fixed on Aristandor’s ruined face. The tavern’s uneasy silence stretched, thick with anticipation. Brigdis leaned on the bar, wiping a mug slowly, her expression unreadable except for the faint, cold satisfaction tightening her mouth. She watched the goblin.
"Veythar," Zyrrika hissed, the name a rasp of stone on stone. Her voice, higher than a human’s but laced with a guttural edge, cut through the quiet. She took another step, stopping mere inches from his trapped head. The smell of dried herbs, damp earth, and something faintly musky clung to her. "Look like shit." She poked his swollen, seam-imprinted nose with a surprisingly strong, claw-tipped finger. He flinched, a strangled groan escaping his split lips.
Brigdis spoke, her voice calm, conversational, slicing through the tension. "Heard he had a rough night. And morning. Seems the stool position wasn’t quite… comfortable enough." She placed the mug down with a deliberate thunk. "Think he needs better accommodations, Zyrrika? Maybe… stretch his legs?" A cruel spark ignited in Brigdis’s eyes.
Zyrrika’s large, swamp-light eyes flicked to Brigdis, then back to Aristandor. Understanding, mixed with vicious delight, flared. "Stretch?" she echoed, the word dripping with dark promise. "Ohhhh yes. Big man. Too stiff. Needs… loosening." She tapped her chin thoughtfully, a mockery of contemplation. Aristandor’s bloodshot eyes widened in dawning, paralyzing terror. He knew Brigdis’s magic. He knew what ‘stretch’ could mean.
"No," he rasped, the word thick with blood and desperation, barely audible. "Brigdis… don’t…" His voice cracked.
Brigdis ignored him. Her hands moved with swift, practiced efficiency near the shimmering energy field imprisoning him. Not the main portal, but beside it. Two small, intense points of light flared into existence just above the tavern floorboards, flanking Aristandor’s trapped torso – one near each shoulder. They pulsed with the same unstable energy, miniature, concentrated versions of his prison.
"Brigdis, PLEASE!" Aristandor begged, panic shredding the last vestiges of his arrogance. Snot and tears mingled with the blood on his chin. "I’ll pay! Anything! Release me!"
"Shut your fucking hole, Veythar," Brigdis said coldly, not even looking at him. Her focus was on the portals. She muttered a sharp, guttural syllable. The twin portals flared blindingly bright for a split second.
Then the screaming started.
The twin portals flared, and Aristandor’s scream ripped through the tavern, raw and agonized, as his arms were violently wrenched through the shimmering voids. Brigdis watched, her expression granite, as his hands and forearms emerged, suspended palm-up roughly thirty centimeters above the worn wooden floor. They hovered there, trembling violently, knuckles white, fingers spasming – grotesque stepping stones perfectly positioned. Brigdis gave a small, satisfied nod and stepped back, leaning against the bar, resuming her methodical mug polishing as if she’d merely adjusted a wobbly stool.
Zyrrika’s slit-pupil eyes, glowing with predatory amusement, fixed on Aristandor’s trapped limbs. "Look at that," she chirped, her voice dripping with false sweetness as she sauntered closer, the bone charms on her tribal skirt clicking softly. "Big magic man. Offering nice rests for tired feet, yes?" She stopped directly before him, the pungent scent of earth and wild herbs clinging to her. Aristandor, tears carving paths through the grime and dried blood on his face, pleaded, his voice a broken rasp.
"Zyrrika... mercy... I wasn't part of... I didn't enslave..." he choked out, his grey eyes wide with terror. She ignored his babbling, her gaze locked on his trembling left hand. With deliberate slowness, she raised her bare, green-skinned foot, its surface surprisingly smooth but calloused on the heel and ball. She placed the sole firmly onto his palm.
"Mercy?" Zyrrika scoffed, her voice hardening. "Like mercy for my cousins in the Blackroot Mines?" Then, without warning, she shifted her entire, compact weight onto that hand. The bones in his hand ground audibly. Aristandor’s scream tore from his throat, a high-pitched shriek of pure agony. It was instantly muffled, choked off, as Zyrrika pivoted and slammed her naked ass down hard onto his face.
Darkness. Sudden, suffocating, and smelling intensely of musky goblin skin and leather. Her tribal skirt, rough fabric and dangling charms, settled over Aristandor’s head like a crude hood. The firm, yielding weight of her ass cheeks pressed down, enveloping his entire face. It wasn't muscular like a warrior's, but solid, dense flesh, warm and surprisingly smooth against his bruised skin. Her cunt, slick and hot, pressed directly against his open, screaming mouth, sealing it shut. Her puckered asshole settled firmly over the bridge of his nose, its tight rim pressing down, almost completely blocking the nostrils beneath.
He could only manage shallow, desperate gasps, sucking in air tinged with her intimate scent. Every frantic inhale drew the potent aroma deep into his lungs. The pressure intensified as Zyrrika casually lifted her other foot and placed it squarely into his right palm, then leaned back slightly, settling her full weight comfortably onto her new seat. His muffled screams became desperate, wet gurgles beneath her. His arms screamed under the strain, the shattered bones in his left hand shrieking anew with every tiny shift she made.
"Ahhh," Zyrrika sighed theatrically, wriggling her hips slightly to grind her naked cunt harder against his sealed lips. The friction was deliberate, obscene. "Much better view from up here, human. Comfy?" She shifted her weight, eliciting another agonized groan from beneath her. "Brigdis! Ale!" she called out brightly. "Thirsty work, humiliating shit-mages."
As Brigdis wordlessly slid a foaming tankard down the bar, Zyrrika leaned forward, her voice dropping to a vicious, intimate whisper directed at the flesh beneath her. "Remember Sunken Citadel, Veythar? When you let Krivak take that poisoned dart meant for you? Said goblin hide was 'naturally resistant'. He screamed for three days." She took a long, noisy gulp of ale. "Or when you tossed my mother’s totem into the campfire? 'Primitive clutter,' you called it." She ground down harder, relishing the strangled whimper it produced. "Feel that pain? That helplessness? That’s what we felt. Every fucking day under your kind’s boots." Pure, savage satisfaction radiated from her as she settled back, taking another swig, her bare ass a crushing, intimate prison. The rhythmic clink of Brigdis cleaning mugs was the only other sound.
Zyrrika drained the last of her ale in one long, noisy gulp, slamming the empty tankard onto the bar beside her. The familiar warmth spreading through her belly was quickly overshadowed by a more urgent, demanding pressure low in her gut. Her green face tightened slightly, the sharp angles of her jaw becoming more pronounced as she shifted her weight on Aristandor’s trapped face. "Ah," she murmured, almost to herself, her slit-pupiled eyes glinting with a new, vicious idea.
She leaned forward, pressing down deliberately with her hips, grinding her naked pussy hard against his already bruised and muffled mouth. The shift transferred crushing weight onto his shattered left hand trapped beneath her foot. He screamed into her flesh, the sound a wet, choked vibration she felt against her sensitive skin. His body bucked weakly beneath the portal, a trapped animal’s final thrashing. She ignored it, bringing her lips close to where his ear might be beneath the smothering curve of her ass. "Drink," she hissed, the command sharp and absolute, cutting through his muffled agony.
For a split second, Aristandor froze, his lungs screaming for air, his mind reeling. Drink? Drink what? Then came the unmistakable, scalding heat. A powerful, stinging jet of her piss hit the back of his sealed throat with startling force. It was bitter, acrid, thick with an ammonia tang that burned his sinuses and coated his tongue in putrid warmth. She held him perfectly sealed, her pussy lips clamped tight around his mouth, forcing every drop down his gullet. He choked, gagged violently, eyes bulging unseen beneath her weight. But the sheer, overwhelming pressure of the stream and the desperate reflex to clear his airway overrode conscious resistance. His throat convulsed, dragging the hot, foul liquid down in painful, involuntary gulps.
He drank. Huge, heaving swallows forced by her unyielding pressure and his own survival instinct. It felt endless, a torrent of humiliation filling him, scalding him from the inside. The pressure was immense, a relentless flood filling his mouth, forcing its way down. It tasted like salt and decay, a violation more profound than any physical wound. Tears streamed freely, mingling with the piss and sweat on his face, lost in the dark, suffocating warmth of her ass. Zyrrika shuddered slightly atop him, a low groan of pure satisfaction escaping her lips as she emptied herself into his throat. It felt primal, powerful – the ultimate dominance over the human who’d sneered at her kind. His body spasmed beneath her with each forced swallow, a puppet dancing on strings of pain and degradation.
Finally, the torrent eased to a trickle, then stopped. Zyrrika remained pressed tightly against him for a moment, ensuring not a drop escaped his lips. The seal was perfect. She let out a long, contented sigh, the pressure in her belly blissfully gone, replaced by an intoxicating rush of control. She felt invincible, perched on this broken mage, feeling the frantic flutter of his swallowed sobs against her flesh. Then, slowly, deliberately, she leaned forward again, putting agonizing pressure back on his shattered hand, her lips near his ear once more. "Clean," she whispered, the word a vile caress.
There was no hesitation left in him. Broken beyond pride, drowning in humiliation and the lingering acrid taste coating his mouth and throat, he obeyed. His tongue, clumsy and thick, pushed weakly against her slick folds. He licked tentatively at first, the residual piss and her own musky arousal a nauseating mix on his taste buds. She ground herself down harder. "Clean it, maggot," she hissed. Spurred by the grinding pressure and the raw terror of further pain, his tongue moved with more desperation, probing, lapping at her pussy lips and clit, trying to remove the traces of the violation he had been forced to consume. It was abject, servile, the final shred of his arrogance dissolving in the act. He licked like a starved animal, driven by pain and utter submission.
Zyrrika let him work for a long minute, savoring the wet, obscene movements against her, the ultimate proof of his brokenness. Then, with a grunt of finality, she pushed off his shattered hand and swung her leg over, freeing his face. She stood before him, adjusting her tribal skirt, a picture of casual, terrifying power. Aristandor gasped, a ragged, wet inhalation, sucking in huge gulps of the smoky tavern air like a drowning man breaching the surface. His face was a ruin of tears, snot, piss, and saliva, his eyes staring vacantly at the ceiling beams, seeing nothing. The raw agony in his wrenched arms was distant, secondary. Something fundamental within him, the core of Aristandor Veythar, the arrogant mage who looked down on goblins and tavern keeps, had shattered. It lay dead and discarded in the foul puddle of his own humiliation. Zyrrika wiped her hand casually on her skirt, a small, cruel smile playing on her lips, radiating pure, vicious satisfaction as she watched him simply breathe, broken.
The tavern air, thick with smoke and the sour tang of spilled ale, seemed to vibrate with the echo of Aristandor’s broken gasps. Zyrrika’s bare green feet padded softly away across the sawdust as Brigdis slid her a refilled tankard without a word. The goblin’s satisfied smirk was a knife twisting in Aristandor’s shredded pride. He could still taste her piss, acrid and thick, coating his tongue and throat, a vile baptism in his own utter worthlessness. His arms, wrenched through the smaller portals, throbbed with a deep, sickening ache, the shattered bones in his left hand sending jagged lightning up his nerves with every shaky breath. Tears, hot and shameful, carved fresh tracks through the grime, piss, and dried blood on his ruined face. He gazed unseeing at the smoke-stained rafters, the raucous laughter of the farmers and carters a distant, mocking roar. Furniture. He was just fucking furniture.
A new presence entered his limited field of vision. Soft, deliberate footsteps approached, lighter than Zyrrika’s, devoid of the goblin’s earthy scent. Aristandor’s swollen eyes, crusted and bloodshot, struggled to focus lower. He saw boots first, crafted from impossibly soft, pale leather, pristine against the grimy floorboards. Then legs, sheathed in fabric so tight it looked painted on. Stark white. It shimmered faintly under the tavern’s uneven light, not soft silk, but something dense, almost plasticky, utterly unforgiving. The material stretched without a wrinkle over powerful thighs and the subtle curve of a hip, ending at a narrow waist cinched by a belt of woven silver leaves. His gaze travelled up, past a simple tunic of dove grey, to a face.
Ethereal beauty, sharp and timeless. High cheekbones, flawless pale skin, pointed ears peeking through cascades of hair like spun moonlight. Eyes the deep violet of twilight held a startling intensity beneath long lashes. Her lips, a soft rose, curved in a shy, almost apologetic smile as she looked past him towards Brigdis. Aristandor’s breath hitched. An elf. Hope, fragile and desperate, flickered. Nobility. Sanity. Perhaps…
"Excuse me, Mistress Harlowe?" Her voice was a melody, soft and clear, cutting through the tavern drone like a chime. "Might this… seat… be free?" She gestured delicately towards Aristandor’s trapped form, her violet eyes wide with an innocent inquiry that didn’t quite reach their depths.
Brigdis paused in her polishing, her gaze flicking from the elf to the broken mage and back. A ghost of amusement touched her lips. "Aye, it’s free," she confirmed, her tone dry as dust. "Been a bit… used today, though. Let me fetch a cloth. Clean it off for you." She made a move towards the damp rag beside the ale tap.
"No need, truly!" Aeryniel protested quickly, her voice still soft, a faint blush touching her cheeks. She waved a dismissive hand, the gesture graceful but final. "It’s perfectly fine. I don’t mind a little… character." She took a step closer, looming over Aristandor now. Her shy smile vanished, replaced by a chillingly different expression. Her violet eyes locked onto his, and the sudden shift was terrifying. A predatory, sadistic glee ignited within them, a cruel hunger that stripped away any pretense of innocence. Her lips, still curved, now promised agony. She leaned down, bringing her face perilously close to his, the scent of snowdrops and something coldly metallic washing over him. Her whisper was a venomous caress, meant only for his mangled ears, slicing through the tavern noise. "I will make you suffer," she breathed, each word a shard of ice driven into his soul. "In ways that will shatter what’s left."
PART 4: Ethereal Domination
The air left Aristandor’s lungs in a weak, punched-out gasp as Aeryniel’s promise hung in the space between them, colder than the deepest winter frost. Her shy smile had vanished completely, replaced by a mask of chilling serenity. Only her eyes, that deep violet, burned with a predatory, anticipatory fire that froze the blood in his veins. He couldn’t look away. Couldn’t move. Trapped beneath that gaze, he felt smaller than the grime beneath her pristine white boots.
She didn’t speak again. Instead, she moved with the unnerving silence of a stalking cat. Her delicate hand, fingers long and elegant, rose. The back of her knuckles brushed lightly against his bruised, piss-stained cheek. It wasn’t a caress. It was an appraisal. Like testing the ripeness of fruit. Or the firmness of meat. He flinched, a tremor running through his trapped torso. The movement sent fresh jolts of agony from his shattered hands. A low, involuntary whimper escaped his swollen lips.
The whimper died instantly as Aeryniel’s fingertip pressed hard against his cracked lips. Her touch wasn’t soft; it was a command carved in ice. "Don't scream," she whispered, the words honeyed poison dripping into his ear. Her violet eyes, wide with terrifying delight, held his gaze captive. She savored the panic flaring in his grey irises, the choked silence that followed her order. It was exquisite.
With a fluid motion that belied the malice behind it, she rose fully. Aristandor watched, horror dawning, as her pristine white boot descended. It landed squarely on the grotesque, misshapen ruin of his left hand, shattered by Brigdis’s portals. White-hot agony exploded up his arm, a lightning bolt of pure suffering that tore a ragged gasp from his throat. Sweat beaded instantly on his grimy forehead. She didn’t stop. Her other boot came down with deliberate, crushing finality onto his right hand. The pressure was immense, unbearable weight focused on pulverized bone and shredded nerves. He felt the jagged edges grind together inside his flesh. A strangled, animalistic sound vibrated in his chest.
Now she stood fully upright upon his broken hands. Balanced perfectly. Elegant. Aristandor’s entire world narrowed to the excruciating pressure points where her boots met his ruined flesh. His arms, wrenched through the portals, screamed in protest, tendons straining to snapping point. His vision swam with tears of pure agony. Aeryniel looked down at him, a serene predator surveying her immobilized prey. A faint flush crept up her pale neck. Watching him writhe impotently, listening to his choked, pain-filled breaths, sent a delicious, molten heat pooling low in her belly. She could smell his fear, sharp and acrid, mingling with the stale tavern air. It was intoxicating.
Slowly, deliberately, she began to shuffle her feet. Tiny, almost imperceptible movements. Shifting her weight. Rotating her ankles minutely. Each microscopic adjustment sent fresh, lacerating waves of pain radiating from his hands up his arms, jolting his spine. It was torture refined to an art form. Sweat poured down Aristandor’s temples, mingling with the grime and tears. He bit down hard on his lower lip, drawing blood, trying desperately to swallow the scream building like a geyser in his chest. He tasted copper. His body trembled violently with the effort of containment. His knuckles, visible even through his ripped robes, were bone-white. He couldn't hold it. The agony was too vast, too consuming. His mouth flew open wide, lungs sucking in air for the howl that would shatter the tavern.
Aeryniel’s eyes flashed with pure, unadulterated ecstasy. Now. She’d been waiting. Craving this surrender. Instantly, she bent her knees slightly. Then, with a surge of sadistic glee, she pushed off. Jumped. Just an inch or two into the air. But enough. The impact as she landed back full-force on his destroyed hands was catastrophic. Bone fragments shifted violently, grinding like broken glass. Fresh, blinding agony detonated through his arms and shoulders, a white nova of pain that short-circuited his mind. Simultaneously, she slammed her ass downwards with brutal force. Her butt crashed onto his upturned face like a falling anvil. The thin, impossibly fine elven fabric of her leggings strained. It hugged the perfect, round curves of her ass with obscene tightness, the weave revealing every contour yet yielding only the faintest whisper against the unyielding muscle beneath. Aristandor’s head snapped backward under the violent impact. His neck arched impossibly far, vertebrae groaning, tendons stretched to the very brink of snapping. The cartilage bridge of his nose met the rock-hard swell of ass with sickening force. A distinct, wet crunch echoed, muffled by her flesh. He felt it give way, collapsing inward. Hot blood gushed instantly, flooding his nostrils and mouth, metallic and Aeryniel froze. Utterly still. Balanced perfectly on his shattered hands and his broken face. The sensation was indescribable. The satisfying, yielding crunch beneath her. The warm, sudden gush of blood soaking into the seat of her leggings. The muffled, liquid gurgle beneath her. She closed her eyes. A low, shuddering moan escaped her perfect lips. Pleasure, sharp and savage, ripped through her core, clenching deep inside. His suffering wasn't just witnessed; it was felt. The physical proof of her power, the destruction she wrought with her own body. It was better than she’d imagined. Pure ecstasy bloomed within her, centered on the wet ruin beneath her ass. She ground down slowly, minutely, savoring the grind of broken nasal bone against her perineum through the taut fabric. The muffled scream trapped against her flesh vibrated deliciously.
The muffled scream trapped against her flesh vibrated deliciously. Aeryniel sighed, a sound of pure contentment escaping her lips as she savored the raw sensation. The broken architecture of Aristandor’s nose ground beneath the taut fabric stretched over her perineum, each microscopic shift of her hips sending fresh, jagged shards of agony lancing through his skull. Hot blood, thick and coppery-scented, welled up instantly around the ruinous pressure point, soaking into the pristine white fabric of her leggings, a stark, obscene bloom against the purity.
"Fuck," she breathed, her voice barely a whisper, laced with dark pleasure. She increased the pressure, rolling her ass slowly, deliberately, relishing the wet, crunching resistance beneath her. Aristandor’s strangled attempts to breathe became frantic, wet gurgles bubbling past the seal formed by her ass and his ruined face. Blackness, thick and velvety, clawed at the edges of his vision, promising blessed oblivion. Yet, just as he teetered on the brink of unconsciousness, a cold, invisible spike of energy pierced his mind, sharp as ice. Aeryniel’s silent spell, woven deftly, anchored him firmly in the excruciating now. He couldn’t escape. Couldn’t fade. He was pinned, conscious, to every excruciating second.
Pure, unadulterated agony radiated from his shattered face, a white-hot core of suffering that threatened to unravel his sanity. He felt the fractured nasal bones scrape against each other with every minute shift of her weight, a grating, nauseating sensation. His muffled screams, trapped beneath her, vibrated against the swollen, slick flesh hidden beneath her pants, the desperate thrumming a perverse counterpoint to her building arousal. She felt the tremors through her cunt, the desperate struggle beneath her amplifying her own sensations, tightening the coil low in her belly. She bit down hard on her lower lip, the sharp pain a minor thrill compared to the symphony of torment she conducted. Her hips moved with increasing urgency, grinding harder, faster against the pulped mess of cartilage and bone, seeking that final, devastating release built entirely on his suffering.
A low, shuddering gasp escaped her clenched teeth. Her body went rigid, every muscle tightening as a violent orgasm ripped through her. It was silent, intense, a silent detonation of pleasure centered entirely on the devastation she wrought beneath her. She held herself there, trembling, riding the aftershocks, the wet heat pulsing against the source of his torment. Bliss flooded her, warm and thick. Finally, slowly, spent, she pushed herself upright, leveraging off his mangled hands. The sudden absence of her grinding weight on his face felt like a different kind of agony, leaving his broken features exposed to the chill tavern air. Through his tear-blurred vision and the crimson haze of blood, Aristandor caught a glimpse of her retreating form. Her ass, impossibly, remained spotless white, the fabric unblemished despite the gore it had just smothered. Clean. Untouched. Perfect.
As Aeryniel settled her full weight back onto his shattered hands, a new sensation bloomed across his face. It wasn't relief. It was a deep, internal rearrangement. The jagged edges of his nasal bones grated against each other with sickening precision, sliding back into place with sharp pops that echoed inside his skull. His skin prickled intensely, eyes stinging as if washed with acid, tissues knitting with unnatural speed. The blinding, skull-crushing agony radiating from his face faded rapidly, replaced by a throbbing ache, still sharp but manageable. Yet the excruciating pain radiating from his pulverized hands remained, a constant, screaming counterpoint to the sudden, eerie absence of facial torment. He could feel the shattered metacarpals grinding with every slight shift Aeryniel made above him.
The ethereal elf crouched down again, bringing her face level with his. Her violet eyes glowed with a fiercely satisfied light, a predator examining its freshly caught prey. A faint, almost shy smile touched her lips, utterly incongruous with the carnage she’d just inflicted and the raw terror in his eyes. She traced a cool fingertip along his newly healed, but still blood-streaked, nose. Her voice was soft, melodic, yet it dripped with chilling anticipation. "That was amazing," she murmured, her breath ghosting over his skin. "I want to do it again." Aristandor’s blood ran cold. The horrifying realization slammed into him with the force of a battering ram. She hadn’t healed him out of mercy. She hadn’t healed him to end the torture. She’d healed him to break him anew. To feel his bones shatter beneath her all over again. Pure, unadulterated terror seized him, colder and deeper than any pain. Aeryniel tilted her head, her smile widening slightly, already savoring the fresh horror dawning in his grey eyes.
PART 5: The End of Aristandor
The coppery tang of his own blood still coated Aristandor’s tongue, a vile aftertaste beneath the lingering phantom agony of shattered bone. His nose throbbed with a deep, aching pulse, a cruel mockery of the healing Aeryniel had bestowed. He blinked, sweat and tears stinging his newly intact eyes, focusing on her face hovering above his. That shy, polite mask was back, but the violet eyes beneath burned with a terrifying, knowing hunger. She had tasted his breaking. She craved seconds.
"Better?" she murmured, her voice soft as silk, her fingertip tracing the unbroken line of his nose. Aristandor flinched, a fresh wave of terror crashing over him. He tried to speak, to beg, to threaten, but only a ragged gasp escaped his swollen lips. The memory of her weight, the crushing impact, the wet crunch, it paralyzed his mind as effectively as the portals trapped his body.
With deliberate, unhurried grace, Aeryniel straightened. Her gaze never left his, holding him captive. Then, she stepped, not onto his ruined hands this time, but placed one pristine white boot beside his head on the scarred tavern floor. She shifted her weight, her movements fluid and mesmerizing, turning slowly to present her back to him. The delicate embroidery of her leggings caught the dim lantern light, framing the perfect, rounded curves of her ass. Aristandor’s heart hammered against his ribs, a frantic bird in a cage. He knew what was coming. The dread was a physical weight in his gut.
She lowered herself. Not with the brutal slam of before, but with agonizing slowness. Inch by excruciating inch, her ass descended towards his face. He could smell the faint, clean scent of her, utterly at odds with the violence she embodied. The taut, impossibly firm fabric of her leggings touched his forehead first. Then his brow. His eyelids fluttered shut instinctively as the pressure increased, forcing his head back. His neck muscles strained, tendons standing out like cords, protesting the unnatural backward arch. The tip of his newly healed nose pressed against the unyielding, muscular curve, the pressure already uncomfortable, bending the cartilage.
Then she settled fully. The thin fabric, stretched drum-tight over her buttocks and perineum, felt like coarse sandpaper against his raw skin. Every nerve ending on his face screamed. It wasn’t the sharp agony of breaking bone but a deep, grating abrasion, a relentless erosion. She wasn't crushing; she was grinding.
A low hum vibrated in her throat, a sound of pure, dark pleasure. She began to move. Slow, deliberate circles. Her hips rolled, pressing the rough weave against his forehead, his cheeks, the bridge of his nose. Each rotation scraped a layer of skin away. Aristandor’s breath hitched, trapped beneath her. He tried to turn his head, a desperate, feeble twist, seeking relief, but her weight was absolute. The movement only ground the fabric deeper into the raw flesh of his cheekbone. A choked sob escaped him, muffled against her.
"Shhh," Aeryniel breathed, her voice thick with arousal. She increased the pressure slightly, focusing the grinding motion directly onto his nose. The cartilage bent further, protesting under the unrelenting force. "Just feel it, pet. Feel how perfectly you fit." The fabric rasped over his skin, a constant, scraping torment. Sweat beaded on his temples, mixing with fresh tears, stinging the abraded skin. His nostrils flared, sucking in the scant, warm air trapped between her body and his face, air thick with her scent and his own rising panic. With each grinding rotation, the friction intensified. The skin over his cheekbones felt flayed. His nose, bent almost flat, ached with a deep, bone-deep throb. Desperation clawed at him, rising minute by excruciating minute. He fought for air, short, frantic gasps that barely filled his lungs before the relentless pressure forced it back out. His muffled pleas were lost. He was buried alive beneath her, suffocating, being slowly sanded raw. The arrogant mage was reduced to a desperate, struggling animal.
Aeryniel sighed, a sound of utter contentment. She could feel every tremor, every desperate twitch, every choked gasp vibrate through her core. His helpless struggle was a direct line to her own pulsing cunt. The friction, the raw desperation radiating from him, the sheer control – it stoked a fire deep inside her hotter than any forge. She could feel herself getting wetter, the slick heat gathering, intensifying with every ragged breath he took beneath her. "Yes," she hissed, her hips beginning to move with more purpose, less circle, more deliberate back-and-forth grind. "Fight it. Struggle. It feels so good."
Aristandor’s world narrowed to the sandpaper hell on his face and the screaming need for air. His vision began to flicker, dark spots dancing at the edges. The raw, scraped pain was constant, a background scream rising towards a crescendo. Then, subtly, the motion changed. The grinding lessened. For a fraction of a second, relief teased him. Then, with terrifying inevitability, she lifted. Just slightly. Her weight eased for a heartbeat.
And came down.
Not a full jump. Just a small, sharp bounce. Her ass slapped down onto his contorted face with percussive force. The impact jolted his skull back, rattling his teeth. The pressure on his bent nose flared into sharp, stabbing agony.
She lifted. Slammed down again. Harder.
Lifted. Slammed.
The rhythm began, slow at first, but building. Each downward thrust bend his head more and more, each impact sending fresh waves of pain radiating from his neck, through his skull, focusing on the fragile architecture of his nose. The sandpaper burn intensified with the friction generated by the bouncing. Tears streamed freely now, hot and useless. His raw skin tore further with each rough landing. The air was thick with the scent of his suffering – sweat, blood, and utter despair. The bouncing intensified, becoming faster, harder, more savage. She was no longer seeking friction; she was hammering.
The pain in his nose transcended anything he’d ever known. It was a white-hot spike driven directly into his brain with every impact. He felt the cartilage twisting, deforming under the relentless pounding. His desperate struggles grew weaker, fueled now not by hope of escape, but by pure, animalistic reflex against the unbearable. His muffled screams were continuous, a high-pitched, broken keening lost beneath the rhythmic thudding of flesh on flesh and bone on wood.
Then, amidst the cacophony of his own suffering, he heard it. A sound that shattered the remnants of his sanity. A distinct, sickening, wet crunch.
His nose.
Breaking.
Again.
The fragile bones, already strained to their limit by her initial bending and the relentless grinding, finally gave way under the hammer blows. Cartilage snapped, bone fragments shifted violently. A fresh, scalding gush of blood flooded his nasal passages and mouth, hot and thick, choking him instantly. The agony was blinding, all-consuming, a supernova erupting in the center of his face. It obliterated thought, obliterated fear, obliterated everything except the raw, shrieking reality of destruction.
But it wasn't just the physical break. Something deeper, something irrevocable, shattered within Aristandor Veythar. The arrogant mage, the superior being who sneered at tavern keeps and lesser races, who believed his intellect and power set him above the common herd… that man ceased to exist in that wet, cracking instant. What remained was a broken vessel, filled only with overwhelming, abject terror and the absolute certainty of his own helplessness. His spirit, his very sense of self, fractured like the bones in his face. The struggle ceased. His body went utterly limp beneath her. The keening stopped, replaced by a wet, bubbling silence. He simply… broke. Not just his nose. His will. His defiance. His self. Utterly and completely shattered. He lay there, pinned, drowning in his own blood, empty.
Aeryniel felt it all. The sudden, catastrophic collapse of the bone structure beneath her ass, the hot gush that immediately saturated the seat of her leggings anew. But more than that, she felt the other breaking. The psychic snap. The instant his resistance vanished, replaced by hollow, unresisting dread. It washed over her like a tidal wave of purest ecstasy.
"FUCK!" The word ripped from her throat, raw and guttural, shattering the tavern's ambient noise. Her body locked, rigid as stone. A silent, earth-shattering orgasm tore through her, centered entirely on the point of contact where destruction met flesh. It wasn't pleasure; it was conquest. It was dominion made manifest in blood and broken bone and broken spirit. Wave after wave of savage bliss pulsed outwards from her core, radiating from the ruin she sat upon. She trembled violently, riding the shattering intensity, her fingers digging into her own thighs, her head thrown back as silent cries wracked her slender frame. The heat was immense, flooding her, a dark tide washing away everything but the pure, unadulterated joy of his annihilation.
Slowly, tremulously, the tremors subsided. She sat perfectly still, perched on the broken face of the broken man, breathing heavily. The only sounds were the distant tavern life and the wet, labored gurgling of Aristandor trying to breathe through the blood and ruin beneath her. A profound, terrifying silence radiated from him now. Not defiance. Not even fear. Just… nothing. Vacancy. She sighed, a long, shuddering sound of utter satisfaction, basking in the aftermath.
The wet, ragged gurgling beneath her was the only sound breaking the thick silence. Aristandor wasn't struggling anymore. Wasn't screaming. Just drowning. Aeryniel remained perched on his face, savoring the warm, sticky mess soaking through her leggings, the utter stillness radiating from the broken mage beneath her. His spirit felt... absent. Shattered. A profound vacancy. She sighed again, the contentment deepening into a bone-melting satisfaction. He was hers. Utterly. Irrevocably. Broken. But she wanted more. A permanent testament. A silent announcement to the world.
A smile, thin and cruel, touched her lips. "Still so pretty," she murmured, the words dripping with false sweetness as she shifted slightly. Her ass ground against the pulped ruin beneath her, eliciting a weak, involuntary spasm. The raw, bloody mess of his face was a delight, but fleeting. She wanted it visible. Enduring. She focused, drawing on the cool, precise wellspring of elven magic within her. Violet light, faint at first, then intensifying, gathered at her fingertips where they rested on her knees. It pulsed with an eerie, cold energy. This wasn't healing. This was sculpting.
She poured the magic down, forcing it into the mangled wreckage of bone and cartilage and torn flesh trapped beneath her full weight. The effect was immediate and horrific. Aristandor’s body arched violently, a silent scream locked in his ruined throat as the magic surged. It wasn't knitting tissue. It was reconfiguring. His shattered nasal bones, desperate to reform correctly, slammed against the unyielding, crushing pressure of her butt. They couldn't rise. Couldn't find their original shape. Trapped. Compressed. Commanded.
They ground together, sharp edges scraping, vibrating violently against her core. Her cunt clenched instinctively, a sharp bolt of pleasure shooting through her at the sensation. "Oh, fuck... yes..." she gasped, eyes fluttering closed. The bones couldn't ascend, so they yielded sideways under the relentless magical coercion and physical force. They flattened. Spread. Settled. Cartilage fused into a broad, unnatural plate. Skin, still slick with blood and torn in places, knit itself tautly over this new, brutal topography. The magic sealed it, cold and absolute, under her direct, inescapable pressure. The transformation was agonizingly intimate. She felt every shift, every grating fusion, every nerve scream as the structure of his face was irrevocably altered beneath her own flesh. Her arousal spiked again, wet heat flooding her, the mingled sensations of absolute control and visceral, magical violation sending tremors through her thighs. She rolled her hips minutely, grinding her cunt against the newly formed, hard plateau beneath the thin, saturated fabric. The broad, flat surface conformed perfectly. It was no longer a face designed for breathing or dignity. It was a seat. Designed for her. Molded by her weight, her magic, her cruelty. Comfortable. Obscene.
She stayed there. Riding the flat plate of his face, feeling the faint, residual tingle of the magic and the dull throb of his agony as it faded into a constant, low ache. Her own core still pulsed, aftershocks of pleasure mingling with the supreme satisfaction of ownership. He was marked. Everyone who saw him would see the flattened ruin, the undeniable evidence of his breaking. It was perfect. Finally, the lingering heat in her cunt subsided to a pleasant, sated glow. The silence beneath her was profound, broken only by shallow, whistling breaths forced through the altered passages. She stood. Smoothly. Gracefully. The blood-soaked white fabric of her leggings clung for a second before peeling away from the broad, flattened plane of his face. Immidiately returning to perfect clean white. She glanced down at him. His eyes were open, unseeing, staring into the smoky rafters. Vacant. The arrogant grey was utterly extinguished. Broken. Marked. Perfect. Without a backward glance, she turned and walked away, disappearing into the tavern's thrumming crowd. Satisfied.
The thick, smoky air of the tavern settled over Aristandor like a shroud. He lay utterly still where Aeryniel had left him, half-protruding from the portal, face a wet, ruined mess. Blood pooled beneath his head, darkening the scarred wood. His chest barely moved. His grey eyes stared upwards, vacant and unblinking, reflecting only the flickering lantern light above. The arrogant spark, the self-important glare, was utterly extinguished. Obliterated.
Brigdis wiped down the last sticky tankard, her shoulders sagging with the day's fatigue. The usual clatter had died down, replaced by the low murmur of the last few stragglers nursing their final drinks. She hadn’t spared a thought for the stuck-up mage for hours, assuming the elf had finally tired of her game and vanished. Gods knew he deserved whatever he got after insulting her establishment. She heaved a sigh, tossing the rag onto the counter. Time to boot the stragglers and deal with… him.
Her gaze finally swept towards the place where the portal shimmered faintly. It snagged. Stopped. "What in the Seven Hells..." The words died on her lips. Her breath hitched. That… that wasn't right. She blinked, rubbed her eyes, but the grotesque sight remained. Aristandor’s head wasn’t just bloodied; it was misshapen. Flattened. Horribly so. The high cheekbones, sharp nose, aristocratic structure – all gone. Obliterated. Instead, a wide, appallingly flat plane dominated the center of his face, like dough stamped by a heavy weight. Shock, cold and sharp, stabbed through her.
She moved closer, her heavy boots thudding on the floorboards. The details became horrifyingly clear. The skin, raw and scraped in places but unnaturally fused in others, stretched taut over a broad, boneless-looking expanse. A faint, terrible impression was visible – the unmistakable, slightly rounded outline of two perfect buttocks pressed deep into the flesh. Where his nose should have been, only a shallow depression remained in the center of the flattened mass, clotted with dark blood. Wet, labored whistling sounds came from somewhere within the ruin. Shame, hot and unexpected, flooded Brigdis. This wasn't just roughing up an asshole. This was monstrous. "Oh, you gods-damned fool," she breathed, not knowing if she meant him or the elf or herself for ignoring it. "That bitch... that wasn't... this ain't what I meant."
Guilt warred with revulsion. She’d wanted him humbled, maybe roughed up a bit, not… unmade. Not this broken thing leaking onto her floor. "Alright, ya poor bastard," she muttered, her voice thick. "Let's get you outta that fucking death trap." Her thick fingers, calloused from years of work, plunged into the shimmering portal edge. It resisted, humming with unstable energy, but Brigdis was strong, fueled by a sudden urgency. She grunted, braced herself, and hauled. Aristandor’s limp, unresisting torso slid free with a wet, sucking sound, collapsing onto the tavern floor like a sack of meat. He didn't react, didn't groan. Just lay there, breathing those shallow, whistling breaths through his ruined face.
Kneeling beside him, ignoring the tacky blood soaking her knees, Brigdis placed her hands on his shattered arms. Channeling her own brand of pragmatic earth-magic, a warm, amber glow spread from her palms. Broken bones in his forearms and wrists knit back together with audible crunches and dull pops. Muscle fibers rewove themselves, tendons snapped back into alignment. His arms, at least, were whole again, lying limp at his sides. She wiped sweat from her brow, then hesitantly placed a hand over the obscene flatness of his face. She poured healing energy towards it, willing bone to reform, cartilage to rise, skin to smooth. The amber light flared brightly.
It washed over the ruined flesh… and did nothing. Absolutely fucking nothing. The flattened mass remained. It absorbed the light like stone, utterly unyielding. A cold, alien residue, like frostbite on her magic, pushed back. Elven magic. Darker, older, crueler than hers. It had locked this horror in place. Permanent. Brigdis recoiled, her hand jerking back as if burned. "No," she whispered, horrified. "No, no, fuck... it's stuck. It's fucking permanent." She stared at the ruin. His eyes remained fixed on the ceiling, utterly blank. No pain. No awareness. Just… empty.
She stood up, towering over him, confusion warring with pity. "Right," she said, her voice unnaturally loud in the quiet tavern. "Get up. You need to get gone. I'm tired. Real fucking tired." She gestured vaguely towards the door. "Go. Find a healer who can... deal with... that." She expected fury. Demands. Threats. The old Aristandor would have been apoplectic. What she got was silence. Utter, profound silence, broken only by that wet whistle-breath. He didn't move. Didn't blink. Just lay there, a broken doll.
Then, slowly, mechanically, he pushed himself up onto his newly healed arms. He got his knees under him, movements stiff, puppet-like. He didn't look at her. Didn't look at the door. He shuffled, not towards the exit, but behind her, towards the worn wooden counter where she stood. Brigdis watched, utterly bewildered. "What're you...?" He reached the spot directly behind her. And then, with a chilling lack of ceremony, he dropped heavily to his knees. He planted his hands on the floor, braced himself, and then slowly, deliberately, arched his back. He thrust his horrifically altered face upwards, presenting the flattened plane like an offering. Perfectly horizontal. Waiting.
Brigdis stared down at the obscene sight. The raw, flattened flesh, the faint ass-cheek imprints, the shallow breathing hole – positioned right at ass-height. Her mind reeled. The initial shock was a physical blow. Then, with terrible, dawning clarity, it clicked. The arrogant mage wasn't there anymore. Whatever spark made him him had been snuffed out beneath the elf's ass. What knelt before her wasn't a man. It was a thing. A broken receptacle. An object. Reduced to its most basic, grotesque function by unimaginable pain and perverse magic. A chair. Her throat tightened. "Oh, you poor, broken fucker," she breathed, the pity now laced with a horrified fascination.
Hesitantly, almost reverently, Brigdis turned her back to him. She looked down at the flattened surface presented so perfectly. An experiment. Just to see. She lowered herself slowly, cautiously, keeping most of her weight on her own feet. Her ass cheeks, encased in sturdy work trousers, touched the cool, strangely yielding flesh. There was no flinch. No reaction. Just the steady, shallow whistle of breath from the central depression. She settled more of her weight onto him. The broad, flat surface was unnervingly perfect. It cradled her ass with uncanny comfort, the contours molded by violence fitting her shape as if bespoke. No sharp bones. No awkward angles. Just solid, slightly cool support. She let her full weight sink down.
"Gods above," Brigdis murmured, the shock momentarily eclipsed by sheer, unexpected comfort. It was the most comfortable fucking seat she'd ever had. Solid. Stable. Conforming perfectly. She shifted slightly, testing. His body remained utterly still, a pillar of silent flesh. Emboldened, exhausted, she leaned back, seeking a more relaxed position. Instinctively, needing leverage, she lifted her feet off the floor. She planted her heavy boots firmly on the backs of his thighs, just above the knees. She settled her entire weight onto him – ass on face, feet on legs. A perfect, living stool. She leaned back further, resting her spine against the lip of the counter behind her. A sigh, long and deep, escaped her. Utterly relaxed. Utterly supported.
Below her, Aristandor didn't protest. Didn't tremble. Didn't make a sound beyond that faint, wet whistle from the ruin of his breathing passage. He held her weight without complaint, without movement. Broken silence filled the tavern, punctuated only by Brigdis's sigh and the small, ragged breaths from the thing beneath her. The arrogant mage was gone. In his place, a perfectly molded seat. Her seat. From this day on, Brigdis kept the silent thing behind her counter. Not a guest. Not a prisoner. A fixture. Her pet stool. The most comfortable fucking chair ever created. And when customers asked about the strangely silent man kneeling motionless behind the bar, his face a flat, blank mask pointed at the ceiling, Brigdis would just shrug, take a sip of her ale, and settle more comfortably onto her perch. "Him? Don't mind him. Part of the furniture."