Work Text:
A clammy damp arrived before dawn, dribbled through the Grove and into the Hollow where it sank into Okta's bones, stiffening her joints until she could barely hold her ladle. The morning mists hung 'round even after the sun ought to have burned them away, what was left of her bread molded, and everything felt slightly slimy, like the entire world had caught cold sweats.
The last thing they needed, yet the least of their problems. Exile, goblins, and now starvation, their only weapon against it a gruel she'd cut with so much grass it was nearly cow food. Better than mud, 'least grass was a plant, 'least it cooked to soft in only a few hours. First goblins fished the streams dry, then Kaldani built the gate, and refused to raise it so Okta could dig up burdock and catkin. Since the archdruid left, the rest of those rats had quit trading with the refugees. Okta'd stripped every nettle and broadweed in the grove to naught more than stems, and every day the children's elbows stuck out a bit more, their cheeks slowly sinking in. Only so much they could force down. If only she had salt. Ogrefruit. Rabbit. Rat, even. Sad day, when the thought of rat made a mouth water.
Okta stirred the pot, wracking her brain. Maybe…tree sap. Tree sap was sweet, wasn't it? Basically plant honey. Or, maybe they could trap one of the squirrels. Even the druids didn't seem to like the squirrels. When Ikaron was young, he used to build complicated traps for rats and squirrels, something for her to roast in lean times. They'd joke about starting a food cart feeding it to nobles. Low Fare for High Born!
Even in dark times, her boy could make her smile.
"So this is where you've been hiding, dearie!"
Okta nearly dropped the ladle. Across her pot stood an old woman, grinning cheerfully.
"Ethel," Okta greeted her. Before all the danger, Okta, Ikaron, and a parade of children had made the trip to Ethel's wetlands several times, partially to check in on another elder and partially to split a slice of pie. Plenty of people used to visit Ethel back then, from disgraced nobles and their snooty entourages to peasant girls who needed help pushing their hand carts. Most didn't visit again.
A nice enough woman, Okta supposed. A fine trader of herbs and quips. The perfect example of "aged gracefully", with her soft cheeks and soulful eyes and hair lovely as brushed cotton. Always invited Silfy and Ide to help her in the garden, the kitchen, to stay for dinner.
But the children were Okta's responsibility, and she made sure to keep her eye on them. Something about Ethel made her ridges stand on end, like walking across rotting floorboards, like a dark mirror at night. Step lightly. Don't look too close. You might not like what you catch staring back.
"What brings you here?"
"Heard there was a market." Ethel glanced around the Hollow, eyeing a flat slab of rock. "Not too much competition, eh? I like my odds."
"Druids kept saying they can't trade. Putting all their energy into hiding this place."
"They had a trader posted right up the way."
"Aye. Funny, isn't it?" As if hidden was only applied when tieflings and goblins were involved.
"You don't seem to be laughing." With a practiced flick, Ethel lay a cloth over the rock and set her pack on top.
"Got nothing to laugh about."
"Maybe I can fix that. Brought you a little something, petal."
Okta passed the ladle to her tail and unfolded the package, revealing a milky crystal big as her hand.
"Salt?" she said.
"Aye. Traded for it this morn."
"What d'you want for it?"
"Nothing, dearie! Just heard you wishing, didn't I?"
Okta set it on her table. "I don't need charity. It's not that I'm not grateful, but I'll not have debts. I'd gladly trade you for it."
Ethel cocked her head to one side. "You sure, dearie? You're looking awful peaked. Standing over that hot pot all day? Can't be good for your health."
Okta squinted at the woman. Nothing came for free. Not concern, and especially not salt.
"Oh, Okta, don't tell me your eyes are going."
"They're fine," Okta said. "They're fine. I'm fine. It's all fine."
"You sure? I'll trade you for them. One for all of my potions."
"And none of your lotions?" Okta said dryly.
"Nae, dearie. You made it clear you don't want charity."
Despite herself, Okta smiled. That was the problem with Ethel, she charmed you. Infected you, like mold, like this creeping chill.
"What do you even need an eye for?"
"Hag business." Ethel looked her in the eyes, deadly serious, then her face crinkled into a grin. "I'm only joking, petal. Imagine. Me, a hag!"
"You've got some magic in you, don't you?" Okta snapped fire to her fingertips. "Something in your blood? Those potions aren't only herbs."
With a look like they were two girls sharing a secret, Ethel said, "Oh, you don't get our age without being a bit clever, now do you? And a bit…lonely."
"I have my Ikaron."
"You have—" Ethel chortled. "Dearie me, and here I thought he was your son!"
"He is."
Ethel's hand found her wrist, fingers resting on the ridges that ringed each one like fiendish bracelets. The pressure felt alien. People rarely touched Okta, and never the parts of her that humans didn't share.
"You are precious, petal. When I say lonely, I'm not asking you to play cards."
Her fingers slipping against Okta's palm. Ought to have been a sweet gesture, but something about her skin felt off. Like it was a glove, not a part of her.
"You're a treat, Okta, and I want to eat you up. Explore every inch of your swamp. Rub your bud until you blossom—"
"You dirty old lady!" Okta laughed.
With a cackle, Ethel said, "Could make you dirty, too. Really show you how to play in a garden."
Feeling a little drunk, a little giddy, Okta took hold of her other hand. The rest of the camp was lingering in their bedrolls. Vines hung in a curtain around them, and Ethel was smiling, flat and pearly teeth. Uncannily fine, like ivory over worm-eaten wood. Some faint part of herself could see that she was sinking into Ethel's charms like a beetle into pitcher plant.
"You're dangerous," she murmured. Neither of them had moved, but there was no space between them anymore, nothing but a buzz.
"Another thing we have in common."
"You've got a hunger."
"Aye."
"For…"
"I'll give you three guesses."
Bewitched, Okta leaned close. Scar on her ribs didn't like it, shot a long streak of pain up her side, bringing with it reason. Okta yanked her hands back like she'd touched a hot stove. Ethel didn't mean this flirting, anyway. The moment she got under Okta's clothes, the moment she realized Okta was tiefling all over her anatomies, Ethel would scurry off, leaving nothing but a trail of excuses.
"Nae, Ethel. You stay over there, with your lotions and your potions. We'll be leaving soon."
Ethel's eyes narrowed. Okta retreated back to her cauldron, and even its heat couldn't keep the chill away.
Ethel started on Zevlor, next. Gave him a tea to help him sleep. Took him out for days, tension building between the tieflings and the druids like friction between two dry sticks, ready to ignite without Zevlor to cool it. Okta wrangled her tieflings in, sniveled up to Kagha and Rath with her best "I'm just a poor old lady", hoping they'd manage their side. Zevlor emerged from his office to a near war.
The dark circles had left his eyes, though.
Undeterred, Ethel moved on to the children. Brought them honey sweets from her hives, hunks of jerky. She would hold candy out of their reach, snap her blunt teeth at them like a monster and joke about plumping them up to bake them. Grated on Okta's ridges, it did, sent her teeth a grinding. Mol must have agreed; she strode out of her hidey-hole one day, caught Matttis by the ear and dragged him away.
Bex and Danis, next, offering them potions for quickening. Bex had laughed over the idea of a pregnancy, and Danis asked if Ethel might have a cat instead. Okta slipped them her spare nararoot, just in case.
Every day Okta watched, and the longer she watched, the more Ethel noticed. When only the two of them graced the Hollow, her buttons gaped over cleavage, her hair artfully escaped its bun, and she'd lean back on her table, popping a hip, staring until Okta looked, then blow a kiss and cackle.
If Okta scowled, she cackled. If Okta rolled her eyes, cackle. Ignore it? Cackle.
The day Okta caught the kiss, Ethel raised and eyebrow.
Okta crumbled it up and tossed it over her shoulder.
Ethel threw up her hands and turned back to her table.
Sweat dripped over Ikaron's brow. Wove its way between his hornettes and down his temple. Okta wiped it away and pressed her wrist to his forehead.
Still hot. A sweat ought to mean the fever broke, but he'd been sweating all night and was still just as hot as yesterday. The bedroll, his clothes, all of it soaked, and she'd barely got any water into him. She pressed an ear to his chest, wincing at the rattling, crunchy sound in his lungs. Each breath fought for, a battle. He'd likely inhale any water she didn't make him swallow.
He hadn't been this sick since the illness when he was a baby. She'd sat up for days, holding him with his head on her elbow, legs on her hand, angling him to soften how his skin sucked at his sternum and neck, to bring color back to his lips and tongue. Propped herself up in the corner of their shack, terrified she'd fall asleep, cursing herself for naming him, praying he would recover, because no doctor in all of Elturel would see them when she didn't have coin.
Powerless to help him them.
Powerless to help him now.
Vines rustled, a figure slipping into their meager room.
"I've got white willow," Ethel said. "Good for a fever."
Okta rubbed her temple with the tip of her tail. "Don't need your games."
Ethel sucked her teeth. "Lotions and potions aren't games. Sounds like air hunger. Scoot aside."
Okta held his hand while Ethel pressed her own ear against his chest. She listened. Thumped his chest. Listened again. Lifted his arm and wedged the blanket under his shoulder—
"Don't even know what he could be sick with," Okta blurted. "We run too hot for most of what humans catch."
"Shh." Another listen. "Full of liquid. A dry drowning." Ethel sat back on her haunches, knuckles to her lips. "City doctor would say to drain it. I could fetch porcupine quills."
"You're not stabbing my Ikaron in the lung."
"Likely for the best." She rummaged through her bag, pulling out a few packets of herbs. "Sit him up. We'll get a vapor going, give him the strength to breathe it out on his own. Here, invigorating balm. Get it on his chest, see if we can't wake him up enough to drink. You got a kettle?"
Okta hesitated, thinking of Zevlor.
Ethel snapped, "It's mint, spirit of hartshorn and sunflower butter, Okta. Can't make him worse."
Still, she sniffed it before smearing it on. A few seconds and Ikaron tried to sit up, mumbling something under his breath. She shushed him, smoothing his hair back behind his horns.
"Heat this water," Ethel ordered.
Ikaron managed to stay upright as Okta snapped flame, got the kettle going. Ethel worked fast, efficiently, listing ingredients for Okta's approval in a near sarcastic tone. Willow, quinine conk, honey, mintsuckle, mullein, a two minute soak, then the kettle was shoved into Okta's hands with a, "Get him to drink."
An entire kettle? Okta poured a cup, doubtful, but Ikaron gulped it down, resting his head on her shoulder as she poured more. By the time the kettle was emptied, Ethel had a bowl of vapor tea ready. One lungful—or whatever Ikaron could manage—and he coughed, long and hard, until he spat a wet mess into a rag. Okta's stomach turned. A long, ragged mess, like strings of moss, like the garlands of spindly vines that grew in swamps.
After all the coughing he collapsed, too exhausted for even the balm to keep him awake. They laid him out, a rag soaked in vapors laid over his chest.
"Up," Ethel ordered.
Okta straightened the blanket, debating if his breathing was smoother.
"Up!" This time, Ethel yanked her upright, her legs protesting. "Come on, out into the sun with you."
"I can't leave him."
"You can. Next hour won't change his fate, but you not being able to care for him this evening might. Now, where's your horrible gruel?"
Okta tried humility once. Didn't suit her. Now she found herself donning it again, wandering up to Ethel's table and offering a poesy and a, "Thank you. For taking care of my family."
"He's recovered?"
"Tried to go back to his post this morning."
"Tell me you didn't allow it."
"Nearly broke my ladle on his horns."
Ethel snorted a laugh. "And now you've brought me flowers."
"Don't much like debt."
"Makes two of us." Ethel set the poesy on her table. In the distance, the children's voice raised in a marching chant, Asharak running them ragged near the gate. In the Hollow, though, a quiet settled. Just two old women, syrupy sunlight, flowers. "Hate to say—loathe, actually—but you don't owe me, petal."
If she hadn't been tired, if there hadn't been tendays of Ethel toying with her, if that old woman weren't so damn charming, Okta might've put it all together, might've realized things then. Instead, she said, "Well…if cards are still on the table—"
"Cards were never on the table."
"Tiefling's aren't just horns and tail. The claws are always sharp, and you can't imagine what's under all this," Okta said.
A merry peal of laughter rang out, Ethel holding Okta's hand to her chest. Soft, the fabric so thin Okta might as well be touching her skin.
"You think I'll be scared of you?" Ethel giggled. "Come, dearie. Try to frighten me."
"One time. Only once." With that, Okta kissed her. Kissed her soft, the way Okta'd always wanted to be kissed. The back of Ethel's knuckles brushed her jaw, and she caught her hand. Brought it to her hip, where the skin was flat.
Could've kissed her for hours. Ethel's tongue licked the swell of her lower lip, a flirty touch, and Okta held her forks together and returned it. Kept her tongue human-short, the extra tucked in its hollow at the back of her mouth. Eventually Ethel would find a part of Okta that scared her off. No need to rush it.
Ethel slipped her hands to the small of Okta's back, one hand sliding upwards so her ample bosom pressed against Okta's modest one, the other down to play with the ridge on her tail, sending it whipping around until it found Ethel's thighs. Wrapped them together.
Ethel's hand slipped under her tail. Rubbed a finger on the crease, where her cheeks met it, a filthy place of sensitive skin.
"Ethel!" she exclaimed.
"What? Wouldn't be the first tail I've fingered."
Okta flushed at the word. Fingered.
"Oh, come Okta. Surely this isn't your first time. You made a whole son somehow."
She hadn't. That was the truth of it. She'd seen the baby left alone on those steps, felt the rain coming as his parents scurried off. Abandoned him. Seen his skin, seen the patchy dry skin where his horns were coming in. In that moment, seen every way everyone had abandoned her.
Bold as a lie, she'd walked up to that temple and taken him.
The moment she decided, she knew she had to love him, had to let him inside her heart in a way no one else got in. Ikaron hadn't been asked to have her as his mother, so she endeavored to serve him in every way the world failed her.
But Ikaron was grown. A good lad with a strong spine and pure heart. Grown beyond her. That was the point of parenting, wasn't it? To make people who didn't need you anymore.
This moment wasn't Okta and Ikaron. This was Okta and Ethel. She'd show this backwater charmer what she could do.
Hands on Ethel's hips, she pushed her back to the table, pinned her against it, running her tail over Ethel's calves as she kissed her deeply. Ethel tried to reach for her, but Okta held her hands tight, fingers twined together, forcing Ethel to make do with lips, tongue and tail.
"How are your hands so strong? Thought arthritis would have eaten your joints! Like to feel those elsewhere, petal."
Arthritis, no, but age happened in other ways. Okta adopted her poetics and said, "Surely, amongst all those bottles, you have something to make this smoother."
Ethel snagged one without looking and, applying sultry like liquor, said, "And surely you know how to quit teasing and start pleasing."
"What do you want? A fingering?"
"You, Blushes-At-Fingered, taking charge?"
Okta leaned in, smiling so the light hit every fang. "You're welcome to leave if you don't like the arrangement."
Ethel raised an eyebrow and dared, "Well then. Have at it."
The sass! Okta bit the cork of the bottle and yanked it out.
"All your own teeth, eh?"
"Missing a few in the back. D'you have yours?"
"And then some."
Ha!
Otka opened the ties of Ethel's chest, baring luscious breasts, unmarked by scars and barely kissed by age. Each looked as soft and inviting as the word 'bosom'.
"I stay out of the sun," Ethel said.
"Of course you do."
"Let's see what you're packing."
Okta snorted and yanked up her own top, her breasts more reminiscent of the word "teats" and marked by an ugly scar, the devil pinches that covered her body spiraling over them like lines of warts. She kept her back straight, sure this would drive Ethel off.
"Demon whip," Ethel said, touching the scar.
"Aye."
"And these…" Ethel thumbed the devil pinches, sending a thrill through the entire line. "Little buds, aching to bloom. Delightful."
Okta frowned. "Not the usual response."
With a squeeze, Ethel snorted. "Anyone who complains about breasts doesn't deserve to enjoy them."
Okta sniffed the bottle–mint and azalea–and dribbled some over Ethel's chest, watching her skin prickle under the cool liquid. She caught a drip, tracing a design over Ethel's skin, a long tease to her areola, then away, back close, her knee sliding between Ethel's legs.
Ethel kissed the ridge along her collarbones, nibbling their peaks, following them to the hollow of Okta's throat. Made the rest of her stand at attention. Made her want to move the show forward, to mark more of Ethel's body in mint and azalea.
It took a moment to kneel in a way that didn't make her knees groan, but Okta found the position. Opened Ethel's trousers. "Look at that. No small clothes."
"Makes me feel foxy."
"I'm not surprised."
A tight fit, working her tongue between Ethel's lips, but the way Ethel stiffened, her fingers twitching, made Okta work deeper, determined to make Ethel's polished veneer give way, to reduce her to a sloppy, panting mess, make her mouth hang open and all the cleverness in her eyes dull to lust. She traced down one side, spearing her tongue deep enough to find where Ethel opened up, realizing too late that she'd gone too far, revealed a tongue that was too fiendish.
"Oh, don't pull back," Ethel gasped. "I suddenly regret us wasting so much time wagging tongues and not—not—ha! You've got me muddled."
"I'll make you more than muddled."
"Looking forward to it! You could lick me arse to nipples without moving your head, couldn't you?"
Not nipple, but Okta dragged the tip from Ethel's opening to her bud, letting the fork split around it, swirl and tease the shy thing from its hood. The sounds Ethel was making, little ohs and ahs, sent throbs through Okta's devil pinches, made her aware of the lines of them on her hips, the inside of the thighs, on her own privates' lips. Hard to explain to people who didn't have them what it was like, how they would heat and swell just enough for her to notice them, throb to the point of distraction, how they'd drag pleasure through her body, how they circled her sweet spot and ran behind it. How Ethel's hand on her breast might as well been a hand between her legs.
The oil made Okta's skin tingle, made her feel alive and hot and needy for Ethel's touch. Slowly, that old heat gathered in her loins. Every time the pinches flared, she grit her teeth, needy to cross her legs and squirm, grind them against herself until the heat left her.
She would not climax first.
She stood, fell against Ethel, held them bits to bits as they kissed, both hands working Ethel's trousers lower as Ethel tugged up her skirt, singing under her breath, "Okta, Okta, lift your frock-ta, show how your gardens swell." Her tail wrapped around Ethel's hips, their bodies forming a long, flush line so Ethel couldn't look down, wouldn't see that Okta had far too many folds down there, each lined with more pinches. No, block it with her body, finish this little game. When Ethel finally broke, it would be after Okta had her pleasure.
Swollen now, so swollen with want it nearly hurt, Ethel's hand on her breast, holding and squeezing it like she was ripe and sweet. Oil eased the way for Okta's tail spade, worked up between them from the bottom, spreading their folds to nestle against sensitive parts. The heat made her spade ache, made the devil pinches hidden deep inside it start to surface.
Okta thrust a few times, up and down, the spade rubbing slick, spongy friction against her sweet spot. Too much, too nice! She collapsed against Ethel, panting against her mouth, fang on tooth.
Ethel murmured, "Glad you like it, petal, but I need more."
"Don't know if you can handle it."
"Try me."
With a nasty smile, Okta slipped her tail lower, to Ethel's opening.
"Okta!" Ethel gasped. "Oh, you saucy—hurry up, put it in."
Carefully, Okta did, watching Ethel's face for any pain. None. In fact—
"Oh, it curves just right. And that flare! I bet you do this to yourself, too!"
"I don't, actually," Okta admitted, having a hard time staying aloof. She'd never been above sucking her own tail, enjoying a bit of suction on the tip, and what Ethel was doing to it, now…
"Then I'll fuck you with yourself, next." Ethel yanked her close, her human folds against Okta's.
She had to feel it, had to feel how numerous they were, how they were quivering and aching. Buzzing like the wings of an insect. Okta wrapped her arms around her, waiting for Ethel to shove her away.
But Ethel didn't stop, not the stroking, not the kissing. Not angling her hips so Okta's tail could hit the right spot, not grinding against her frills. Ethel was supposed to be scared, like all the others. This was supposed to end poorly, not like this. If it didn't, it meant that Okta could have had someone who wanted eher body bare, who couldn't keep their hands off her fiendish parts, who didn't need her to cut her claws and cover up.
Decades, alone, when she could've had this!
Could've had banter and kisses, had someone call her pinches, "buds".
Okta rolled her hips back, holding them together, and there, hidden in the vines, arms squeezed as tightly around Ethel as her eyes were squeezed shut, Okta bloomed.
"There, petal. Now we're even."
Fifteen days later…
The rocking chair creaked beneath Ethel, its legs reinforced to hold her true weight, her illusion settled over her shoulders like a too small cardigan. The swamp shivered. A warning. Someone was coming.
She sniffed the air.
Brimstone.
An hour later, an old tiefling staggered down the path. Eyes haunted, clothing splattered with blood, Okta stood at the based of the stairs. Stared up at Ethel.
Hard to tell if there were any thoughts in her head.
Ethel went back to her writing.
"He's dead," Okta said.
"Aye. Thought as much."
"And I'm not."
"I'd hope not."
"I've thought about it. The whole walk, thought about why. It's you, ain't it? You…did something to me, with your potions."
"Lotions," Ethel corrected. "Didn't use any potions on you."
"Why?"
Ethel set down her quill. Folded the letter up, dribbled some wax, pressed it with her seal. A cry wavered out from inside her cabin, then a weak wail.
Okta's head snapped to the door.
"A baby?" she said.
"Aye. You got my girl to me. My Mayrina. Helped her push her handcart, full of her silly dead husband."
"I did?" Confusion. Then, horror, "I did."
"Now, just now, she's had a daughter. Now, just now, I've had a daughter."
"You are a hag." Most people sounded faint figuring it out. Okta just sounded like she hated herself. "You made Ikaron sick. To…what? Trick me?"
"And it was funny. Your lad wouldn't even drink alcohol, but took a potion from me, no questions asked. It worked out in the end. I owed you, Okta. And now I don't."
Okta pressed her hand to her mouth. Retched a little, but kept it all down. A pretty picture she made. Perfect for a gallery.
Ethel had always been too sentimental about her favorites.
She shivered out of her illusion, stretching her vines. Crumbled her face in concern. "You're upset, Okta. What if I told you I could get him back?"