There it is, then.

I can’t look away from it, even though there’s plenty of strangeness for me to contemplate.

Along with thirty-nine other women, I’ve just been pushed through what looked like a tear cutting through air itself, as if the world was bending inwards. We’re standing on an open field, before a forest unlike any I’ve ever seen on the Five Eyes, a swaying mass of purple leaves and bark that moves despite the absence of wind.

But it all disappears into insignificance, compared to that thing, towering over the horizon.

The Mountain.

Twin peaks jut upward into the sky. They’re jagged, like teeth in the mouth of some feral beast. Even though there’s daylight here — wherever here actually is — the sky behind the mountain is a dark night’s sky, dotted with a dizzying array of bright, distant stars.

"Holy shit," someone whispers behind me. "It's real."

Of course it's real. The Cult doesn't build its entire theology around fiction. I've heard the stories since childhood—the Mountain is the place where the Cult’s power is most concentrated, most pure. The place where folks like us, foolish enough to have incurred debt with the Cult, are sent to battle for our freedom or our final enslavement.

I scan the faces around me. Terror is the dominant expression. Some women rock back and forth, muttering prayers to unfamiliar gods. Others stand motionless, transfixed by the Mountain's terrible majesty. Not all are from the Five Eyes. Some must be from all corners of what once was the Old Empire.

I’ve heard tell that the Cult is obscure, beyond the islands. Apparently, plenty of folks have never even heard about it. I wouldn’t know what that’s like. Back home, the Cult is the sole power in the land.

They've been the shadow over my entire existence.

I grew up on Herceira, the middle island of the Five Eyes. My grandmother still remembered a time before the Cult, and the day when they first showed up on merchant ships. They brought pelts from the Great Northern Realm and peaches from the Aliax, but most of all, they brought the obelisk, and their liturgy: the worship of Mountain and Collar.

And now, I’m in the shadow of said Mountain. If I don’t keep my wits about me, I’ll end up intimately acquainted with a collar, too…

The cultists who brought us here have vanished, leaving us alone with nothing but whatever possessions we were allowed to keep. I flex my fingers, rolling my shoulders to loosen the tension there. Forty women.

Forty competitors.

"We have to climb that?" A voice with a strange accent breaks the silence. A small, dark-haired woman points toward the distant peaks.

"Not really," I say, keeping my voice neutral. "We have to survive the forest."

"What's in the forest?" she asks, her eyes widening further.

"Each other," I say simply.

Understanding ripples through the group. Several women take instinctive steps away from their neighbors.

For all the good it does them.

I’m the first to leave the group, walking calmly towards the forest. We are each other’s competition, and as soon as that realization grips the others, chaos will ensue. Best to be far and away before that happens.

I suppose I do have one advantage, compared to some of the other women. You can’t live on the Five Eyes without learning about the Battle of the Mountain, one way or another.

Several of the cultists won their ordainment by enslaving someone here. Many more have gone into this battle with their heads held high, and returned with glassy eyes and a collar around their necks. Occasionally, you even meet people who evaded capture for the whole two weeks, and made it back home with their debts forgiven.

The latter ranks are the ones I mean to join.

I reach the edge of the forest and pause, taking in its alien beauty and menace. The trees tower overhead, their purple bark gleaming with an inner light. Flowers of impossibly bright colors bloom among the underbrush. Some of these flowers look distinctly… well, phallic? Even the vegetation is sexual and obscene, in this evil place.

I know what the Cult expects of us—to turn on each other like animals, to embrace their doctrine that domination is the will of the cosmos. But even on the islands, some still remember the ways of the Old Empire.

Slavery is an abomination, a crime against creation itself, and I will not partake in it. I will win this battle, without compromising my principles.

Or so I hope…

With a deep breath, I step into the forest, under the shadow of the purple canopy… under the shadow of the Mountain.

***

The entire forest smells of sex.

It’s an absurd thought to consider, but it’s undeniably true. I'm used to forests—grew up hunting in them—but this isn't like anything on the Five Eyes islands. Or, probably, in the rest of the world.

Just being in here makes me feel this constant, subtle assault on my senses. Everything seem charged with inappropriate significance.

It's not subtle. It's not my imagination. The forest is deliberately sexual. Leaves feel sexual when they brush against my face. Flowers smell sexual when I pass by them. Vines and branches look sexual in the way they wrap around one another, like arms and legs.

The vines are especially bad. They wrap around tree trunks in intricate patterns, forming perfect diamond shapes like the restraints used in the public ceremonies back home. Where they intersect, they thicken into knots that mimic the decorative ties the Cult members use on their slaves.

I'm becoming increasingly aware of a warmth spreading through me, a heaviness in my breasts, a… dampness between my thighs, oh no. My breath comes faster, though I'm not exerting myself physically.

It’s incredible, and so stupid: I should be scared, tense, paranoid, focused on remaining undetected, but I get this impossible urge to just stop and rub myself silly. It’s a twin pressure, inside my mind, and between my thighs, telling me to stop stop stop, rub rub rub.

I take in a deep breath, centering myself. Night approaches. The purple light dims gradually, but doesn't disappear entirely. The forest generates its own illumination—a bioluminescent glow that emanates from certain fungi and from the sap that runs just beneath the translucent bark of the trees.

I need to start a fire. There’s a risk to that, of course — detection — but there’s a deep chill, coming from the Mountain as night falls, and it’s not just physical cold. It’s a cold that seems to invite me to seek the warmth of a lover’s body. Whether that lover is a bedwarmer in my thrall, or a conqueror having her way with me, my own subconscious seems unable to decide.

No, I definitely need to start a fire. Fortunately, in this respect the forest seems to provide ordinary kindling, and I rapidly get one going.

I tense up at the sound of snapping twigs.

My hand finds my knife instantly. I stay perfectly still, controlling my breathing, waiting.

A silhouette appears between the trees. She steps closer, and I get my first clear look at her. Young—early twenties maybe—with delicate features, tan skin, and shoulder-length dark hair. She clutches a small knife in one hand, but her grip is all wrong, and the blade trembles visibly.

What catches my attention most are her eyes—wide, darting nervously from shadow to shadow.

I’ve never met someone with bright orange eyes before. It’s pretty, though a little on the creepy side.

"I can see you," I call out softly, raising my knife. "And I'm armed. Better than you are."

She freezes. "I'm not—" Her voice cracks, and she tries again. "I'm not here to fight. Please."

I remain silent, evaluating. Her fear seems genuine.

"I saw the firelight," she says, gesturing weakly toward my small campfire. "I was cold, so…"

She shouldn’t have said that out loud. It makes it that much harder to ignore the tug against my subconscious.

Warm each other. Be hot to her, and she’ll be hot to you. Clasp your hands around her slender neck, before she can do the same to you. Better pin her to the ground, just to be sure. Sit on her face —

"What's your name?" I ask, forcibly tearing my mind away from that tug. I fucking hate this place.

"Aria." She takes a hesitant step forward, then stops when I tense. "Aria Kores."

"I’m Selena. Where are you from, Aria Kores?"

"Aliax." She wraps her arms around herself, shivering slightly. "Please, I just want to get warm. I won't… I won't try anything."

Pretty far from here. Folks there would have little direct experience with the Cult, save for trade. It also explains the cold. I’m told that’s a place where the winters are always mild and the summers are always warm, and the sea surrounds the sunny land on three sides.

Must be tough, growing up in that paradise, only to end up here in hell.

Against my better judgment, I lower my knife. "You can approach the fire. Slowly. Keep your hands where I can see them."

Relief washes over her face. She nods rapidly, tucking her pitiful knife into her waistband and holding her hands up to show they're empty. She cautiously approaches the fire.

I watch her sink down beside the flames, extending her trembling hands toward the heat with a small, involuntary sigh of pleasure. The firelight plays across her features. She's pretty, in a fragile way.

She’d make for a very pretty slave. Every other woman in this forest would love to have her. Those lips look made to gently suckle on proffered fingers, or the tip of a boot. If she’s not great at serving cunt already, she can definitely be taught, someone who looks so soft has to be incredibly malleable.

If I make my move now and pin her to the ground, it will all be over, just like that, I’ll be free.

They’ll make a cultist of me. I’ll don a creepy inhuman mask made of obsidian, crowned with the twin peaks of the Mountain, and the finest crimson robe, they’ll give me a sword and a collar to ordain me. I’ll be free…

And she will not.

I blink, rapidly dispelling that mental image. I… no. Slavery is evil. I will not fall into temptation. This blighted vegetation can make suggestions, but it can’t make me do things. Nor can the Cult. Not unless I let them.

"Thank you," she says, glancing up at me. "You're the first person I've met who hasn't immediately tried to attack me."

I remain standing, positioning myself where I can watch both her and the surrounding forest. "Don't thank me yet. Trust nobody."

She nods, dropping her gaze back to the flames. "I understand. I just needed a moment to…"

I wait for her to finish, but she never does. The silence feels awkward, and I’m scared I’ll drift further and deeper into a spiral of sexual thoughts, so I clear my throat and make myself ask something.

"How did you end up indebted?"

"My father. He… he took out loans from the Cult. For the farm." She swallows hard. "When he couldn't pay…"

She trails off, but I can fill in the rest. It's a common enough story. The Cult always offers aid with one hand, while the other grips a chain.

"And you? If you don't mind me asking?"

I debate how much to reveal. In the end, I settle for the simplest version of the truth. "I stole from them."

Her eyes widen. "You… stole? From the Cult?" There's a mix of fear and awe in her voice.

I shrug. "Food, mostly. Medicine when I could get it. We were starving."

"I see." She looks up at me, studying my face. "You seem to know a lot about them."

"I'm from the Five Eyes."

"The Five Eyes," she repeats, and I can see her struggling to place the reference. "Is that… are they islands?"

"Five islands in an archipelago." I allow myself to sit, though still at a careful distance.

Aria shivers, and not from the cold this time. "What is this place really? This forest, the Mountain? When they transported us here, I thought I was hallucinating."

"I don’t know what it is. I’m just a thief, not a learner of the higher mysteries. Still… it’s like… a place separate from the world, I think. The Cult created it—or found it, it’s never really been clear—many years ago. During the twilight of the Old Empire."

"But why do they have us fight here? Because it’s sacred?"

"That’s what I assumed, but there’s more. It was never really clear to me what it meant, exactly, that you were supposed to enslave people here. But I think I’m starting to get the idea…" I gesture at the sexually suggestive vegetation surrounding us. "Have you noticed the shapes? The forms?"

Have you heard the call?

Aria blushes fiercely. "I thought it was just me. That's… that's disgusting."

"That's the Cult," I say simply. "Everything is sex and power to them."

She draws her knees up to her chest, making herself smaller. It takes every ounce of willpower I have, not to assign sexual symbolism to that display of weakness. "How do you know so much about the Cult? Have you been here before?"

"No. But they rule the Five Eyes, so…" I poke at the fire with a stick, sending up a small shower of sparks. "Look, here’s the thing. The Cult says we live in a fallen world. There is hunger, and there is misery."

Aria leans forward, listening intently.

"They claim slavery is the best way to allocate scarce resources in a fallen world. Bondage is a tool, given to us by the gods themselves — the gods they say reside beyond the Mountain — to solve this problem."

I find myself staring deep into the fire as I continue.

"There’s no room for ambiguity in their view. You’re either a master, or a slave. That’s why this battle is set up like this. Think about it. Once we’re in here, there are only three ways we can get out alive."

I start counting off my fingers.

"One: you get collared. That’s the easy one. As a slave, you are reduced to human cattle for your betters. You’ll spend the rest of your life paying off your debt with your body, and then some."

We both fail to suppress a small shiver.

"Two: you enslave someone. You have furthered the Cult’s mission to make all of humanity hierarchical. As a master, you are granted Cult membership… irrespective of your wishes. You pay off your debt by working for the Cult, as one of them. And of course, your newly collared slave is free labor and sexual service for the cult, too."

Aria squirms a little. Hardly surprising. It’s profoundly uncomfortable to contemplate.

"But why have a third option at all? Why let anyone go free?" Aria asks.

"If you evade capture for two weeks," I say, "they think it means the gods haven’t decided where to sort you yet, as master or slave. You’re released because you are yet to find your place in the world." I shrug. "It’s insane, I do agree. But since it gives me a way out of here, I’ll take it."

"So you disapprove of slavery?"

"Of course I do," I say, scoffing. "When I was born, the Old Empire was already gone, but many on the islands still remember. The Cult says they’re rebuilding civilization after the end of the Empire, but I don’t believe that’s true, because what they value is evil. Slavery is an abomination."

Aria is quiet for a long moment, absorbing everything. The fire crackles between us, casting dancing shadows across her pensive face. When she speaks again, her voice is small but determined.

"I want that, too. Could we… could we travel together? Watch each other's backs?" She rushes on before I can respond. "I know I'm not skilled like you are. I can see that. But two sets of eyes are better than one, right? And I'm a fast learner. I could help somehow."

In another time, another place, I would have been morally compelled to accept — and happy to. One should always reach out in solidarity and clasp the hand of those who are drowning. Those are the ways of the Old Empire, and I feel like a coward and a hypocrite for turning my back on them now. But…

I stand abruptly. "No. We can't."

"Oh."

The disappointment in that single syllable nearly breaks my resolve. How do I tell her that even now, as we speak, part of my mind is cataloging all the ways I could overpower her? That I've noticed how her wrists are delicate enough that my fingers would encircle them completely?

That I’m curious to hear what variations of oh she says, when being edged for hours and desperate for an orgasm?

Maybe even more importantly…

What if she’s thinking sexual thoughts about me, too?

That’s why you should strike before she does! Stop stop stop, rub rub rub, fuck fuck fuck —

I turn my back to her and step away from the fire.

"Please," she says, also rising to her feet. "Don’t leave me here all alone…"

"I have given you information that I didn’t have to share," I say, more harshly than intended. "You should be thankful for that much."

Aria's shoulders slump in defeat. In the fading light of the dying embers, she looks impossibly young and vulnerable. For a moment, I waver.

"Thank you," she whispers, eventually. "For the fire. And the advice."

And when she says that, so meek, so harmless, I know, deep in my bones, that I’m standing at a crossroads. I either run at her, to subdue her, or I run away from her, and don’t look back.

Thank the spirit of the Old Empire, it’s the latter impulse that wins out. I dart away from Aria, plunging into the darkness of the forest.

***

Days have passed since my encounter with Aria. Since then, I haven’t seen another living soul. Given the context, the solitude should be a blessing.

It isn’t.

I've been surviving on the forest's bounty, which seemed like good fortune at first. The fruit here grows in abundance—plump, juicy things that burst with sweetness on the tongue. But like everything else in this cursed place, it comes at a price.

The Cult’s gifts are always poisoned.

The fruit is… affecting me. With each passing day, the effect grows stronger. Clothes feel restrictive. My nipples are always hard, and the mere contact with fabric is enough to make me tremble with little shocks of arousal.

The space between my thighs throbs with a persistent, maddening ache that no amount of walking seems to alleviate.

My days are spent thinking of sex. And as for the nights…

The Mountain is the center of gravity of this entire place. Even where the canopy is at its thickest, I always see it, somehow. Towering over the horizon, impossibly large. But when I close my eyes, it’s the pull I field, like a wave that’s trying to drag me towards it.

My dreams are sexual, sure, but not just sexual. They’re dreams about sex and power, not just fused together, but one.

I wake each morning drenched in sweat, my hand already halfway to my crotch before I catch myself.

This morning was the worst yet. I nearly gave in. Nearly surrendered to the burning need coursing through my veins. My fingers were already slipping beneath my waistband when a distant howl—animal or human, I couldn't tell—shocked me back to my senses.

So now I'm walking. Again. Pushing myself harder than necessary, hoping physical exhaustion might dull the edge of this relentless arousal.

It doesn't.

Sweat trickles between my breasts, and even that sensation feels obscene. My thighs slide against each other with each step, the friction both maddening and insufficient. I want to scream. I want to stop and plunge my fingers deep inside myself. I want relief.

I want, I want, I want.

I'm so lost in my internal struggle that I almost miss the change in the forest ahead. The dense canopy thins, allowing actual sunlight to penetrate. A clearing. The first I've seen since entering this place.

As I approach, I hear… something. Voices? Yes, definitely voices, and other sounds I can’t quite place.

I slow my pace, instinctively dropping into a crouch. Moving with deliberate care, I edge closer to the source of the sounds, using the underbrush for cover.

The clearing comes into view gradually. It's larger than I expected, perhaps thirty paces across, a perfect circle of grass amid the purple trees. The sunlight here is unfiltered, bright and clean compared to the perpetual twilight beneath the canopy.

But it's what's happening in the center of the clearing that freezes me in place.

Aria is on her hands and knees in the purple grass, a rope fashioned from some kind of red vine looped around her neck.

Her clothing has been partially torn away, leaving her tits exposed. Dark hair hangs in sweat-damp strands across her face, but not enough to hide the terror in her orange eyes or the trembling of her lower lip.

Standing over her is a tall, powerfully built woman with short-cropped jet black hair and muscles that ripple beneath pale skin. A jagged scar runs down the left side of her face. Her equestrian boot rests on the back of Aria's neck, pressing down while she pulls up on the vine-rope, forcing Aria's spine to arch painfully.

The position is deliberately degrading, deliberately sexual. It displays Aria like merchandise, forcing her body into a pose that emphasizes her breasts, her hips, the curve of her spine.

But there’s something more to the symbolism. This isn’t just sex, it’s sex and power. I don’t know if I’m seeing it for real, or it’s just the sexual miasma of this place poisoning my thoughts, but there’s something so enrapturing about the way Aria is being bent by two forces that act in different directions.

The woman’s boot is pressing her down, towards the ground. The vine-rope is pulling her up, towards her conqueror.

It’s such a breath-taking encapsulation of entrapment. It makes Aria look so utterly helpless…

Like everyone else on the islands, I’m used to seeing the trappings of slavery, but this is different. Stripped of social circumstance. Raw ownership. This is one human being, reducing another to property. Evil manifest.

And it’s hot…

"You're a pretty little thing," the scarred woman says, her voice carrying easily in the still air of the clearing. Her accent is harsh, clipped—northern, maybe. "And I ain’t just sayin’ that because you’re my ticket out of here, sweetheart."

Aria whimpers, a sound so broken it makes my chest tighten. "Please," she gasps, "please don't do this."

The woman laughs, a sound like stones grinding together. "Already begging. Good. I like that." She yanks harder on the vine-rope, forcing a soft, strangled moan from Aria's lips as she pulls her head back at an even more painful angle.

I can't look away.

Stop stop stop. Look look look. Rub rub rub. Cum cum cum.

It’s like the whisper is rippling through the entirety of the forest’s canopy.

Take one for yourself. Find a weaker woman. Bend her to your will. Make her lick your boots. Make her lick your cunt.

I could do it. I could find someone vulnerable like Aria. Someone lost and afraid. I could use my skills to hunt them down, to overpower them. I could feel what that scarred woman is feeling right now.

My hand drifts to the waistband of my pants. I'm soaking wet, and the need to touch myself is almost overwhelming. Just a few innocent rubs. Just enough to take the edge off this maddening desire.

What’s the harm?

I snatch my hand away from my waistband, horrified at myself. What am I becoming? I clench my fist so hard my nails dig into my palm, using the sharp pain to cut through the fog of arousal.

The scarred woman is removing her shirt. I still don’t know what’s supposed to happen, when you enslave someone, but I suspect that instinct and the forest will take over, and that she’ll know exactly what to do. Aria’s fate is all but sealed.

I should leave. Now. While they're distracted. It's the rational thing to do.

I have no obligation to Aria—I barely know her. Getting involved means risking everything. I just want to go back to my life, go back home.

But… what is home?

The Five Eyes weren’t always dirt poor. They weren’t always a land of chains and collars. They were once part of something greater, nobler, kinder.

If I go back home, what will I see, the next time I look into the eyes of a slave? Will I see a pair of immensely sad, broken orange eyes?

Something snaps inside me.

I close my eyes for just a moment. This is madness. But I’ve spent my whole life refusing to accept what the Cult of Collar and Mountain has made, of my beleaguered islands. So why the hell should I start now?

My body moves before my mind fully commits. I burst from the underbrush, knife already in hand, charging directly at the scarred woman.

She barely has time to turn, before I slam into her, driving my shoulder into her midsection.

She’s bigger than me, stronger too, but the impact is enough to knock her off-balance. She stumbles backward, momentarily releasing her grip on Aria's leash.

"Run!" I shout to Aria, not taking my eyes off my opponent. She recovers quickly—too quickly.

I feint left, then slash right with my knife. She doesn't fall for it. Her arm blocks mine, and before I can recover, her fist connects with my chest.

The air rushes from my lungs. I stagger, gasping.

Her leg sweeps mine from under me. The world tilts, then I'm falling, my back hitting the ground with enough force to rattle my teeth. I try to roll away, but she's already there, straddling my waist, her weight immobilizing my hips.

I slash wildly with my knife. She catches my wrist in a grip like iron, squeezing until my fingers spasm and the blade falls uselessly to the grass.

"You fight well," she says, almost appreciative. "For a little island girl."

I buck beneath her, trying to throw her off. It's like trying to dislodge a mountain. Her thighs clamp around my waist, her muscles like steel beneath her skin.

"Think you’re some kind of hero, huh? I’ll show you, meddling whore…"

I spit in her face. For a second, genuine shock flashes in her eyes — yellow eyes, pale and flickering, the eyes of a northener — then something darker replaces it.

I thrash harder, but it's useless. With methodical precision, she captures my wrists and pins both my arms above my head, using just one hand. Fuck, that’s humiliating, how strong is this woman?

Her other hand grabs my throat.

Stop stop stop, the forest whispers frantically inside my mind, seizing on the humiliating symbolism of my predicament. Beg beg beg. Fall fall fall.

The ground beneath me feels suddenly alive, the grass caressing my skin like thousands of tiny fingers. Each blade seems to whisper directly to me. The earth itself is trying to seduce me.

Lose lose lose.

Do I deserve to lose? I attacked her, after all. Attacked, and lost. It was humiliatingly easy, too. What happens to an aggressor that’s easily vanquished? Surely, the harshest possible terms would be imposed on such a pitiful creature…

Slave slave slave.

Will I have to go back to the islands with a collar around my neck?

Lick lick lick.

My back arches involuntarily, and I find myself pressing my breasts against her. My muscles begin to slacken in resignation under her manifest superiority. My hips, which had been bucking in resistance, now press upward to meet her.

A soft sound escapes my lips…

Moan moan moan.

The scarred woman notices the change immediately. A flicker of understanding crosses her face. Experimentally, she releases the grip of her legs around my waist, and suddenly, her knee is between my thighs, parting them open. Pressing upward…

"This is how it’s done, then," she says, musing. "This is how I make you mine? Alright, then. You’re going to look so pretty in a collar…"

Her face hovers above mine, so close that it dominates my field of vision. Even so, I can’t take in the details of its fierce beauty, because all I can focus on is her eyes. Pale, and yellow, and so large, like twin suns demanding my attention, and my devotion.

I feel like I could drown in those eyes.

"Look at me," she commands, and my eyes, which had begun to flutter closed in surrender, snap back open. "Good girl."

Something in those two words sends a shudder through me that has nothing to do with fear. My body responds to her approval like it's been conditioned to, even though we've never met before this moment.

"Do you feel it?" she asks, her voice dropping lower, becoming almost hypnotic in its rhythm. "The Mountain is watching us. It knows what you are. What you're meant to be."

I try to shake my head, to deny it, but her hand tightens on my throat—not enough to cut off my air completely, but enough to make breathing a conscious effort. Enough to remind me of my helplessness.

"Don't fight it," she continues, her lips brushing against my ear. "The more you struggle, the stronger it gets. Haven't you noticed? This place feeds on resistance."

As if to illustrate her point, she shifts her knee between my thighs, pressing it firmly against my center. The pressure sends a jolt of unwanted pleasure racing up my spine. I bite my lip to keep from moaning, but a small sound escapes anyway.

"See?" She smiles, and it transforms her scarred face into something darkly beautiful. "Your body already knows the truth. It's your mind that's getting in the way."

Her free hand moves from my throat to my face, her thumb tracing my lower lip. "Such a pretty mouth. I wonder what sounds I can coax from it."

I try to turn my head away, but she grips my chin and makes me meet her gaze. Her yellow eyes bore into mine, and I find I can't look away. There's something in their depths—something ancient and knowing that calls to a primal part of me.

"The Mountain chose you for me," she whispers. "That's why you came to this clearing. That's why you tried to play hero. Not because you care about that little slut. Because you were meant to kneel before me."

"I… uh… eek…"

"Shh. Look at me."

I am looing at her. I can't stop looking at her. Those yellow eyes seem to grow larger, consuming my field of vision until there's nothing else. Just endless gold.

"Go soft and weak."

Soft soft soft.

She shifts her weight, and I realize dimly that she's no longer holding my wrists. My arms remain above my head anyway, as if pinned there by invisible bonds. The part of my brain that should be alarmed by this seems distant, muffled.

Weak weak weak.

One hand is still gripping my throat, but the other has reached the waistband of my pants. She begins to tug them down my hips. I should kick, should twist away, but that might mean looking away from her eyes, and uhhmmm… uhhh… eeehh…

When her fingers first touch my cunt, I gasp and my eyes flutter by themselves — but only briefly! I should keep looking into the molten gold of her eyes!

I have to!

Look look look.

Her fingers move in slow, deliberate circles. They toy with my lower lips, and with my clit. My hips rise to meet her touch, because I want more.

"No," I manage to whisper, but it sounds unconvincing even to my own ears.

Her yellow eyes narrow slightly, and her hand tightens around my throat in warning. "Yes," she corrects me, her tone brooking no argument. "Say it."

Yes yes yes. If the forest says it, it must be true, mustn’t it? I suppose it would know best. It’s been here far longer than I have.

"Yes… please…"

"Please what, little island girl?" Her voice drops to a whisper, intimate and terrible. "Tell me what you need."

"I need…" The words stick in my throat. To say them would be to surrender completely, to acknowledge the shameful nature of my inferiority. But her fingers are rubbing me so steadily now, eroding my defenses… my will…

"I need you to…" I can't finish, can't form the words that would complete my capitulation.

She leans closer, so close that the tips of our noses touch. Her eyes are alight with inhuman sexual fire. "You need me to make you come. To reduce you into slavery. To own you, with the Mountain bearing witness. Say it."

"Yes," I hear myself whisper. "I need you to make me come…"

Her yellow eyes glitter in triumph. "Good girl. Was that so hard? But you’re not done. And?"

She pushes two fingers inside me.

I cry out, my back arching off the ground. The intrusion is both shocking and desperately needed. It’s incredible how easily she slid inside. How lubricated I must be. Eager to be conquered…

Wet wet wet. Cum cum cum.

Her thumb continues to work my clit, and her eyes continue to work my mind, and her words continue to work my will, and I just

Can’t can’t can’t -

"I need you… to reduce me into slavery…"

My scarred conqueror shudders, then, almost vibrating with her own arousal. "Yessss… yes… just one more. One more. Say. It."

I feel the tension, coiling tighter and tighter deep inside me, a pressure that threatens to shatter me completely. Her hand at my throat tightens slightly, limiting my air just enough to make my head swim.

I know, in some deep recess of my subconscious, that the third and final admission will be irrevocable. I know that when I say it out loud, I will cum like a squealing sow. I know that the Mountain will bear witness… and that my fate, at last, will be sealed. Perhaps it’s better this way. Perhaps it was always meant to be…

"I…" I lick my lips. The words are so hard to say, and yet so inexorable. "With the Mountain bearing witness, I need you to… to…"

The forest seems to hold its breath, waiting. The Mountain seems to lean forward, watching. I’m balanced on the knife’s edge, in more ways than one. Her eyes seem to expand until they’re all I can see, twin suns consuming my world, burning away my will. I’m falling into them, dissolving, becoming a simple creature of sensation. And then, at last —

Where have they gone?

The yellow eyes vanish so abruptly that I draw in air like I’ve just emerged from underwater. Cold air rushes between my legs where her heat had been. The weight pinning me down disappears.

I blink rapidly, disoriented. The world tilts and spins around me. My body throbs with unfulfilled need, so intense it's almost painful. I whimper, my hips lifting instinctively, seeking contact that isn't there.

Where did she go? Where are the eyes I'm supposed to be looking into? Why is there empty space, where my goddess should be?

Why isn’t the forest whispering to me anymore?

Wait… Goddess? What am I thinking?

Slowly, as if emerging from an unfathomable depth, I regain control of my body. With tremendous effort, I push myself up onto my elbows.

The scarred woman is lying in the grass, unmoving, apart from her steady breathing. And, standing over her, wielding a thick and heavy purple branch, is…

"Aria?!"

She turns to face me, and the fierce scowl that was her expression a moment ago melts right away. In a moment, she looks like the harmless, innocent girl that stumbled onto my campfire.

"That’s me… sorry it took me so long, I was kinda freaking out…"

"I… I don't…" The words come out slurred, as if I'm drunk. My throat feels raw. Did I scream? I can't remember. How long was I under the woman’s spell? It felt like an eternity and a heartbeat simultaneously.

"You hit her," I manage to say, my voice sounding strange to my own ears.

"Oh… I sure did!" Aria says. She seems to unpredictably oscillate between enthusiasm and embarrassment. "Really, sorry it took me a while."

I frown, trying to make sense of the timeline. How long exactly is a while? But I immediately regret my suspicion. Were it not for her, I’d be a slave now.

"I was scared!" Aria says, defensively. "I’ve never hit someone before, and I had to go find a branch, and—"

"It’s fine," I say, cutting her off. "Really. You didn’t have to do that, Aria. You… you saved me."

That seems to calm her. She puts down the branch, and walks up to me with a smile. She offers a hand, flashing me a happy grin.

"You saved me first. So… partners?"

I look at her, then at her hand, then back to her. And I remember my lessons: you should always clasp a hand offered in solidarity. So I clasp hers, and shake it firmly.

"Partners."

TO BE CONTINUED…