Jinn’s AI Swamp

[Jinn]

i hope this is not the last we see of Saori!

I’m sure Saori would hope so too!

[cerberus]

Cute story, great fun. Like the others I hope it doesn't end there.

[Jinn]

I have a particular fondness for Asian women, and Asian women in quicksand could always do with more representation. It's also a coincidence that Saori is a name Ive given to one of several characters I've created for some of my future works...

I have a bit of a kink for Japanese girls. I think it’s a result of all the hentai and tentacle porn I’ve exposed my brain to. The Japanese fascination with schoolgirl uniforms, stockings, scantily-clad superheroines and slimy, squishy, slithering peril are very much my jams.

I've also finished the remaining chapters of Traffic Stopper, and it's truly an amazing piece of work.

Leaving aside the fact that these are stories incorporating quicksand (for horny reasons), the fact that you've managed to make the reader emotionally invested in these characters is a testament to your skill at crafting these tales. These stories are more than just erotica, they are novellas.

Thanks again 65sinking. In a world of instant gratification addicts and shit-short attention spans (myself included) I realize most people don’t come here to read long stories. So I truly respect when viewers like yourself spend time reading and reflecting on my content.

[Jinn]

Happy Labour Day. Here’s a little diddy about a pretty little biddy getting goopy and gritty up to her titty outside the city.

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‘I can handle it,’ argued Jessi, looking rather perturbed at her father for his obvious reluctance to allow his only daughter to track an intruding pack of wolves on her own.

‘I know you can,’ debated Jared, trying to justify his hesitancy, ‘The problem is…’

Jessi waited impatiently, with crossed arms and a raised brow for her father’s explanation. Only two people alive could get away with glaring at Jared Jones like that; Jessi and her mother.

Jared caved. ‘The problem is you’re growing up too fast,’ sulked the owner of the Double J Ranch in Bragg Creek, as he handed the keys to a rifle’s trigger lock to his youngest child, ‘You’re not our little baby girl anymore, you’re a woman now.’

‘Oh daddy,’ sighed Jessi with a warm smile, melting into a hug from her giant of a father, ‘I’m always going to be yours and mom’s baby girl!’

Jared knew Jessi was more than just adorable; she was able. He had watched her sprout from an awkward, skinny tomboy into a beautiful young lady. He had seen with his own eyes his daughter transform from a hesitant, cowardly, cooky kid into the courageous competent leader standing confidently in cowgirl boots before him.

That very same spring the livestock tycoon had even witnessed the brave beauty dash out into the foothills riding bareback and barefoot on a ranch hand’s horse, wearing nothing but a summer dress to wrangle and rope a dogie calf that had wandered off.

Jessi was as qualified and capable of working the ranch as any of her older siblings who had years more experience. She battled harder than all of them to gain the respect and admiration of her father, her family and her fellow ranchers.

The fifth child in her family, Jessica “Jessi” Jones was the baby sister to four burly, bullying boys: Jayce, Jimmy, Jackson and Jared Jr. Growing up was a rough go for the sole daughter in a house supercharged with testosterone and a well established pecking order. Every inch of leverage was fought for, tooth and nail between the siblings. Every ounce of adoration from their father Jared and their mother Jasmine was competed for, sometimes spitefully and often vindictively.

Jared watched his baby girl carefully prepare a lever-action rifle with a scope, before loading it into the back of the rugged side-by-side utility vehicle in one of the ranch’s work sheds. She most definitely knew her way around firearms and farm equipment. Recently returning for the summer from University in Edmonton, she showed no signs of rancher’s rust as she conducted a text book inspection of the long barrel gun, even thoroughly pre-tripping the custom equipped Gator before climbing aboard.

Two nearby ranch hands tended to a quad-prop drone while inconspicuously peeking at the lovely blonde girl preparing herself for her reconnaissance mission. The captivating young lady was adorned by a plaid button shirt tied in a knot enticingly under her ample cleavage. Below her irresistibly trim and toned midriff were the tiniest cut-off denim shorts either of them had ever seen, out of which her long, shapely legs traveled down into her proud pair of well-worn, western riding boots. Her hypnotic, stone-blue eyes caught a glimpse of her ogling admirers from under her frayed and seasoned, straw cowgirl hat. She flashed a subtle smile to the familiar friendly faces, who smiled back and pretended to pay no mind to her compelling essence.

The ranchers dared not stare too long while Jared Jones was present. He was more protective of his youngest than any of his children. Nevertheless it was difficult for most on the ranch, men and women alike to avoid filling their eyes with the sultry sight of this incredibly attractive, Alberta angel.

‘Mel, when you’re done prepping the Mavic load it onto the Gator and you can take it for a test flight with Jessi,’ instructed Jared to the one of the pair of ranch hands who was adjusting the brand new drone’s camera.

‘I… uh…,’ stuttered the surprised rancher. The moderately masc yet fundamentally feminine, denim-clad worker-bee fidgeted awkwardly with her dark brown ponytail while panning her eyes between the bossman and his delightful daughter.

‘C’mon, Mel!’ coaxed Jessi, patting the empty seat beside her encouragingly, ‘Off-road trip?’

Jessi did not argue her father’s order to send a helper with her. She knew this was the only stipulation that would ease his concerns about his baby girl intercepting dangerous wildlife such as the wolves that had been recently spotted on a trail cam within the Double J property boundaries. There was no way Jared would let her go alone on this mission. Long time family friend Mel was the perfect companion for the task. Sending a man with Jessi would have stoked bitter resentment in her. She was tickled pink with her father’s suggestion. She loved Mel to death.

Melany ‘Mel’ Longwing was one of Jared’s most trusted employees. She had worked on the Double J Ranch southwest of Calgary for more than two decades. Jessi’s earliest memories were of Mel teaching her to chore and ride horses. She was as compassionate and nurturing to the rancher’s only daughter as Jessi’s mother was, yet was as rough and tumble as the most macho of men that she worked with. She could out-arm wrestle half the guys on the ranch, and could hold her liquor better than most, including the boss himself. The physically formidable Cree woman was also a staunch tech geek and a devout lesbian. She was the perfect man for the job.

‘Take care of my baby,’ quietly instructed Jared, pulling Mel aside while Jessi prepared a cargo net for contents of the 6x4 Gator’s XL storage bed. Above the boss’s friendly grin he glared at Mel with a peculiar intensity from under the large brim of his pristinely white cattleman hat. Mel knew that stare; Jared Jones meant business. ‘No fuckery,’ warned Jared, plainly and passive-aggressively.

Mel gulped air nervously. ‘Ten-four,’ she complied, reluctantly but dutifully packing up the drone for its newly assigned off-road adventure.

Smiling gleefully as Mel climbed into the green and black John Deere UV, Jessi put the rover in gear and skidded the tires cockily as the pair of cowgirls sped from the work shed toward the foothills.

Being caught off guard by Jared’s instruction, Mel had no choice but to comply. The loyal rancher very rarely refused a direct order from the boss, especially one that involved the safety of his gorgeous little girl.

Mel’s issue was the fact that Jared’s little girl was indeed gorgeous. Jessi’s picture perfect profile was more than distracting. Being on a ranch full of manly apes oozing with over-the-top masculinity, the presence of a beautiful blonde haired Alberta belle like Jessi was incredibly interrupting.

The Cree cowgirl had grown particularly fond of Miss Jones in recent years and remained secretly enamored by her. Mel too had witnessed Jessi blossom from a scrawny little, pig-tailed, nose-picker into a stunningly sensual woman. Since the semester Jessi had started University a few years prior, her body had developed the kind of enticing elements that turn friends into fanatics and protective fathers’ hair grey; from her flowing, glowing, golden locks, to her pretty, piercing eyes, to her invitingly kissable lips, to her plentifully perky, supple breasts, to her heavenly, huggable hips, to…

‘…my legs?’ asked Jessi, finishing a question that Mel had been too distracted to hear completely.

‘Huh?’ grunted Mel, prying herself from her preoccupation with the sexy driver’s irresistibly alluring thighs to share eye contact with her.

‘You keep staring at my legs,’ noted Jessi with a giggle, ‘Is everything ok down there?’

‘Y..Yeah, they’re perfect… er… perfectly fine. Everything’s fine,’ fumbled Mel, turning crimson with embarrassment. The quick thinking Cree harvested a solid excuse to cover for her goofy gawking at the girl’s goddess-like gams. ‘Aren’t you cold?’ inquired the flustered female, noticing the goosebumps covering the pretty girl’s fair flesh as the six-wheeled utility vehicle barreled over the countryside.

‘It’ll warm up soon enough,’ answered a chilly Jessi, playing down the assumption while trying to ignore her body’s shivering in the frigid foothills air.

Mel took the response with a grain of salt, and reached into the cargo box of the Gator. She produced a flannel blanket, and courteously covered Jessi’s exposed legs. Mel’s hand brushed against the side of the young girl’s insanely smooth thigh as she adjusted the cozy cover. Her skin was like pure silk. The feeling made Mel’s lady parts slightly salivate in her jeans.

‘Thank you,’ expressed Jessi appreciatively as she helped Mel tuck the warming throw around her. The early Labour Day morning temperature in the rolling hills and wooded trails of Rocky Mountain country was still much lower than it was back down around the barns and buildings of Double J.

Feeling herself thawing under the blanket, Jessi was grateful for the gesture. So was Mel; as long as Jessi’s lovely legs were covered up the roused ranch hand would be less compelled to fantasize about sliding between them, and be more attentive to the task at hand.

‘Up there,’ Mel pointed to a nearby ridge overlooking the Elbow River basin, ‘Drop me there. I’ll send up the Mavic to take a peek.’

Jessi veered the Gator off the dirt path and shuttled her co-pilot to the high ground vantage point. The view from the ridge was spectacular. The glacier fed river below them twisted and turned through the Southern Alberta landscape like a giant serpent. Seemingly millions of towering lodgepole pines covered the land between the flowing Elbow and the magnificent, snow-capped Rocky Mountains that loomed legendarily in the background.

The young girl pranced up the to lip of the ridge to take it all in. Her hair fluttered like strands of gold in the cool zephyr breeze. Mel steadfastly unpacked the drone and began setting it up, periodically glancing over at the postcard panorama, and the pretty princess occupying it.

‘Breathtaking, isn’t it?’ reflected Jessi, holding her hat to her head in the wind as she turned to address her fellow cowgirl.

‘Yes you are… right… You’re so right. Breathtaking. The view is.’ stumbled Mel clumsily, once again letting herself become hypnotized by hips, bewitched by breasts… and seduced by a smile.

‘I don’t ever want it take it for granted,’ continued the blonde beauty, panning over the picturesque horizon, ‘I’ve been blessed with being born here, living here and waking up to this view almost everyday. I don’t want to ever forget how wonderful it is, or how important it is, or even dangerous it can be.’

Mel smiled as she calibrated the settings on the drone’s remote control pad. ‘Always, always take care of the land and its people,’ she quipped with her eyes fixed to the remote screen, ‘Especially its people. Take care of them and they will take care of you. Thats how you avoid taking it all for granted.’

‘That’s beautiful,’ commented Jessi, looking profoundly at Mel as she came up to the peak of the ridge to join the young lass.

‘Your dad knows this,’ added Mel, briefly reciting a somber history, ‘Long before you and I were here the colonizers claimed all this land. They tried to wipe out the animals, the people… my people, my history, my future. They nearly succeeded. Jared Jones knows he can’t right the wrongs of all the white men who came before us to steal and rape and murder. He can’t give back all the land or all the lives that were taken. But Jared Jones creates opportunity. He supports and provides jobs for Cree and Blackfoot families. He puts money into school funds for reserve kids. Your dad is a true okimâw.

Mel paused for a moment and looked east over the plain. ‘There,’ she pointed, giving Jessi time to focus on what she was directing her attention to, ‘The paskwâwi-mostos that we see right now with our very own eyes were at one time all but extinct. Yet there they are, as plain as day. Your dad is not giving them false hope or empty promises, he’s giving them opportunity. He’s helping the roaming beasts to find their way home.’

The girls spied on the massive Double J herd of bison grazing on the hilly plains several kilometers from the ridge that they were perched upon. Hundreds of dark brown dots speckled the landscape; the product of many years of hard work and dedication by Jared Jones and his team, including Mel and Jessi.

‘Your dad doesn’t take anything for granted,’ insisted Mel, as she raised the remote control pad. The sound of the buzzing drone behind them filled the quietness of the Alberta hilltop, ‘Which is precisely why he sent me with you, okimâskwêsis.’

‘My hero,’ joked Jessi facetiously, rolling her eyes, ‘Here to babysit Daddy’s little girl, eh?’

Mel humbly looked down at the remote control pad’s screen, pretending to be too busy piloting the drone to notice the sarcasm.

‘Oh Mel, I’m only kidding with you!’ fessed the playful prairie princess, as she wrapped her arms around her Cree companion for a peace offering in the form of a tender hug, ‘You know I appreciate you. I’m thankful that you’re here with me. I’m grateful that you’re a part of our family.’

She smells so fucking good, thought Mel, dropping the remote to reciprocate the embrace and take in a deep breath. Her scent was like sweetness and strawberries, like some sort of fragrant phantom of floral femininity. My God she’s intoxicating, Mel confessed silently to herself, holding Jessi’s overwhelmingly enticing body against her own and gently gliding her lips over the beautiful girl’s satiny smooth neck.

‘M..Mel?’ whispered Jessi, brushing cheeks with the overly affectionate Cree cowgirl as she squirmed uncomfortably in Mel’s caressing hands, ‘What are you…?’

With complete abandonment of inhibition, Mel pulled Jessi back into her arms and delivered a warm, passionate kiss to her soft, sensual lips.

‘…doing?’ finished Jessi, passively pushing out of the exchange.

Mel mirrored Jessi’s look of total shock and astonishment. ‘Oh shit,’ she cried, blushing profusely and shaking her head shamefully, ‘I am so sorry, Jessi! I don’t know where that came from. I’m…’

‘We’re like sisters for God’s sake!’ scolded the flustered femme, ‘I should have known you were crushing on me! Jeezus!’

‘Jess… please, I…’ begged Mel, as the red faced rancher’s daughter half her age backed away from her.

‘Now things are going to be all fucking weird between us!’ lamented Jessi, her eyes welling up as she continued to blast Mel, ‘Why’d ya have to go and do that, huh?’

Jessi was justifiably upset, and Mel knew it. Besides her mother, Mel was the only other female at the Double J Ranch that she could confide in, the only other girl that she could count on, the only other woman that she truly trusted. Now that trust was waning because of a stupid impulse, Mel regretfully realized.

Mel sighed. ‘Jessi, I apologize. That was incredibly dumb and selfish of me. Please hun, I’m begging for your forgiveness. I know that probably doesn’t help, but…’ began the guilt-ridden cowgirl, before being cut off by a series of high pitched warning beeps emitting from the drone’s remote pad.

‘Fuck!’ cussed Mel, glaring at the remote screen before quickly shifting her eyes down the ridge into the river basin, ‘The Mavic!’

The cowgirls watched just as the high tech heli-bot spiraled down and bottomed out hard on the sandy flood plain of the Elbow River below them. Mel’s head dropped and she stared remorsefully at her boots. First she had crashed the cowgirl’s “off-road trip,” now she had consequently crashed Jared Jones’s very expensive surveillance drone.

Burying her face in her hands, Mel was at a loss for what to say or what to do next. ‘I fucked up,’ she admitted repeatedly, ‘I fucked up real bad. And I don’t know how to make things right, Jess.’

Before Mel could finish her thought, Jessi had jumped into the Gator and was peeling off toward the valley. ‘Don’t sweat it,’ quipped the perturbed princess, as she motored by the calamitous cowgirl, ‘I’ll get it.’

‘Why’d ya have to go and do that, Mel?’ she whispered to herself, echoing Jessi’s own tearful inquiry as she watched the Gator with the gobsmacked, golden haired girl roll recklessly down to the river. She dared not ask to tag along. Mel figured that based on how pissed she looked, Jessi could use a few deserving minutes alone.

Something in Mel’s peripheral caught her attention. Upstream roughly a kilometer from the drone was movement along the river’s edge. Looking like wispy specks of smoke from a distance, four ghostly grey wolves were on the move, heading single file and steadily toward the crash site… and Jessi…

The Gator rolled to a stop on the soft, silty bank of the Elbow River. Jessi hopped out of the UV, fixated on the downed drone still dozens of meters ahead of her.

The unit was sitting upright with a slight lean as one of its outriggers was partially submerged in the soggy sand. Otherwise it appeared undamaged and totally retrievable. Luckily the spiraling spy bot had not plunged into the freezing water, thought Jessi thankfully as she walked out over the flood plain.

The soft, shifting sand below her quivered and quaked as the careful cowgirl boot-stepped mindfully over to the drone. She glanced back at the Gator on the bank. Erring on the side of caution Jessi decided to leave the UV parked on solid ground. Rescuing one piece of ranch equipment was more than enough excitement, at least for the morning she was having.

Jessi knelt down in front of the KO’d Mavic. She picked up the machinery and cleaned off the camera module, giving it a smile and a wave in hopes that Mel would see her success on the remote screen from the ridge.

Setting the drone back down in a more level position, Jessi made sure there was nothing broken or obstructing the props. The unit’s blinking lights signaled that it was powered up and ready to fly. Curiously, the drone sat idle on the sand. Perplexed, Jessi waved again at the camera, then turned to stand and wave at the ridge where she had left Mel.

Mel was no longer on the ridge.

A wave of fear-induced dizziness swept over the lovely cowgirl as her mind registered the horrifying discovery of four very large wolves that were fanning out between her and the Gator… and the gun.

Jessi gasped and covered her mouth to stifle a scream, standing frozen to the spot. Three grey and white wolves stood stone stiff watching and growling and licking their chops. The all-black fourth wolf, the largest of the corralling quartet was snarling threateningly with a deep, haunting murmur that was as frightening as its ghastly glowing yellow eyes.

The petrified cowgirl took a single step backward. The black wolf and its predatory posse matched her move, each lurching a paw step forward. Jessi’s heart was beating in her chest like a desperate caged animal trying to escape. It was a Wild West showdown and Jessi was unequivocally outgunned.

The black wolf lead the charge. The beast did not run, rather it began to nonchalantly walk in the direction of the cornered cowgirl. Jessi regarded her corner; her back was to the Elbow River. Perhaps if she could get to the flowing water before the hunting pack could catch her she might be able to lose them in the current, she considered desperately. As the charging wolf closed the gap, Jessi stumbled her boot heels in the spongy sand as she backed away from the approaching animal.

The sudden loud crack of a hunting rifle discharging a round startled her, and caused the gnashing black wolf to stop in its tracks and turn. The other devilish dogs jumped and cowered at the deafening snap. The blast echoed through the Elbow River valley like a roll of thunder.

Cocking the loading lever on the gun to reload the chamber and leaning on the Gator to steady her aim, Mel readied the rifle for another shot. She took a knee to brace her stance and looked intently through the rifle’s scope. The next bullet fired would not be a warning shot.

The black wolf turned back to face Jessi. It was not as easily spooked as the others who had already started to timidly trot back upstream. It continued to give chase to the whimpering girl who had since bolted downstream along the squishy riverbank.

Mel let out a shrill whistle in an attempt to distract the dangerous dog, hoping to stall it long enough for Jessi to get far enough out of the way. It paid no mind to the warnings and raced after the fleeing female. ‘No fuckery,’ Mel repeated to herself as she lined up the hellhound in the scope’s crosshairs, ‘No fuckery… No fuckery…’

Jessi was in a full sprint. She could hear the wolf’s paws hitting the sand behind her as well as the beast’s heavy panting and vicious snarling quite literally at her heels. It was almost on top of her. She braced for the imminent feeling of sharp teeth puncturing her arm or her leg when another loud bang filled her ears. She kept running.

Mel’s second shot had found its mark. The black wolf was dead before it hit the flood plain. The bullet had entered its back, passed through its heart and lodged itself into the predator’s skull. It did not suffer. It did not even hear the sound of the shot that killed it.

Jessi could no longer hear her pursuer, yet she refused to stop or even look over her shoulder. She hastily flew over the flat sand as if her life had still depended on it.

Fatigue might have stopped her if the soft sand hadn’t. Her cowgirl boot heels plunged deep into shifting silt of the flood plain that swallowed her fleeing feet all the way up to her calves. Saturated sand poured into her boot tops, anchoring her legs in the riverbank.

‘Ugh! UHN!’ moaned the captured cowgirl, struggling her long legs as the riverbank beneath them turned into a gravely, oatmeal-like ooze, ‘Let me go!’

Jessi’s frantic fighting only caused her to sink deeper. ‘SCHLORMP… SQLORP…BLORP…’ squelched the soggy silt as the bogged belle pumped her strong, slender legs futilely. The sticky suction gripped her tightly, thwarting any attempt to escape. Sand puckered and poured in around her knees as they disappeared into the gritty muck.

‘(GASP) Quicksand!’ cried Jessi, as the sinky soup rippled around and restrained her flexing thighs, ‘I’m trapped! HELP ME! MEL!!’

Mel watched in horror as the unstable sand began to suck down the despairing damsel. She leapt into the Gator and tore off over the flood plain after her frenzying friend.

Jessi looked over her shoulder to see the speeding side-by-side heading her way. ‘Hurry!’ she whispered, looking back down at her vanishing legs, ‘I’m sinking fast!’

By the time the Cree cowgirl passed the dead wolf on the bank, Jessi was up to her Daisy Dukes in slurping, swallowing sand. ‘Hang on, Jess,’ coached Mel in a private prayer.

The Gator began to lurch and slow as its tires labored in the boggy bank. Mel cut the throttle and stopped before the vehicle became too mired to move. Several meters away, a despondent Jessi was whimpering and gasping frenetically as gritty goo oozed in around her slim, sinking waistline.

‘Mel! Please help me!’ Jessi yelped anxiously, ‘It’s quicksand! It’s pulling me in!’

‘Don’t struggle!’ warned Mel as she carefully hopped out of the Gator, ‘Just… just stay calm and stay still, ok?’

Jessi bit her lip and nodded. A tiny whimper peeped from her as surfacing air pockets burped and belched disturbingly in the sand around her sinking midriff. The icky, animated soil seemed to spitefully spit and splatter its frigid fluid on her skin as it ceaselessly devoured her helpless body.

‘Oh! This feels so aweful!’ lamented the dipping damsel, pleading urgently and descending rapidly, ‘Please hurry!’ Each time the quicksand gurgled and gulped she worriedly felt more of the liquid sand loosen beneath her trapped legs, plunging her body deeper and deeper. ‘UHN! Mel! It’s pulling me under!’

Mel took a few strides toward Jessi before her own legs started to sink. She frustratingly backed off before she could become trapped herself.

‘Mel! UHN!’ exclaimed Jessi, trying to push down to keep from being consumed by the quicksand. She moaned with trepidation while her arms merely sank into the greedy grit as she resisted.

Panic started to override Jessi’s better judgement. Her chest heaved in the quenchless quagmire, as the sucking sand gushed over her writhing breasts. The combative cowgirl continued to foolishly strain and struggle… and sink ever deeper.

‘Listen, Jess,’ reassured Mel, kneeling down to look directly at the swamped rancher’s daughter she had vowed to protect, ‘I’m gonna get you out of there, but you have to relax, ok? If you don’t calm down you’ll sink out of sight. Promise me you’ll stay cool and won’t thrash around.’

‘I’m scared Mel!’ sniveled the sinking cowgirl as tears rolled down her cheeks.

‘Promise me!’ demanded Mel in an stern, absolute tone.

‘I…I promise!’ declared Jessi, ceasing her risky revolt as quicksand inched up over her collarbone. Her golden hair fanned out over the surface of the suffocating sand as she descended further into the perilous pool.

Mel scurried back double time to the Gator and released the winch. Vigorously unwinding several meters of cable, she charged back to the deadly trap. Up to her neck in the sinister sand and still sinking steadily despite her submission, Jessi fastidiously awaited rescue with her arms eagerly outstretched.

The poor girl was on the verge of being smothered by the sopping silt as Mel lobbed the cable out to her. Jessi’s sand covered fingers clutched the steel lifeline with an anguished ferocity as bubbling sand lapped her chin. ‘Mel!’ she whimpered ardently as the length of cable had not yet gone taut.

With controlled hysteria Mel had raced once again to the John Deere UV to wind the cable back into the winch drum. ‘C’mon… C’MON!’ she impatiently urged, waiting for the agonizingly slow rolling, motorized winch to tighten. The rescue rancher looked over at the teary eyed Jessi whose lips were grazing the grit of the hungry riverbank. Mel prayed for the success of this extraction, lest she look again to see nothing but soupy sand and a straw cowgirl hat.

The slack in the cable finally disappeared, thankfully before the quagmired cowgirl did. ‘Mel! I’m slipping!’ wailed Jessi as the cable slid between her grasping fingers.

‘Please don’t let go!’ begged Mel, encouraging the sunken cowgirl as the winch motor buzzed, ‘Hang on, sweetheart! Hang on!’

Literally at the end of her rope, Jessi’s fingers looped around the winch hook where she found a better grip. Mel slowed the winch down. This was a critical moment. If Jessi let go there would not be another opportunity to save her. It was do or die.

Jessi gasped and cried as she felt the Gator begin to pull her captured body ever so slowly from the wicked wet sand. The suction was intense and she felt herself being stretched as the Gator and the gritty goop battled over her.

‘SCHGLGLGLGLGLORPLPLPLP…’ gurgled the quicksand seemingly in protest as it released Jessi’s helpless body. ‘Mel I…I can’t hold on!’ she wept as the winch hook escaped her grasp.

The iron clad grip of the Cree cowgirl descended onto Jessi’s forearm at the edge of the sinking sand. ‘I’ve got you honey. I’ve got you,’ Mel repeated as she grabbed Jessi’s other arm and pulled with all her strength, until the desperate damsel’s trapped legs were free from the deadly silt.

As the sucking snare surrendered its snack to the safety of solid sand, Jessi and Mel collapsed on the riverbank to collectively cry and catch their breath. Jessi was safe at last, minus one proud pair of well-worn, western riding boots.

‘Thank you!’ Thank you Mel!’ sobbed a soaking wet and shivering Jessi, wrapping her grateful arms around her heroine, ‘You saved me! I would have drowned!’

Mel couldn’t help but notice how cold Jessi was. The rescued cowgirl’s body was trembling and her breathing was shallow. Exposure to the freezing flood plain and the cold September morning Alberta temperatures were taking their toll. If Jessi’s body temperature didn’t start to warm up soon she would likely become hypothermic.

‘We’re not out of the woods yet,’ cautioned Mel, checking Jessi’s pulse.

‘Wait, what?’ questioned the quivering cowgirl, ‘What’s wrong?’ Jessi was so happy to be alive that she had ignored her own symptoms.

Mel helped Jessi to her feet and lead her to the storage bed of the Gator. She unrolled a large foam cushion in the cargo bed, dug out a thermal blanket from the emergency case and unfolded it as Jessi stood shivering like a drowned rat beside the rover.

‘Um, we gotta get those wet clothes off, Jess,’ informed Mel, apologetically.

‘W..What?’ slurred Jessi, shaking like a leaf.

Mel didn’t wait for permission. She sat the young lady on the tailgate and flipped her straw cowgirl hat into the front seat. She unbuttoned Jessi’s tiny little denim shorts and slid them down her fantastically feminine legs.

Dazed and confused, Jessi moaned defiantly before submitting to the care of her Cree companion.

Untying the jiggling Jessi’s plaid shirt, Mel removed the soggy, sandy garment and draped it over the side of the Gator along with the damp jean shorts. Trying to ignore the fact that this gorgeous, golden haired girl was all but naked in front of her save for a skimpy, lacy thong, Mel covered the freezing femme with the thermal sheet and the flannel blanket from the driver seat.

Jessi jerked and jolted under the blankets. She was growing concerned with her physical condition. ‘Mel, I’m so cold,’ she whispered, staring sheepishly at her cowgirl comrade.

Mel huffed out a sigh, before joining Jessi under the blankets. She put her arm around the frigid female and rubbed her shoulder.

‘I need you Mel,’ Jessi fessed submissively, still shivering concernedly, ‘I need your heat.’

After some head-shaking hesitancy and a thorough embrace of the situation’s irony, Mel caved. The brown haired hero kicked off her boots, removed her denim jacket, pulled her tank top over her head and slid her jeans down her muscular legs. She took a deep breath, put her arms around Jessi and pulled the pretty popsicled princess into her warmth, laying her down in the back of the Gator. Jessi nuzzled into Mel and her heat and her compassion like she was crawling into a cozy bed.

A sigh of content released from Jessi as she soaked up Mel’s radiating warmth with loving appreciation. She relished the feeling of Mel’s heat-sharing hands covering her… caressing her. She buried her frozen face in Mel’s neck. She could feel the Cree woman’s heart beating, her chest rising and falling with each breath she took. Jessi felt safe, alive and loved.

While confident the friction of their bodies together would bring Jessi back from the brink of a health crisis, Mel was understandably having a hard time trying to keep her feelings at bay. The beautiful Jessi was squirming and sliding enticingly in her embrace, lapping up the warmth of her touches and… kissing her neck?

‘Jess? What the heck…’ inquired the totally confused Cree cowgirl before Jessi climbed up to touch noses with her.

‘Shhh…’ hushed the slinky, sultry Jessi, putting a finger to Mel’s lips, ‘You gave me something earlier. I want to return it.’

Moving her hand to touch Mel’s cheek, Jess punctuated her offer with an incredibly soft, moist, slow motion kiss on the Cree woman’s lips.

At first Mel drank in Jessi’s sweet deliciousness unabatedly as her loins hummed with arousal. After a passionate, mutual exchange of affection and saliva, the cautious Cree abruptly paused the make out session.

‘Jessi, wait,’ the roused rancher roadblocked, ‘We shouldn’t do this. You’re delirious, hun. You’re not thinking straight. I feel like I’m taking advantage of you.’

‘It’s ok, I’m fine,’ rebutted Jessi in a soft spoken whisper over her warm, inviting smile.

‘It’s been a hell of a morning, sweetheart,’ argued Mel, helplessly attempting to keep things from escalating past the point of no return, ‘We should get back to the ranch… get you cleaned up and…’

‘I’m still cold, Mel,’ Jessi claimed somewhat unconvincingly as she slipped her lacy thong down over her silky legs, and straddled Mel’s warm, welcoming thigh, ‘I need your warmth right now. I need it… I want it… Give it to me.’

Mel felt her own underwear slipping down her legs, not by her own hand but by the hand of the beautiful cowgirl that was about to become her lover. Her thigh was moist from Jessi’s vagina. Her own opening was dripping wet with anticipation.

‘Jessi stop,’ ordered Mel, fighting the incredibly tempting urge to make love to this Alberta angel who was surrendering herself completely to her heroic cowgirl companion… under the blankets in the bed of an off-road utility vehicle… in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. ‘I don’t want things to be weird between us either,’ Mel declared, ‘I don’t want to take you for granted.’

‘That’s not what this is,’ corrected Jessi, nibbling Mel’s earlobe as she guided her lover’s hand between her sensual legs.

‘Then what is it?’ demanded Mel, on the cusp of completely crumbling to her ferocious desire for this red hot, rancher’s daughter.

With a whimper Jessi slowly pushed one of Mel’s fingers inside her, before slipping one of her own into the cozy Cree cowgirl. She licked Mel’s neck provocatively and whispered seductively, ‘Opportunity…’

[MadMax359]

i'd say "it's a pity"--- but it turned out great for everyone

[cerberus]

I thought I posted here last night, must have hit preview and forgot to hit submit. Nice story, liked the characters. Mel's going to have a little trouble looking Jessie's dad in the face. Maybe discretion is the best option, but the chemistry has changed and somebody is going to notice!

[Jinn]

i'd say "it's a pity"--- but it turned out great for everyone

Except some of the wildlife.

Nice story, liked the characters. Mel's going to have a little trouble looking Jessie's dad in the face. Maybe discretion is the best option, but the chemistry has changed and somebody is going to notice!

‘Hey um Jess, where’s yer boots?’

[Jinn]

Here’s one about a bunch of people who failed to find a proper outlet for their personal bullshit…

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Sometime ago, someplace close to where the sand and the sea collide…

‘Can you girls not smoke in here, please,’ politely asked the annoyed Uber driver to the pretty pair of problematic passengers. The girls had been in the hybrid hatchback for less than ten minutes and they had already irritated him to a near boiling point.

‘It’s a vape, honey,’ condescendingly corrected the brown haired girl in a sleek and sexy white spandex bikini, while her black haired girlfriend spitefully smogged away on an e-pen beside her.

‘I don’t care,’ snipped the driver, ‘No smoking or vaping in the car.’

The black haired girl rolled down her window in a display of selfish pragmatism. ‘Better?’ she huffed disrespectfully.

‘No smoking or vaping please,’ he repeated.

‘Duh, no thmoking or vaping pweethe,’ quietly mimicked the brown haired girl, tying her hair in a messy bun as her friend snorted out a giggle at the insulting impression.

‘Such a fuckin’ prude,’ mumbled the black haired girl under her breath before deliberately exhaling her last blast of cherry flavoured vapor at the perturbed cabby. ‘Katrina, he’s taking the long way,’ she complained quietly as she tucked her vape pen into her companion’s purse.

‘What the hell, man?’ Katrina challenged rather confrontationally to the driver who was piloting his Prius through the vast dunes that straddled the coast, ‘What is this, driver? Some kind of con job?

‘Um, we literally want to go to the Dunes Beach sometime today, please and thank you,’ reiterated the snobby black haired girl, rolling her eyes pretentiously.

‘Christina, I’m so grilling this loser in his Uber review,’ threatened Katrina to her friend under her breath, but just loud enough for the driver to hear.

‘Go the fast way,’ ordered Katrina, her subtle Baltic accent coming through in her despotic demand. The driver glared in the rear view mirror at the flippant female, who returned a belligerent stare.

He banked the shitty handling Toyota hard to the right, switching to an alternate route at the last second. Both unseat-belted girls slid abruptly to the left, banging their heads in the process.

‘OW!’ cried Christina, scowling and rubbing her head after it was sandwiched between the window and her friend.

‘What the FUCK?!’ screamed Katrina, rubbing her temple and leering at the driver in the mirror with a furrowed brow and mouth agape. She turned to assess her crunched companion, putting a comforting hand on her leg and examining her head, ‘Are you ok sweetie?’

‘I’ll live,’ quipped the black haired beauty as she shot her own sneer at the defiant driver, now motoring the Prius hectically over the road through the dunes.

‘Let’s medicate,’ suggested Christina pacifyingly, climbing into Katrina’s lap and producing another vaporizer from a beach bag.

The endless sand that stretched across the desert horizon flew by swiftly outside of the hybrid hunk of taxi as it zoomed to its destination. The driver was enjoying the uncomfortable silence in the clunky car until it was interrupted by the sound of coughing and laughter from one, then the other passenger. The strong stench of something like skunk filled the cab.

The driver focused on the mirror. Christina had her legs curled up in Katrina’s lap and an arm around her neck in a cloud of dense smoke. Both girls were seemingly each hacking up a lung after inhaling abundant amounts of vaporized cannabis.

All the windows of the Prius suddenly went down, triggering an uncomfortably turbulent wind vortex inside the vehicle.

Christina protestingly swung her leg around and kicked the back of the driver’s seat. The unsettled Uber driver ignored the gesture. Again the girl in the tight, one-piece black bathing suit jammed her heel into the seat, a tad bit harder. ‘Windows up,’ she commanded, ‘You’re letting out all the a/c, asshole.’

‘What a tool!’ hissed Katrina, giving the finger to the spying driver in the rear view.

The speeding Uber car passed recklessly through an open gate in a chain link fence that had some sort of warning sign bolted to it.

‘Finally this retard is taking us to the goddam beach,’ whined Katrina, with an over-exaggerated tone. Christina twirled her ponytail and giggled at her friend. The pair began to touch and caress one another flirtatiously before pulling each other into a sloppy kiss in the middle of the back seat, in full view of the driver’s eyes that were gawking resentfully in the mirror.

The make-out maidens temptingly tied tongues, teasingly tickled tummies, and titillatingly touched tits in a deliberate manner, as if putting on a spitefully sexy show for their annoyed Uber.

Katrina opened her eyes mid-kiss to spy on the driver in the mirror who was as expected, spying back. She flashed another middle finger. ‘Like what you see, pervert?’ questioned the standoffish female with a handful of her girlfriend’s breast, How about you keep your fucking eyes on the…’

The driver slammed the brakes, sending the girls careening violently into the backs of the front seats, then piling onto the dusty floor of the sliding Toyota.

Before either of the beach babes could ascertain what was happening, one of the back doors of the stopped car was opening up.

‘The fuck OUT,’ barked the driver, standing tall and temperamental with his fists clenched. His breathing was heavy and shallow. The pits of his black Nine Inch Nails tee shirt were soaked with sweat. The curved visor of his violet LSU baseball cap partially concealed his agitated glare. His head subtly twitched out of loathing and anger.

‘Um, this isn’t the beach!’ yowled Christina, looking around and seeing nothing but sand and more sand in every direction.

‘Like FUCK we’re getting out HERE!’ snapped the sassy Katrina, ‘We’re not paying you for this bullshit! These asses ain’t movin’ until you bring us to the beach, son!’

The driver pulled something from the back pocket of his jeans and reached into the back seat at the flustered females.

The crackle and snapping sound of an electrical device filled the air. The driver thrust the item at the cowering couple. Christina screamed in agony. The adamant Uber driver gave the troublemaker closest to him a zap with a tiny, pocket taser.

‘Christina!’ yelped Katrina, pulling her friend away from the open door and the outstretched arm of the devious driver. ‘You piece of SHIT!’ she threatened the assaulting Uber with an empty claim of entitlement, ‘Do you have any idea who my dad is?!’

The driver prodded Christina again. The poor girl writhed and wailed in distress.

‘Get. The fuck. OUT!’ demanded the crazed cabby, before lurching again into the back seat.

The two terrified taxi passengers scurried promptly out of the opposite door, leaving their belongings behind as they fell over each other and flopped onto the gritty ground.

‘SLAM…’ went the Toyota’s closing door behind them.

By the time they had collected themselves and helped each other to their feet, their Uber had turned the car around, revved the puny engine and started to drive off, spinning the tires and spitting up loose sand. He drove back up a slight incline about thirty meters in the direction of the gate before parking and getting out. He casually leaned on the trunk of the car, and played with a phone he had nabbed from the backseat. He appeared to be waiting.

‘What the fuck, Katrina!’ lamented a distraught Christina, holding her girlfriend by the arm as they reluctantly made their way toward the parked Prius, ‘This guy’s crazy!’

‘We want our fucking money back!’ lashed out Katrina, shocked and emotional about how quickly the car ride had escalated to earn the distinction of being a calamity, ‘ASSHOLE!!’

Missing a sandal, Katrina lead her barefoot, beautiful beach mate over the soft sand that was not as arid as they had expected. In fact the sand directly beneath them was not dry at all. It was strangely soaking, sopping wet.

‘He’s got my phone, Christina!’ noticed Katrina. The revelation came to the tanned bikini babe at the exact moment both girls began to sink.

‘Katrina!’ squeaked Christina, as her bare feet plunged into the shifting silt under her pretty legs, ‘I’m sinking!’

Katrina toggled her stunned gaze from her own disappearing calves to her girlfriend’s gooped gams, that were also being swiftly swallowed by gritty gunk.

‘Ohmygod!’ whimpered Christina as she frantically pumped her stuck legs, ‘Is this…?’

‘Quicksand!’ whimpered Katrina, completing her frightened femme friend’s unfinished question, and confirming both of their fears, ‘Christina! We’re trapped!’

The girls embraced each other as if hugging one another tightly would somehow save them from being sucked into the slurping sand pit. ‘SHHHHCLORP… SSSSLORP…’ squelched the silty death trap around the girlfriends’ captured thighs as they struggled and strained to escape.

‘Hey mister!’ squealed Katrina, holding onto Christina desperately as they slowly descended into the deadly dune soup, ‘Help us, please! We’re sinking in quicksand!’

‘Duh, help uth pweethe! We’re thinking in quickthand!’ mocked the driver vengefully, standing with his arms folded, his back against the silver sedan as he watched with a grin that looked more like a snarl.

He found the peril of the two helpless bathing suit bitches being sucked down to their demise in a treacherously dangerous desert spring to be incredibly rewarding, and interestingly arousing. Driver perceived their moaning and whimpering as super sensual and likened it to the sound horny girls made when they were getting their brains fucked out. The visual of the ill-fated young ladies’ sexy, writhing thighs and pouty, wiggling asses straining despairingly against the slurpy suction of the quicksand was giving him an unexpected erection.

He considered that anyone in visual range would not be around in a few minutes to judge or ridicule him or condemn him publicly for his psychotic tendencies or delving into his new found kink. So, the driver shrugged his shoulders and walked down with twisted intent to the saturated spring where he had dumped off his prissy, pissy passengers. Feasting on the fright that was emanating from the imperiled pair, he produced his rigid penis and proceeded to jack off to the lovely lesbians while they were being consumed by a bottomless quagmire.

‘You sick fuck!’ cussed Katrina, feeling the loose, liquid sand gulping her down to her trim little waist as she sank ever deeper. Still holding onto her for dear life, Christina sobbed as gurgling grit oozed over her shapely ass and sucked at her spandex covered hips.

The devilish driver snickered. The experience was as sinfully sweet and self indulgent as licking cocaine off a tied up teenage lover’s flesh or forcing inconspicuous sodomy on a reluctant partner in a packed public place. He felt like he could cum instantly. He slowed his rhythm. Wait for the right moment he thought; let them suffer and sink deeper… just a little bit deeper.

‘We’re sorry!’ sniffled Christina, momentarily letting go of her girlfriend to push her arms down into the quicksand, futilely trying to stay above it, ‘We won’t tell anyone! We won’t tell anyone! Please! Don’t let it suck us under!’

‘It’s not fair! It’s not fair!’ lamented the tearful, regretful Katrina, begging and pleading sorrowfully as the gooey grit belched hideously around her hopelessly sinking body, ‘We’re just stupid girls! We don’t deserve to die like this! We’re SORRY! PLEASE!’

The girls sinking had slowed. Their descent was less steady and now came in dramatic increments. Every few seconds the shifty quicksand would belch and gurgle appallingly and the desperate damsels would consequentially drop down another few inches. Their panic level elevated each time the devouring dune pulled them deeper. Soon, the terrified two were up to their bathing suit covered breasts in soggy, swallowing sand.

The masturbating master of ceremonies considered the lippy lesbians’ plight to be horrifically delectable. To him, their sadness and suffering and slow descent into oblivion was their just desert. The driver’s manifestation of their torture and termination was the culmination of years of brutal treatment and abuse by family, friends, foes and females in his life. The duo of damsels had unfortunately picked the wrong Uber to fuck with that day. Their disrespect and crass attitudes were the tipping point for their mentally volatile driver. The benevolent, belittled, bullied beta male had finally snapped. He was relishing the full embrace of his inner villain, with tragic consequences for his very first victims.

‘GLUGLUGLGLGLGLGLPLPLPLP…’ gargled the hungry quicksand as it seemingly opened its gullet to pull in more of its damsel dinner. The panicky girls cried out trepidatiously as sandy muck splattered and spilled over their chests.

Bearing witness to the sight of the two attractive girls holding each other in unadulterated terror, squishing their perky youthful breasts together as liquid earth slopped and slobbered over them was more than enough inspiration for the domineering driver. With hardly any effort the vile villain unleashed an orgasm and ardently ejaculated copious gobs of sticky semen. Ropes of slimy seminal fluid squirted out demeaningly onto the struggling, sobbing girls sinking out of sight in front of him.

Hysterical, the hopeless girlfriends hardly noticed the cum splattering in their hair, on their fearful faces and their necks while the desert ooze around them slurped and sucked their trapped young bodies deeper.

‘GLURPLURPLURPLPLPLPL…’ churned the terrible trap, triggering more blood curdling screams and more torturous sinking. Katrina and Christina found themselves chin deep in the gooey gravel and seconds away from being totally devoured.

‘Please, mister!’ wept Katrina, with one last ditch effort to try to convince the sadistic stroking driver to rescue them, ‘We’ll suck your dick! W..We’ll let you fuck us! You can do whatever you want with us, PLEASE! SAVE US!!’

Christina was too manic to beg. She had resorted to wild, unhinged howling and unabated, tearful wailing as the quicksand pooled in around her disappearing face.

Meanwhile the diabolical driver stood lackadaisically thumbing through the camera functions on Katrina’s phone, with his semi-flaccid, dripping penis still hanging out of his jeans. He was busy trying to take a few videos and stills of this monumental moment for his future enjoyment. Damn, should have thought of this earlier, he thought to himself when his amateur photo shoot was interrupted by the bogged beauties who had simultaneously started screaming again.

The doomed lesbian couple could feel ominous pockets of air and gas disturbingly rising up from under the saucy sand. It slowly licked the length of their long, lovely legs, crept over their curvy asses, crawled menacingly up their midsections and bubbled bestially around their breasts before breaching the surface with sickening belches. The traumatized females shrieked in utmost anguish, helplessly bracing for the imminent, awful inevitability.

‘GLUGLUGLUGLORPLPLPLPPP…’ the quicksand opened up with a horrendous gurgling gulp and swallowed the gasping girls completely into its disgusting depths. The shrill screaming and heartbreaking pleas immediately ceased. Besides the random gas pockets burping at the surface of the sinkhole, the dunes had suddenly become eerily silent.

The driver stood motionless regarding the pit for a moment, without emotion, without guilt. His only regret was the missed opportunity of filming the entire execution. ‘Next time,’ he vowed to himself. An involuntary yawn prompted him to finally put away his genitals and walk nonchalantly back up to his shitbox ‘07 Prius.

After tossing the girls’ possessions into a trash bag and heaving it into the trunk, he sat down in the driver’s seat, strapped himself in and turned the ignition key. He cranked the a/c and helped himself to a few puffs of his victims’ cannabis vaporizer.

‘Finally, some fucking peace and quiet,’ murmured the callous cab driver, picking up Katrina’s phone and taking a long, deep hit from the previous passengers’ pot stick. He coughed out a giant white cloud of weed and commenced publishing a stellar review of his service on the Uber app via his victim’s account:

“ * * * * *
Literally the best Uber EVER!!!!!! Super kind and helpful! He even found time to take us on a quick sand dunes tour! If anyone is looking for a fun and safe ride, we highly recommend Miller <3”…

[Jinn]

Happy Autumn Equinox. Every fall should be into something gooey.

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No Escape (Part I)

‘So it is true then,’ sighed the lovely Corus with her gloved hand pressing on the open book, her fingertips digging resentfully into the journal entries that confirmed her suspicions.

Moonlight shone through the massive web-shaped skylight of Penna’s Grand Library, illuminating the inside of the circular building with a subtle ambient glow. Two cloaked, young girls secretly spied through a mountain of restricted texts containing historical data by candlelight on a large table in the middle of the rotunda style archive.

‘Keep a low voice, Corus,’ warned her dear friend Carolette in a whisper, glancing nervously over her shoulder at the tall, twin library doors, ‘Lest we alert any one of our presence here!’

The annals that they studied from under their traditional white hoods revealed empirical information and eye witness accounts of the origins of Penna City’s most revered treasures; the beloved Songbirds. Born with extraordinary abilities, the exclusively female pedigree of super-singers were capable of using their hypnotic voices to charm, to heal and to lead the masses. Their unique psychic-sonic abilities enabled them to tap into the collective psyche of scores of people simultaneously and influence them to make choices, or compel them to follow instructions.

Penna’s ruling authority known simply as the Magistrate were the keepers and sole guardians of the sweet sounding Songbirds. They harnessed the power of the gifted girls’ voices and for generations had exploited them in order to conquer, control and rule over their so-called “wingdom.”

‘They lied,’ concluded Corus, tucking a stray blonde lock behind her ear while shaking her head and staring deadpan at the history text before her. The heavy tome contained documentation of the events leading up to the day that her village of Nidum, far outside the city walls was razed to the ground by flames. Corus was an infant at the time of the tragic fire, and her only knowledge of the disaster came from a few stories and rumors via members of the Magistrate itself.

It was common knowledge that the mothers of Nidum were renowned for giving birth to an abundance of Songbirds over many generations. Each gifted child was born with a very visible, tell-tale birthmark; the diamond-shaped jewel covering her larynx known as the sonustone. It was the trademark symbol of a Songbird. Each stone was unique in color, size and shape, as was each songstress they represented. Records of their heritage could be traced back centuries, almost as far into the past as the Great Reset when all of humanity was nearly wiped out in the atomic war of the early 21st century.

The Songbirds’ power was coveted by many warring civilizations and aspiring autocracies across the land. The Magistrate implored the villagers on numerous occasions to relocate inside the great walled city of Penna to shield them from greedy bands of barbarians and opportunistic tribes in the wilderness. The tiny, peaceful, unprotected forest village was forever vulnerable and susceptible to plunder and pillage at any given moment, yet Nidum respectfully declined every offer to move their homestead.

Corus’s understanding was that shortly after her birth nearly two decades prior a savage horde of envious, nomadic mercenaries had attacked the small habitat of Nidum in order to capture and enslave the villagers and their “special” children.

Legends and hear-say told of a valiant attempt by a few of the Pennan soldiers stationed nearby to thwart the invasion alongside the villagers and rescue the young Songbirds. The brave warriors of the walled city had apparently battled gallantly and created many martyrs with their heroic combat, amidst a village set ablaze by enemy torches. Unfortunately the Pennan soldiers were overwhelmingly outnumbered. The fable ends telling of a handful of surviving swordsmen retreating from the inferno, only managing to rescue one sole infant Songbird from the doomed village.

However according to the historical account in the Library’s texts, it was not an unruly roaming mob that decimated the village. The annals revealed that it was the Magistrate itself that unleashed hell on Nidum’s people. The villagers were already violently revolting against the city authority’s practice of more or less abducting Songbirds from their cribs, instead of waiting for them to grow and mature under the care of their parents or homestead guardians in their natural dwellings.

The Magistrate’s excuse for their devious baby snatching was that their biological parents or caregivers were “stifling the development and potential of each gifted girl” and “endangering their very existence.” The children needed to be liberated from the “mundane mire of misguided mediocrity” for their sake and the sake of the wingdom. The powers that be in Penna decided to assimilate the village, to move the “breeders” behind the protective walls of the city in order to “foster proper development” within their own Songbird nursery. It all went terribly wrong.

The villagers rebelled, and fought against the Magistrate’s superior armed forces. The Nidumites were not skilled soldiers by any stretch of the imagination and were easily overrun, but the brave villagers battled regardless. Every capable one of them fought to the very last… and died for it. Nidum’s tradition of creating troves of the beautiful psychic singers ended in terror and tragedy.

It was Corus who was the lone survivor of her village; its youngest citizen and the last Songbird to ever be born in Nidum.

Within the minutes it took to read the damning text passage, Corus’s whole world was turned upside down. Something had fundamentally changed within her, merely by reading a passage in a book. Doubt and suspicion began to boil inside her about the righteousness of her path. She realized she could no longer trust the Magistrate that was the only “parent” she had ever known. Her entire being had been coveted and captured like a piece of stolen property by the very same people who had raised her.

All the pampering and privileges, all the pomp and pageantry, all the personal freedoms she had enjoyed as a celebrated Songbird now seemed superficial; Corus felt like a canary in a cage.

‘I must leave Penna,’ declared Corus, with a pale, solemn face and a somber, stern tone, ‘at once.’

Carolette’s heart sank hearing those words. She too had suspected treachery from the Magistrate, especially regarding the stories about how the Songbirds had come to reside inside the mighty stone walls of the city. Her trust issues with the Magistrate ran deep, but Corus was her closest friend and ally in the wingdom. If Corus fled the coup Carolette would be left alone to dwell in the shadows with her suspicion and her fledgling contempt for the authority.

The other Songbirds were much older, much more set in their ways. They would be reluctant to relinquish their social standing to invest in a conspiracy of this magnitude. They were far more prissy and would be far less easy to befriend, let alone convince of the Magistrate’s horrific atrocities.

‘L..Leave? Merciful Spirits!’ Carolette gasped with apparent astonishment. The beautiful cloaked muse laid it on thick, but she was genuinely not shocked in the least. She had anticipated this development for some time. All she could think of doing was deterring her fellow Songbird from leaving the sanctity and safety of the city’s walls. ‘Where would you go? Your home is here! Y..Your family is…’

‘My family is dead, Carolette,’ interrupted Corus, ‘Murdered by the Magistrate.’

‘We are Songbirds, Corus,’ debated Carolette, pleading her case to her stoic, sister songstress, ‘We are beloved by the people of this wonderful city! We are rued and respected by Penna’s foes! We are the scepters of peace! We are princesses!’

‘We are a commodity,’ coldly rebutted Corus with her new found realization.

Carolette bowed her head as if to acknowledge the judgement before volleying another round of debate. ‘They will never let you leave!’ she exclaimed, hoping to convince her dear companion to change her tune, ‘They will hunt you! They will use the other girls to find you! They will coerce me to aid them!’

Carolette’s contesting display was a gamble. She feared it might push Corus even further into her disdain for their handlers, but she had to try something. The meek young Songbird was much better at singing than diplomacy and she knew it. She could barely look Corus in her stone blue eyes while she spouted her warnings. Carolette felt her own deep brown eyes welling up. She felt she had already lost her beautiful confidant.

The solemn faced Songbird in her long white hooded cloak glided over to Carolette and pulled her into an embrace. ‘Come with me, Carolette’ she begged, as a teardrop rolled down her cheek. She knew by the sad, reluctant expression on her friend’s face what the answer was going to be.

‘I… I… Oh, Corus!’ stuttered the trembling vocalist, her hood falling back behind her long, gorgeous auburn hair as she buried herself in the arms of the only “sibling” she had ever known, ‘I cannot. I do not harbor the same resolve as thee! I do not possess thy strength nor thy will!’

‘Yes you do, Carolette,’ argued Corus, as their watery eyes met, ‘You are just..just…’

‘Afraid,’ finished Carolette with a sigh, laying her head on Corus’s shoulder and hugging her for as long as she possibly could. For all intents and purposes, their embrace was one of acceptance and submission; an admittance to the fact that for the first time in their longtime friendship their paths were imminently heading in different directions. Their embrace was tender, loving and deep. Without saying it, both girls knew it was truly a goodbye hug.

The eerie creaking caused by the opening of the mammoth wooden library doors startled the sneaky, snuggling Songbirds. Flanked by two tall sentries was a dark hooded woman who seemed to float into the rotunda. Her ink black cloak was as shadowy as night and her pale, wrinkled face showed her age. The scowl of her expression made her look older than she probably was. She was a Raven; a Minister of the Magistrate and psychic keeper of the Songbirds; a witch of the wingdom.

The guards on either side of her were draped in red cloaks, trimmed with stamped gold body armor over their shoulders and chests. Golden human-like masks hid their faces; coverings designed to keep those in their presence guessing as to what and where their eyes were focused. Each sentinel carried a torch and a long, gold plated spear. The fearsome figures more than likely had multiple daggers and killing tools packed away under their crimson coverings.

The untrusting Magistrate was easily threatened. They notoriously acted swiftly and decisively to quash any and all potential dangers to the wingdom, on either side of Penna’s towering walls. The two late night ladies of the library were now in their crosshairs.

‘My dear ladies,’ began the frightening looking old hag as her black cloak crept like smoke into the library, ‘What matter of studying would be so important to thee at such an hour?’

Corus could sense that the question was loaded. She could feel sinister psychic vibes oozing from the Magistrate matriarch known as Feren.

The dark, deceptive Raven knew exactly why the secretive singers were there. She had sensed as much and came to snuff out any aspirations of stoking dissent after they learned the truths that had been withheld from them.

Feren glanced with a side-eye at the open texts on the large oak, candlelit table before returning her piercing stare to the frozen females before her.

‘Heed not the interpretations of misguided record keepers,’ warned Feren, raising a boney index finger as if to punctuate the air with her advice, ‘Note-takers and text writers wield only the tools of their craft, not the wisdom behind the words they impress to paper. They are not historians.’

‘Neither are those of the Magistrate whom have peddled lies and fictional fairy tales to me for my twenty revolutions around the sun,’ added Corus, in a stare-down with Feren.

‘I can sense that thou art profoundly upset, my dear,’ acknowledged Feren, offering little in the way of compassion. The age old politician was more adept at delegating than nurturing.

Corus shook her head, trying to keep Feren out of it. ‘Enough games,’ the stern songstress commanded, raising an index finger of her own, ‘The Magistrate are but mass murderers and thieves. They hath taken everything from me; my home; my family; my life.’

‘On the contrary, my dear,’ challenged the morbid looking Magistrate Minister, ‘We hath given thee the opportunity to not only survive but thrive. Because of our mercy and our mandate, we hath provided thee and thy fellow Songbirds the enjoyment of a prestigious existence. Do not taketh for granted the fact that because of the kindness and unwavering support of the people of Penna, THOU art adored and idolized across the wingdom! THOU art worshipped and feared! YOU are alive!’

‘WE are livestock,’ answered Corus contrarily, with empathetic conviction. The young rebel raised her chin and proclaimed defiantly, ‘I denounce my role in this..this facade that you tout as your wingdom. I am thy pawn no longer, from this moment.’

Feren growled, growing visibly impatient and irate with Corus’s insolence. Carolette tried to encourage her friend to refrain from engaging with a gentle tug on the back of her cloak. The defiant young Songbird was rigid and resolute.

‘I did not expect to ever read such ugly blasphemy upon the lips of one so benign and beautiful as thee,’ remarked Feren, raising a hairless brow and pursing her lips, ‘Nevertheless, thou shalt be corrected in a manner appropriate for the behavior in which thou have exhibited.’

‘Lady Magistrate,’ interrupted Carolette, pleading on behalf of Corus who remained stoic and silent, ‘I beg of thee, allow me take watch of her. Permit me to take care of her. Let me help her to her quarters where we can retire for the evening and..and allow her rest under the moonlit night to ease her troubled soul and…’

‘Silence!’ ordered Feren, still looking at Corus with both ire and intrigue, ‘Lest ye wish to join your sister Songbird in the dungeons. The golden guardians shall escort Corus to the bowels of Penna Castle where she will be encouraged to bathe in the city’s wretched compost pits. They shall only release her if or when she begs for the kind and gentle mercy offered by the Magistrate. Otherwise the filth-filled fathoms shall devour her and liberate her “troubled soul” from the prison of her body.

‘Spirits, NO!’ Carolette gasped, while Corus remained unfazed. Whether or not the pretty prisoner begged for mercy was irrelevant. Both girls were well aware that a “slime pit” punishment was a death sentence. No one ever came back from the pits. Anyone who was unfortunate enough to be cast into one of the deep wells of hideous, green goo was swallowed alive by a bottomless, abysmal abyss of algae and decomposing vegetation.

The malign method was a propaganda performance at its finest; an agonizingly slow and sinister demise reserved for Penna’s highest profile captives. The horrific punishment was meant to set an example for those who chose to step out of line, and designed to send a morbid message to enemies of the wingdom: Follow the flock, or sink and suffocate in slime.

The Magistrate was about to silence the very last rebel of Nidum, and squash the two-decade old revolt once and for all. ‘Guards, seize her,’ ordered the frail Feren, pointing accusingly at Corus who stood proud and undeterred.

As the sentries quickly charged toward the songstress the sound of something like the ping of a tuning fork or the pleasant dinging of a small bell filled the air in the round room. The sound… so clean and captivating… so instrumental yet so organic. It was a voice; it was the serene, sweet singing of a Songbird.

The jeweled birthmark covering the larynx of Corus was glowing blue, like a diamond shaped lantern, illuminating the shelves and showering the shadows of the Grand Library. Her lungs expelled a steady breath and through her lips it was transformed into a hypnotic hymn that stunned the steadfast soldiers, stopping them in their tracks.

Corus knew Feren long enough to know that her song would have no effect on a hearing impaired, expert lip-reader such as the aging witch Minister. She sicced her sonic assault instead on the keen ears of the gold-faced guardians.

Clever, thought Feren. The young lass was utilizing her gift to at the very least delay her punishment. The gaunt old hag was both impressed and intimidated by the insubordinate Songbird.

‘Guards, I command thee to ignore the song of the perpetrator and take her into…’ began the ruffled Raven, trying to muster the psychic strength to override the Songbird’s power.

‘TACEO CAECUS!’ sang Corus with her chest stuck out, her arms spread and her palms open. The crooned command was mind numbing. The lulling lyrics caused the red cloaks to turn and face Feren. They reluctantly lurched toward the resisting Raven and grabbed her ancient arms, lifting her off the ground like a simple stack of twigs. Ripping strips of material from the arms of her floor length cloak, they tied one of the tattered pieces of fabric tightly around her eyes, and gagged her with the other. The old woman writhed pathetically in the grasp of the two gargantuan, gold plated guardians.

‘DELABOR CAVUS!’ chanted the songstress, pointing to the open library doors with her eyes closed and her head tilted back. The sound of her voice was soul piercing. She was putting every ounce of strength into her delivery and it was working. Corus had never commanded anyone by singing solo before. The feeling of accomplishing this feat on her own was both frightening and incredibly satisfying.

The guards turned around and marched the Raven out of the library as she yelped and rebelled fruitlessly between them.

Corus’s tune trailed off in a dissipating vibrato, ending with the spent Songbird hunching over and gasping for breath.

‘Wh..What hath thou…?’ a wide-eyed Carolette began to ask nervously. She had never seen or heard her best friend use her powers like that before. She was totally taken aback. They both were. ‘Where are they taking her?’

‘To the slime pits,’ answered Corus in a matter-of-fact tone.

‘Are they… Are you going to kill her?!’ interrogated Carolette using the informal, old-world tongue, watching with a look of deep concern as the torchlight of one of the guards grew more dim.

‘She killed my family and she destroyed my home. She stole me and used me as a weapon for the wingdom. She condemned me to die for simply knowing that truth,’ convicted Corus in old speak, as Carolette took her hand to help her stand up straight, ‘I am simply returning in kind the same punishment that she had reserved for me but moments ago.’

‘Corus!’ cried Carolette, her mouth agape and her eyes unable to hide her discord, ‘I cannot… I will not let you kill her! We are not executioners!’

‘Are we NOT?!’ argued Corus, ‘They use us as such! They trick us into making murderers of the people! The Magistrate are the conspirators of evil! They are monsters!’

Carolette shook her head. ‘If we kill out of vengeance, then we are no better than the monsters.’

Corus gently touched her friend’s cheek. ‘I implore you to flee this prison with me, Carolette,’ begged Corus, ‘Above all else you see the capacity for love, in everything and everyone. The path I must follow will be riddled with traps and treachery. I need your loving light to guide me.’

Carolette sniffled back a sob while placing a hand over her friend’s that was caressing her face, ‘I must remain. I must undo the spell that would see the Lady Magistrate perish. I shall somehow seek to rectify this wrong-doing. Go now, Corus. Make haste lest ye be captured. I will keep Feren and the guards at bay for as long as I am able.’

With their window of opportunity waning, Corus reluctantly accepted the plan. She breathed a series of sighs as she held Carolette’s soft, soothing hands to her heart.

‘GO!!’ ordered the teary eyed Carolette with an encouraging shove, sending her best friend stumbling back toward the open library doors, ‘I pray for thy safe deliverance! I will long to be with thee again, my dearest friend!’

‘Farewell, my Songbird sister, my guiding light!’ wept Corus as she let go of Carolette’s pacifying hands, backing up through the massive archway and disappearing into the tunneled maze-work of pathways and passages that snaked throughout Penna…

The sound of hastily clicking heels resounded through one of the wide, spiral stone staircases that descended deep under the enormous Penna Castle. Carolette’s dainty, ankle-strap shoes were designed to make her slender legs appear long and elegant, rather than for racing over the concrete and cobblestone of the modernized medieval metropolis.

Her fragile little feet were burning with ache. After several kilometers of frantic foot travel in her adorable, but ill-suited high heeled pumps, Carolette abandoned the strappy heels. She took a moment to rub the feeling back into her tortured tootsies, before picking up her lantern and proceeding on her quest in lacy stocking feet.

Carolette’s silky sheer cape fluttered like a foreboding phantom as she strode swiftly down the ancient stairwell. Her long, flowing brown hair was barely contained by her bouncing hood as she hopped from stone step to stone step.

Prior to her late night library adventure, Carolette had wisely chose to dress in a skin-tight leotard, specifically for ease of movement on the girls’ secretive mission. While a gown would have awarded more comfort and warmth on that chilly Autumn Equinox evening the cumbersome clothing would have proven to be more debilitating than dexterous, especially in light of how the night’s events had escalated. Time was of the essence, and the clock was relentlessly ticking. The selfless Songbird needed to move quickly if she was to save the condemned Raven.

Carolette fought back tears as she gasped and panted, hurrying frantically to the bottom of the city. Her mind was focused on intercepting the golden guards carrying Feren to a grisly demise but her heart was with Corus, her closest companion, who herself was hurriedly escaping Penna and persecution.

The colder, clammier climate and foul stench of rot signaled to Carolette that she was approaching the bottom of the stairs, and the long, creepy hallway that lead to the vast underground sewage system of the city.

The dark, dank catacombs of Penna reeked of mildew and mold. the sound of random dripping fluid echoed off the ceilings and surfaces throughout the underground. Among the many large, dome roofed chambers of Penna’s basement was a cathedral-sized dungeon containing four gigantic, circular pits with brick and wood catwalks surrounding each of the cavities. The pits were full to the brim with unpleasant smelling, semi-fluid fungus and filth. The green grossness occasionally burped up sickening bubbles of gas, splattering grotesque goop on the surface of the pools.

‘Slime,’ revolted Carolette in a whisper, as she walked cautiously toward one of the putrid pits. Ghastly goo dripped disgustingly from somewhere above; bio rubbish that had decomposed, fermented and mixed with waste water on its long journey down the sewer pipes under Penna to its final resting place: the bottom of the known world.

The subterranean sewer was unquestionably awful and hauntingly eerie. It was nightmarish; a man-made hell. Not even the flies ventured this far below the surface to snack on sewage sludge.

The snow-colored songstress hung her lantern on a high wall hook and searched the pits for any sign of a struggle. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary; no evidence of a senior citizen being tossed into any of the bottomless scum ponds.

She was confident that she had arrived before the spellbound sentinels and their captive. Carolette had extensively studied the many hidden shortcuts and secret sideroads of the wingdom during her eighteen years as a Pennan. She knew almost every nook and cranny of the walled city. Her attention to detail might just save a life someday, she often thought.

Carolette smiled with vindication when she saw the flicker of torchlight and heard the clomping soles of the approaching guards’ boots on the damp stone floor. ‘Thank you, Spirits!’ she whispered as the golden guards entered the dungeon carrying the manhandled Minister.

The lumbering guardians seemed to pay no mind to the Songbird who stood between them and the slime filled drain. Carolette knew she had one shot at this rescue. She closed her eyes, raised her hands and began to hum a tune.

The guards continued their advance with the restrained Raven. The pair clutching their prisoner walked around the sheepish Songbird and lifted the Lady Magistrate up and over their heads, preparing to launch her into an ooze-filled oblivion.

With conviction and courage, Carolette belted out a song from the bottom of her lungs to the top of the arched ceiling. The sonustone over her throat started to emit a luminous, yellow aura, shining brightly and clearly through the white cloth covering her neck. The room filled with a warm, reverberating single note; pitch perfect, heavenly and hypnotic.

The armed sentries froze, with the blindfolded, gagged, shriveled old woman dangling helplessly over their heads.

‘CORVUS EXSOLUTUS!’ bellowed the bewitching beauty, serenely singing a command intended to stop the sleepwalking sentinels and release the frazzled Feren.

Without hesitation, the gold-trimmed guards did exactly that. They carefully set down the black cloaked politician onto the catwalk beside the pit, removed her blindfold and gag cloth and even straightened out her clothing. They then obediently stood at attention on either side of the Minister, waiting for their next order as if what had just happened to them was already forgotten.

Carolette exhaled in total relief, as if she had been holding her breath the entire time. She did not even entirely understand the words that she had sung. They came from somewhere deep within her, as if she was channeling a spirit or speaking in tongues.

‘Lady Magistrate!’ she exclaimed gratefully, rushing over to inspect the scowling Feren, ‘Thank the Spirits! Thou art safe!’

The leathery faced woman huffed while not even sharing simple eye contact with the compassionate young girl tending to her. Without so much as a “thank you” or any sort of acknowledgement whatsoever, Feren signaled with her boney fingers for the guards to follow her away from the pit’s edge, all but shoving past the dumbfounded damsel who had just saved her life.

‘My..My Lady?’ inquired a puzzled Carolette, once again finding herself standing between the sentries and the sludge-filled sewer, ‘Are you not well? Have you taken ill? Do you require…?’

‘Thy strategy to refrain from rescuing me until the last possible moment to ensure the safe escape of thy fellow Songbird was brilliantly executed,’ commended Feren, glaring accusingly at the completely shocked Carolette.

It was true, she had conspired to stall the Magistrate in order to help Corus leave the city. It was as true as the fact that she had remained in Penna in order to save Feren out of the goodness of her heart. Carolette knew she was in a jam. If only finding the words to speak came as easily as they did to sing, she thought silently. ‘Lady Magistrate, I…’ interjected the anxious Songbird, trying to plead her case.

‘BE QUIET!’ silenced the raging Raven, raising her haggard hand aggressively. Her thin sunken eyes squinted deviously in the pale dungeon light as she hissed out her condemnation, ‘The end of this pitiful insurrection will transpire whilst we hunt down thy precious Corus and deliver her to her punishment once and for all! Prepare thyself for the Magistrate’s discipline, girl.’

Already exhausted from her psychic solo, the spent songstress fell to her knees. ‘I beg of thee, Lady Magistrate, please have mercy on me!’ pleaded Carolette, with her hands clasped in fearful prayer and docile obedience, ‘I only wish to…’

‘SILENCE!’ shrieked the wingdom witch, swinging her skeletal arm as if winding up to strike the submissive songstress, ‘Consider it an act of mercy that thou shall not exist long enough to bear witness to the execution of thy friend. Guards, cast our pretty prisoner into the pit!’

‘Merciful Spirits! NO!!’ cried the vulnerable Songbird as the massive masked men picked her petite body up off the slippery stone, ‘PLEASE! NO!! Not the slime! Mercy! Lady Magistrate!’

The Raven’s leering eyes observed with silent satisfaction as her armored soldiers easily lobbed the young girl out into the deadly slime pool.

‘GPLWORP…’ gulped the gruesome goop as Carolette’s lovely legs plunged into it, sinking her immediately up to her stocking covered thighs. The slime quivered and quaked to life as it rippled and rolled around the terrified girl’s body.

‘GLUGLUGLGLGLG…’ gurgled the sickly slime hideously, as it began to slurp down the beautiful young Songbird trapped in its sticky suction. ‘Ugh! I am sinking! UHN!’ whimpered Carolette as she struggled her long legs helplessly, ‘Please help me! The awful slime consumes me!’

‘Useless thrashing will only reward thee with a more rapid descent to thy doom, my dear Songbird,’ cackled the remorseless Raven, entertained by the plight of the disappearing damsel fighting to stay above the slime that was sucking her deeper.

‘I beg thy forgiveness, merciful Magistrate! (UHN!) Please do not let me perish!’ moaned and pleaded Carolette tearfully, as the slime greedily gulped down her wiggling hips like liquid lips slowly swallowing a sweet snack. Every movement she made caused the rancid ooze to devour more and more of her writhing body.

‘Guards,’ summoned the snickering sadist as she grinned devilishly at the sinking songstress, ‘Let us depart the dungeon before this vanishing vocalist finds her voice again.’

‘N..NO! Please! My Lady!’ appealed Carolette, as bubbling goo burped and belched repulsively around her slim, spandex covered waist. Her white cape fanned out over the surface of the slime as her captured body continued to descend into the perilous pit.

The damsel in distress whimpered despondently as Feren and her flanking protectors vacated the dreadful dungeon. Carolette gasped in disgust at the stringy slime ribbons that were oozing down from the darkness above, dripping onto her hood and glazing her exposed cleavage with repugnant smelling globs. The animated pit sludge crept up over her supple breasts as the horrendous trap slowly claimed them inch by inch.

‘UHN! N..NO! Ugh!’ more whimpers and moans expelled from the pretty young Pennan as her resisting arms dipped into the sticky slime. There was no escape. Tears rolled down her frightened cheeks. Her ceaselessly sinking body was moments from being sucked completely under the vile, viscous gunk. Carolette was about to experience a lonely, gruesome, unfair death at the hands of the Magistrate that had protected and pampered her for her entire life. She was out of time and out of options.

…except one.

Closing her eyes, Carolette focused on her diaphragmatic breathing. The desperately disappearing diva ignored the gurgling and gulping of the spitefully sinister slime, that seemed to be puckering pervertedly as it poured in around her submerging chest. The imperiled princess took a series of deep breaths, letting her exhaling lungs tickle her larynx with air, creating a vibrating hum. The sonustone embedded in her neck began to once again glow with warm, yellow light.

‘AUXILIUM!’

The sweet Songbird released a soft but strong psychic-sonic SOS serenade into the vast catacombs that echoed hauntingly off the arched ceilings, the long creepy hallways and into the massive spiral stairwells, rising up to the surface of Penna…

[MadMax359]

let's hope that works!