Lili yawned, not bothering to cover her mouth or hide her long pointed teeth.
"You're boring me," she said as she crossed her arms in front of her chest.
The boy either didn't hear her or didn't care, probably some of both. His tongue was practically hanging out of his mouth as he pressed his body closer to the demon. He ran his hands along her hips, up her sides, until they came to a stop at her naked armpits. Drooling on the two of them he gracelessly brushed her arms away so he could cup her warm breasts.
"Ugh," she groaned rolling her eyes. "You know, this used to be fun." Deciding she'd had enough of this pathetic mortal she brought her hands up and rested them along his neck. Thinking he was being embraced, the starry-eyed teenager leaned in for a kiss.
With a twitch of her thumbs Lili snapped the boy's collar bones like twigs.
"Oh shut up," Lil hissed when the boy let out an earsplitting scream. "I put up with your groping without a word. You could at least return the gesture."
Just like the boy's collarbones, the spell had been broken. "You're. . . you're a monster!" he cried. He was sitting on his butt, probably peeing himself, trying to crawl away backwards.
Lili stepped forward onto his foot flattening the muscles, tendons, and bones against the stone floor of her cave. Another wretched scream was elicited from the boy while veins threatened to rupture form his forehead and neck.
"Please!" he cried between screams. "Please! I'm sorry! I'm sorry! Please stop!"
"Ugh, you'd give my sister Nani a run for her money and she's a banshee." It was obviously a lie but Lili knew this kid wouldn't know the difference. Nani's screams could tear skin from flesh. This wimp's screams were just annoying.
"Okay, I'm done with you, for real this time." Lili started walking around the now crippled boy. Daintily she picked her way around the bones and corpses that littered her den.
"No, please, no, please, no, please," he kept whimpering.
"Shhhhh," Lili said soothingly as she crouched next to the boy. She cradled his head in one hand and stroked his sweat drenched forehead with her other hand. With each stroke his crying became less and less frantic until it was little more than wet hiccups.
"Awe, there we go, all better right?" she asked in sweet voice.
His bottom lip still trembled but the boy nodded.
Lili's long black hair was now dangling over the boy's face, the ends of it dancing off his cheeks.
"Do you want a kiss to make it all better?" she asked making pouty lips of her own.
The boy, forgetting his pain, bit his bottom lip and nodded his head enthusiastically.
Lili smiled, blinked her long eyelashes, then crushed the boy's skull between her hands as though it were as fragile as an egg. She winced as some of his brain bits splashed into her eyes. With a sigh she wiped the gray matter away, successfully smearing even more blood across her face.
"This is your own fault you know," she said to the headless corpse. "I wasn't even hungry. You practically barged in here on your own."
Her knees clicking as she did so Lili rose to her feet. After looking at the body from a different angle, and hearing her stomach growl, she realized that she might actually be hungry after all.
"Still your own fault," she said, or tried to say while her jaw was unhinging so it could stretch long enough to finish the boy in two bites.
Two bites later Lili was alone in her cave once again.
"That's the ninth one," the man said in a not-so-hushed whisper.
Link glanced over the edge of his pint to see who was speaking. It was an older thin man, surrounded by what appeared to be his drinking buddies, leaning over the bar to talk to the bartender.
"The ninth what?" the bartender, a skeptical man who'd heard his share of tall tales, asked. "Ninth lad to realize there is nay a future 'ere in this puny village."
The man telling the unbelievable story shook his head. "If'n it were only Mills and Brown ye might 'ave a case but nay Woodward or Helms."
One of the storyteller's friends spoke next. "That's right! Woodward's ol' coo just 'ad 'erself a calf. 'E would nay just leave it. 'Specially nay after I offered 'im twenty rupees for it."
The storyteller jumped back into his story. "Aye, and Helms just got the smith's blessin' to marry 'is lass."
"Nay even a fool would leave that ass behind!"
Link didn't catch who called that out but the statement seemed to be well agreed upon. Even the bartender was nodding his head pensively.
"So what?" the bartender asked. "Where do ya think the nine o' them disappeared to? Ya think that banshee got 'em?
Link set his drink down, the group at the bar now had his full attention.
The storyteller shook his head and leaned in farther over the bar, yet didn't lower his volume. "Nay, that banshee belongs ta Barlad, thank the Goddesses. Five o' our boys was last seen headed towards Slatina. Nay, I think we 'ave the other she-demon."
A wry grin crossed the bartender's face. "Yer talking 'bout a succubus, eh? Ha! If'n only we were that lucky."
The screech of chair moving suddenly pulled the groups attention away from the storyteller. Everyone looked back to see an empty chair still rocking and a half-empty pint of mead and two green rupees sitting on the table. Whoever was sitting there had left in a hurry. Everyone knew a pint of Butterfield's brew was barely worth one rupee.
"Anyhow," the storyteller continued, "it would nay be a matter to consider lucky, were it true. 'Ow many young lads 'ere you think would throw their lives away if'n a she-demon even winked at 'em."
The bartender chuckled and shook his head. "Aye, I see yer point." Not that he believed in silly things like demons or ghosts but he was glad he'd told his teenage son not to go visit his hunting buddies in Slatina. Young Juven ought to be home with his mother right now.
The bartender chuckled to himself again. His son practically drooled when an ugly girl winked at him. Lad wouldn't stand a chance against a temptress.
Lili stretched then situated herself comfortably atop her favorite boulder. It had been almost twenty hours since her last meal and she was starting to feel it. She put a hand on her bare stomach while tilting her head backwards to scan the mountain path between Arad and Slatina, or whatever those humans called their pathetic villages.
She'd been skeptical about these hunting grounds at first (mostly since her jealous sister recommended the place) but she'd had great luck in the two months she'd been here. She'd caught about ten travelers one way and almost two dozen going the other. She'd even won the lottery and found some hermits one night. But could she really call it 'hunting' when not a single traveler put up a fight? Were all of the women in the two villages pigs? Was that why all these men were so desperate and vulnerable?
Movement on the path caught Lili's attention. She flipped over onto her belly keeping low and hugging the boulder. She could just make out a horse, a huge one from the looks of it, but she couldn't make out the rider just yet. Horses were edible but as of yet she hadn't figured out how to seduce a horse. A foxy mare with a gorgeous mane wasn't really in her bag of transformations. If she were starving or getting ready for a long trip she could catch one like any other predator but she'd always found that to be beneath her. Nani got by without subjecting herself to such mundane methods after all.
As the horse - which she realized was a mare - cantered closer Lili could just make out the rider.
Yes! she thought delightedly. A male, traveling alone.
Then a glint of light caught her eye.
Is that. . . ?
She leaned farther forward on her perch to get a better look. Sure enough, it was. Peeking over the rider's shoulder was the hilt of sword. Lili shivered with excitement. It had been forever since she'd had a knight or soldier.
She did a quick check to see how long she had to get ready then crawled off the back end of her boulder and ran to her cave. She figured she had about thirty minutes until she needed to be seen. But how was she to be seen?
With a sound closely resembling a human's giggle Lili pranced in front of her looking glass. The piece was a beautiful mirror that stood six feet tall and half that wide. The glass had been cut in the shape of an elegant oval and the frame was the most intricate silversmithing Lili had ever seen. A proud fat merchant had been bringing this and many other trinkets through the mountain to his mistress, hidden in one of the mountain villages far away from his wife.
She'd seduced the slob by taking the form of a freckled, doe-eyed blonde with massive tits. Admittedly, guessing which form would best seduce each man without having to use any of her charm spells, was her favorite part of every hunt. When prey was plentiful she allowed herself to play with her food, she would give herself little challenges. Almost every game started with just a transformation and introduction. The damsel in distress ploy usually worked quite well.
Lili stared at herself in the mirror. She was still wearing the form she'd used on her last meal. Well, the last two meals. The second boy had spotted her while he was hunting, she hadn't even intended that one. At the moment she had long shiny black hair, rich emerald eyes, and smooth skin the color of cream. Her lips were full, cheek bones sharp, and chin slightly pointed. A long slender neck gave way to narrow thin shoulders, perky round breasts, a flat stomach, wide hips with a full butt then long slightly toned legs. Lili gave herself a wink, smile, and twirl. This WAS one of her better transformations.
But she'd already used it twice. Feasting her eyes on herself one last time Lili shook the illusion off. She turned away from the mirror and cast her eyes elsewhere as the woman she'd been disappeared. It wasn't that she was hideous in her natural form, it was just that now she'd spent so much time studying and practicing to be sexy by human standards she now preferred their dainty, fragile, shells over her own skin.
Stretching her leathery wings behind her, Lili thought about the swordsman on the trail.
Is he a knight? Shouldn't he be wearing plate mail if he was a knight? Maybe he's traveling a long distance and couldn't be bothered to wear his armor the whole time.
Lili shook her head doubtfully.
No, even then he'd have a squire escorting him. Knights never traveled without someone to announce their deeds as they walked. Maybe he's a soldier.
Lili gently scratched her face with her long black claws. She couldn't remember if there were any wars going on in any of the neighboring kingdoms. The last war she remembered hearing about was called the Gerudo War. Her sister had told her about it but that was more than two decades ago and on the other side of the continent. She tapped her bottom lip with the talon of her index finger. Two kingdoms shared these mountain ranges, she recalled. But the kings of the two kingdoms were cousins or something to that nature. There was never really a reason for either to send soldiers this far into the mountains.
It's gotta be something else, she thought. Tax collector? Mercenary? Maybe he's a brigand who stole a sword.
The elusive answer only made Lili more excited. She wiggled her butt, and consequently tail, in anticipation.
"Oooo," she said aloud. "I can't wait!"
Lili closed her eyes and started envisioning the body she was about to create.
I want to play this one slow, she decided. No bimbos are harlots for this one.
She imagined a woman's round face, slightly freckled with dimples and pale skin. A perfect little nose would sit in the middle of her face, with two big round brown eyes evenly spaced above it. She usually defaulted to blonde or black haired (never red like Nani's) but this time she was thinking something less bold. She decided on a light brown and envisioned it being short but wavy.
The body would be important. Men could be robbed of their senses by a young maiden's curves. Lili smiled to herself, eyes still closed, as she drew her body in her mind's eye. The shoulders and arms would be thin, and the breasts small but firm. The stomach would be flat but the hips would be wide and the buttocks ample. The legs needn't be too long. The image Lili was going for was meek and small yet not childish or completely helpless.
Twirling around Lili faced her mirror then peeked at her new reflection.
"Ugh," she moaned disappointedly. "This is why I need this stupid mirror."
She'd messed the proportions and symmetry up something fierce. One eye was bigger than the other, she had a crazy under-bite, the left tit was sagging, and somehow she'd put hair on the legs! Using the mirror to guide her transformation she cleaned up her mistakes. During the final evaluation she realized she'd missed a dimple. She was just about to put it in when she stopped herself. Turning her head one way, then the other, she examined her new face. The new face smiled.
"I kind of like it. It's unique," she chirped happily.
None of the real human women she'd seen were ever perfectly symmetrical, maybe this would make it more believable.
"Now, what to wear?" she asked herself. She'd learned some time ago that even the most hot-blooded male was suspicious when a naked nymph came running out of the mountains.
Behind the mirror was an oak wardrobe full of clothes Lili had stolen from villagers or Nani. Most of them were altered pieces Lili had modified herself so as to appear more lewd and enticing. That wasn't quite was she was looking for with the swordsman though.
After digging through the garments for a second she found a dress that would do nicely. Since the swordsman was wearing green Lili decided a simple blue and grey wool dress would complement him. Realizing she might be running out of time Lili quickly pulled the dress over her head. As luck would have it the gown fit well enough to be passed as her own.
With one more glance in the mirror Lili turned and trotted out her cave anxious to see where the mounted swordsman was now. Carefully, so as not to be seen preemptively, Lili peeked around the boulders that lined the cliff outside her cave.
The red mare was walking just a few hundred meters up the trail from where Lili was now.
Perfect, she thought. She lapped up the saliva that made its way onto her lips. She made a mental note that her tongue was still forked.
I want everything to be perfect for this one.
Author's Note: Well, this is definitely a new genre for me. I've hit a wall with my other stories so I figured it's time to change things up. This'll be a short story, less than a dozen chapters. If you're wondering what universe this takes place in, it's sort of OoT/the AU I created in Crossguard Tribulation. Hope you enjoy!