The Fallen Huntress
Darkness descended upon Oros. The valley had never been a very hospitable place to begin with, but at night it became the den of death itself. The Udam had fled after the death of Ull and cowered in their icy home far too north, too afraid to venture south ever again. The Izilia too had long retreated from the cradle of destruction that Oros had become for them, returning to their own lands, never to return. Nature remained, however, and continued to wage its unceasing war against that young, strange new species: homo sapiens. It was a war in which, for now and some time afterward, nature would decidedly have the upper hand.
Such was the case in the Valley of Oros, were the plethora of creatures that constituted the deadly biome set out into the darkness to slake one of their greatest instinctual urges: to feed. On this night, a rather large saber-toothed tiger stalked through the trees, its padded feet gliding softly over the ground and allowing the bulky creature to make surprisingly little noise as it stalked its prey. That prey was only a few feet away now, and consisted of a single sample of that homo sapien species that had fought tooth, nail, and tail to earn its right among the apex predators, but not quite at the top of the food chain just yet. The saber-tooth bared its teeth as its mouth salivated in the expectation of a fresh kill.
This particular homo sapien was known by two labels. One was a broad definition of belonging, a title invented by her fellow species in order to form some sort of order in the chaos that was embedded within their world: Wenja. It gave a sense of community to those who went by it, a feeling of common purpose. After all, in a world where everything was intent on their destruction, no man or woman could long survive on their own. No, the homo sapiens had learned ages ago that if they were to survive, they had to work together; they had to form units in the trenches against nature's unending onslaught. Even within a unit, however, the importance of the individual could not be discarded, for, particularly in this world, not all were created equal. Some were more skilled, more intelligent, and sometimes just downright luckier than others, and these were crucial factors to survival. So, the individuals took their own labels, titles in their own right that others could use to identify them in the units they took refuge within. This woman's title was Jayma.
Jayma had been a soldier on the front lines of the war with nature since the earliest days she could still recall from her increasingly full and fading memory. She had hunted with her father, and when he had fallen in battle with the dreaded mistress of the earth, she had hunted alone. Nature had left her many battle wounds to stain a once fair skin, but never had she fallen. Tonight, however, promised to be the final mêlée. As quietly as she could, with a torch in one hand, and a bundle of tightly wrapped cloth in the other, Jayma crept through the darkness that threatened to swallow her whole, were it not for the saving grace of the flame she carried. She had known fear before; it was a familiar mate she had shared her meals, her sleep, and even a few of her hunts with. As the years wore on, experience overtook fear, dulling its sharp sting. Over these past few months, however, the deadly pangs of terror and uncertainty had returned with a vengeance, welling up from within her very soul. Fear walked with her through woods this night, keeping her company on her lonely vigil.
It was this fear that caused her to stiffen up and crouch a little when she heard a soft rustling sound from somewhere nearby. In that instant, instinct took over. Adrenaline coursed through her veins, preparing her for the choice that her ancestors before her had been making since they had come into existence: fight or flight? Before, the choice would have been an easy one. She fought more often than she fled, because to flee was to surrender, something that her father had taught her never to do. But this was a new Jayma, a Jayma whose world had changed exponentially since the days of her long past youth. Her old hunting instincts had been replaced by new and far more powerful ones. She obeyed these instincts now, and broke into a frantic sprint toward a nearby ridge that, if her memory served her correctly, would be her salvation. The soft rustling grew into the sounds of brush being trampled and branches broken. It was just as she had feared; she was being hunted. The rustling soon became accompanied by heavy footfalls and deep growls as the saber-toothed tiger got closer and closer. Jayma gave in to temptation and glanced behind her. She should see the bright yellow eyes in hot pursuit, glinting with the light from the flame that was her only guide through the suffocating blackness, illuminating the ravenous creature's desire for blood.
It would not have hers, though. At long last there appeared before her a wall of moss and vegetation covered rock, into which nature had carved a crevice just large enough for Jayma to slip through. She dropped the torch, her only source of light, as she entered, however, and could only crouch in the darkness, the bundle of cloth held tightly to her chest, seeming to vibrate with the pounding of her own heart. The tiger reached the crevice only steps behind her, and roared ferociously, tearing its claws into the unyielding stone and throwing the full weight of its body behind a frantic effort to reach its meal, to tear into the elder huntress's flesh. It was all in vain, however, for no matter how strong the tiger had been made, nature had created something far stronger: stone. After some time of attempting to force its way into the crevice, the beast seemed to give up with a howl of frustration and disappointment before heading off into the darkness.
Even after the tiger had disappeared from view Jayma did not dare move for what felt like an age. Slowly, her heart beat slowed and her breathing returned to normal. After a few more minutes of intent listening, she even worked up the courage to return to the crevice's entrance and retrieve the still burning torch. She jammed the end into a smaller crack in the wall of the crevice, thus permitting her some illumination in her dank hiding place. Suddenly, there came a sound from the bundle of cloth in her hand, a continuous wailing.
"Shhhhhhh." Jayma whispered as she peeled back a section of the cloth to reveal the red and tear striped face of an infant, no more than four months old. The child had its mothers brown eyes, but its nearly jet black hair was a resonance of its father. Despite the quiet reassurances of its mother, the baby continued to express inconsolable distress. Finally, in bid to silence her child's frantic wails lest they attract other unwanted attention, Jayma pulled back the fur hiding one of her breasts and brought the child's lips to her nipple where it began to suckle greedily. As the child fed, she cooed into its ear and gently rocked it, hoping to return it to the realm of sleep from whence it had stirred. As she did so, Jayma looked out through the crevice at the night sky, sprinkled with its familiar bright dots of light and large, glowing disk that had illuminated her way on many a previous hunt. Now, however, her thoughts were not on a hunt, or even on the sky itself really (whose mysteries she was found of pondering when time allowed), but on the father of the baby that now weaned from her breasts, and how she come to the pass in which she now found herself; trapped, like an animal in a snare…
The events that led to Jayma's pregnancy and ultimate flight from the Wenja village had begun shortly after the time of cold and snow had ended. The white glistening surface had given way to the greens, blues, yellows, and all other manner of colors displayed in festive merriment by the plants and trees. Roshani had insisted that this was the time to begin planting their food that they would harvest in a few moons time. But plants alone had never satisfied her, and so Jayma had gone out on the hunt, as she had always done before when the cold winds ceased, the plants returned to life, and the animals returned in such plentiful numbers that she could stay out from the time the great bright disk arose from the earth to the time that it sank back into the bowls of the mountains bringing darkness across the land. About a week after the Wenja had begun their planting, Jayma was in her hut preparing to go out on yet another hunting expedition when the village leader, a large, powerful specimen named Takkar, had entered and requested that he be allowed to accompany her.
"If you can keep up, mammoth feet." She had told him with a teasing smile.
They had hunted before, her and Takkar, but this hunt would prove different. Something new pulsed in Jayma's veins, a feeling that had seemed to accompany the vanishing of the snow. As they searched across the valley for game, Jayma found her gaze becoming increasingly drawn to her companion, his well toned physique, his impressive jaw line, and his thick muscular thighs. Sometimes, while she was admiring those thighs, her gaze would fall upon the cloth of skin that hid his more personal regions and she would find herself wondering just what it looked liked beneath that single layer that divided him from her. The more time she spent with Takkar, the more she found herself looking, and the more the feeling within her veins would boil up and up from deep within her. She was being driven by an instinct of her own as she led Takkar deeper and deeper into the valley. Their hunting trip saw the great glowing disk vanish, then reappear, then vanish, then reappear again, and then vanish, and then reappear. On this third day, Takkar spotted a particularly fine looking elk and shot a single arrow into its neck. The beast reared and fled, leaving her and Takkar to track it down to a small basin in some far corner of the valley that housed a single pond.
By then the elk had suffered such blood loss that it could barely remain standing. Pulling out his knife of flint, Takkar had approached the barely alive creature and ended it suffering by plunging the sharpened stone into its neck. As she watched him masterfully bring an end to the animal's suffering, Jayma felt the deep rumbling within her turn into an ache, an ache that led her to do something she never thought she would do. No sooner had Takkar laid the animal's lifeless head upon the grass then she walked right up to him and kissed him forcefully upon his lips. Takkar seemed startled at first, but did not fight back as she hungrily devoured his mouth with her own. Before long, he even seemed to become involved himself; his tongue entered into a stubborn wrestling match with hers. While the kiss continued, and even escalated, Jayma ran her callous covered hands over the firm muscles in those arms she had spent the last three days admiring, and then over the well toned torso before making their way lower to the thing that had occupied her thoughts the most of late. It was firm, and increasingly hard the more she touched it through the cloth, and it grew in length as she stroked it. Takkar let out a grunt and pulled away from her, causing Jayma to fear that she may have angered him.
This was soon proven to not be the case, however. Takkar grabbed Jayma by the shoulder firmly, yet tenderly and spun her around so that her back was pressed against his hair covered chest. His large hands ran over her own stomach and chest, gently cupping and massaging both her breasts which sent a pleasant sensation from her nipples throughout the rest of her body, causing her to gasp in pleasure and arch her back. With another grunt, Takkar gently pushed her forward and she stumbled a bit before her legs hit the corpse of the elk. Jayma lost her balance and fell to her knees. Takkar too dropped to his own knees and, with the same purposeful, yet tender, grip pushed Jayma down until she was leaning over the dead elk, her partially exposed breasts brushing against the coarse hair of the beast. Jayma's breath came in ragged pants as she felt Takkar's hands move down her back slowly, as if worshiping the scarred yet beautiful skin he found there. Those hands eventually reached the skin cloth that hung around her waist and began to pull it off. Jayma understood what was happening, she had had a mate at one time, but he too had met his end on the battlefield against nature, just as her father had. Over the course of her kiss with Takkar, she had become increasingly aware of the sensation of moisture that had been forming between her legs. Now, as her loin cloth dropped from her body, she became even more acutely aware of how moist she was and how much she ached, longing to be filled.
Takkar did not disappoint. As soon as they had freed Jayma from her nether garments, his hands went to work on his own. She glanced back at him and was rewarded with a brief glimpse of his own sacred part, firm and steady, just like the man himself. Takkar positioned himself behind her and, in a single thrust, slated at last the nagging emptiness from within her. Jayma cried out in pleasure, and began to moan as Takkar began thrusting his hips mechanically. Every now and again he would let out his own grunts of pleasure as they continued at a steady pace. Jayma's moans grew in volume and intensity as a well of pleasure began to fill within her belly. The more Takkar thrust behind her, the greater the well filled until it seemed to overflow, causing her body to spasm in a rhythmic sensation of euphoric pleasure, which she voiced by crying out her lover's name. For how long they continued like this Jayma neither knew nor cared. Takkar gave her the same feeling of uncontrollable ecstasy two more times before he began to pick up the pace with his own thrusts and his grunts became more audible. Jayma recalled what this signified from her own days with her mate and let out an exclamation. While she certainly had been enjoying herself, the idea of Takkar releasing his nectar within her and possibly siring a child frightened her. Though she had been unable to put her fears into proper words, Takkar seemed to get the message and suddenly the feeling of emptiness returned to her. Jayma glanced back and saw that one of Takkar's hands had disappeared from her view in between his legs, and his arm was shaking vigorously. Suddenly, he gave a deep, throaty, drawn out moan as he leaned against Jayma, and she vaguely felt something warm splash onto one of her thighs. Takkar had resisted the urge to spill his seed within her, and instead had spread it upon the ground and her thigh, and a little had even made it onto the coat of the elk they had hunted together.
For a while neither of them moved, and Jayma lay her head down on the chest of the elk while she huffed and puffed to try and catch her breath. Takkar lay his head down on her back and did the same. Eventually, they both stood and replaced their loin clothes before Takkar wordlessly skinned and butchered the elk, adding the spoils to their growing collection. All the way back to the village neither of them spoke of their moment of intimacy. They talked, of course, but mostly it was jokes or gossip from about the village. Each was careful to avoid the subject. Jayma understood the difference between love and lust, and she soon came to the conclusion that what she had experienced was more the latter than the former. They returned to the village with a good haul that earned them both the praise of several of the villagers, and even Tensay. Over the next few days, Jayma convinced herself that what had occurred during that fateful hunt would only be a onetime event.
But she was to prove wrong.
Of course, the days of good hunting were only just beginning, and Jayma went out on many more of her excursions. At first, she went alone. Then, some days after their first hunt of the season together, Takkar came and asked that he be allowed to accompany her again. She did not refuse him, and they set out into the valley once more. The pair had spent a productive day hunting game and then, once again, copulated that night upon making camp. That was how it would go for the rest of the season. They would go out hunting, mate, and then return. Sometimes it was during the day, sometimes at night, sometimes after a kill, sometimes Jayma would be aiming an arrow directly at her quarry when Takkar would over take her, pin her against a tree, and take her. She never resisted or objected, in fact, as the season wore on, she welcomed the mating sessions more and more. It was like a ritual, and like all rituals, it had its guidelines. The most important of these was that Jayma never permitted Takkar to seed her. He would always share his nectar with the ground, or the outside of her body, but never within. On one occasion, after a particularly successful day, she even allowed him to release his seed in her mouth.
For all of the boasting of her skill as a huntress, something did sneak up on Jayma that season. At first her mating sessions with Takkar had been more to fulfill that feeling of aching emptiness within her, but as they continued, she began to feel something more. She began to miss Takkar's company when she went out alone on solitary hunts, and even began asking him to accompany her more often. The sessions increased in frequency, nearly every day they went out hunting they copulated. One night, Jayma even snuck into Takkar's cave and mated with him right there in the village. Her thoughts were increasingly occupied by him, and she began to long for his presence. By the end of the season, Jayma began to realize that her sessions with Takkar had led to something far more serious than they had meant before. She had fallen in love with the village leader, she wanted to be with him always, to share her hunts with him by day, and her body by night.
However, this realization was soon embittered, like the waters of the river when the dead had been left to rot within them.
Near the end of the good hunting season, there was a great feast in the village. During the feast, Takkar suddenly announced to all present that he was to take Sayla as his mate. The couple had stood before the entire village as they applauded them, all except Jayma, who stood near the back of the crowd in utter shock, a sick feeling growing in her stomach as she watched Takkar and Sayla kiss. The shock soon gave way to rage, and she began to plot various ways in which to kill that wicked woman who had usurped her lover. But the more she thought about it, the more she realized that killing Sayla would only alienate Takkar from her further, and force her into exile, hunted by her own people. So she bit her tongue as Tensay gave the couple his blessing, when Takkar built them a new hut, and when the happy couple moved in together, and even when Sayla confided to her that she was with child. She kept her piece, and Takkar ceased accompanying Jayma on her hunts. Still, as the suns disappeared and reappeared, the familiar feeling of emptiness and longing began to fill her belly once more. She was rent in inner agony every time that she saw Sayla kiss her beloved Takkar, and some days it took all she had not to pick up a stone axe and drive it right into the whore's head. For many nights afterward she would dream of Takkar, of the things they had done together. After a while, she began to use her own hands to bring herself the pleasure and ecstasy she had known all that season, but it never managed to slake the burning desire within her. At last, as the weather began to turn and she could stand it no longer, Jayma went to Takkar and requested that he accompany her on one last hunt before the snows came. Though he appeared reluctant, Takkar agreed.
So they went out on one last hunting trip. For two days they hunted, and spoke very little. The tension was most palpable. On the third and final day, Jayma finally decided that it was time to address the subject. However, rather than talking, as she had originally intended, she approached Takkar as he was seated at their campfire roasting meat for his evening meal, and the second he looked at her with those deep brown eyes she lost all self control and smashed her lips into his. This time Takkar resisted, pushing Jayma away and scolding her for tempting him into betraying his mate. Jayma, with tears streaming down her face, angrily accused Takkar of betraying her, beating her fists against his chest. Takkar struggled to restrain her and, in the ensuing scuffle, the pair once again locked lips. This time, he did not resist and before long they were both free of their coverings and making love as they had done so often before. Only this time, Jayma broke her cardinal rule. She had missed him so much, and was so afraid of losing him forever after this (for she held no illusions, this brief moment of wild passion would be their last) that she did not object or even attempt to stop him when his pace increased and, after a few more wild thrusts, he released his seed within her.
It was indeed their last time together. Afterward, Takkar made it clear that he would no longer 'hunt' with Jayma and he was true to his word. In fact, he rarely spoke to her after that final night, and when he did so it was in a very curt manner. But that was not the end of it, the price of that final night would prove to be a high one. Jayma became increasingly concerned when she missed her bleeding, and her concerns grew into fears as each successive day past and no blood came. She began to feel sick in the mornings, and began to crave certain foods. She recognized the symptoms, for she had seen them many times before in her years. She was with child…Takkar's child. Fear was replaced by blind panic. She feared the shame that would come with such a child and the damage it would bring to both her and Takkar's statuses in the village (for the village itself had long been rife with rumors about Takkar and Jayma's 'special hunting trips'), and that Takkar himself might just kill her if he discovered her condition. So, one night, after the majority of the village had gone to sleep, she slipped off into the night, never to return. She took only what she needed, the clothes on her back and her trusty long bow and a quiver of arrows. She hunted as best she could and stored up dried meat for when her condition became too prevalent to permit such exertion. Then, one night what seemed like an eternity later, she gave birth to a beautiful baby boy. She named him Tiaan.
As he continued to suckle the milk from her breast, Tiaan's eyes slowly slid shut and he drifted back off into a distant sleep. His mother was not so lucky. She continued to stare at the stars above. Sometimes she would curse them, and any gods or goddesses that sat in regent above them, for condemning her to such a fate. Sometimes she would lose herself in much happier memories, of her hunts with Takkar, of their passionate lovemaking, and of the brief hope she had entertained that, perhaps someday, they might have become a mated pair and lived the rest of their lives (no matter how short) together. But those days were gone. Jayma the huntress had fallen, and in her stead was the Jayma the mother. She glanced down at the now calm and serene face of her baby boy, and tears began to stream from her eyes. What would be her fate, she could not say, nor could she predict her child's ultimate destiny. She could only hope that, somehow, he could make it through the long days ahead, for nature was not a forgiving mistress. She took no pity on the infirm or the young. Even for children, the never ending war was omnipresent.
So they lay in a crevice in a forgotten valley; a forgotten mother with a forgotten son who, it seemed, even the stars had turned their back on.
Hello all, this was just a little something that I came up with while lying in bed one night. I don't plan on expanding on it really, it was meant to be more of a one-shot (I know, not exactly the happiest ending). Still, hope you enjoyed.
