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THE LANGUAGE OF FROGS (continued)
Disclaimer: Claymore & its characters belong to Norihiro Yagi & his affiliates
Rating: M (sex and language)
Chapter 2 - Ribbit
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When Raki goes out to hunt, he knows Riful and Dauf fuck endlessly for the entire day.
He knows because they have this look about them. He sees Dauf with his predatory gaze, his slighted eye, daring to be questioned. He knows because Riful walks differently. She has a warm, loamy scent about her, the scent of her own flesh and fluids merged with hormones and hunger. But mostly, he knows because he's seen them – once.
They fuck in the ruined house, under the trunk-like remains of one the chimneys, out of view from the verandah so no one can see. But there's the unmistakable grunting – like an animal trying to keep its head above water – and the pinpricks of something in the air. Sometimes, his senses honed by the thrill of the hunt, Raki could hear them as he approached the farm. He wondered, then, if this was how yoki felt like.
He had watched them, crouched in hunting position, as if he were tracking some unfortunate creature. He had seen how Dauf took Riful by the neck, pushed her against the chimney stones like she were a piece of furniture, and then shoved his lower body in and out, in and out. He looked on Riful's face swirled with either pain or ecstasy, transforming into something not quite monster but not quite human. He stared – and Riful drove her teeth into Dauf's shoulder as he continued to sink his crotch deeper.
He remembers scenes that he saves in his head: the hog-like exertions coming from Dauf, Riful's cries muffled by Dauf's shoulder and the bricks falling from the chimney. He remembers Riful's legs hanging limp like the roots of a torn plant, swaying in slow rhythm.
He tries not to walk in on them. But when he does, he observes. Sometimes, he sees Riful's drifting to where he lies, hidden.
Sometimes after seeing them, he has to throw up. Sometimes, he retreats back into the woods to jerk off.
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He's practising with swords when something triggers his memory. As the frigid steel in his palms lands blow after blow on the tree he's duelling with, he can recall everything that led him up to today.
It's a different kind of recollection. It doesn't come to him from somewhere deep within his centre. It's not like his thoughts of Clare: they're still shuttered away inside his conscience. Instead, this comes from the motion of his stiff right arm. The point where Priscilla inserted foreign flesh bubbles with anticipation, the muscle memory of things he's done.
With each thrust of his arm he recalls Priscilla's sneer, her flirting fingernails on skin, the pulse of pain when her flesh penetrated his. He lets his arm ripple beneath his hits, the muscle taking on a life on its own, his broad strokes painting the trees in splinters.
There're other things he remembers too. His first taste of yoki – a bitter, toxic sludge, like maggot-infested meat – he can remember the sensation flowing backwards from his arm and out through his teeth. He can return to the moment another's yoki instigated the flesh in his arm, turning his senses into chaos.
He could feel his arm pounding in anticipation as two more powerful signals of yoki – Riful and Dauf – raided the men who had taken him prisoner. And when they had dispatched everyone, he still can replay the scene of their first confrontation, the moment their deal got struck:
Dauf, insisting they kill him like the rest, despite the strange scent he had been emitting.
His own uncertainty as his arm warped beneath him, unsure of fight or flight.
And finally Riful, who stilled his raging body with a touch from her fingertips, and her words like a proclamation.
"You've been screwed with."
"What's with your arm?"
"Why don't we see how strong you are, shall we?"
"If you can beat Dauf, you win everything. Your freedom, your .life, and me."
"But if you lose –"
His arm fuelling his strength, Raki swings the sword and cleaves the tree in one stroke. The sword shatters as it lands. His arm explodes with sensations so numerous he can't define them – pain, release, strain, fatigue.
But through the thin cut of woods, his arm feedbacks another centre of gravity. He hones in his thoughts, visualises with his limited mind and he knows that Riful is watching. And, he can tell she's aroused.
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At his second fight, Raki duels Dauf while Riful supervises.
"Concentrate on that feeling, that yoki," she instructs him. "And funnel your fear and rage through it."
They face each other. Riful standing between them like a peace offering. Raki sees that she's gently stroking Dauf's thigh.
"Remember, it's all about control," she tells him.
Control flies out the window as Dauf comes at him with continuous, wind-slicing jabs. His opponent assumes what Raki thinks is a classic boxer's stance: legs apart, body leaning forward, fists thick in front of his chest like warped iron helmets. When Raki throws an experimental hook with his left, he follows it through with an uppercut. Dauf mistakes the feint and Raki feels his knuckles dig into the larger creature's jawbone. There's an audible snap.
Dauf reels. But recovers almost immediately. He pauses and in the next moment he's brawling again.
The fight widens. Riful lets them out from the circle of saplings, now trampled over by their shuffling feet. As Dauf bears down on him, Raki keeps his distance. With each punch Dauf makes, the air sings with heat, his skin burning in the wake of his missed punches. Yoki, Raki thinks.
Then Dauf moves with a burst of speed. All Raki sees is Dauf's face distorting in a semi-awakening, and his opponent is inside his guard. Before he can block, Dauf plummets him square in the chest. The impact sends him tumbling through the trees.
Two of his blood-coated teeth fall to the ground like coins. He can't breathe - he can't -
"C'm here you little piece of shit!"
Dauf crashes through the barricade of shrubs, emerging in a halo of leaves and snapped branches. Raki just - just - rolls aside as Dauf's foot stamps into the ground beside him, leaving an impact crater half a metre deep. Before he can run, Raki sees the ground fall away. He can feel Dauf's fingers hauling him up by the hair. He struggles as Dauf spins him around to face him.
"So you think you can steal Riful from me?" he says.
But Riful's nowhere to be seen. Raki desperately scans the trees, now grey blurs in the onslaught of fog rolling down from the hills. But it's just him and Dauf.
"Is that what's this about?" Raki shouts back.
"Don't fuck with me."
His vision warps out, and Raki has his back to a tree. Dauf levels his elbow into his stomach. Raki chokes. His senses break down - in a riot of agony -
But Dauf pauses to admire his work. As the pain slowly tapers away, Raki angles his right hand into a wedge. Before Dauf can resume, he chops once with all the force he has into the bridge of Dauf's nose.
His assailant just stands there, stunned. The grip on him loosening, Raki chops again. Before he lands the blow he tenses his right arm, feels the alien sensation within it solidify his skin. His second chop hits the same spot. Dauf releases him.
Raki falls. On the ground, the first thing he sees is the bloody stump of Dauf's nose.
The second, Dauf's foot, bashing into his abdomen. The force propels him ten sword's lengths away. He's still near enough - conscious enough - to see Dauf envelope his face in his hands. Medusa-like curls of blood stream from his face. His muffled yells fill the woods.
Raki waits a moment. When he can see things properly, he drags himself through the forest. Stones and gravel nip at his injuries. The further he goes, the easier it gets for him to move - until he sees that his blood is lubricating all the friction from his half-crawling. Everything around him looks the same: chalky-white fog and stern lines of half-hidden tress. So he continues straight ahead.
When he tries to stand, the pain in his chest and side overrule him. He makes it for four paces before he's back on the ground again. This time all he sees is black.
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Raki wakes in darkness, something leeching into his right arm. Cold wind nicks at his bare thighs and torso. As his eyes adjust to the dark, he sees the black fractals of trees and a flush of stars beyond. Something moves - closer. At his right, she sees Riful.
Or he thinks it's her. She's half-transformed, her arms distributed into a multiple wisps of flesh, plugged into a specific point on his sore right arm.
"What - you - doing?"
"Don't move. Ever heard of yoki synchronisation?"
He hasn't. He doesn't really want to know either. Still, he understands that Riful's deep in concentration, her eyes open but not really self-aware. Where her flesh connects to his, he can feel a light, sticky warmth, as if someone's faint touch brushing against his arm.
He blinks her into clarity. As his eyes adjust to Riful under the starlight he can see the dark, suggestive terrain of her body: the sharp cuts of her shoulder blades, the shadows of her erect nipples through her translucent sundress – He tries to reach out for her, but for the first time his muscles won't obey.
Riful disengages from him, stepping back as if to examine a successful piece of her handiwork. Raki watches as she sweeps her glance over him. Then, without warning, she steps over him and straddles his waist.
"What –"
"Hush."
It's just like he's at the pond again. Only now, everything's reverse. He can hardly move his sore, battered body. But Riful, her nubile body gleaming even in the dark, is in full control. Her arms spill away into a thousand belts of flesh that massage and stimulate the only muscle in his body that can respond to her now. Raki tries to resist, but ends up relenting, unable to get his body to obey. He watches with morbid fascination as Riful lowers herself onto his crotch.
Riful moves. She generates friction, the only other feeling Raki can appreciate. There's an undergrowth of pleasure. But nothing it's like what he's seen Riful and Dauf do.
All Raki can say is: "You're taking advantage of me."
For the first time Riful smiles, the whites of her teeth visible in the corners. Raki thinks it would look adorable if she were not perched and squatting on Raki's lower abdomen.
"Ever the chaste one," she retorts. "How else could I get you to claim your prize?"
"It's all a game to you, isn't it?"
"It's better if you didn't take yourself so fucking seriously."
"Tell that to Dauf."
Riful sighs wistfully, as if Raki's mentioned a long-lost sweetheart. "Well. He's already accepted it. You should too."
"Then why do you keep fucking him?"
"Because he likes it. And it keeps him under my control."
Riful dismounts. She condenses into her fully human form, the bony little girl whose frame Raki remembered refusing when she first offered herself as a prize to him. She pouts playfully at him.
"Do you prefer me in this form?"
"You're crazy."
"Don't deny yourself just because you think you're human," she says.
By then she's spread herself over him, fitting him into her. Raki tenses as the friction of him entering her blossoms into gratification. This – isn't – what – he – had – expected.
She forces him deeper, and he sees that it's visibly hurting her. But when Riful sees him looking, she says:
"Think about it this way. Pain is the legitimate price to pay for total control."
She crawls over him, pours her hot, sandpaper-rough tongue over his chin.
"If it doesn't hurt, it's not worth winning."
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END CHAPTER 2
NOTES: It took too long for me to finish this chapter & post it up. I'm not used to writing this kind of explicitly upfront sexual content.
The original idea for the story's been lost over the delay. But I'm bent on finishing this. In my usual style, Chapter 3 and a short epilogue will conclude everything.
Thanks to Shiek and Dany for their comments and help with getting the ideas out from my head into words.