WARNING

This story may contain torture, gore, and other unsavory topics.

It is not recommended for those faint of heart or stomach.

This story was not created out of the authors interests, but as a reminder that the atrocities committed in this story are far from fictional. Many such actions are taken against fellow humans every day. I think it's awful, and I heavily condemn it.

Sierra bounded through the clouds, light vapory wisps clinging to her nimble limbs. As a Nebulae, she of course enjoyed the clouds, but she felt she had a special bond with them. Something no one else had. The almost damp feeling of the vaporous matter held a special place in her heart. It was almost as if the clouds were more than gas, like the loving hands of ancestors long since passed away. She felt comfortable in the clouds, not that she had been anywhere else but within them.

The clouds were her home, and the home for her family, her twin sister Nimba, her parents, and the other nymphs that resided nearby. From the clouds she could look down and see the beauty of the world. She could see the oceans fan out upon their beds, the green and luscious land holding itself above the salty seas, a platform upon which all life could reside. Her mother had told her stories of the horrid creatures that swam beneath the seas and stalked through the trees.

She'd point out the ripples in the oceans blue depths, which she said were the wake of monsters lurking close beneath. She'd point out cleared forests, where she said that man had slain her dryad cousins to make room to lay his crops. She'd point out the glowing and grey splotches scattered throughout the land, where she said man had made great cities to facilitate their uncontrollable growth. And she pointed out great gashes and canyons, where giants had clawed the earth in their astronomical battles. She said that they would fight for days, heinous tyrants battling their own offspring. She said that the mountains had been thrown about by gods and giants, that the lord of the sea, Poseiden, had thrown one such mountain upon his foes. She said that the earth mother Gaea was evil and scheming, and working only in her own self interest, and that no gods could truly be trusted, nor their offspring. She said that all these fights happened long ago, and yet their effects remained to this day. She said that soon, it would all start over once again, and the world would be consumed by storm and fire. She said that only upon the clouds was safe.

I only believed her truly on the safety of the clouds. Many creatures may lurk in the ocean depths, but by no means does that make them monsters. The men who cut down great swaths of trees must have left the ones inhabited by dryads, as their were some trees still left. And if man was making such cities, then he obviously did indeed have control of his growth.

The gashes in the land she was less sure about. She thought they must have been the desperate attempts by a creature of old to recover something that was lost. She knew she had done the very same. The fights she doubted very much. The land was verdant and calm, not something she could envision ever hosting such horrid battles. Most likely, she was trying to scare her into never leaving the clouds. She didn't need to do that, she never wanted to leave. While the clouds hugging her always dissipated eventually, there were always more.

The clouds were not just a source of safety and assurance. They were a place to have fun. As she skipped along, her eyes darted around, searching for any clues as to the whereabouts of her sister, Nimba. They would spend hours frolicking and playing hide and seek in the white fluffy clouds as they were now, and it never got old.

It was the slightest thing that tipped her off. The tip of Nimba's toes protruded from a cloud, giving her away. She paused, and was preparing to jump into the cloud and grab her sister, when Nimba sprung from the cloud herself. Her sister sprinted off in the opposite direction, and she launched herself in pursuit.

At least, she would have, had a pair of scaly arms in leather grieves not reached out and grabbed her from behind. As she thrashed, she was pulled against the side of a chariot, her captor way to strong for her to escape. She heard the whiny of horses behind her.

"Nimba! Nimba!" She cried out, desperate for her sister to hear her and bring help. Nimba finally turned, and stood looking in shock and Sierra. Sierra adorned a joyous expression, before it morphed into horror as a bronze chariot pulled by two pegasi rose from within the clouds behind her sister. One of the two dracaena onboard reached over the sides and grabbed Nimba by the arms.

"NIMBA! HELP!" she screamed."NIMBA!

Nimba!

Nimba… "

"Nimba…" a voice permeated her consciousness, riding on the acrid odor of smelling salts held under her nose. "Look at your sister Nimba. Can't you see what you have done to her?"

Sierra thrashed against her restraints. Despite the leather straps being gently padded, they had still left dark bruises contrasting sharply her pale skin. A telkhine stood on the other side of the room, whispering sweet poison into Nimba's ears while holding her firmly by the wrists. The telkhine holding the malodorous salts withdrew them from her nose, and she drew in a wonderful, fresh breath of air before spitting on the telkhine's feet. It was only after she wasted the precious moisture that she realized the dryness of her throat and mouth. Her head pounded, whether from the dehydration they had forced upon her or the noxious gasses they had made her breathe she didn't know.

At that very time, a telkhine opened the reinforced door to the room, and stepped in, closing it behind him. He held a small mylar pouch and a large canteen.

"Sierra, my gods, you look terrible!" he spoke in an obviously facetious manner. "Here, you must have some water!" He tilted the canteen to her lips, letting a meager trickle of water flow down into her lips. Of course, he pulled it away too soon, and placed it on the floor before turning away.

"No…" She muttered, desperate for the hydration. He turned at the sound of her voice, his foot none too subtly moving to knock over the canteen as he turned.

"Oh my, I am so clumsy!" He grinned, seemingly loving the despair in Sierra's face. He cackled, before tearing open the mylar bag with a crackling rip. The two sounds were almost identical. "Anyone want some jerky?"

He walked around the room, handing out a fistfull of jerky to both telkhines in the room, before returning to stand in front of Sierra. "Oh dear, there appears to be none left!" He rummaged in the bag, putting on what must have been his attempt at a pitiful face. "Wait, there is something left. Hold her mouth open."

The other telkhine moved to grab her jaw with both hands, it's long claws digging into her skin as it held her mouth open. The lead telkhine stopped his rummaging and withdrew a small white packet from the bottom on the jerky bag, grinning sadistically. She noticed blue text printed across the packet with a warning of some kind. He tore the packet open and sprinkled the powder within into her mouth.

Her eyes widened with horror as the powder began to draw the remaining liquid from her parched throat. "That is one of my favorite mortal creations. They call it 'desiccant'. They use is to absorb water in food, to prevent it from going bad. Of course, it is bad to eat, so they put it in this tough little package and put warning labels all across it. That didn't seem to stop you now, did it?"

With that he walked from the room, motioning for the other two telkhines to come with. As soon as they were gone, she spit as much of the water sucking powder from her mouth as she could, but the damage was done. It hurt to breath, to swallow, and her headache pounded harder and harder until despite the pleading of her sister to stay awake she succumbed to the darkness.

She didn't know how many months they spent training her and her sister. For the most part, they tortured her, the stronger one, and encouraged Nimba to blame herself for it. Occasionally though, they would flip the tables and torture Nimba. On those days Sierra would often scream until her throat went dry. But slowly, slowly she mellowed down. Despite how much she questioned herself, she couldn't figure out why she did. She had started to because faking it was the best way to make the pain stop. But now she wasn't so sure. She hadn't yelled at her captors in days, and it was starting to feel like she hadn't tricked them, and they had succeeded in their task of training her.

Whatever the case, the trainers seemed to believe they had succeeded. After untold months of training, she was finally to be given a master to serve. She paid little attention to who the master was, or where it was, or for what. All she knew was that she had to escape.

Later that week, she was brought to the island along with her sister Nimba and 4 other nymphs. As they walked up the beach to the mansion that loomed ahead, Nimba was chatting animatedly with a red haired dryad. As they approached the front of the house, the red head introduced herself. Her name was Rose, and Nimba had asked her to take care of Sierra. Sierra had no interest in actually exploring the house or getting familiar with it like the others, as she didn't plan on staying long. Regardless, she went with Rose and feigned interest in the lavish dwelling. It was as Rose investigated the kitchen that she slipped away.

Her feet thudded on the fine white sand of the beach as she sprinted to the ocean. Clouds and oceans were both water, so she would be fine. She lunged into the surf until her feet no longer touched the sandy ocean floor, and began to ineptly swim away from the island. At first, the process was tiring, but she slowly became more and more adept at swimming, until it felt natural to cycle her arms and kick her legs, propelling herself forward with great speed. The ocean's outgoing tide pushed her onward, as if the very sea wanted her to succeed, and she did in fact believe it did. Lord Poseiden is smiling upon me!

The island behind her became smaller and smaller as her hopes swelled. She would get to civilization, and she would get in contact with her parents. Then they could return and rescue Nimba and Rose and the other nymphs on the island from the cruelty of their future master. They could be together again, and she could spend her eternity chasing her sister in the clouds, or the other way around, and frolicking within the white wonderland with their family. Nothing could stop her now, not the dracaena and their chariots with pegasi that had captured her, not the telkhines that had spent countless months training her, not the lord of the slavers that she had only heard whispers of. She was free, free as the cloud above her, free as long as she kept herself going.

To do so, of course, she would have to pace herself. As her limbs were already feeling slightly fatigued, she flipped onto her back, and floated, relishing in the water. The ocean water lapped at her limbs and caressed her, gently embracing her like her clouds used to do. High above, her cirrus cloud stood. Despite that, it looked thinner than normal. She shook it off, it must just be her imagination. She had rested long enough, and it was time to return to swimming. This time, however, she was determined not to stop until her body begged her to. She could float on her back for as long as she needed to get her strength back, and so there was no reason to rest early.

She swam for what seemed to be hours, until she could barely flip onto her back to rest. She sighed in relaxation, until the sigh turned into a choked gasp as she gazed above. Her beautiful cloud, once a plate of wisps and streams and intertwining layers, was now just meager streak, marooned in the afternoon sky. She felt the weakness creep in all at once, paralyzing her. She tried to flip, but couldn't muster the strength to do so. She stared up in despair as the current slowly carried her out to sea.

"Nimba… I'm sorry… I'm so sorry," she muttered as the corners of her vision darkened.

Sierra no longer enjoyed the embrace of the sea. She no longer felt the nostalgia placed upon her of her childhood by the lapping ocean waves. Instead she focused only on the evanescing cloud above, darkness creeping upon it as it faded away.

Fade.

Dim.

Dwindle.

Gone.

In any case, it's time to make a confession. Ronin lied to us. To us all. He's not leaving this week. In fact, he's not leaving till mid May. He totally didn't just get notified of that change this last week. He will, however, be taking a 5 week break from publishing. In his absence, I will be providing content.

Due to the way this works out, it's better for you, but it is actually more work for me. So do me a favor. Pop over to Ronin's profile, and join the discord with the code he has there.

-Ignis