Both women wandered down into darkness. They cast a lumos to light the way. After walking for a while, they both came to a wall where they had to choose a direction. Narcissa unconsciously rubbed the newly acquired ring on her finger, causing a fog to take over her mind as soft whispers spoke, telling her which way to go.
Hermione sighed in frustration as she cast a spell to give her the lay of the area. Upon seeing where she was in correlation to where she needed to go, she made the decision for which direction she needed to take and continued to walk. With every twist and turn of the continuous maze, the women walked, hoping that they would see the other soon.
Time seemed to move slower and slower as they walked deeper and deeper into the maze. It appeared that the maze became larger than before with every step they took, even with their magic helping them. Hermione growled in frustration at the never ending maze. "This is ridiculous, when will it end? I should have made it to the center by now. There is just no end to this maze!"
Narcissa sighed in annoyance. "Honestly, even with the ring of knowledge, I'm still trapped in this illusion-magicked maze. There must be some other way to complete this task without walking myself to death. I'm not even sure if Hermione is alive or not," she took a deep breath to center herself. Concentrating on what she wanted to know from the ring, she rubbed it once more for answers. The whispers told her to look for Hermione instead of the middle of the maze, which would lead to the solution. "Salazar's Snake, this is ridiculous. But if the answer is to find Hermione, then that is what I will do." She cast a locator spell for Hermione and a small ball of light appeared before her. Then it floated off in the opposite direction of where she was originally going.
Hermione growled deeply in frustration at coming to another point of turning left or right, when suddenly, she caught a whiff of a familiar scent and began to follow it excitedly. As they both walked, following their own methods, they soon saw one another. "Odin be praised! I'm so happy you're okay. What happened to you?" Hermione hugged Narcissa close and buried her nose in her neck.
Narcissa purred softly at being held in Hermione's strong arms once more. She breathed her in, wrapping her arms around her neck. "I'm fine and it's a long story, which I'm sure yours is as well, but now is not the time. We need to finish this and get out of here."
Hermione chuckled softly. "You're right about that. I'm just glad it's actually you this time. Alright, what do we do now?" Hermione pulled back and cupped Narcissa's cheek gently, looking deep into her eyes before leaning in and kissing her sweetly.
Narcissa was about to respond when she was cut off and whimpered softly into the kiss. When they pulled apart, they noticed that they were no longer in a stone maze, but in the middle of a dark forest surrounded by large trees and thick foliage that neither of them recognized.
"Um, well I'm not sure if this is better or worse than being stuck in a maze with no end but…" Hermione trailed off when she started to smell something strange. Narcissa stepped out Hermione's arms when she started to smell it, too, but wasn't sure what it was. Hermione began to rumble softly, taking deep breaths of the new smell, swaying slightly from side to side. She shook her head to try and clear it of the fog that was setting in, then doubled over in an all-too-familiar pain.
"Hermione, what's wrong? Are you alright?" Narcissa started to worry that something had hurt Hermione before they were reunited until she started to catch the scent of rutting alpha. "Hermione, what's going on? Why do you smell like you're going into a rut? Is this the normal time for you?" Narcissa said with panic in her voice that soon shifted into one of want and desire. "Sweet Circe, you do smell tantalizing, though."
Hermione groaned as another bout of pain rolled through her lower regions. "N-no, it's not. It's come too early for me," Hermione was breathing heavily now, growling low in her throat. Trying to push Narcissa away from her. "Cissa, I need you to run. Now!"
Narcissa shook her head. "I don't want to leave you like this. Especially when you smell so intoxicating," Narcissa said as she tried to get closer.
Hermione gripped her arms and looked into her eyes. "I'm not asking you, I'm telling you to run before I fully go into rut," she groaned again, taking a few deep, calming breaths. "I don't want our first time together to be in the bloody woods, so please, RUN!" Hermione alpha commanded.
Narcissa tried to fight the compulsion of Hermione's alpha command, but found that she couldn't resist it and took off at a dead run to get away from the alpha. Hermione finally toppled over in pain from being forced into a falsely-induced rut. She gripped her lower abdomen as she curled up into the fetal position, groaning at the pain.
Narcissa kept running, not once looking back, trying to get as much distance between her and Hermione as she could. Once she was far enough away, her mind started to clear from the fog induced by rutting alpha pheromones. She rubbed the ring and thought about what she was meant to do now. The whispers spoke to her once again, telling her that she needed to run and to resist Hermione's pull at all costs.
She needed to reach the clearing in the middle of the woods, so she took a moment to transfigure her clothing into something that would make the endeavor an easier task. As she finished, she began to run again, trying to find her way to the clearing. It shouldn't have been hard to find…except she didn't know where she was in relation to the clearing, as well as it being the middle of the night, so seeing her way around was even harder.
Hermione finally stopped shifting, but now her body was painfully aching to find Narcissa. She slowly started to stand and got her balance, shaking her head to try to clear it from the sexual fog that came with being in a rut. "Gods, this isn't good. What kind of a bloody test deems it necessary to induce someone into an early rut?" She sighed as she stood, shaking her head again to try to clear her mind some more.
The sudden movement sent a mixture of euphoria and dull, achy feelings all throughout her body. She hadn't felt that sensation since before she had presented as an alpha. She reached down and cupped her cock and found that it was hard and throbbing. "It seems that breaking that curse worked after all. Good to know. I wonder if it's still painful to have sex?" She rubbed her cock experimentally through her jeans and groaned from the blissful feeling of her own hand rubbing her cock. "So that's what it's supposed to feel like? Odin, no wonder all the other alphas kept telling me it was supposed to be amazing when you're in rut."
Suddenly she caught the faintest whiff of Narcissa. "Sweet Freya, she smells amazing," she said as she was consumed with the carnal need to find her and knot her. Her breathing became heavy as she began to follow the scent blindly. Her eyes swirled red as she walked through the woods, slowly trying to resist the pull of her biology. As she continued to walk, the scent started to shift in a different direction, so she continued following it. Soon, her base instincts started to take control of her mind, spurring her into action to move faster after the intoxicating scent. Her faster pace turned into a full-on sprint, following Narcissa with a blind need that had almost consumed her completely.
Narcissa started to slow down to attempt to catch her breath. She frantically tried to find the clearing while the ring was giving her vague directions to the elusive location. Suddenly, she could hear a twig snap somewhere behind her and she started to run faster, assuming that it was either Hermione or something worse. She briefly glanced back to see the woman in question still quite a ways behind her, but catching up to her faster than she would have liked.
She zagged to the right, trying to trip Hermione up in an attempt to put some more space in between them. But it did nothing, so she pulled her wand out and quickly cast a wordless stupefy at her, stunning the brunette.
Hermione was catching up to Narcissa as she followed her and started to gain ground quickly until she was hit with a stunning spell. Growling internally, she tried to fight the spell to catch her prey. Narcissa was now panicking, trying to escape Hermione while also looking for this damn clearing in the middle of the woods. "Salazar's Snake, it's like trying to find a bowtruckle amongst the leaves, out here. There is nothing to go by. The stars don't even help me because I can't see them through the bloody trees!" Once again, she asked the ring if there was anything distinguishable about the center that she could cast for to try to make finding it easier. The ring said no, that it was just an empty clearing in the middle of the woods, but that she was heading in the right direction.
Suddenly, there was another snap of a twig behind her that wasn't overly close, but too close for comfort, regardless. She looked back, seeing Hermione once again, and cast a petrificus totalus at Hermione, causing her to fall to the ground, motionless. She ran faster, desperately trying to end this hunter/prey game so that they could go home and look into the new threat that they were to face soon. As she continued to run, she started to see the clearing that would end this ordeal. The relief from the possibility of reaching the goal was short-lived; she heard the fatal noise of a low growl fairly close behind her.
"Mia, we just need to make it to the clearing and this will all be over. Please, just hold…" just as she was about to enter into the clearing, she was pounced on by a red-eyed Hermione, who was huffing deeply and growling low in her chest.
"No more running, little fox. You're mine now, omega," Hermione growled down at her as she straddled Narcissa's hips and held her hands above her head. Narcissa tried to struggle as best as she could to escape. Hermione was pumping strong alpha pheromones that were telling the omega to yield and submit to her.
As the fog in Narcissa's head was starting to take over her mind, she cast an incarcerous with wandless magic to bind Hermione away from her to the ground. Narcissa panted as her eyes swirled gold. She looked at Hermione for a moment.
"Morgana's tits, she smells good and I want to submit so badly to her, but I have to stay focused and complete the trial for the both of us," she thought, grabbing onto part of the rope that bound Hermione before dragging her the rest of the way into the clearing.