The Wild North - Ch.15 posted 6/13/2023

[BabyGabrial]

Very interesting story. Original at that. I'm very invested in where it goes. I especially want to further see how you incorporate abdl in this setting. I like that I can sympathize with the caregiver and little characters. While there is force it is being done by actual antagonists, it makes the me want to root for Elm and Macadamia.

[AWetterWorld]

5 hours ago, BabyGabrial said:

Very interesting story. Original at that. I'm very invested in where it goes. I especially want to further see how you incorporate abdl in this setting. I like that I can sympathize with the caregiver and little characters. While there is force it is being done by actual antagonists, it makes the me want to root for Elm and Macadamia.

Thank you, truly, for your interest and praise! I must be a terribly self-centered person, for while I love writing, and all of my silly little stories, it is comments like yours that truly keep me going towards the finish line. Without them, I imagine I would never actually finish one (I have drawers full of unfinished ideas in all areas of my life).

And of course it's always nice when people appreciate the same things I do. I know forced babying/regression are common themes in the abdl world, and I hold no judgement whatsoever towards anyone who likes them (these are all just stories and fantasies after all), but I personally have a hard time depicting them as other than the actions of a villain. I guess I like the caregiver / adult baby relationship too much. To me, it is a beautiful act of compassion/love, but make it forced and it just feels like a kind of cruelty/torture.

Then again, some of my protagonists in other stories are involved in subjecting people to humiliation here and there, however accidental or because they are incompetent, and I guess that's hardly noble. So there's a good chance I've got a small case of 'hypocrisy', buuuut never mind that... Moving on!

[BabyGabrial]

2 hours ago, AWetterWorld said:

Thank you, truly, for your interest and praise! I must be a terribly self-centered person, for while I love writing, and all of my silly little stories, it is comments like yours that truly keep me going towards the finish line. Without them, I imagine I would never actually finish one (I have drawers full of unfinished ideas in all areas of my life).

And of course it's always nice when people appreciate the same things I do. I know forced babying/regression are common themes in the abdl world, and I hold no judgement whatsoever towards anyone who likes them (these are all just stories and fantasies after all), but I personally have a hard time depicting them as other than the actions of a villain. I guess I like the caregiver / adult baby relationship too much. To me, it is a beautiful act of compassion/love, but make it forced and it just feels like a kind of cruelty/torture.

Then again, some of my protagonists in other stories are involved in subjecting people to humiliation here and there, however accidental or because they are incompetent, and I guess that's hardly noble. So there's a good chance I've got a small case of 'hypocrisy', buuuut never mind that... Moving on!

Finally someone who understands that forced babying isn't really appealing. I kind of have fallen out of love with the community due to the uptick of forced, humiliation, and shrinking that's become popular over the years. Your story has heroes that I want to see happy together.

[AWetterWorld]

I feel you.

Although I do want to avoid implying something untrue, like "I've never been turned on by humiliation or forced diapering". Unlike forced babying, I've read plenty of forced diapering stories, just as I've written plenty of humiliation content. This very story contains plenty of humiliation content. I may write more.

There's something about someone being totally out of control, and/or at the mercy of another, that can be provocative. But for me at least, turning them into a baby destroys that. Like you, I just don't get the appeal. Just as any story in which they never escape their peril feels incomplete.

When it comes to my own creations, you said it best: I want protagonists I'm rooting for. I instinctively write the struggle of people yearning to find a world where they can be accepted for who they are, where they break free of their chains and/or make the world a better place, because that's my happy ending.
 

[AWetterWorld]

The Wild North

CHAPTER TWELVE (ELM)

Elm’s world shrunk. It became comfortable, safe. The fears existed outside of it. He could see them, hear them scratching on the walls of his space, but they could not get in. It seemed a fair trade: a huge, terrifying world he no longer wanted in exchange for a small, safe one. He was not crazy; it was everyone else who embraced madness, anyone and everyone who would trade safety for endless cold. He suckled from the warm breasts of Mother, knowing without doubt that there was nothing, nothing in that world he had left behind that was worth all of its pain.

Mother, as he knew her now, shifted him in her arms, directing his mouth to her other breast. If the woman had a given name she never said it, and Elm felt no need to know. She said nothing else about herself either. That was also fine with him.

The morning after they had been placed together, Mother had taken him out of his cell for the first time. She clothed him only in a ragged shirt, his diaper, and some warm blankets. Despite the fact she was not a large woman, she insisted on carrying him everywhere, only setting him down when she set upon her daily tasks, which consisted almost entirely of cleaning soldiers’ soiled laundry and cooking their meals. Each task was set upon with equanimity and the gentle humming of a quiet tune, always both familiar and foreign, as if Elm had heard them before but never quite remembered where.

Safe within the bubble of her presence, the soldiers left him alone. Sometimes they would jeer at him and laugh, pointing at him like a circus attraction. Rarely, one would spit on the ground near him and walk on with an unforgiving glare. Others treated him as entertainment, openly watching as Mother cared for him. None got too close. Mother was a fountain of kindness, but the one time a soldier had kicked him (for no reason that Elm knew of) she had transformed into his guardian angel. She threw boiling stew on the soldier and whacked him with the metal pot for good measure.

The other soldiers laughed. The one who had kicked him got a dark look after that. One that never quite left, one which promised to be waiting in every shadow. He would have struck Mother; Elm could tell. Fortunately the other soldiers intervened. Mother, it seemed, was not to be harmed.

Nor was Elm to be left unattended. The one time he had tried to wander off she had chased him down, turned him over on her lap, and spanked him. He hadn’t even been trying to escape, only to explore. Several other women walked by as she smacked his diapered bottom, but no one tried to intervene. They watched the display out of the corner of their eyes. Some smiled sadly, others shook their heads as if the whole thing were ridiculous. He found himself crying as his punishment was completed, but not from pain or embarrassment but because Mother was angry with him. He hated himself for making her angry.

“Bad, Little Gordon,” she shamed him. “Mother will keep you safe, but you have to be good.” He promised. He promised he would be good. If only she would not abandon him to that cold world again. Only when it was over, and she pulled him to her breasts once more, held him in her gentle curves, could he breathe deeply once again. “Mother won’t let another accident happen. Not to Little Gordon…”

He sat, a short while later, on an old rotted bench beside her while she whiled away the day's chores, and he watched the other women work. They mostly ignored Mother, though all of the women occupied the same section of camp and often worked only a few feet away from one another. Nor did Mother seem to want anything from them. Elm was never quite sure how real the rest of the world was to Mother; though she interacted with it constantly, she never quite seemed to acknowledge it.

He felt his need and let go as he watched the other women of the camp work, peeing his diaper as he looked from one to the other, trying to decide which one looked more like Macadamia. That woman there had her hair. Over there stood a woman with her eyes. He wondered if he would ever see her again.

He needed to push himself off the bench, as it was hard to poop while sitting on a flat surface, and did so. A couple of the women looked his way just as he held his breath, pushed, and sighed with relief, soft warmth filling the back of his diaper. They snickered, and one of them might have said something. Some part of the man he had been before still lurked behind his eyes, telling his cheeks to blush, but he paid it no mind.

He relished Mother’s attention whenever she took a break from her chores. Such as she did after sniffing the air a few moments later. The crusty old wood of the bench served as his changing table while all those who cared to look on did so. Mother slid away his diaper cover, unpinned his wet cloth, humming her most consoling tune the whole time, and cleaned him. The cool air against his crotch made him want to pee again for some reason, and he did so. Mother only murmured gentle scoldings and cleaned him again. “My Little Gordon!” her soft voice cooed. “Oh, you!” Then clean cloth was closed around him once more, making him feel safe. She lifted his shirt and blew on his stomach, and when that failed to garner a response she started tickling him, at which point he fled. Not too far away, of course. No, never again.

“At least she’s found someone… like her,” a woman said a short distance away.

Another responded. “Yes, poor dears, quite right! At least they have each other.” A heavy sigh. “She was so very broken. It’s good to see her… whole again.”

“Oh, to be sure! But what of the boy? How many has there been now? What if this one runs off too? I don’t want to say it, but I fear it may simply break the poor woman!”

The blood drained from Elm’s face at the mere thought. Run away? Abandon Mother? Never!

Not even for Macadamia? intruded a curious thought. Not even for her?

Suddenly he was uncomfortable, shifting and fidgeting. Bad thoughts. Uncomfortable questions. Better just to let them pass, and drink in the brisk northern air.

Spring was teasing them that day, breathing on them with its warm, scented breath out of the South. All of nature responded, opening up in welcome with colorful flowers and green sprouts. For his part, Elm danced. It felt so good to twirl in the undergrowth at the forest’s edge, in safe distance of Mother. It had been so long since he had simply danced. Innocent were his movements, driven by his soul, a means only to their own end.

But life, he was soon reminded, is an eternal, balanced cycle of light and dark. As the sun's rays grew long, and its bright disk kissed the distant hills and peaks, the men returned.

They left the women alone during the day. Early each morning they were drummed out of their bedrolls and made to practice the skills of a soldier. They mimicked the movements that would deal out death in strict drills, and were marched until they were gasping for breath by other men in chairs, who shouted their superiority with merciless rhythm. Yet at other times they were made to dig latrines or trenches, or stand around guarding things (from each other, apparently) but without looking as bored as they obviously were. Only the highest ranking soldiers retained the right to do as they pleased during this time. They visited the women, but in small numbers. They were usually polite, although not a one dirtied himself by so much as looking at Elm.

But at dusk the shift changed and the majority of the men were let loose. They set upon the women’s half of the camp like predators let loose in a hen house. The women, in turn, divided themselves into two groups: the ones who seemed to want the men’s attention, and the ones who did not, or were not attractive enough to bother soliciting it.

At first it seemed innocent enough, until he saw a woman fight a man over a matter of payment (Elm couldn’t imagine what about). He beat her, as Elm looked on in horror. The other women nearby scowled and cursed him, but few tried to help. She was dragged onto the back of a cart, half-conscious, her dress torn open, while he shoved himself inside of her. His manhood had become something else now. Something hurtful. She cried out as he used her, as violently as he could manage. There was only darkness behind his eyes, and each of his spittle-filled, heaving breaths sounded ominous and unnatural. Not the sounds a human should make. For a moment Elm was back in that cave again, trapped while death stalked him only feet away. Or back home, trapped by one of his father’s drunken rampages.

He buried his face in Mother’s skirts. She shushed him gently and stroked his hair, and she hummed until the gloom went away once again.

It was on the second night that the darkness intruded upon his world in a way he could not ignore. It was known that something big was to happen in the morning, and both sides of the camp were filled with hustle and bustle. There was an extra energy to the men, who all demanded their laundry be perfectly clean, their stained uniforms perfectly starched. The women reassured them, then turned away and resumed the same chores they always did, often with the same empty gazes.

Some few women, the younger ones who had been… claimed, was the right word, Elm decided. The younger, curviest ones, having been claimed by one of the higher-ranking men, would swoon and act as if the world might end with the sunrise, willing performers in the strange performances of the men. The rest shook their heads and rolled their eyes in silence.

Elm wondered: if something terrible did befall the soldiers, would that really be such a bad thing? What did this world owe such men? He had been taught that a debt was owed when something was given. These men only seemed to know how to take. The king’s army claimed to be ‘civilizing’ the world, spreading ‘society’ and ‘progress’. If he asked these men what those words truly meant, would they be able to answer?

His ponderance was cut short as the man who had kicked him before came into view. He lurched about, his words slurred. “Wench! Did I ask for slop?” Just like that, as suddenly as delicate glass shattered against a stone wall, the world around him became real. The man punched Elm in the mouth, hard, and the world spun away while the ground rushed up against him.

It hurt. He wanted to cry, wanted to find Mother and have her take the pain away. He knew this pain. He knew the man’s slurred voice, the hatred that needed an outlet but cared not a whit who it was. But Mother… she could stop him… right?

She tried, but this time he caught her arm as it attempted to club him. He smiled. It was a wicked, distorted thing, from a man who was more rotted inside than his teeth. A brutal backhanded blow sent her to the ground. Now he was kicking her. No one was stopping him. Why would no one stop him?

His mind froze. His world melted to a sea of terror. It choked him. He’s going to kill her. That single thought consumed him. Suddenly he was naked. Helpless. The world was pulling him under; thick oil was filling his lungs…

Then another woman intervened, rushing up at the man. She didn’t try to strike him, but rather cupped his cheek tenderly. “Leave the sorry creature be, Sweety. She’s learned her lesson. How about you teach me one now, hmmm?” She smiled seductively. A beautiful cover for the fear behind her eyes. Twice he shoved her away, but each time she rushed back. The second time she grappled aggressively with his manhood. “Come on. Show me what a real cock looks like? I know what you want. I know what you really need…”

Mother was free. A freedom that was paid for by another woman’s pain. Elm watched as the monster pulled the strange woman away and had his way with her. There was no gentleness to it, no pleasure on her face. Only the cold motions of an animal as he stuck himself in her. She bore it, her expression a mask, even when he struck her across the face for no reason, then she limped away quietly after he discarded her. Other women moved in to comfort, in silent recognition.

Elm had always known that sacrifice was more than just a word for hardship. It was a choice, too. A thing which was both given, and endured. The deepest sacrifice was not giving up a coin or a sack of grain, but a part of yourself, for another.

Then Mother was there, pulling him tightly against her, shushing him and humming to him. “There, there, my Little Gordon. There, there…” But somehow, on that night, it was not enough. The monster, he realized, would always return. Safety was an illusion.

He hugged Mother with all of his strength, shaking from residual terror, but something inside of him was hardening. An idea began to coalesce from his broken, fragmented thoughts. If he could never be safe from the monsters of the world, then the monsters would have to die.

That night, after Mother fell to sleep, he did something he had promised never to do. He snuck away into the night. He was not running from the darkness this time, he was embracing it, melting deeper into it with each purposeful stride.

His feet carried him further and further up the mountain slopes, long after the cold had stolen the feeling from his limbs. Finally he reached a place he found by pure instinct. A place he knew to be his destination without realizing he had one. A place of death.

One of the huge, eyeless monsters, as big as a building, still lay dead in the snow where it had been slain. The men who had been slain by its mate were scattered around, their bodies oddly preserved by the mountain’s cold, as if winter had honored their sacrifice by keeping them frozen like statues.

There was that word again: sacrifice. Men had died here to defeat a monster. They had not sacrificed a part of themselves; they had sacrificed all of themselves. Their very lives were forfeit for the protection of others. There were, it seemed, many forms of bravery, just as there were many shapes of monsters.

Bodies were in pieces, some unrecognizable, but there was no sign that any of them had been moved. No sign anyone had been here. These men had died so selflessly, yet had seemingly been forgotten. It should have felt strange, he decided, or wrong, but it felt more like an irrelevant drop in the sea of madness that was the world.

He approached the huge creature, took out a knife he had stolen from camp, and began cutting into its chest. Eventually he found what he sought: a huge, fleshy heart. It was made stiff by the cold, but he was able to grip the tiniest corner of it in his mouth and tear it free. It tasted awful, like spoiled meat never cooked.

He swallowed it anyway. Swallowed, and then roared with all of his might and fury – a scream of defiance into the endless, empty night.

Nothing happened of course. The mountains did not answer the scream of an insignificant madman. That is until -on this strange night- they did. From the darkness came a loud, wet, snort from a too-large nose, and Elm turned to see a creature emerge from the depths of shadow. A thing far too large to be real. A thing with no eyes, that saw him all the same.

He did not tremble. He met its invisible gaze, flung his arms out to his sides, and roared once more.

[AWetterWorld]

[Well, long time coming, but I managed to get one more chapter written. I've been traveling, which I thought would allow more time for writing than it did.]

The Wild North

CHAPTER THIRTEEN (ESTAR)

Estar limped her way confidently out of her tent and surveyed the controlled chaos around her with brows arched in concern and a slight frown. Such open emotion was a liability should it be seen. She was, after all, a Huntress. But first she was a person, one with feelings… like the sorrow that weighed heavily on her heart right now.

The mountain air buffeted her with the harsh pinpricks of blown snow, but the sky was clear – even if the sun’s rays held little warmth in this cold land of towering rock. Around them the camp was a bustle of activity. Even those who had no current obligations busied themselves in circles of gossip. In the near distance she saw that the other camps seemed to be consumed by a similar -or even greater- commotion.

“Huntress,” her first pole-bearer reported demurely beside her, “I have accepted everyone’s accounts of what transpired… the news is not good.”

Her second pole-bearer, Giltra, was never far behind Estar and always looking after her needs. Even now the robed woman had grabbed a wide stool from the tent and placed it behind her huntress, who sat in it gratefully. Unlike her sisters, Estar did not sit on cushions at ground level. They were too far down, and publicly accepting assistance to stand up would be humiliation too great for her station to bear. It had a plump pillow on top though. Not the most comfortable, but it gave the appearance of a normal cushion, but elevated. In addition to its utility it was the perfect prop for playing the role of a self-important Huntress.

Estar’s left leg had been smaller than her right since birth, and it tired quickly when it bore her weight, and her left arm ended in a stump just past her elbow. So far as she was aware, Estar was the only cripple to ever reach the rank of Huntress. The more ruthless among her peers had been known to kill deformed women at birth – as if they were mere bucks! Her mother had done the opposite. She had kept her alive, sheltered her as best as she could, and taught her to be patient and prudent. Estar’s every action since reaching adulthood had been calculated, weighed according to enemies made vs friends forged. Never could she afford to show emotions openly, let alone the kind of naked compassion that would be derided as a ‘weak heart’. Every moment had been spent in performance, playing the role of a strong, cold, independent, fearless woman destined to become the beloved Huntress her mother had been.

It was only when the eyes of the community were not upon her that she could be herself. In the privacy of her closest council -composed of hand picked pole bearers and friends she could trust- she could speak plainly. So it was that she learned how to move pieces around the board of life behind the scenes. In the shadows they could do what she could not. This was how she could do the most good. Her enemies could dismiss her as a figurehead while she made her moves out of sight. Her friends could accept the part she must play, and be there when she needed them to play theirs.

“That much I surmised,” she replied. “It is never the good news that wakes us up at night, is it? Out with it, please.”

“The damage was extensive. It is not just us, but the other huntresses’ camps as well. The supply tents were all burnt. Necessary guards were killed, but silently so as to alert no one.”

“How many?”

She saw her pole-bearer smile, and scolded herself for her second mistake that night. It would not be normal for a Huntress to ask that question first.

“Counting, as I was about to get to, the death of the other Huntresses, the murderer of whom is still among us, we lost sixteen of our sisters this night. There were also several bucks guarding the supply tents and patrolling the perimeter. Eight in total are dead.”

“Do the others still believe it was the work of the two escaped prisoners, or is the depth of our predicament setting in?”

“There is much confusion. Velina’s camp is in chaos; it seems there is an active dispute as to who is now their huntress. The others have a clear successor, but I am not certain there is a common narrative as to what happened. Someone needs to assume leadership, Huntress, if I may be so bold as to say so.”

“What do you mean? Has no one done so?”

“I beg forgiveness, Huntress, for my lack of clarity. When I said the death of the other Huntresses… I meant… all of them. Nor have any of their successors assumed the role now empty with the death of Velina. You are now the senior Huntress. Thus far they appear to be waiting for you to take the lead, however if you do not step up soon I fear one of them surely will.”

Estar was suddenly very glad to be supported by her chair. The others had to be truly unsettled and off-balance, if they were willing to turn to her for leadership. Estar, the lowest ranking Huntress. The cripple, though no one would dare utter the word in her presence. No, she realized immediately. Not desperate… deliberate. Her voice became quiet, thoughtful. “That I should live to take the mantle of leadership, only to know the end of my reign.”

“Huntress?”

Another unfortunate downside of Estar’s physical abnormalities was her lack of bladder control, and she shifted on her stool uncomfortably as warmth began to spread outward from her groin. Her body was relieving itself. As always she ordered it to stop. As always, she felt her stream continue unabated. Fortunately she had long ago adapted. Beneath the elegant, layered, draping clothing of her station was a thick, comfortable diaper. It was perhaps her deepest secret, known only to her closest family. Her mother had taken steps to isolate Estar growing up, which everyone had been quick to assume was on account of her crippled body. They were not wrong, it was just a matter of being ignorant of certain details. So far, she had managed to keep it that way into adulthood. Some rumors might have traveled, but so long as there remained no reliable witnesses, they would remain trapped in the domain of the whispered gossiping of servants. All women made allowances for their regular flows after all. Her own need for padded undergarments was just a bit more… frequent.

“Can you see the real reason that they wish me to assume leadership?” she replied, showing no outward sign that she was peeing herself. She spoke louder than was necessary. The wind would likely hide the quiet hissing of her spray against the fabric of her undergarment, but it never hurt to try and direct her observers’ focus to where she wanted it. Long practice at hiding any facial tics that might otherwise give her away also helped. She recalled an incident in her younger years where she had uttered a conspicuous sigh as she relieved herself, drawing the curiosity of everyone present and stern reprimand from her mother in private.

“With our supplies destroyed, we cannot remain here, nor can we engage the barbarians – or even hope to hold them back for long. Velina called for reinforcements before her death, but even if they arrive soon, which is unlikely, they will not have anticipated our having depleted our existing supplies already. We will still be well short of the provisions we need for an extended campaign. 

“To put it simply, we have only one option: retreat.”

Gravisha, as her first pole-bearer was named, was obviously beginning to realize where this was going.  “We will look like cowards! We will return home in shame!”

“Correction, I will return home in shame, and quickly be stripped of my position – or at the very least kept away from any future hunts. My role will be reduced to watching over the child-bearers and children back home. The others will be happy to blame the decision entirely on me, even though they will go along with it today as they understand its necessity. Perhaps it will even be suggested that I freed the prisoners, and used them to assassinate Velina. No one will speak out in defense of the outcast… the cripple, Huntress in title only.”

Several of her other pole-bearers and aides had gathered by this point, as well as the two bucks Gravisha had insisted guard her at all times. It had been a wise decision, as it turned out, seeing as how Huntresses had been dying near the rate of flies recently. She glanced around at them, knowing that even among this gathering there were those who could never know what was going on beneath her robes, as her warm wetness continued to expand within the confines of her diaper. I’m always so wet in the mornings, she thought, but normally there is time to change before the affairs of the day are upon me.

“My Huntress!” exclaimed one of her minor aides, a young woman by the name of Frisham, “what is going on? Who could have done all this?”

Estar frowned slightly at the young, naive woman – a reprimand, but a mild one. Normally, the low-ranking aide would never have spoken out of turn, but emotions were running high and Estar understood this as the reason for the outburst.

Unlike Frisham, she did not have the luxury of emotional outbursts. Her response needed to be measured. “I will not insult your intelligence by implying that two escaped prisoners could have done all of this. Clearly, someone with influence meant to force our retreat, and we can assume, as a matter of logic, that it was someone opposed to Huntress Velina’s decision.”

“Her… decision?” Frisham blurted once more. The woman was letting her fear get out of hand. This one would likely never rise through the ranks to reach pole-bearer; she lacked the proper control.

“To take us to war with the barbarians,” Estar clarified patiently. She had finally stopped peeing, much to her relief. Even her thick diaper could hold only so much, and a public incident would destroy her. “However, since several Huntresses opposed the idea, this still leaves us without the ability to point the finger at any individual. I suspect more than one of them was involved.”

This time it was Gravisha who spoke up. “Yet they were all found dead. Killing Velina might strengthen the conspirators’ hand, but this… could their assassin have gone rogue? But why? Perhaps it is the barbarians? Trying to weaken us before an attack. Could they be more intelligent than credited?”

Estar nodded graciously. Her pole-bearers knew they were free to speak in her presence without invitation. “I agree. There is still a missing piece. There is no one among my sister huntresses whose interests would be served by killing all of the others save me, never mind having the ability, unless our hypothetical conspirators have found a way to fake their own deaths. Yet the entirety of our intelligence on the barbarians suggests them to be a blunt and obvious people.

“Either way, we have but one choice now. If it was the barbarians, they have won. I must assume leadership, even knowing it is a trap. We must retreat.”

Gravisha kneeled before her, bowing her head in shame at what she was about to say. It was well out of line to question the orders of a huntress. “My Huntress! I do not understand. Would it not be better to avoid the trap? Refuse to claim leadership and call their bluff? One of the others would be forced to do so lest they all appear cowardly or incompetent, would they not?”

Estar allowed herself a heavy sigh. “You are wise, Sister, and have all the skills to make a great Huntress, but let us not forget: whoever accepts leadership and calls the retreat will forever bear the stigma of it. If I do not act, someone more hasty might do so in my place. The retreat might not be ordered at all, and if the reinforcements do not come in time we will face starvation – or worse, we might go into battle with the barbarians, but woefully underprepared. All of those deaths will be on my hands, precisely because I did not act to prevent them.”

The wind grew quiet, as if equally anxious about her next words as the gathered hunters. “Call a council. I will do what must be done.” She dismissed everyone present save the most trustworthy – even sending away her bodyguards. Then she turned to Gravisha, a weight behind her words and an intensity behind her stare that meant refusal would not be acceptable. “You, my dear First Pole-bearer. My friend and confidant. I must ask you to do something for me, though you will not like it. You will oppose me at the gathering. Openly, in front of everyone.”

The woman was so shocked her mouth hung open and she forgot, for a moment, all decorum. “No! Never! You must not ask this of me!”

“I do not ask. I instruct. I demand this of you, Sister, and this you will do. For while my fate is sealed, yours need not be. When we are back safely, on the other side of the mountains, there will be a reckoning. You will accuse me of cowardice, and seek my position as Huntress. The others will support your claim, as they never wanted me among their peers in the first place, not to mention the shame I will bear. My future is forfeit. I refuse to see all of you to share my fate.”

“No… please…”

Estar cupped her pole-bearer’s cheek in her hand, ever so gently, as she had only ever done in private. “If you truly love me, you will do this for me. I meant what I said; you will make a great huntress.”

“Not…” Gravisha looked around sharply, as if suddenly remembering others were present, but then continued anyway. “Without you… I could never. I do not want it. Choose Giltra if you must do this. My place will always be with you.”

“Giltra is very dear to me, but she does not have your mind for politics.” She glanced at the woman in question and bowed her head deeply. Coming from a Huntress to one of a lower station, it was every bit the novel offering of respect she intended it to be. Unnecessary, she knew, for Giltra had never shown a desire to rise above pole-bearer, and the woman’s loyalty was absolute. Even so.

Gravisha looked up, still kneeling, and Estar saw something in her eyes she had never seen before: tears. The wind toyed gently with loose strands of her wiry hair, as if trying to console her. “No one who speaks your name will fully know the incredible woman you are, or the bravery and selflessness in your heart. History is a faithless swindler.”

“Perhaps. But I would rather be denounced by history than live as a legend with my legacy built upon a foundation of corpses. This choice is the ultimate price of leadership, though I never imagined that I -of all people- would find myself the one to make it.

“Had more of my kin made the right choice in times gone by, perhaps the world of today would be a brighter one. I must think of generations to come. The barbarians are here to stay. We know of them now, and they of us. We live at the beginning of a new era. Let us do all we can to make it one of peace, where reason triumphs over ambition.

Estar shifted in the moist cloth of her diaper. “In the meantime, let us retire to someplace warm and dry.”

Gravisha shared a glance with Giltra, the two of them knowing well what the phrase meant. Estar led them into the tent, making certain to hide her limp until the flaps were closed behind her. Appearances must be kept, especially in times such as this, when her sisters would need her to be strong for all of them.

That was outside the tent walls. Inside, with only her closest advisors and trusted aides (one of which hustled in and stood dutifully by the door, no doubt summoned by Giltra) she could be herself for a precious but short time.

A bench was brought in, long enough for Estar to lay upon, but too narrow for sleep. Giltra helped her disrobe, as the long flowing garments customary to her people made changing difficult, until she was dressed only in light cotton chemise and diaper. Then she lay down and let the women get to work.

Giltra unfastened the diaper as usual, but Estar was forced to interrupt the woman and hold the diaper against her groin for a few moments as her body shivered from the morning’s cold and another stream briefly erupted from her. “Oh… bother.” She nodded when she had finished, and the process continued. “Too much wine before bed,” she thought aloud – as close to an apology as her station allowed her.

Her second pole-bearer seldom smiled. Some said she never smiled, but Estar knew better. The woman expressed kindness through her eyes, not her lips. It was, in its own way, a smile as good as any other, and Estar treasured each one just as she valued the happiness of all of her sisters. Even now, a familiar light of fondness showed from the woman’s slanted eyes.

The huntress’ diaper was gently removed, with a dignity that neared reverence – something which always tickled Estar. She understood the respect that came with her title, but everyone who tended to her insisted on extending that reverence to her soiled undergarments. She had not tried too hard to dissuade them; even a huntress needed some amusement in life.

“Remove our huntress’ laundry and see that it is cleaned,” Giltra instructed in her quiet but authoritative voice. The aide standing by the door snapped to the task as if it were the most important one she would ever be given, just as she always did, and the diaper was soon hidden and whisked away. Giltra next turned to the task of wiping Estar and gently drying her. The cold mountain air and the damp cloth conspired to give the huntress goosebumps, but she endured it without complaint.

“Stop,” Gravisha blurted. “I will finish, please.”

Giltra bowed her head and left without a word, and Estar could hear her pointedly positioning herself just outside the tent door, as additional insurance against anyone intruding.

A fresh diaper had been placed on the bench, and the first pole-bearer gently slid it up underneath Estar’s bottom as her subject lifted. Her movements were distracted. “My Huntress,” she said, kneeling down beside the bench. If there was a light behind Giltra’s eyes, Gravisha’s were two burning suns. Her narrow lips quivered, just slightly, making her soft face look fragile, like a precious vase that might shatter if handled too roughly. “I… I…”

“I know,” Estar replied simply, cupping the woman’s face with her hand once more, drawing it closer. She relished the gentle touch of Gravisha’s lips, and returned the embrace with passion,  grabbing Gravisha’s head with both hands and pulling her close, their mouths too entwined to permit the passage of air. Even so, it was a gentle act, a dance of their lips in a space all their own. She loved Gravisha’s tenderness, the slight hesitancy behind her every exploration. She loved returning it in kind, gingerly tasting the woman. Honey. How did she always manage to taste of honey?

Once, before she had understood her own tastes, she had taken a buck to her bed. Many huntresses insisted on monopolizing the bucks, others relegated that task to their pole-bearers. No one asked questions; it was the business of no one but the huntress as to who would bear the next generation. For her part, the act had been educational, but not enjoyable. His movements had been aggressive; his tongue assaulted her mouth with the same down-to-business approach as his organ when he shoved himself against her. She would not fault the buck however, for they were bred from animals – they had been barbarians once too, after all. It was only in their nature.

Not Gravisha. The woman’s movements were gentle and soft as she explored Estar’s body. She teased her way towards the more obvious targets, but slowly, starting by caressing the insides of her victim’s legs with a soft touch, smiling when Estar lurched involuntarily, then more boldly wetting a finger and circling Estar’s breasts in a spiral that drew ever closer to the center. She continued this way, bringing her tongue and mouth to bear, gently kissing and caressing Estar’s neck, that place just above the back of her knees, and all the private places only she knew.

She finally brought Estar to her climax, her fingers stoking the bonfire between the huntress’ legs with calculated movements, but only after the huntress craved it, needed it, her body a furnace in the cold mountain air, her heart pumping out of her chest with desire. Those hands, that soft mouth, were like thieves in the night, their next target always unknown, until it wasn’t. Estar’s womanly spray, this one having nothing to do with her bladder, exploded all over the fresh diaper laid out before her and underneath her, as her breath caught in her throat and cut off a decidedly indignant moan.

When at last she caught her breath, Estar pulled her lover on top of her, letting herself be straddled. She pulled off the woman’s robes hungrily, and Gravisha leaned forward. It was Estar’s turn now, and she tenderly began running her hands ever so gently, yet ever so forcefully, down the pole-bearer’s back. Gently, teasingly, slowly, downward, while at the same time she craned her neck forward to taste an earlobe. She felt moisture hitting her groin and looked down in sudden confusion, worried she was peeing herself again, but it was not her.

“Forgive me, Huntress,” Gravisha said in a voice heavy with desire, her urine flowing into Estar’s open diaper in a thick stream until the woman finally got it under control. “You excite me, I… I can’t control myself…”

She placed a finger vertically across the other woman’s mouth, and shook her head. “It’s Estar,” she said with futility and for the hundredth time, “and this… this is our place. Here we apologize for nothing.”

She continued to probe for Gravisha’s weak spots, but the woman became unresponsive. “What is it?”

“I… I cannot lose you, my Huntress. Promise you will not throw yourself on the spear. Promise me-”

Again Estar stopped her. “Oh Gravisha, my sweet peach of summer. You know that I would promise you anything were it in my power. But I cannot control all that is to come. Know that whatever happens, I will always love you.”

No words were offered in reply, but again the pole-bearer let slip a few reluctant tears, her fragile face looking shattered. Seeing her like this always broke Estar’s heart in two, just as it did in that moment.

Loud talking could be heard outside, muffled by the thick canvas tent walls. A few moments later Giltra moved swiftly inside, even as Estar and Gravisha were rushing to get their clothes, fresh but wet diaper included, back on. She kept her head bowed, deliberately seeing nothing, though of course she had known perfectly well what was going on inside the tent. Very little escaped the woman. “I beg forgiveness, Huntress, but there has been a development that requires your attention.”

“Yes?”

“It is the barbarians… They are here.”

Estar rose with a swiftness that belied the weakness of her leg. “What? They are attacking?”

Giltra’s full lips pursed in an uncertain expression. “We’re… not sure. A sizeable group of them are charging our camp, and will be here in minutes, but…”

“Yes??” Estar prodded, impatience slipping into her tone.

“I am not experienced in barbarian battle tactics, of course, but they appear to our scouts less like an attacking army, and more like the fleeing remnants of one.”

“Then I must claim leadership now – foolish of me to delay! Yet in my wildest dreams I had not expected them so soon. Perhaps they orchestrated these events after all, while I sat here thinking them witless… Deploy our bucks in a defensive line, hopefully my sister huntresses will do the same without needing to be told.”

Giltra bowed and left while Gravisha fussed over every detail of both women’s appearance so nothing would look amiss.

“Fleeing, she said?” Estar thought aloud. The notion of their enemy being decimated to the point of fleeing right into enemy lines should have brought her comfort, but she found that it worried her all the more. Nothing about this hunt so far had been what it had appeared, and doom seemed to follow every development like thunder to a bolt of lightning. What next does the storm front of life bring down upon us?

Edited June 10, 2023 by AWetterWorld
naming errors

[Guilend]

I did not see that coming. Not after the way she called the other woman a baby and pretty much stated she should be treated like a child for using diapers. I have a feeling if the huntress did go through with her plan back home they'd discover her diapers and probably be put in with the children and treated as such. 

[AWetterWorld]

On 6/8/2023 at 12:17 PM, Guilend said:

I did not see that coming. Not after the way she called the other woman a baby and pretty much stated she should be treated like a child for using diapers. I have a feeling if the huntress did go through with her plan back home they'd discover her diapers and probably be put in with the children and treated as such. 

Well, Astra is intended to be a new character, and to not have called anyone anything before. As opposed to, well, pretty much all of the other huntresses. However it is possible I slipped up and used the wrong name somewhere or referenced this character before and then forget I did that, in which case I will have to fix. I will look back and see what I did. Thank you for mentioning that!

EDIT: Got my @#$#@ names messed up again! Among whatever else I did, I used 'Astra' and 'Estar' for the same character. Fixing now...

But, yeah, as soon as someone found out about her little secret (outside of the trusted few that know) she would NOT be huntress anymore, to say the least. Which I imagine as part of what she meant when she talked about "...only to know the end of my reign".

Before reading that, I went ahead and wrote the next chapter, so I'll go ahead and post that now.

WARNING: I didn't really do anything ABDL-related in this next chapter, as I got kind of carried away with the story for its own sake, so I apologize for the dry reading.

The Wild North

CHAPTER FOURTEEN (ELM)

Like the trumpets of the army of death, the creatures’ roars echoed across the mountain slopes from all directions. They shook the earth beneath the small humans below. Inside the very breasts of those terrified souls, the ear-splitting sounds echoed. Weapons shook in trembling hands, and heads swiveled about in futile searches, no one willing to admit what each of them already knew in their hearts: it was pointless to look for death while standing within its closing maw. When the beasts charged, five in total, each one defying the men’s dismissal of them as children’s tales and superstition, it was already over.

Only one young man was calm amidst the terror and chaos: Elm. He walked slowly down the mountain as the men formed a desperate circle around the camp, spears and swords at the ready. He continued his purposeful stroll past sentries that looked at him first with minor confusion, then with quick dismissal.

Let them, he decided. Let them dismiss him one more time, as they breathed in their last breaths. Let them deny all the evil they had witnessed, or performed. Let the brave ones shout their horse battle cries while the fearful positioned themselves behind and tried to pretend they were not wetting their clothes. Let them mock him now. Let them call him stupid and treat him as a circus attraction. He would listen. He would grant them that one last favor… and he would smile.

They did not. For as soon as the creatures, each as large as a building, descended upon the camp and began trampling right over its defenders at will, no one paid him any mind.

He looked for Mother where he had left her, by the women doing laundry, and had a few moments of panic when she was not there. With all the screaming around him he grew frantic, calling out for her, and only when he found her did his sight stop turning red and his breath begin to even out. “Mother!” he cried, wrapping his arms around her. “I told you to stay.”

Men were screaming and yelling all around them, and the ground trembled with thundering footfalls. Mother had gone to help the wounded – or at least some of them. Most were left to bleed out in the dirt, but some few were helped by a comrade or loved one to one of the larger tents, which was already too full to accept more despite being only a few minutes into the battle. 

Mother scolded him for running off, but it was a brief reprimand. Soon she was back to moving slowly from one to the next, towing Elm along with one hand, and offered them gentle words of comfort as she did her best to clean and wrap what wounds were treatable.

“Mother, please, we need to leave.” He had expected her to need little persuasion, but found that she ignored him. “Mother, Mother please! Let’s go!”

A mountain of a man came into view carrying another over his shoulder, and deposited the second on the ground. “Take what injured can be moved, put them on carts, and leave at best speed down the south road!” he barked.

Elm was confused, though the man had not been talking to him. “Why don’t you do it?” he asked out of genuine curiosity.

The man turned to him with an unreadable expression and shook his head. “You have much to learn of courage, Boy. I did not become a soldier to run when I am needed. Go with the women, get out of here!”

Elm looked in the direction of the south road, and saw that a significant portion of women and soldiers were already fleeing, orders or no. Among them, he recognized the monster who had raped women in front of him, and his heart grew cold. “What of them?”

The soldier before him spared his fleeing peers only a glance, but it was a dark one. “The spirits of winter will judge their cowardice accordingly, and take them to a cold grave. I must return to the fight. Help the women, Boy. Save as many women, children, and wounded as you can!” He looked at Elm’s diaper, still on full display as Mother always left it, and worry lines creased his face. He looked around for another, clearly questioning who he was talking to, but a deep roar thundered from behind him as one of the creatures charged directly at them. He turned to meet the threat without hesitation, drawing a sword already red with blood.

“But… you will die!” Elm complained. The man did not even look back at the remark as he charged to meet the danger, so Elm turned to Mother. “You heard him, Mother, please – we need to leave!”

She patted him on the head. “Be good, Little Gordon! Quiet now.”

The creature’s charge had continued right over the top of the men who tried to intercept it, and it grew closer by the moment. “Mother, please! We need to leave. You can’t stay! You won’t die here! I… I did this for you!”

Still she refused to leave, and so he placed himself in front of the charging creature, closed his eyes, recalled the taste of the cold heart of the dead monster on the mountain slope, and tried to feel what he did then. The cold of unforgiving stone began to move across his skin and penetrate his body, but it did not chill him. From the depths of that icy calm, he opened his eyes and let loose a roar of his own. It should have been a pitiful sound, drowned out by the cacophony around him, but instead it resounded with some unnatural force and stopped the creature dead in its tracks. For the space of a few moments Monster and Man looked at each other with a sight that transcended the creature’s lack of eyes, and then the beast turned aside and charged in a different direction.

He stood frozen for a few moments, watching the chaos unfold around him. He watched the men brave enough to try and hold the line die there, and he watched many more flee in terror. The furthest away were the men who had fled at the first sign of the beasts, and they looked to be far enough away that they might make it. Somehow, under the weight of all that was happening, something awoke in him. That analytical boy who buried his head in books poked his head up. Except now his mind was not on lore and legend, but on the inescapable dread of consequences. It’s happening again, he thought angrily. The wrong people are dying. I wanted them to pay. I wanted the bad people to die, but it was never going to happen that way, was it? One cannot look at a people and say that because some do bad, all will be punished. In doing so, I have turned from fearing the monster, to becoming it.

As irony would have it, he could turn aside the beasts of winter, but had no sway over his fellow humans. A large group of fleeing people, redirected from their initial trajectory by the flippant stampeding of the monsters, came at Elm and company next, and no amount of shouting even registered on their blank, panicked faces. He was shoved to the ground almost immediately, and before he could right himself, heavy feet were pounding down upon him – arms and legs erupted in pain, and he felt something in his chest snap as a heavy man trampled across his back.

Eventually, after the crushing footsteps stopped, he was able to force air into his lungs once more, and slowly pushed himself to his feet. Some of the women had been doing as instructed and loading the wounded onto a cart, but he saw now that the horse had panicked. Animal and cart had run over the very people they were meant to save.

“Mother?” he called weakly. His panic grew when she did not answer. “Mother!”

He found her a few moments later on the ground, trampled by horse and cart. He turned her over, but she would not breathe, let alone answer. “Mother!!” he cried, pain shooting through his chest and lungs at the effort. “No! I… But, I did this for you, Mother. I did this for you!”

She would not answer. For a time -he did not know how long- he only sat on the ground next to her. The screams of death around him became muffled… distant. Somehow they did not affect him.

He looked up. Somehow, through a distance his eyes had no right to penetrate, he saw the fleeing, violent rapist who had instilled such fear and hatred in him a short time before. The one who had spawned his rash, desperate quest into the mountain. The single individual who had come, in but a few hasty moments, to represent all the darkness of man that was supposed to lie trampled on the battlefield. He saw him, a distant shape somehow recognizable, as he tried to steal a horse from an old woman to quicken his escape.

He mentally shed the warmth of sun, and once more remembered the cold, un-beating heart of the beast. He let it wash over his mind. Then, without knowing how, he commanded. No one escapes, he ordered without words. None escape this day. Not even me.

He was disobeyed. A couple of the creatures moved to cut off any escape to the south. Moving as one, they surrounded the fleeing humans in a half-circle that left them only one direction in which to escape: deeper into the mountains to their certain doom. That much the creatures did. Elm, however, was left untouched. Soon the battlefield quieted, but for the constant moan of those dying or so badly wounded that they cried out for death. Those who could run had done so, with the creatures on their heels and crushing them a few at a time.

It seemed that he was now one of them – too much a monster that day to be recognized as man. The beasts would not take their own.

Still he did not move. Eventually another man came up to Elm. His approach was cautious, coming slowly from the front with arms raised, as if approaching a crazed horse. “You… you alright, Lad?”

Elm did not answer.

“I… I saw it. Never would have believed it had I not! You can… command them… somehow. You can command the beasts. Are you the one?” he continued after getting a blank stare in return. “You know… like the legend? The man who entered the heart of the mountain, claimed it as his prize, and henceforth winter itself obeyed his command? I never believed, but… I saw you… heard that voice you used… You are… aren’t you? You’re him?”

Still Elm would not answer. He felt empty; he had no words to offer. Instead, he only looked to the mountain. The towering peaks shrouded themselves in dark, ominous clouds. Even they would not look at him, but the stranger was right: he knew their heart. It came back to him then: the reason he had left camp the night before. He too had recalled that legend, and he had set off to steal the heart of the mountain, somehow certain of his own ability to use its power to banish the wicked. Somehow certain of its reality.

How had he known? Only a week ago he would have laughed at the ‘silly superstition’. Had it even truly been his idea? It had come to him, fully formed, out of the dark fog in his mind. The one that had made it so very hard to think save for a crazy notion so clear and complete.

Yet he had taken this power and made everything even more wrong than it had been before. He looked away from the mountain peaks and their dark, stormy clouds. He no longer wanted to look at them and see… or be seen. He wanted to forget. To forget all that had happened, and be forgotten in turn.

Edited June 10, 2023 by AWetterWorld
additional commentary, typo fixing

[AWetterWorld]

[So, to get this story back on track, and back to its ABDL-fueled roots...]

The Wild North

CHAPTER FIFTEEN (MACADAMIA)

It was strange, Macadamia thought, how quickly life had changed her. In less than a month of being away from home she had gone from the soft farm girl of a small village, to someone who could plow stubbornly through the lifeless, barren slopes of the northern wastes on the fading edge of winter and shrug it off. Of course, the first thing every farmer knew about their profession was that it was far from easy, let alone one who farmed on the base of the northern slopes. There was no such thing as a ‘soft’ farmer. Yet something inside of her had definitely changed. Without knowing how, exactly when, or exactly what, she knew that it had.

She spun about quickly and was rewarded with a glance of another robed figure following not far behind. The other woman ducked behind a boulder, but not quickly enough. It was at least the third time she had felt as though she were being followed. “You might as well come out,” she called.

A couple of breaths later the figure did so, and it was Skilla, who trudged down the slope to stand next to Macadamia as casually as if they had both gone out for an evening’s stroll. “Do you even know where you’re going, Pretender?”

Macadamia felt her back stiffen. Still as abrasive as ever. “Don’t call me that. I made no claim to be ‘huntress’, nor anything else. Why are you here?”

The dark-haired woman scoffed, looking about them with a stiff, somehow haughty posture, just as she always had. Being tortured and humiliated, it seemed, had not altered her a bit. “Someone needs to watch over you, before you get yourself killed. The north is not a place for soft barbarian women.”

There was that word again… ‘soft’. Not long ago she might have become angry, or defensive. Now, she found herself looking at the woman with a sense of something that was almost… pity. “‘Looking out for me?’ We’re not friends, Skilla. You’re a murderer. Why are you here? Exiled by your own people after you put a knife in your last supporter?”

Skilla averted her gaze to the far distance. “Having been labeled a traitor after helping a barbarian killer escape…” The subtle blame in the statement was not lost on Macadamia. “...you are not far off. I have no place among my people anymore. I will never be a huntress.” There was a bitter tone beneath that last sentence, Macadamia decided: the lingering sadness of something by which Skilla had once defined herself being forever lost, and the uncertainty of self that came along with it.

“‘Barbarian’?”

“That’s what they’re calling you now. Seems appropriate.”

Macadamia had already turned her back and resumed walking. “Does it? Well, no need to lower yourself with my company; feel free to go back the way you came.”

“You’re not listening! There is no place for me there. I am on my own, and even your company is better than none at all. Where do you go now? Do you still hope to find that broken fawn of yours out here somewhere?”

“Something like that.” Despite her calm words and purposeful step, Macadamia was hiding pain. Not from an injury or from the cold. No, her body had adapted to the frigid environment. It was the fact that she had not used her diaper since escaping the hunters’ camp. Her memory of the beasts trouncing over the hunters, popping their bodies open like stepping on a grape, was one she knew she would never leave behind. Any strong smell of humans might attract them, and so she had been holding it all in, hoping to reach her home village -or someplace further away still- before taking care of business. She tried to avoid the act of sweating as well, but exertion took the choice from her.

Despite now being less than an afternoon’s hike from home, she knew it was a losing battle, and her hand rested on her abdomen without conscious direction as she lurched in response to a sharp pain of protest from her body. When she caught Skilla giving her a curious stare, she quickly straightened up. Her own act of pride confused her; the two of them had seen each other mess themselves more than once over their time in captivity. Even so, she said nothing on the matter.

Despite their cold words, the two women continued their trek down the mountainside together. They said little the rest of the way.

The light was fading when they finally reached the ruined wreck of the village, and to Macadamia’s surprise her diaper was still dry. That was only a secondary concern however, and her gaze bored into every shadow, every human-sized lump in the snow, looking for Elm. She was so relieved when she found him that she broke into tears as she ran the final distance, collapsing on her knees beside his huddling form and wrapping him into a tight hug. “I knew it. I knew you were alive,” she declared. It might have been a stretch, but it seemed true to her at that moment.

He looked at her with the eyes of a stranger. There was something behind them now which was not there before. His movements were lethargic, but he hugged her back. He livened up a little as the moment stretched on, soon burying his head against her chest and closing his eyes. “I thought… I thought I would never see you again.”

“I said I would come for you.”

“You did,” he agreed with an empty voice.

“What happened here?” Skilla’s sharp voice cut in. As if snapping out of a dream, the other two looked around at the carnage. Bodies were everywhere amongst the ruined buildings. Vultures feasted, their cries a constant cacophony.

“I…” Elm cringed as if physically struck, and swallowed whatever he was about to say.

“It was them beasts! The beasts of winter!” called a new voice, its owner a middle-aged man in a dirty torn soldier’s uniform. The man approached with a limp rabbit he had slain with an arrow. “You shoulda seen the monsters! He called ‘em – the master of winter! The one who-”

“No one calls them,” Elm blurted, cutting the man off with a stare that held… something.

If only she could say what, Macadamia wished silently, but whatever passed between the two men was gone in a flash.

“...Right, well, them creatures… You shoulda seen em! Massive as a barn, and-”

“Huge horn, thicker than a spear? A mouth of sharp teeth that could swallow a horse, and no eyes?”

The soldier gave Macadamia a dumbfounded stare. “You seen ‘em too then? And lived?”

“As I notice you did, Buck,” Skilla cut in again. “How is it that everyone here is dead but you and this broken fawn -who I admit I did not expect to see again- are still alive?” She took a threatening step towards the soldier. “Explain yourself! What act of cowardice has led to this?”

Instead of backing down, the soldier scowled at her. “Much as you know! I fought, brave as any other man! That is before I was knocked clean out! Next thing I knew, I woke up to… this.” His weak gesturing communicated hopelessness alongside the death that surrounded them. “And my name’s not ‘Buck’, Miss. It’s ‘Hand’… Least that’s what everyone always calls me, on account of I’m always so helpful. They’d say ‘give me a hand’, see, and there I’d be! So they just started callin’ me-”

“We do comprehend,” Skilla said with a dismissive sniff. “Honestly! Your bucks are all so worthless that it is amazing you people are alive at all. Each and every one of them seem wild as a hog, a dithering idiot, or… still in diapers.”

Hand scowled at her again, then turned his gaze to Elm at the last bit. “Yes, he always was a bit strange, since the day we found ‘im. Those crazy wild men with them big spears and no clothes had ‘im. Spirit Of The Mountain only knows what they did to ‘im!” He whipped his head back around towards Skilla. “As for you, you’ve got a sharp tongue there, Miss! What are ya thinkin’? Always talkin’ down about everyone like you’re the queen of some foreign nation?”

Macadamia tuned out the two of them as they continued to bicker. At the mention of his diaper, she had turned her attention to it and noticed that Elm was in dire need of a change. She rummaged through the two packs she had carried down the mountains, until she saw that the woman who had freed her had indeed thought to pack a couple of spare diapers. They looked to be ones that Macadamia had originally brought with her, cleaned but permanently stained yellow and brown from their abuse, yet still perfectly usable.

Finding a towel as well, she wasted no time in laying Elm down on the ground and opening his filthy diaper, noting that it was not one of her own. Someone else has been taking care of him. Good. She had not gotten far along when her own body began to revolt as well. A dribble began to escape her, dampening the cloth against her groin.

“How dare you address my people in such a manner!” Skilla was complaining.

“You just called me a ‘barbarian’, Wench!” Hand shot back.

It was quickly halted, but soon returned. She doubled over mid-wipe with a gasp. She could do nothing to stop herself as the dam burst. The sound of her deluge was audible even with the arguing, and she noted that both parties in the dispute drew to an abrupt halt. Even as urine streamed out of her and into her increasingly heavy diaper, she resumed taking care of Elm. She pulled away his dirty diaper and tenderly began cleaning his bottom as he looked at her with an unflinching gaze. Strange, she reflected, how unreadable his gazes had become. She had to wonder what he had been through, how he had survived all this death. His cheeks were a bit red, she noted, but that could have just been from the cold. Either way she did not stop. She had changed him in front of strangers before, after all, and it did not seem to bother him now.

Far from being concerned with his own half-naked state, he said “Umm, Macadamia, are you okay?”

Her body was still unburdening itself into her diaper with a loud hiss. Rather than regaining control, she found that her bowels were soon involved as well. “No! Oh no, no, no…” She could not resist the urge to help the process along, and she let out a quiet gasp as she pushed a heavy load out and into the back of her increasingly soaking diaper. Her right hand flew to her backside as if its mere presence might change the course of events. It did not. “This was a mistake!” she scolded herself. She had hoped that as far down the mountain as they were, they would be away from danger, and the evil noses of those hideous beasts, but as she glanced around once more at the carnage that surrounded them that danger felt all too close. “We should have kept moving, but I- ah!” She felt herself pushing again, and the warm squishy load against her bottom began steadily increasing in size.

Skilla had her arms crossed as she stood beside Hand, shaking her head slowly as they both watched. “Honestly! It is like having children, is it not?”

The soldier seemed too baffled to form a reply.

Finally Macadamia surrendered completely, collapsing onto her side beside Elm and letting the process complete while she exhaled heavily with relief. Warmth spread out against her, everywhere it could go, as the thirsty cloth struggled to absorb her overwhelming stream. The bulge in her backside formed a very noticeable shape now, even beneath her draping robes. By the time she was done she was uncertain if the garment had leaked or not, but suspected so.

“Shouldn’t we… do somethin’?” Hand asked as he looked down at her.

The exhaustion of her torture, escape, and long hike down the mountain caught up with her all at once, and she found that her body was unwilling to move. She breathed deeply, and stared at the sky. I found him, and alive. That is all that matters. I will take him away from this madness to someplace safe.

Skilla sighed heavily. “I suppose we must.” She reached down and picked up Elm’s soiled diaper, then handed it over with one hand, while pinching her nose with the other. “Go see if the well is still intact, and wash this out. Dry it as best you can. And for the love of the Holy Mother, bury the filth and be quick about the whole thing! We don’t want the smell to bring back the beasts!”

“I… but… this is womens’ work!”

Skilla glared at him. “If you mean changing this woman’s diaper, then for once you are correct. A buck should not even be here, witnessing a woman in such an… undignified state. I am glad your backwards culture has similar expectations.” She sighed again – a frivolous sound, as if she were explaining something obvious to a child. “But cleaning this fawn’s filthy diaper is surely not above your station. Go now!”

He looked like he might object again, but Macadamia saw the calculation behind his eyes as he considered that remaining meant helping to actually change diapers. Wiping poop from someone’s bottom was apparently judged the worse of his two options, and he withdrew.

Then Skilla smiled. Her smiles, Macadamia reflected, were never the innocent expressions of joy that others so often used. With her, there was always a dagger behind the curve of her lips. “Well, Little Fawn. I have you alone again.”

She picked up the cloth Macadamia had been using to wipe him, and yanked the man’s legs up and out of the way as she finished wiping his backside. Wipes quickly turned to light slaps, and then outright spanking. Slap. “You remember how much fun we had the last time you were naughty?” Slap.

Elm did not object; he did not so much as flinch. His manhood, notably, had grown in size.

Macadamia felt certain she should look away or put a stop to it, but did neither. Once more she was struck by the conundrum of the young man she continually treated like a small boy. Which did he want to be? Which did she want him to be? A small heat built in her body as she watched, alongside a swelling of bitterness towards Skilla.

Skilla set his legs down and started using the soiled towel to massage his manhood, and her lips once more quirked at the edges when his organ continued to swell. “Oh, I think your body remembers.” She took a break long enough to slide one of Macadamia’s clean diapers up his legs, stopping before hitting his waste. Then she buried his legs beneath the folds of her robes as she straddled them, holding him down, and resumed her stroking – now with both hands. “Will you make some more juices for me, like you did before in that tent? Shall I pull up your diaper and see how long you can keep it dry beneath my hands?”

She went tumbling to the side as Macadamia, having rolled to her feet, shoved her. “Enough!”

Skilla rose in a huff, glaring with clenched fists. “What is your problem?”

“After everything we went through… Being the playthings of that vile huntress of yours not two days past… You would treat this boy as… as your… toy? Have you learned nothing from the cruelty of others, that you would repeat it?”

Skilla’s face contorted in an ugly sneer. “What of it? He’s only a fawn! He should be grateful when we give him attention! You can plainly see that he likes it.” She took a step closer, her breath hot in Macadamia’s face. “You don’t care anyway – you’re only upset because I was playing with your toy!”

Macadamia felt like striking her, but held herself back. She wasn’t certain why Skilla had prompted such a sudden rage in her. Certainly it was not because the words held some buried truth, she decided. It was Skilla’s insufferable arrogance, she decided, and her infatuation with Elm. “That’s… that’s not true!”

“Foolish barbarian girl! Lie to yourself, but you know I am right!” She stormed away with another huff. “I shall leave you with your precious fawn!”

Once she was gone, Macadamia kneeled beside Elm and looked at him, trying to get a read on him. She pulled his diaper the rest of the way up, stealing a glance at his enlarged manhood as she did so before yanking her eyes away. “Elm? Did you, umm, did you… like what Skilla was doing?”

He shrugged.

She frowned at the unhelpful reply, but could not think of what she wanted to say next.

Hand cleared his throat behind her. “Well I did my best, Miss.” He handed her the rinsed diaper when she turned to accept it. “Still damp, but seein’ as how there’s no clothes lines about…”

“You did fine,” she said absently. Then, more urgently: “you buried the mess didn’t-”

“Yes! Yes! I buried it! Don’t know how you ladies got the whole idea about the smell bringing the monsters – they come when they’re called, I seen it happen with my own eyes! It’s the heart of the mountain, see? He commands it!”

Macadamia was too tired to puzzle out what the man was talking about. She turned the diaper inside out, rung it out herself one more time for good measure, then sniffed it. It most likely still had an odor, but she could smell very little over the horrible stench of death that surrounded them, which was getting thicker by the hour. All the more reason to be moving on.

To that end she stowed the cleaned diaper, turned her back to Hand, and managed to grip the waist of the one she was wearing through her thick robes. She pushed it down as she wiggled (it slid to the ground with a heavy, wet thunk) and stepped out of it.

“Do you…” Hand cleared his throat. “...want some privacy there, Miss?”

“Just hand me a clean towel,” she instructed, squatting. He did so. She pulled the front of her robes up and out of the way, and began unceremoniously wiping herself, keeping her back to him.

“You know, what I really need is a wet towel actually, and-” She stopped mid-sentence as she swiveled her head, seeing that he was gone. Elm moved into view, and his gaze drifted towards her womanhood. Her hand moved the towel to cover herself without conscious direction.

He volunteered to get her a damp towel and moved away. When he returned she finished cleaning herself but thankfully he did not try to steal another glance.

Then she moved away herself, soiled diaper and towel in hand, to find the well. Someone, most likely Hand, had already placed a broken shovel there. She used it to dig a new hole, filled a bucket of water, and went to work.

Once she had taken care of the diapers she set them aside and went back to the farm where she had grown up. Her heart froze into an icy ball, refusing to pump another ounce of blood, each time she saw a body. Several of them turned out to be neighbors, or unrecognizable. Finally, hidden in the remains of the half-collapsed cellar, she found what was left of her family.

She froze, huddling over their bodies, and cried cold, silent tears. The night stretched on, uncaring of her sorrow. Then, though nothing had changed, the moment came when she knew she was done. She retrieved the shovel and buried them, then walked away. She had said a million words in her head, but none aloud. Somehow none of them seemed… enough.

It was fully dark by the time she returned. Hand and Skilla were there again, sharing glances that seemed less hostile than she had expected. She did not ask why. Any blessing was one she would take. “We should leave, tonight… now in fact. I will only rest easy once we are far away from this place… and those creatures. I suggest the south road. With good speed, we could be to the next village in two days time-”

“No,” Elm stated flatly. “I… can’t go back.”

“Go back? You’ve never been there.”

“No, I mean… I can’t go back… to that world. My family is dead.”

“Mine too,” she admitted sadly, “but that doesn’t mean-”

“...As I am dead,” Elm finished. “The me that belonged there, with those people… is dead. I don’t care which village, I have no place in that world.”

Strangely, Macadamia felt that she understood. Not in a way that she could put into words, but it was an understanding all the same. “Where then? We can’t stay here.”

Elm looked towards the mountains. “The same place we were going before. That portal is still out there. I believe it now, more than ever. Legends can hold more truth than anyone cares to admit. I… I have to find it. It’s… it’s just where I have to go, okay?”

Macadamia saw it now: what was different about him. Gone was the shy boy, uncertain of himself while naive and hopeful of the world. He had become this new Elm, with an unknowable darkness hiding behind his eyes. This was what he had meant about dying. She nodded her agreement. Not just to appease him, but because she had to admit it felt right.

“Are you two fools mad? More so than you were already?” Skilla turned her glare to Macadamia in particular. “We just about killed ourselves climbing down those cursed slopes, and now you want to climb back up?”

Macadamia only shrugged. “You don’t have to come.” Then she helped Elm into the straps of his pack and the two moved away. She had gone no more than twenty steps before she heard the sloppy, sliding crunch of Hand’s boots in the snow behind her, and the deliberate, sharper crunch of Skilla’s behind his.

She concluded -quite gratefully- that the smell of decomposing bodies had served to hide them from the ‘sight’ of the beasts. It seemed the only explanation as to why the things had not returned to finish off the last of the humans. She was less grateful that, just like the sight of said dead bodies, she would never forget that awful smell again.