Chapter 32
In Cinder’s life there had been several situations that had been entirely her idea and she’d regretted suggesting. Having Barnaby tie her to Justice and lead her to Heathold ranked right up there with rolling in warg dung to avoid orc patrols. Barnaby had faced her backward, lashed her paws and tentacles to the saddle bags, tied her legs together so her hips twisted to on side of the saddle instead of straddling it. If she lowered her head, Justice’s braided tail immediately whipped her nose. Only her tail remained free but if she allowed it to lash like it wanted to the damn horse nipped it. Uncomfortable was an absolute understatement.
But far worse was… Barnaby’s enthusiasm to the bit.
“Stand Clear! Captured monster in tow!”
“Don’t get too close lad, those vicious claws will gut you like a…. Tomato! Be an awful mess to clean up!”
She played along, growling and struggling at her bonds when dirty children taunted her, flapping their tongues and hands. Some were bold enough to poke her with a stick before running to hide behind some stern faced parent.
“Naaah Nah! Can’t eat me!”
Little fuckers… made of delicious meat. A roar would sent them all screaming. Her stars itched to show them how futile ropes were against a glitch saber. See how brave they were while her claws pricked their behinds. Not that his humilation mattered, soon as she found Illiana then the mating would warp everything.
Wait no.
Cinder squeezed her eyes shut. She reminded herself that the entire purpose of this was here to prevent that. To prevent drastically changing these people’s very natures.
A rock pinged her horn. She opened her eyes to see the leer of one particularly persistent ten year old boy.
On the other paw, maybe some people’s natures would benefit from a change.
The boy fingered a two inch cobble stone, and as he wound up to throw it Cinder pulled one tentacle free and whipped it through air. Smacking the stone from the air.
People grasped, the crowd stumbled back and Cinder herself was stunned for a moment at the accuracy of her new limb. The tentacle moved on instinct, rearing up, its bud opening to reveal the gleaming, toothy petals.
Belatedly Cinder hissed at the onlookers.
“Aaaah! No! Down beast!” Barnaby came charging up. The tentacle jabbed down at the false knight, who dodged to the side with far too much grace for a man in armor.
Do I make my ‘escape’ now? Cinder wondered, she hadn’t give much thought to ending the ruse. The city guard wouldn’t allow Barnaby to take a dangerious creature into the city with him, would they? If she escaped, then could glitch through the wall but then what?
As this ran through her mind, her tentacle struck at Barnaby like an angry snake again and again. The cowed crowd oohed at her graceful avoidance that made her long hair whip.
“You’re makin me tits hurt.” She whispered through gritted teeth before making a lunge for not for the tip but the base of the tentacle. Clapping hands around it, she used Cinder’s instinctive thrash to thread down its length and capture it right below the tip.
Making a show of it, Cinder snarled and growled, making some light tugs that Barnaby struggled to control, having maybe a quarter of the strength of her illusionary avatar. Even as Barnaby tied the tentacle back in place Cinder still debated breaking free.
But if she made her escape now, she’d cause a panic and once she made it in the walls, it be tough to move around without darkness. She had maybe three glitches left in her before she’d have to use the eye again. And then well, her cock might be doing the thinking for her.
“Cover me with a cloak,” She hissed at Barnaby as she finished tying a knot around her tentacle bud.
Barnaby paused, her brow furrowing before her face brightening with the force of an idea.
“There! That will hold you, foul beast!” She said with a performantive air. “But let us avoid any future temptation from those who would twist the tail of a devil.”
Pulling out a rolled up ground cloth, she opened it with a sharp snap and threw it over Cinder’s body. To the audible dismay of the crowd gathered.
“As fun as this show of justice is, taunting this creature shall lead to injury and I shall not have that. Disperse!” Barnaby crowed. After a few more scoldings, Cinder felt the horse resume its forward motion.
Now blind and bound, Cinder waited sullenly, resisting the urge to let her starself seperated from her fleshself. Instead she forced her self to listen.
The cloth muffled the sound of the hooves and footsteps around them. Except for Justice’s, the steady clop clop of him tranversing the now cobblestone road. Then she noticed an additional note below that beat. A weak tinny song. One that in the dark of her eyelids, she saw. An anemic flow of light far below her. It illuminated a dry and cracked river bed.
She dismissed it as a strange waking dream born out of sensory deprevation and boredem but it persisted. It was so sad, the little stream, threading its way through what once had to have been a mighty river.
Soon a new light entered this darkness that couldn’t decide if it were a sound or a sight. A rushing rapid, shined behind her with incomparable beauty and power. Water not flowing but struggling, fighting against its container in a furious storm. Its sweetness polluted by a fetid sourness but it continued its battle, perhaps sensing the weakening of its cage. The poor thing.
Taste now? Cinder thought to herself, I hear it, see it and taste this? What could it be?
She knew though, it was magic. Just as Illiana had described, the flow of it trapped within the city. A growl rose in her throat, how could they cage that? How dare they bend such a thing, a living creature, to their will!
“Ah yes! It waking up. I need to get it to MY employers at the wizard guild with haste before the paralysis potion wears off entirely.” Barnaby’s voice pierced Cinder’s world of dark and light.
What? Cinder shook herself. Her situation rushed back to her and she recoiled from her own thoughts. Humanity bent all sorts of things to their designs, rivers, animals, plants, its what they did. You couldn’t be mad at humanity for that!
Still the captured beast shined in her perceptions. Its endless struggle pulling at Cinder’s heart strings. It hurt. Illiana was mad, possessed. She couldn’t be right. All those people…
Won’t die. Illiana’s voice threaded through Cinder’s mind.
In a desperate bid to shut out the existance of the captive magic Cinder threw her perceptions into her starself. It flowed out from under the cloth and pooled around Justice’s hooves. From it she saw out around her. Barnaby stood in the shadow of the city gates with four solemn guardmen blocking her path. One of which was looking directly at her.
“I shall summon the wizard on duty to verify your claims Miss Knight.” The lead guard was saying when his fellow elbowed him.
Shit! I’m made! Cinder acted, her starself sprang from an indistinct pool of stars into outline of her fleshself and roared. The guardsmen stumbled backward. Not giving them moment to recover, Cinder charged and watch their shock turn to complete panic. Tripping over their pikes, they scrambled to get out of her way.
“You fools! The beast is loose! After it!” Barnaby charged through the center of the fallen guards, a cloud of pink exploding from beneath her skirts.
“Clo-cough-cough Gate!” The guards struggled to shout as Cinder sprinted through the length of the gatehouse. A few guard fumbled with crossbows and took shots that when wide. The rapid clunking of falling portcullises only began as Cinder crossed its threshold, with even Barnaby making it through by a wide margin. Merchant Houses, taverns and inns thronged the sides of the entry street. Cinder, feeling the pull of her fleshself, zigged and lept into the window of the first building.
<fzzst!>
She crashed onto a table, scattered half finished plates and drinks all over patrons who shrieked in surprise. Digging claws into the table top, she sprang across the room toward the stairs. Scrambling on all fours, she knocked aside a maid just coming out of a room and rushed inside, tentacle grabbing the handle and slamming the door closed.
Panting, Cinder cast about the empty room. The windows of the room looked too small, so her starself leapt ahead of her and out the back of the building, etherial claws carried her up the courtyard wall and then up the side of another building. Flew over its roof and was midway across a second when she felt that tug of her other body.
<fzzst>
The glitch was as natural a breath, body’s switching mid stride. Sudden panic seized her as forelegs plunged through the thatched roof. Yowling with surprise she fell among an assortment of barrels and the scent barely filled her lungs. A brewery! Too bad she had no time.
“Oops! Sorry!” Cinder said, to few startled people and rushed toward an open doorway. Noting several cloaks hanging next to it, she snatched the longest one with a tentacle as she ran outside.
Finding herself on a street with plenty of people shouting for guards, she dashed into the first alleyway she found. Stumbling, she forced her body upright and pulled the cloak around her. As her starself stepped out of her body she felt that near empty ache in her fur. Her flesh huddled in the alley corner as her starself climbed back to the roofs. Her stomach churned as she watched both the mouth of the alley and scanned the roofs of the nearby houses. Voices still shouted for guards, she had to get away from this spot. Despite the fact she could feel tiny limbs squirm on eitherside of her rib cage. A tentacle retrieved the glowing Archmagus’ eye from her surprisingly intact pocket. She hesitated, focusing on herself above.
There, about two glitches away was what looked like a warehouse. She could hid in there and get her bearings. She looked at the orb.
Opening her mouth, the small orb fell through her lips and closed over the sweetness. This time she didn’t have to bite down. Power filled her, flowing through her pelt and sliding down into her loins. The warmth brought the need that the discomfort of the ropes had kept at bay. She spat the eye back into her pocket but it was too late. Her balls throbbed and her cock cried out for touch.
“Illiana!” Cinder cried out as both of her grasped at their cocks with their huge paws. Useless. She needed her mate…. Needed.
No… Cinder fought through the fog of arousal. She needed Tinny. Tinny could fix things. She could… fix Tinny?
<fzzst>
The guardsman that poked his head around the corner a moment later saw nothing but a twinkle but dismissed it as a trick of the light. No giant cat here.