Sally Vinebrook did her very best to keep her sore and tender bottom submerged well beneath the surface of the warm, soothing, Power-saturated water as much as possible as she made her way around the bog. Over the course of the next several hours, she wandered happily from plant to plant and tree to tree, spending at least a few minutes (and often much longer) kneeling down beside each of them and getting to know them better, teasing out their particular quirks and characteristics while trying to memorize the feel of their auras within the tapestry of the Power. It was slow and careful work, requiring meticulous attention to detail, and Sally absolutely adored it.
Her only regret was that she’d completely forgotten to bring her sketchbook and charcoal pencils along with her to Modan’s bog, having left them behind in her saddlebags with Bella.
Oh well, they probably would have just gotten all soggy anyway, she told herself with a carefree shrug, popping a couple of honeyberries into her mouth before sloshing off in search of some of those dragonsbane eggs her mistress had mentioned. I’ll just have to commit as much of this as I can to memory and then write it all down later when I get the chance.
By the time dusk had begun to settle on the deceptively peaceful and sleepy swamp, Sally’s bottom had been restored more or less back to its pale and un-punished state. Her cheeks were once again silky smooth to the touch and free of welts and bruises, and now only sported a faint touch of pink on their undercurves. They were still tender, but now she only felt as if she’d received a mild spanking earlier that afternoon, instead of the mother of all bottom burners she’d actually experienced.
Who would have ever suspected that such a small berry could pack such a powerful burn? Kura’s delight indeed, humph!
As an educated Cindertouched, Sally knew much about Kura, the lord of stone and fire, and father of dragons. It was he who had Touched her before she was born and woven her into his weave of the Power. But she had never heard of this particular berry that bore his namesake, and she couldn’t help but feel that he was being unfairly maligned by the association. Still, based on the sensations the berries had caused, she had to admit it was somewhat appropriate.
Brimming with barely controlled enthusiasm over all the new and wondrous things that she’d been able to see and interact with since she’d been turned loose to study, Sally returned to Modan’s side just as the patchwork sky seen through the canopy above was starting to turn crimson and declared with a little twirl and a splash, “I’m back, Mistress!”
“You never left,” came Modan’s smooth reply a moment later as she rose just as smoothly from where she’d been lounging in the murky depths some five feet ahead of her pupil, looking somehow even more fresh and elegant than she had earlier that morning.
Sally smirked playfully at the naiad’s literalness and rolled her eyes.
“It’s just an expression, you know. Of course I didn’t actually leave.”
She felt an exhilarating little twinge of butterflies in her stomach as the words left her mouth, and she surreptitiously crossed her fingers behind her back in the hope that the naiad wouldn’t interpret her teasing as her being impolite. The mere thought of the spanking she’d received earlier for being rude about mutton during their midday meal still made her knees wobble. Though thankfully, that wasn’t particularly noticeable with the waterline hiding most of her body below the waist.
“Well now, someone sure seems awfully confident in themselves,” observed Modan with a wry chuckle as she glided toward the young mage, closing to within arm’s reach without so much as a whisper of turbulence on the water to mark her passing. “Why don’t you tell me what you’ve learned since our last conversation?”
She paused for a heartbeat, and then smiled.
“Or better yet, show me.”
Sally’s stomach fluttered even harder as Modan drew close to her, her worry warring with her excitement over what might happen next should she keep sassing the naiad. She was also eager to impress however, and beaming brightly, she pointed over to a pair of bushes a few feet away whose branches were brimming heavily with fat, round, red berries.
“Those are Kura’s delight bushes! They were the first ones I tracked down,” she proclaimed with a half-pout half-scowl. “They’re actually very nice plants to talk to, despite how mean their berries can be.”
Modan laughed pleasantly.
“The berries aren’t mean, silly girl. They just don’t like to be eaten by bugs. And I’m not surprised you befriended them. They did seem to be your favorite.”
Sally squirmed a little in the shallows as memories of just how appropriately named those seemingly innocent little berries were rushed through her mind.
“I like honeyberries better,” she mumbled with a pout.
“You could have fooled me,” replied Modan with a predatory grin, sliding in beside her and laying a firm hand on her shoulder. “I heard you gasping and sighing while I rubbed those fat, red berries all over your fat, red tush. Hmmm… I’ll bet you’d just love some more right now, wouldn’t you?”
“Eep!”
In response to her taunting question, Sally’s face began to glow about as red and as hot as the berries on the bushes she was staring fixedly at, and a small squeak escaped her lips. Part of her wanted to lie to the naiad, to vehemently claim that she totally hated the experience, but deep down she knew that she couldn’t (and really shouldn’t), so she forced herself to admit, “T-they were, um… rather pleasant, at first, I suppose… Nice and, um…”
She felt a fresh pulse of nervous delight throb along the also pouting lips between her squirming thighs.
“Warm.”
And your hands rubbing me all over back there sure didn’t hurt either!
Modan just chuckled.
“Well then, I’ll be sure to give you some more sometime soon. Perhaps tomorrow? Or perhaps the next day?”
Shifting around to stand behind her, she let her other hand that wasn’t busy massaging the mage’s tense shoulder dip down beneath the water to gently fondle the area where those berries would be applied, retaining an innocent grin all the while.
Oh horsefeathers and dragon spit! wailed Sally internally as she felt her heart leap and her thighs press themselves together under the murk. I was just trying to be honest! What did I just talk myself into?
“What else have you learned?” asked Modan, bringing her lips right beside the quivering girl’s right ear to murmur the question while keeping the palm of her hand resting meaningfully against her bum.
Looking for any excuse to not dwell on the Kura’s delight bush and its confusingly arousing berries, Sally cast her eyes around for another plant to talk about, and a moment later pointed to one with small clumps of bumpy little berries clustered all over it.
“Those are morning stars!” she announced hurriedly. “They’re nice too. It’s just a shame that I can’t eat their berries, though. I’m sure they’d be tasty, and that people would love to plant them in their gardens”
“I already told you about those,” purred the naiad, her breath tickling Sally’s ear as her fingertips flexed warningly against her left cheek. “Show me something I haven’t told you. Something you’ve used what I’ve taught you to uncover on your own.”
She was clearly testing her pupil now, but there was no judgment in her voice. Just guidance.
Sally grimaced as it began to dawn on her that she’d spent most of the time allotted to her for studying making idle chitchat with plants, and she racked her mind for an idea.
“Um…”
She frowned in concentration, idly digging her toes into the silt beneath her feet.
“Oh!”
Smiling eagerly, her earlier exuberance restored, she pointed to one of the fat dragonflies circling lazily over the steamy water.
“I noticed something peculiar about the flying insects around here.”
She paused for a moment to look down at the gently glowing worm that had now petrified into a proper ring around her third finger, gathering her thoughts and growing somewhat pensive as she attempted to organize her observations into a coherent idea.
“They aren’t as imbued with the Power as the things that live inside the water, or at least spend a lot of their time nearby it are. I think it’s because they only stay in it until they hatch, and then they fly away.”
“That is correct,” confirmed the naiad with an approving nibble against her ear. “They spend less time with me here, and more time high in the trees or flying around the bog. Because of this, there is less of me in them and as a result they don’t obey me quite as readily.”
Modan gripped Sally’s bottom a little tighter under the water to emphasize her point then.
“Now, why don’t you demonstrate your new understanding for me? Bring us some dinner.”
“Dinner?” squeaked Sally, wriggling in her mistress’s grip as the corners of her mouth quirked up in a shy smile. “Um… r-right! I can do that.”
Truth be told, she wasn’t actually so sure about that. She could definitely gather as many honeyberries as either of them could ever possibly want to eat (she’d been snacking on them off and on all afternoon), but berries alone seemed like a poor meal and a less than ideal way to show off just how much she’d been learning.
“Hmmm…”
She looked down at the water thoughtfully for several long moments, and then an idea struck her. Closing her eyes and centering her mind within the Power, she pushed out her perception to the creatures and plants all around her, looking for… crabs.
She quickly found a small cluster of them not too far off from where they stood, and focusing in on the small group of crustaceans milling about on top of one another beneath the surface, she ever so gently coaxed out a telepathic thought toward them, adding as much Power behind it as she dared.
Ahem. Excuse me, uh… crabs… Silt to part beneath spurs of bone, ripples hot from Deep Mother’s throne, I call you with rot, with stone, with fear, your path through the bounties of death is clear.
She whispered the words of Power to send the message away through the cascading weave of connections that riddled the bog, and then paused for a moment. Nervously.
So, um, would you all come here for a moment please?
It took a little bit longer than she’d hoped it would, but Sally felt a huge sigh of relief escape her as at last some soft-shelled crustaceans came scuttling up to crawl and probe around their feet on the silty bottom of the sandbar.
“You were paying attention in the charax cave, I see,” observed Modan with a broad smile. “You listened to what he was telling them, and you did the same. Very good.”
Quick as a flash and with her usual fluid grace, she disappeared beneath the water for a brief moment, and then came back up holding a crab in each hand.
“Let me guess. You went back to the entrance and listened again?”
“That’s right, Mistress,” confirmed Sally, nodding her head and looking just a bit bashful.
It seemed like a waste of the temporary gift she’d been given not to make the most of it.
She cast her eyes back toward the tree that marked the entrance to the old charax’s root-cavern, and a soft smile played across her delicate features.
“At first I thought he was rather scary, but he’s actually alright. Even if he is a little bit, um…”
She gestured vaguely, seeming to be reaching for a polite way of phrasing her thoughts.
“Focused on eating.”
The old charax hadn’t made the best conversation partner, but he’d at least been fascinating to watch.
Modan shook her head a little at that, smiling in bemusement.
“No charax has ever harmed a human, except perhaps by pinching one’s toes. Of course, it’s very rare for a human to meet a truly old one.”
With that, she gave the mage’s bottom one final squeeze and then glided over to a small island of smooth stone half-buried in mud and sticks in a small clearing between the trees. Stepping out of the thigh-high water, she crossed to the center of it and knelt down on the flat surface, patting a spot beside her.
“Come. Let’s eat here.”
Beaming to herself at the thought of having seen such a rare sight up close not once, but twice, Sally followed after the naiad and joined her on the little island. She eyed the soft, muddy ground appraisingly, prodding a few twigs and loose rocks out of the way with her toe, and then carefully eased herself down. Her bottom was still a little tender, after all, and sitting down made her wince, but it was just a minor discomfort (one that made her blush if she thought about it for too long) rather than an actual pain. Plus the cool mud being smooshed against her sensitive backside made for a nice change of pace from the bubbly warmth of the lake.
“Ahhh, that’s lovely.”
As she cooked her crab the same way as earlier in the day, pacing herself this time instead of flash-frying it all at once, Sally happened to notice the oddly rectangular shape of the little stone island that Modan had chosen for them to sit on.
“Hmmm…” she murmured to herself, leaning forward and squinting her eyes for a closer inspection.
Sure enough, the mud-filled cracks in the places where the water had worn away most of the siltation appeared to be geometric, if badly weathered. One of the stones even had a faint imprint on it, as if from an ancient carving, though it was badly worn and most of it was covered in a thick layer of mud now.
One by one, the pieces slowly began to fall into place inside Sally’s mind as she brushed away some of the grime, and a moment later she felt her eyes grow wide as saucers as her memory flashed back to the other oddly geometric and uniformly spaced stones that she’d seen earlier while underwater.
“A temple!” she exclaimed, spitting out bits of tasty crab meat (she’d managed to not overcook hers this time) and jumping to her feet, dancing from foot to foot excitedly. “We’re standing on a temple! On top of your temple, Mistress!”
Then, realizing that she’d just tossed aside all of her table manners in her moment of discovery, she quickly plopped back down onto her backside and added in a far more restrained voice, “Um… right?”
“We’ve been swimming through it ever since I returned to you,” answered Modan with a nod as she nonchalantly sucked down some of her own crab. “This was once one of the altars.”
Eying the stones beneath them with a newfound awe, Sally traced her fingertips carefully along their worn surface. Then, with a squeak, she scrambled up to her knees and began fumbling around in the mud in search of bits of spat out crab meat while she babbled in a rush.
“Oh horsefeathers, I am so sorry, Mistress! I didn’t mean to be rude and just sit on your altar like it was a chair. Please forgive me!”
Sally had visited the chapels in her home town and at the Celestine Monastery innumerable times, of course, and stopped at a dozen travelers’ shrines since beginning her journeyman period, but she’d only ever been inside a temple once before. That one visit, along with her reading, was enough for her to know that you were supposed to be respectful and on your best behavior inside of them, not lounge about like they were the common room of some inn!
“I’m sitting on it,” was Modan’s unconcerned reply as she continued sucking away at her crab with cool amusement. “And I highly doubt that there’s any structure that would mind having your bottom pressed against it.”
She giggled a little mischievously at that before continuing.
“Besides, this was my mother’s altar, not mine. So, apologize to her if you think you need to.”
Sally still felt more than a little apprehensive about using the once sacred and well-maintained offering platform as a makeshift table, but since Modan seemed to be smiling and giggling, she decided that it was probably alright for her to relax as well. And so, with a long exhalation, she flopped back down onto the cool mud once again, and winced as she was sharply reminded that her bottom was still somewhat sore. She then picked up her crab, and after brushing off a few flecks of mud stuck to its side, returned to nibbling on it as she inspected her surroundings more closely.
The altar was clearly old, very old, but then again its appearance could also have just been due to it having been partially submerged underwater for so long now. Mother Nature certainly had a talent for swallowing up the handiwork of mortals if left to her own devices, after all. Intrigued, Sally mulled the whole situation over as she chewed and swallowed mechanically, no longer noticing the succulent flavor of the roasted crab in her hands as she took slow, careful bites.
Several minutes later, she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and asked, “Why is your mother’s temple gone? Where is she? Did she move?”
Once more tapping a thoughtful forefinger against the side of her cheek, Sally stared off into space as she tried to wrap her mind around such a concept.
“Can a water nymph just pack up and move somewhere else?”
Modan laughed again at her litany of questions, much louder this time.
“My mother never went anywhere. She’s still in the great, watery cavern below us.”
She then adopted a more sober expression as she went on.
“And no, I cannot move from here. Nor would I ever wish to any more than a human would tire of breathing air or drinking water.”
“I see…” murmured Sally, idly nibbling on her thumbnail now as she added this new bit of information to her mental notes.
“And as to your other question…”
Modan gave her an unconcerned shrug.
“I don’t know why the people stopped coming. It was a very long time ago, and I don’t remember that very well.”
She had taken on the most serious expression Sally had seen on her yet as she spoke, aside for her most punitive moments of strictness perhaps. Sally’s own crab lay completely forgotten now as her imagination ran wild trying to picture what it must have been like back when this bog had been a thriving place of worship. In her mind’s eye she could see neat rows of white pillars supporting sharp-angled stone ceilings with intricate carvings adorning every available surface, and acolytes of all ages running to and fro among well-kept gardens attending to the business of their daily worship. Surely it must have been a marvel to behold!
So what had changed all that?
“Surely you must remember something though, Mistress,” she pressed gently.
“Not really,” Modan explained patiently, staring off into the mist as if gazing back upon a long forgotten age. “As I said, I can recall very little. I remember that the sacrifices became less and less frequent over time. Fewer children came to join the cult, and soon it was only a few old men and women who tended to the flowers and offered prayer and sacrifice for the occasional visitor. Parts of the temple were already sinking into the mud by the time the last of the old cultists had finally left, and the rest fell into ruin soon after.”
Finishing her story, she sucked the last of her crab legs dry and with a casual flick of her wrist sent the empty shell sailing into the water where several little fish immediately began to swarm around it.
“And that’s all there is for me to tell.”
Although it had been delivered with her usual casual sternness, Modan’s story had touched Sally. Staring at her mistress with watery eyes, she said in as sober a voice as she could muster, “I’m so sorry to hear that, Mistress. That must have been very lonely for you.”
Then, not sure what else to do, but knowing what always made her feel better when she was feeling down, she scooted in closer and wrapped the damp naiad in a tight hug.
“It wasn’t lonely.” replied Modan matter-of-factly, a bit bemused by the young mage’s sudden embrace, but doing nothing to stop her. “I have the charaxes and knuckers and trees for company. Not to mention the birds and the bats, as well. Sometimes I simply lie in the hot spring and listen to my mother’s songs for years on end.”
She smiled a little comfortingly, and wrapped one strong arm around the girl’s naked shoulders, returning her embrace.
“Of course, you need other humans, or human-like things, to help you survive. You’d be miserable if you were away from others like yourself for that long. I’m different, though.”
She gave her armful of tender mage flesh a reassuring squeeze then.
“There were no people here for many centuries before the temple, and there haven’t been for many since. I liked them, while they were here, but I never needed them.”
Sally snuggled happily in against her mistress’s slick warmth, and smiled into her shoulder.
Despite our physical similarities, she really is quite different from me, isn’t she?
Once again, she found herself drawn to just how fascinating and unique Modan really was.
At least I didn’t do anything to inadvertently offend her this time!
She let herself be held in in the naiad’s embrace without saying anything for as long as she dared to, just enjoying the feel of her skin against hers and the weight of her strong arm around her shoulders.
Eventually though, she felt like she needed to say something, so she murmured, “I think I understand now, Mistress. Thank you for explaining.”
“Mmhmm. Now finish your crab. I’ll be cross if I killed it for nothing, you know.”
Modan fixed Sally with a stern glare, but then just as quickly eased back into a teasing smile and a fit of giggles when she saw the apprehension her words produced in the jumpy little mage.
With her stomach flip-flopping with butterflies born from the stern look in her mistress’s dark eyes, and then exacerbated by her teasing smile, Sally untangled herself from around Modan and scooted back over to where her crab lay on the mud-covered stone. Scooping it up, she brushed it off with her fingertips once again and blew a few stubborn clumps of dirt off of it, and then resumed eating it with a newfound dedication that had nothing to do with hunger. If her mistress told her to finish her meal, then she was going to finish her meal.
Especially if there was a punishment on the line if she didn’t!
“So,” she asked between bites, nodding her chin in the direction of the boiling hot spring on the central island of the lake clearing. “How come your mother hasn’t come up to say hello yet? Does she not like visitors?”
Modan simply looked back at her, bemused.
“Come up here?”
“Right!” replied Sally with an eager bob of her head. “I’ve never met the mother of a water nymph before, and it would be rather rude of me to have spent as much time as I have here without at least greeting her properly…”
Munch. Munch.
Modan continued staring at the girl with something akin to disbelief as she dutifully chewed her crab meat.
“My mother only shows herself to mortals on very, very important occasions.”
Modan paused to think for a moment then.
“Come to think of it, I don’t actually know when the last time was. Maybe when the sun refused to shine? No, it was later than that…”
She tilted her head to the side and let out a low hum of concentration.
“Or was it when the demons behind the eclipse invaded? Perhaps… After all, she was among those who rose up to repel them…”
Modan paused again, and then continued more confidently this time.
“At any rate, she sung to me not too long ago about a city called Talinasia where a prophet of hers dwells. Perhaps she’s been there recently?”
“Oh… oh my…” breathed Sally in awed wonder.
Of course she knew of the great temple of Artthun in Talinasia. Who didn’t?
“I um… I hadn’t realized your mother was so, um… so…”
I hadn’t realized your mother was literally the river goddess! she thought to herself in utter astonishment, growing uncomfortably aware of just how naked and fragile she was just then. Horsefeathers and dragon spit, Sally! What kind of a fool just casually asks for an audience with the honest to goodness river goddess of all people?
Swallowing hard, she tried desperately to work some saliva back into her suddenly very, very dry mouth.
“I… um y-yes, I know all about the temple in T-Talinasia… It’s a, uh…”
She cleared her throat and swallowed once more.
“A w-well-known landmark of modern c-civilization after all… Um… S-sorry Mistress, I didn’t mean to, um… to overstep my boundaries…”
Modan laughed again, shaking her head and sending her long, tangly, wet tresses all about.
“I’m starting to think you don’t actually have any boundaries to overstep, little human.”
Still giggling, she added in mock seriousness.
“Do you need another spanking already?”
Sally’s cheeks flushed a hot scarlet at the question and she stared fixedly down at her fidgeting hands on her lap.
“Um… I um…”
It should have been a simple question to answer. All she had to say was “No, no, that’s fine!”, but… Instead she forced herself to look up to meet the enchanting pull of her mistress’s liquid gaze.
“M-maybe…”
“Maybe?”
Modan grinned and leaned forward, making her large silhouette almost predatory.
“Well I think you do.”
She was still grinning as she said it, her eyes sparkling with laughter. Bringing one knee forward, she began to crawl toward her naughty student, a hungry smile pulled tight across her soft, blue lips.
“So tell me, my wise, young acolyte, how do you think I should spank you for this particular offense? Hmmm?”
“Eep!”
The squeak escaped from Sally’s lips before she could stop it, her heart nearly jumping out of her mouth right along with it as she watched her mistress begin to bear down on her.
“M-M-M-M-Mistress, I-I…” she spluttered, her face turning an even darker shade of red as she tried to squeeze the words out from between her trembling lips.
“I asked you a question, girl,” came Modan’s low reply as she kneed her way across the mud and stones until she was right in front of Sally, her large, round breasts hanging freely just below the girl’s blushing, wide-eyed face. “You know I don’t like it when you refuse to answer me.”
She was still grinning, with a hungry, narrow-eyed gaze that had the poor mage rooted to the spot.
“Well?”
Leaning in even further, she cupped a warm, damp hand against the back of Sally’s warm, damp hair, while her other began to play lazily up and down along her shoulder and back.
“Answer me.”
“Y-Yes Mistress! Sorry Mistress!” squeaked Sally, the words bubbling out of her in a rush as her stomach churned in near constant flip-flops.
Modan was just so close! She could actually feel the heat radiating off of the naiad’s powerful body as her fingertips tickled her between her shoulder blades! She knew she was supposed to give her an answer, but she just couldn’t focus long enough to figure out what she should say.
Then, in a moment of perfect clarity, a deliciously naughty idea came to her.
Clearing her throat with a nervous cough, she scooted back a couple of paces from her mistress and rose up onto wobbly knees as she turned her back on her. Then, with one last shaky exhalation, she carefully bent her torso forward until her naked breasts were pressed firmly into the cool mud beneath her, with her nipples scraping lightly against the smooth stone underneath. She then slowly and tentatively pushed her hips up and back, higher and higher, arching her back and parting her knees just enough so that her bare bottom and everything in between was on full display for Modan, presenting herself to her mistress as if she were a sacrifice for her altar.
“P-Please Mistress,” she stuttered out while hiding her burning face behind her trembling forearms. “P-Punish me as… as you see fit!”
“Oh, I will.”
—
Modan chuckled again, taking a few moments to silently admire the big, still pink and faintly marked cheeks being offered up on the altar like the sacrifices of old (although none of them were ever so jiggly). Reveling in how the young human dutifully held them in place for her appraisal, despite her nervous shivering.
Truly, a worthy offering.
Closing in another pace, she began to glide her fingernails up and down across the chubby curves, enjoying the feel of their plump springiness and the parade of gooseflesh that trailed after wherever she touched. She then gently gripped a tender cheek in each hand and spread them apart, fully exposing all of the girl’s charms to the light caress of the warm mist. With a low chuckle, she spent a few moments tickling the inner slopes of her cleft, her fingers teasingly stopping just millimeters away from her little bottom hole and the base of her vulva, before slowly easing her buns back together, rubbing each cheek one final time, and then delivering the first hearty swat.
SMACK!
“Ah!”
—
Lost as she was in her mistress’s gentle caresses and trying not to giggle as her sensitive cheeks were played with, the first spank came as a total surprise to Sally.
Although it probably shouldn’t have.
Still though, she managed to keep her hips raised and in place like they were supposed to be. She was a good girl after all.
With a throaty moan, she hissed in a breath of warm air through clenched teeth, savoring the stinging heat in right cheek where Modan’s palm had just struck.
“T-Thank you, Mistress…”
“Hold still,” ordered Modan imperiously, “You have many more to come.”
She gently fondled and squeezed the spot she’d just spanked, and then a moment later spanked it again!
SMACK!
“Ah! Y-yes Mistress!” gasped Sally, squirming on her knees in the mud and moaning, but otherwise maintaining her position as ordered.
More fondling quickly followed, and then a moment later there came another spank, this time on the other cheek.
SMACK!
Then came more fondling, and then it was back to the other cheek for another meaty swat.
SMACK!
After that, Modan began to fondle the trembling girl’s arched sit-spots, using both of her hands to squeeze and rub them at her leisure. At this, Sally finally lost it, and a fit of giggles bubbled up from behind her folded arms.
“What’s so funny?” demanded Modan.
SMACK-SMACK! SMACK-SMACK!
She swatted the giggling mage four more times in quick succession, much harder than she had before, twice on each cheek. However, her voice was still mirthful, not angry.
Sally in turn yelped and wriggled at these harder swats, her hips swaying hypnotically from side to side with each one as she struggled (and mostly succeeded) to maintain her position.
“Sorry Mistress!” she squeaked. “You were ticking me. I wasn’t laughing at you, I promise!”
Modan watched the swinging buns before her like a cat tracking the movements of a piece of string. Pouncing, she grabbed the girl’s waist firmly with one hand and delivered ten more swats, hard like the last four, before stopping and lightly squeezing the fatty undercurve of her right cheek.
“You’re very ticklish, aren’t you?” she asked, tracing up and down her acolyte’s crack with a pair of wiggling fingerstips. “Maybe I need to beat that out of you?”
SMACK!
Again she slapped a jiggly sit-spot, and then went back to tickling her crack.
“Oh pleeeease, Mistress,” moaned Sally between breathy gasps, the naiad’s tickling, fondling, and spanking reducing her to a panting, wriggling mess as she tried desperately to maintain her position for her.
“Perhaps I’ll hang you from the trees with your arms and legs splayed out, and make the vines tickle you with their softest leaves.”
Modan swatted again.
SMACK!
“And switch your big, round bottom until you stop laughing.”
She swatted three more times, hard.
SMACK! SMACK! SMACK!
And then went right back to fondling.
“Would that cure you, naughty girl?”
“I- Hah! I… d-d-don’t- Hah- Owie! Th- Oh! think that w-will ch- Oooh! change anything!” gasped Sally between laughs and yelps, trying, and failing miserably, to keep her squirming and giggling under control.
And I most definitely don’t want those stupid vines getting hold of me again. They’ve been making fun of me all afternoon. Humph!
“I don’t think so either, really.” admitted Modan.
She was slapping at an even cadence now, stinging and burning the moaning mage’s wobbly bottom a little bit hotter with each swat, while still occasionally stopping for a brief rub.
“But we will try anyway.”
She started slapping faster then, cinching her arm once again around Sally’s waist to hold her in place as she delivered one swat to each squirming sit-spot, and then one directly to the semi-parted center of the girl’s behind.
SMACK-SMACK! SMACK! SMACK-SMACK! SMACK!
“Perhaps an extra-strong dose of Kura’s delights will help you maintain your composure better, hmmm? You did say you wanted to feel them again, you know. Now that would be rather effective, I’m sure.”
She laughed again, and then raised her arm even higher to give more dramatic, loud swats.
SMACK-SMACK! SMACK! SMACK-SMACK! SMACK!
“Not to mention entertaining.”
“Oh please, Mistress,” moaned Sally, not even sure what exactly she was pleading for anymore as she drummed her toes into the mud and bucked her hips in the water nymph’s inescapable iron grip.
Her bottom was already pleasantly hot, and was growing steadily hotter with each sharp spank, while her mind swam through a haze of panic, embarrassment, delight, and excitement.
“Please what?” prompted Modan as she continued swatting.
But Sally just chewed on her lower lip and let out another long moan, stubbornly refusing to answer the question.
“Answer me!”
SMACK-SMACK! SMACK-SMACK! SMACK-SMACK!
Modan started spanking for real then, hard and fast, just like she had earlier in the day. And when her errant student started to struggle in earnest, she simply dug her elbow into her back, mashing her face and breasts even deeper into the earthy ground as her right hand became a blur, going straight for sit-spots and upper thighs.
“Aieee!” squealed Sally, all thoughts of trying to ride out her embarrassing thoughts and take her punishment stoically flying out the window as she began to let loose with high-pitched cries of pain. “M-Mistress, please! I’m going to… I’m going to!”
Instead of finishing her sentence, she thrust her hips up even higher, squeezing and rubbing her thighs together with increased urgency as an entirely different inferno of need built up between them.
In response, Modan sat down heavily next to the moaning mage, and pulled her gracelessly over her muddy lap. Heedless of her squiggles and squeals, she started into an over the knee spanking no less hard than the one from the day before, but considerably slower and with a great deal more grasping and groping between swats.
SMACK…! SMACK…! SMACK…!
Once again Sally’s high-pitched penitent wails began to echo into the mist. This new position over her mistress’s lap did little to mitigate her rapidly building arousal, and if anything made it much, much worse since she now had a firm thigh to grind herself against. With each swat and grope, the mental image of her hanging suspended while vines tickled and lashed her naked body grew more and more vivid in her mind’s eye, leaving her more breathless and excited by the second! She was lost in a swirling vortex of conflicting emotions, and had no idea how to articulate her thoughts in a way that would satisfy Modan. And in the end she simply cried out with a blush so hot that she feared her hair might catch aflame as she moaned.
“Mistress please! Please punish me! Do with me as you will, I promise to obey!”
And Modan did just that, swatting her hard, and hot, and long.
—
When Modan finally stopped spanking, Sally’s bottom was almost as red as it had been that morning, and she lay gasping and dewy-eyed across her lap.
“Hmmm… I think I would like some dessert now,” she declared suddenly, swatting Sally’s rump extra-hard, directly across its center, one last time.
SMACK!
“Get up.”
Breathing heavily and rubbing at her burning hindquarters with one hand and her watery eyes with the back of the other, Sally climbed up off of Modan’s lap and knelt beside her.
“Dessert, Mistress?” she asked with a sniffle, taking special care to ensure that her sizzling cheeks didn’t accidentally come into contact with her heels as she cast her eyes about for the nearest bunch of honeyberries.
Instead of answering however, Modan just stood up abruptly and grabbed Sally by the scruff of her neck, hauling her brusquely into the water.
“That root!” she growled, pointing to a thick root protruding from the base of a nearby tree, half-in and half-out of the twilight murk. “Grab onto it, and don’t you dare let go.”
Releasing the girl’s neck, she gave her an especially vicious swat to get her moving.
SMACK!
“Yes Mi- Eek!” squeaked Sally, her words gobbled up in a high-pitched yelp as she scrambled through the water and tumbled forward at a sharp angle to grab hold of the sinewy branch.
Modan pounced on her half a heartbeat later, seizing her roughly by the shoulders and neck and smooshing her big, soft body against hers under and out of the water as she growled in her ear.
“Now pray to my mother. Pray like the cultists once did. And do not stop.”
She then slid into the water behind the girl, her hands gliding down along either of her flanks as she sank beneath the surface.
Sally shuddered as bolts of electricity shot through her at her mistress’s gruff words and caresses, but she dared not disobey. For a few heart-stopping moments she tried to remember the chants and key phrases of the old prayers she’d seen written in books, her mind swimming as worries over what might happen if she couldn’t remember them sizzled through her, before finally starting to murmur shakily.
“Oh mighty Artthun, Mistress of the Rivers, and Mother of the Streams… This humble and, um… unworthy servant beseeches thee!”
As this was happening, Modan submerged herself completely.
Settling down onto her knees between the mage and the root, she pulled Sally’s thighs apart, sliding her large hands between them and groping their creamy interiors just below the girl’s groin.
“A-ah!” cried Sally, as her mistress’s nimble fingers found purchase below the waterline.
Swallowing hard, she chewed on her lower lip for several moments, before finally managing to continue in an even more shaky voice.
“H-h-hallowed be thy divine name… th-this servant humbly c-calls upon thee t-to, to…”
Horsefeathers! How did it go again?
“Oh! To visit thy mercy upon th-the crops of the fields, and th-the wells of our lands…!”
As the mage began to pick up steam again, Modan moved her fingers up to dig into her burning sit-spots, and slid her face between her thighs; giving Sally a second kiss, much deeper than the last one, on her other set of lips. She pawed at her swollen little bud in its sheath with her lips, and dabbed at it with her rough, yet silky, tongue under the warm water. She then pulled her thighs even further apart, and began to move her mouth up and down, from clitoris to crevice, kissing, licking, and sucking strategically at both.
“H-h-horsefeathers!” moaned Sally in both pain from the rough handling of her sore sit-spots, and ecstasy as her mistress’s mouth probed and caressed her aching vagina, all thoughts of anything other than sensation scoured from her mind as lightning bolts of pleasure radiated out from her swollen lower lips.
The sensation was overwhelming, reducing her knees to jelly and causing her to slump forward. Clinging to the root in front of her for dear life, she tried desperately to get her tongue to wrap itself around the next part of the prayer.
“D… d… drive b-back… the… t-t-the scouuuurge!”
Modan dug her fingernails in even more cruelly, utterly heedless of the pain in Sally’s cheeks. As the mage squealed, she began tonguing her deeply, as if famished and starving for her womanhood. She nibbled on the sheath of her clit, and then lashed it ruthlessly with her tongue to punish it for emerging. She then let her fingers take over there and moved her lips back down, writhing her tongue as deep into the gasping girl as it could go while her other hand kept squeezing and clawing at her swollen cheeks.
Sally’s vision flashed white, and cries of ecstasy came flying out of her like birds taking wing. Gasping and moaning, she writhed in her mistress’s grasp, wriggling her hips and pushing them against her busy mouth, silently begging for more. She tried to continue the prayer, but the feel of Modan’s tongue wriggling around inside of her while she expertly pinched and rolled her clitoris between her thumb and forefinger was too much for her to handle, and all that managed to bubble out of her was a throaty gurgle of, “M-M-M-Mistress!”
Nimble as a seal underwater, Modan flipped around underneath Sally and brought her face up behind her ruby rump. Still seizing and clawing at her cheeks, she roughly pulled them apart and, after lashing her pussy a bit more, began circling her tongue around her tiny, little bottom hole. She kept this up until the mage was trembling like a leaf in the wind, and then brought her lips to it and very slowly started to force her tongue inside, lashing and flicking it against her insides as she penetrated her rear.
Sally’s eyes shot open at that, growing wide as saucers as a crimson flush climbed up her neck all the way to the roots of her muddy blonde hair.
“M-Mistress n-no, you can’t!” she squealed, clenching her bottom reflexively (and uselessly) in Modan’s iron grip.
She didn’t actually mean it of course. Although it was an entirely new experience for her, being taken in her behind felt surprisingly good, but another person’s tongue was the last thing she’d ever thought would be pushed inside of there! The thought of it was so exhilarating and embarrassing, that all she could do was heat up the water around her to boiling with her blush, temporarily losing control of her Cindertouched gifts and her grip on the Power as she panted and moaned in near-overwhelming pleasure.
In response to her futile resistance, Modan suddenly pulled her mouth back, and bit down on the reddest part of Sally’s right sit-spot.
Hard.
Painfully hard.
Sally immediately caught the meaning: “I can do whatever I want. Now keep praying.” and crying out in pain again, even as a fresh ripple of lightning charged up her spine, she threw back her head and began to shout out her exhortations.
“Drive back the scourge! And bring forth the spring!”
Satisfied, Modan went back to tonguing her rosebud deeply and fiercely, finding the back of the girl’s g-spot and lashing it as if her tongue were one of her whipping vines.
Sally screamed again, though this time not in pain, as explosions of ecstasy were set off behind her clenched eyelids and her toes curled tightly around the muddy silt beneath her feet.
“M-m-may your b-blessing… May your blessing s-sh-shine on us all! F-f-for time everlasting! Th-this servant prays, a-amen!”
Modan didn’t stop after Sally finished her prayer, instead going back to her pussy and letting a finger take over the other job in her bum, and then back again a while later. On and on she went, devouring the girl without mercy and drowning her in a tumultuous sea of orgasmic bliss.
—
When she had at last been fully sated, Modan simply floated behind Sally and held her, hugging her gently, but tightly, in a warm embrace, and resting her strong chin on her shoulder.
Sally’s breath was coming in great ragged gasps by the time it was all over, her body wreathed in a fine sheen of sweat as if she were trying to imitate her mistress’s own skin as she let herself be cradled in her strong arms. It took several very long minutes before she was able to regain control of her breathing and once again organize her thoughts into something coherent.
Smiling dreamily as they floated listlessly through the mist, she sighed.
“Mistress…”
“Yes, my dear?”
“That was…” Sally swallowed and wet her lips, groping for the right words, before sighing again and simply saying. “That was, amazing.”
Modan didn’t reply, and instead just floated behind her, holding her until she fully recovered.
Then, finally she said, “It has been a very long time since that ritual was performed here. You did it well, though your words were strange to me.”
She nibbled affectionately at Sally’s earlobe as she spoke, and then kissed her cheek.
“Tell me. Have you ever given pleasure before, sweet mage?”
Giggling at the nibble and smiling at her mistress’s kiss, Sally felt her tongue trip over itself as she admitted shyly, “J-just a little bit with my fingers by myself a couple of times and with some of my fellow sisters back at the monastery…”
She swallowed and blushed again.
“I’m not sure if I can, um… measure up to your level, Mistress…”
“Then I will simply have to teach you, as I said I would,” came Modan’s matter-of-fact reply, as she reached up both hands and began to fondle Sally’s breasts and tease their sensitive nipples. “You will show me what you know, and I will punish you if I deem it inadequate.”
She pinched the girl’s erect nipples then, smiling cruelly at the throaty gasp-moan doing so produced in her.
“Then I will show you how to do it better, and you will try again.”
Modan nibbled the crook of Sally’s neck, savoring the taste of her as her fingers continued to tweak and twist.
“And I will punish you again and again and again until I have been fully pleasured. How does that sound to you, my sweet, little human?”
Chewing on her lower lip, Modan’s words filling her with that delicious sense of dread and anticipation that she seemed capable of producing in her whenever she felt like it, Sally nodded her head and let out another moan.
“Y-yes Mistress, I’ll do my best! Please teach me!”
In response to her earnest plea, vines coiled down from the branches overhead, wrapping themselves around the two of them and hauling them up into the canopy. Hours later, exhausted and ruby-bottomed, Sally drifted off to a peaceful sleep, and Modan returned to the murky depths of her lake.
It had been a very educational day.
