Modan pulled Sally up from the charax burrow for the last time. She’d been saying her final goodbyes to all of the creatures she’d befriended during her stay in the bog, and the old charax had been the last on her list. She knew that outside of a sacred spring like this one, that animals and plants would be less alive, less personable. But what she’d learned would still help her greatly with them.
Modan hugged and kissed her deeply again, for perhaps the thirtieth time in the still young morning. Her hands cupped the mage’s bottom cheeks, which were just as bright red and swollen as they had been pretty much constantly for the past week, and whose most recent beating had happened a mere hour ago. Not for punishment, but simply because Modan had wanted to spank her, and because Sally had wanted to be spanked.
“Your mount is awaiting you at the edge of the path, where you left her. I’ve ensured her safety, as I promised,” said Modan, looking down at Sally, sadly and lovingly, her first true worshipper in the better part of a millennium, and perhaps her most devout of all time.
One of them definitely, at the very least.
“Thank you for everything, Mistress Modan,” replied Sally with a watery smile, rising up onto her tiptoes to give the naiad one last quick kiss and doing her best to imprint the taste of her lips on her memory for forever.
Settling back onto her heels with tears in her eyes, she beamed warmly up at her and added, “I’ll never forget you!”
She couldn’t bring herself to say the actual word “goodbye”. Deep down she hoped to one day visit here again when she’d advanced a little farther in her journey to master the Power. So instead she stepped in and hugged her as hard as she could one final time, breathing in deeply the unique, blended scents of mud, blossoms, and now marsh marigolds starting to bloom in Modan’s hair that were as much a part of her mistress as her powerful hands, before reluctantly letting her go and turning to leave.
Though it had only been a week, it felt to Sally like she’d been with Modan for a lifetime.
But even then, their time together had been far, far too short.
