Debt Comes Due [M/FF] [Fantasy] [Peril]

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Seventh Crow
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Debt Comes Due [M/FF] [Fantasy] [Peril]

Post by Seventh Crow »

Hello all! I've been away for a while, but I've recently found time to write again. As some of you know, I write short fantasy stories in my free time, and often sneak a little bondage into them where I can. This piece is more damsel-in-distress centric and there's nothing overtly sexual but I think it still belongs in the Adult section due to some strong language and peril. If I'm wrong, just let me know, and as always I welcome comments, suggestions, and critiques. Thanks!

At least the tips were good.

The crowd was thin, the acoustics of the taproom distorted her set, and she was thoroughly drenched after walking home in the rain, but Aria had made almost half the month's rent in tips tonight thanks to a particularly gullible city elf. His coins, now securely in her belt pouch, jingled quietly as the slender elf strode down the hall toward the inn room she and her younger sister currently called home.

She paused at the door and ran her fingers through her silky black hair. Rainwater spattered on the floor behind her and trickled down her pale neck to seep into the collar of her black shirt. Her denim leggings, socks, and shoes had fared better, but were still soaked beyond the point of being comfortable. Aria heaved an exasperated sigh, took the brass key at her pocket, and slid it into the lock.

“Melody!” she called as she stepped inside. “Guess who made bank tonight!”

The response was a muffled scream. Melody was seated in a chair a few paces away from the door, her arms pulled behind her and tied at the wrists with nylon rope. Her chest was similarly bound, with ropes running across the front of her white tank to hold her against the chair back. Lower, more rope was tied around her knees just below the hem of her cotton shorts, and her bare feet were bound to each chair leg at the ankle. A hand towel that had been folded over her lips and tied behind her head to gag her, knotted tightly behind her long, red hair.

“Mmph!” she squealed desperately, her brown eyes wide with terror.

A jolt of adrenaline sent Aria bolting forward, her fingers already wrapped around the hilt of the dagger at the small of her back. Before the blade had even left its sheath, a calloused hand wrapped around her forearm. Another clamped over her black-painted lips, yanking her head back into the thick chest of some hidden assailant. She swore, and squirmed in the stranger’s grip, but her captor’s brawn easily rendered her helpless.

“Well well, look who’s home,” a deep rumble of a voice hissed in her pointed ear. Aria immediately ceased her struggling as dread gripped her heart. She knew this man. Knew his hands. Knew the voice that chilled her blood and turned her breath into a ragged gasp.

Ralo Mercanta. A bruiser-for-hire with his fingers in every back-alley business in Bastion.

Shit.

His fingers squeezed around her wrist, loosening her grip on the dagger. Aria scowled and grunted into his hand as the weapon slipped from her hand and hit the floor with a clang.

“That's better,” Ralo said. Aria could hear the grin in his tone.

He forced her forward, hand still pressed over her mouth and head still held against his chest. Aria pressed her heels into the floorboards with all the strength she could muster, but Ralo outmuscled her but easily a hundred pounds. Against her will, she staggered forward.

“Nrrm!” Melody squealed, tossing her head and straining against the ropes that tied her to the chair back. “Grrnm mmrph rrm!”

“Cute girl,” Ralo chuckled. “She's still a kid in elf years, ain't she?”

Aria remained silent.

The massive thug walked her past her helpless sister and into the room proper. The storage chest and wardrobe had been looted, leaving clothes strewn about the floor and beds. What little jewelry they kept and coin they had saved were no doubt in Ralo's pockets. Aria mentally thanked the Spring Maiden that she had stored her guitar at the venue.

But her optimism vanished instantly, replaced by a stab of panic and realization. Sitting at the foot of her bed was a pile of ropes and ratty dishrags, a barrel of lamp oil, and a book of matches.

Aria thrashed wildly in Ralo's grip, screaming as sharply as she could, but his meaty fingers reduced her cries to muffled moans and kept her snugly held against his torso. She heard him laugh again, amused by her fear and feeble attempts to wriggle away. Distress swirled into rage and she continued her futile assault, clawing and biting and kicking as much as she was able.

With a swift twist, Ralo swept Aria's legs aside and knocked her onto the floor. By the door, Melody let out another smothered scream.

“You knew this was comin',” he said. “You made a deal, and you ain't paid up.”

“I can get it,” Aria sputtered, winded from the throw. “I have almost four hundred on me, tell...tell Melrik I can get it.”

“Too late for that,” Ralo said as he knelt to pick up the ropes. “You're bad for business, girl. So boss says you gotta go.”

Aria gritted her teeth and rolled onto her side to get a look at the man. Ralo was built like a dwarf, strong and sturdy, and nearly reached the ceiling at his full height. His sleeveless leather vest was left open in the front, exposing his chest, and a tapestry of scars collected over a long and violent career marred his body. The most prominent ran from just above his left eye up his brow and across his shaved head, all the way to his right ear.

Ralo stood, the studded cudgel at his belt swaying as he did, and approached Aria. “Shouldn't have dragged the girl into this. That's on you.”

“Fuck you,” Aria snapped.

Ralo stepped over her and knelt down again, straddling the elf between his knees and pinning her to the floor. He effortlessly seized her arms, pulled them behind her back, and pressed her wrists together.

“I'm not bullshitting about the four hundred,” Aria said, squeezing one eye shut in discomfort. She took a steady breath and focused on her words, weaving the arcane influence of her Gift into her speech. “Take the money and forget you found us.”

“Charms might get you gold and free drinks, but they ain't gonna get you out of this,” Ralo grumbled. He wrapped the nylon rope around Aria's wrists before crossing the ends over and weaving them between her hands.

“What's he paying you?” Aria asked. With a grunt, she gave a tentative squirm to test Ralo's grip. “Five hundred? Six?”

She winced as Ralo pulled the knot tight to finish tying her hands. “You're reading this all wrong, Aria,” he said. “I ain't gonna roll over on the Delarians for your pocket change.”

Aria immediately attempted to pull her wrists loose, but Ralo knew his ropework. Her hands remained tightly tied.

“At least let Melody go,” she insisted. “She's not part of the deal. She doesn't owe him anything.”

Ralo turned and took hold of her ankles. Aria pressed her shoulder into the floor and turned her hips, hoping to topple the hulking brute, but succeeded in nothing more than writhing beneath him. Meanwhile, Ralo wrapped a length of rope around her ankles, over her leggings, and again wove the end between them to further secure her feet. Another sharp tug completed the work, leaving Aria to lay in her bondage.

“We're way past negotiating,” he countered. There was a hint of exasperation in his voice that Aria would have appreciated if she weren't now completely bound and almost entirely at the man's mercy.

When he finally climbed off of her, she renewed her struggles in earnest. She twisted her wrists first, trying to slowly loosen the knot tucked between them. She curled her fingers and tried to slip an ebon-hued nail beneath the rope, but failed to find purchase. She muttered a curse under her breath and focused on freeing her feet instead, shifting her ankles up and down to work the knot loose.

Aria yelped in surprise as Ralo grabbed her shoulder and flipped her onto her back. She began to fire off an insult only to unwittingly welcome a threadbare dishrag into her mouth. The wad of fabric unfolded to suppress her tongue and stifle her words, and Ralo immediately jammed in another to pack her cheeks and render her completely silent.

“Rrphrm!” Aria hissed, already trying to work the foul-tasting rags out of her mouth. Ralo held them in with two fat fingers as he picked up a third, longer than the others, and pressed it between her lips. Then he took the ends, leaned forward to pull them behind her head, and tied them off to finish gagging her.

“Ahn frrn...graahn...” Aria mumbled before biting down on the rag and glaring furiously at her captor.

He paid her no mind. Instead, he checked her pockets to find them empty, then removed her belt. The coin pouch slid free, landing neatly in Ralo's huge palm.
“Rsshll,” Aria growled.

Her shoes went next, and she took some satisfaction in depriving him of further loot by not keeping an extra stash of coin or a weapon in her boot, as some did. Plus, in just her socks, she had a better chance of slipping her heel past the ropes tying her feet.

Finally, the thug leaned against the foot of the bed and exhaled. “It's about that time, then. Shit way to go, but you know that's the business. Gotta look like an accident. A candle left burnin' or somethin'.”

Aria inhaled deeply to calm her racing heart. She heard Ralo's heavy footfalls as he stood and retrieved the barrel of oil, followed by the plunk of him removing the stopper in its lid. The sobering splash and pungent smell came next. She shut her eyes tightly and turned away from him to keep it from overwhelming her senses.

A few good shakes of the barrel left the bound woman soaked enough for the work. Ralo doused the floorboards in oil as well as he made his way to Melody, still bound and gagged just like her sister. The redhead squirmed hopelessly as Ralo drenched her in oil and set the barrel beside her chair.

“Right then, ladies,” he said, smirking and reaching into his vest pocket for a match. “It's been fun.”

With a deft strike, the match caught fire. Then, with a flick of Ralo's fingers, so did the room.

Melody shrieked into her gag and threw herself backward, away from the now-blazing doorway. The chair to which she was bound rocked back on its hind legs and fell.

“Urph!” she grunted as she hit the floor. She turned her head and looked to her sister, still laying at the foot of the bed. “Grrphn rrm!”

Aria sank her teeth into the rags that stuffed her mouth and redoubled her efforts. She strained against the ropes tying her wrists, hoping use the oil to slip loose. From the corner of her eye, she saw the flames race across the floor to the barrel, filling the room with a ominous orange glow and sweltering heat.

Melody turned her attention to her bare feet. The young elf clenched her teeth, squeezed her eyes shut, and extended her legs as much as she could to slide the ropes down and off the legs of the chair. She gasped as one foot came loose, followed closely by the other.

“Mm frrph!” she called to Aria.

Her victory was short lived as the roaring fire consumed the barrel entirely and its bands fell away, spilling burning wood and leftover oil across the floor. Melody let out a cry of terror and frantically kicked away from the growing blaze, scooting across the floor to her sister.

Aria's pale skin was already growing slick with sweat, and the loop around her wrist was slipping away with each passing second. She rolled onto her side and arched her back, causing her cleave gag to dig into the corners of her mouth but giving her just a little more leverage to escape her bonds. The effort cause her to cough harshly as black smoke filtered into her lungs.

Suddenly, Melody cried out. Aria turned her head to see that the legs of her sister's chair had caught fire. Melody spun and coughed, sucking in big, panicked gulps of smoke as the flames raced toward her bare skin.

In desperation, Aria gave one final, violent wretch of her shoulder.

Her wrist came free.

She grabbed the gag in her mouth, yanked it down, and spat the rags onto the floor.

“Ghiaccio!” she shouted, flinging a hand toward the burning chair.

A blast of frigid wind burst forth from her palm, extinguishing the flames that threatened to consume her sister. Aria grabbed the chair back and pulled, dragging herself and Melody toward the window at their back. She turned, taking aim at the glass, and expelled another freezing blast that shattered the pane.

“Hold your breath,” she coughed. She set her hands on the windowsill and stood, balancing carefully on her bound feet.

Melody nodded and mumbled incoherently into the towel around her mouth.

Aria hugged her sister to her chest, chair and all, and pushed herself up onto the windowsill. She closed her eyes, leaned back, and silently begged the Maiden for just a little good luck tonight.

She got it. The sisters tumbled out the window and into the shrubs that adorned the inn's entrance. Aria felt a couple of wayward twigs stab into her side, but she had landed on her back to shield Melody from the debris. And finally, she inhaled a lungful of fresh, clean air.

“Mrrrrrrrph!” Melody whined. Eyes still closed, Aria reached down and pulled down her gag.

“Aria!” the younger elf sobbed. “I thought we were gonna die, he came right after you left for the show, I thought he was gonna kill me...”

“Nope, you're good,” Aria managed as the ache from the fall and piercing sticks settled in. “You're good, I've got you.”

“Untie me! Please?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I've got you.”

Aria quickly loosed the ropes around her own feet, then carried Melody out of the shrubs and untied her hands and chest.

“Ugh!” Melody scoffed, throwing the ropes aside. She wrapped her arms around herself and fell onto her knees. “Our home, our things, we...what do we do now?”

“We leave,” Aria said quickly. She glanced over her shoulder at the crowd of onlookers assembling to watch the inferno. “Ralo could still be out here. He has to think we're dead.”

“Where will we go?” Melody sniffled.

“I don't know. I mean, I don't know yet.”

Melody nodded. But she didn't speak further.

“Hey! Move aside!” Aria turned to see a woman in chain mail elbowing through the crowd. A tabard bearing a golden crown encircled by a phalanx of tower shields, the city crest, was draped over her armor.

Aria took Melody's hand and tugged her up. “Gotta go. Guards coming.”

Again, Melody nodded silently.

Aria exhaled. “I'll make it up to you. I promise.”

“Okay.”

They fled. Aria led Melody through the darkened city streets, away from the blazing inn, the inquisitive guards, and the ashes of their short-lived new life.
FabianStr2016
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Post by FabianStr2016 »

Very cool story! Please continue and maybe add a little bit more... adult content ;)
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Post by Caesar73 »

I agree! Very cool indeed - or more very hot :) Literally :)
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Solarbeast
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Post by Solarbeast »

This was a very interesting idea and a great story.
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Seventh Crow
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Post by Seventh Crow »

Oh wow, thank you everyone!
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Dpsiic
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Post by Dpsiic »

Good story, I hope Aria and Melody are going to have further adventures
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