(Warning, this is a sexy story. It is also a story with sex. In many ways, it is a story about sex. But, many chapters, such as this one, are mostly SFW.)

  CHAPTER FOURWalking to Town

  As Atyr trudged his way along the route he had marked back to the road, he felt a growing sense of relief, of peace, of a return to real life. No green-skinned Kelpies leapt at him trying to murder him or his 'fluids'. No giggling sprite buzzed in his face, teasing him, and forcing his body to respond to the whims of her weird, lust-soaked voice. It was familiar. It was normal. It was the life he had been leading until less than two days ago, when the Oldwood tales of his childhood decided to force their way into his pns in a decidedly not-child-friendly way. After a short while, it all began to seem almost unreal. He might have doubted the whole experience if not for the lingering dampness of his pants, chafing unpleasantly at his legs.

  He hit the road just as the gloom began to settle over the Brookwood. He was grateful for the better light the clear way provided, after the gloomy shadows of the trees. Walking swiftly, he hoped to make the halfway mark before full dark. The small wound on his inner thigh was beginning to ache, protesting the swift travel and the damp friction of the fabric each step brought with it. He worried again that he should have dressed it before leaving. But, it was a small cut, and he had been eager, desperate really, to be away from the clearing, away from the eddy and its murderous inhabitant. Away from Pesky. As the st light melted from the sky, and his thigh began to throb more and more insistently, Atyr started to second guess that decision.

  A ways on into the darkening night, he stopped at a small hollow in a clearing to the side of the road, with a jagged boulder at the bottom of it. He'd camped here a number of times in the past. Settling himself under a shallow overhang of rock on the far side from the road, he set about building a small fire. The warm, midsummer air breathed softly around him, but he still felt chilled, likely from exhaustion and wearing damp clothes all day.

  After a quick meal, he dropped some dry forest detritus and small sticks onto the fire. The fmes fred up brighter. He unced his pants, apprehensively sliding them down to his ankles. He tried to examine the cut on his thigh. It throbbed with heat and pain, but from what the light of the fire would show, he couldn't see anything worrisome. In the flickering glow of the fmes, he thought perhaps it looked a touch redder and more swollen than he would like, but that was probably just the irritation of the long, damp walk. He pulled the pants back up, spread the fire out and smothered it with dirt, then settled back, wrapped in his cloak, and swiftly fell down through consciousness into a nd that was vibrant, erotic, and disturbing.

  ***

  Atyr woke shivering, with no memory of his dreams, but a strange sense that he was somehow still in them. The early morning sun gleamed blindingly across the ground, long shadows and beams of light alternating in a disorienting pattern. He wrapped his cloak tighter, and began to dig in his pack for something to break his overnight fast. He pulled open the pouch of roasted acorns, and an immense distaste for the small, brown pellets filled him. Teeth chattering, he pced one in his mouth and chewed it slowly, the texture unfamiliar to his tongue. He tried to swallow and his stomach tensed in rebellion, warning him not to. He spat it out.

  Through the shivering, and the unpleasant bubbling of nausea in his stomach, he realized his entire thigh pulsed with a painful warmth. Fear flooded his body, and a floating, sinking feeling washed through him. Long moments passed, as he tried to think of reasons he might feel this cold on a warm summer morning, for reasons he might feel sick at the texture of a familiar food between his teeth, for why he might not be able to shake the feeling he wasn't fully awake. No reasons came to him. Fingers trembling, both with fear and with cold, he fumbled with the ces of his pants, and finally managed to pull them down, exposing his thighs.

  The wound was red, swollen, and oozing, streaks of pink running out and up his leg. Vision blurred and he caught himself just on the verge on unconsciousness. Fear was the only thing he now felt, erasing the sensations of cold, of nausea, and of pain. Hands shaking so hard he could barely manage it, he dressed himself again, stuffed what he could find of his possessions in his pack, and staggered back to the road.

  Once back on the packed dirt and headed towards town, his mind began to clear. Fear faded, and was repced with a simple-minded determination: reach the town, and whatever healers there must be there. That single purpose kept him going, trudging, step, after step, after step. They day wore on towards noon, and the blinding sun began to beat upon him. At times, he was sweating and panting under his thick cloak, and at times he shivered so violently that his steps became erratic.

  During the morning, the few people he met coming in the other direction eyed him warily, and walked wide around him. It was custom on the road through the Brookwood to acknowledge other travelers warmly, but not to show undue interest, and certainly never to stop to talk unless absolutely necessary. And, it was entirely proper to completely ignore anyone who did stop and try to engage in conversation, and to walk right past them.

  Generally, the road was safe, but part of what kept it safe was this strong culture of enforced disinterest. Out of desperate necessity, a traveler might break this rule to beg assistance, but it was considered polite for anyone asking for help to wait a distance back from the road, and call out for aid without approaching. Therefore, the only people who might stop as they met you on the road were those with a reason to break these rules, and that reason was often nefarious. If anyone ever did stop, it was generally a good idea to start running.

  So, while he heard some mutters and warnings among them, it wasn't surprising that, looking as ragged as he must have, no one said a word to him.

  A little after midday he had to stop. He gave in finally to exhaustion, and set himself down in the dust at the edge of the track. Another group of figures passed him, but he saw only their feet, thumping into the packed earth like a nightmarish drum.

  After a while, he stood, and fell immediately back to his knees. He shivered violently, and sweat dripped from his soaked hair onto the dust of the road. He stood again, more slowly, and stumbled around in a circle on his feet. He took a step forward. Another. Another.

  Time passed, figures passed, and Atyr continued his way down the Road. He shook with cold, he dripped with sweat, and pain growled from his leg and through his body like a starving animal. The sun filled his eyes with glowing halos and shining auras, and he fell on his bloodied knees for the hundredth time.

  He crawled to the grass beside the road and kept crawling, away from the dust, away from the exhaustion of it all, away from hope. He crawled towards peace and fell into darkness.

  As he fell, he saw a swirling eddy of water, and a green face, and he saw that face pressed against his crotch, swallowing him, draining him. Everything was sucked out of him, and he was pulled down into that whirling water, down, spinning, falling, down, down, dying, around, around, and all throughout a small, flute-like voice twinkled at the edge of perception, just beyond comprehension.

  It was teasing him, he thought, Laughing at him, ughing, mocking him gently as he fell into what he knew was death. He struggled to understand the words, to make sense of it all, to know what he would hear as he left this life behind him. As nothingness took him, he strained for one st moment, needing to know, in his final moments before darkness eversting, and the words flickered into his mind as the world disappeared.

  “You dummy.”

  Thanks so much for reading this Chapter! Chapter 5 should be up immediately.