Chapter 10

Othar plunged into the depths of the ocean with an elf trying to kill him. His teeth clenched, and his wings beat, and his tail lashed, and he tried to think of anything but the sheer indignity of the moment – to be plucked from humanity and given flight, only to be brought down by a millstone of an elf. What kind of creature wore full plate armor to a ship battle anyway? He struggled against her grasping arms, and only managed to dislodge her helmet, which sank to the left of them as the bright sunlight overhead fell away and they dropped deeper and deeper into the sea.

Beneath the helm, the elf was shockingly pretty – fine boned, blue skinned, with long flowing blue-white hair. But it was her neck, visible just barely around the narrow gorget of her armor, that roused within the former prince a true ire.

Gills.

She had gills.

Bubbles frothed around Othar as they dropped deeper still – and something dark rushed past him as the light faded from his eyes. His expanded lung capacity kept him from drowning immediately, but keeping his teeth clenched shut and his lips sealed was growing increasingly difficult as his body screamed for air. Then-

Jarring impact.

His mouth opened and water rushed into his throat before he closed his mouth with a snap, his lungs shrieking. The impact made his spine ache, and it surrounded him with gritty dust. Better, it knocked the elf from his body. His brain, panicking, looked for something, anything that might be his rescue. He thought to kick upwards towards the surface of the sea – but the light up there was so very dim and distant.

And there, in that panicking moment before his final doom, he saw the impossible.

The sea overhead was bisected by a line of deeper darkness. And within that darkness was a rectangle of light, bright and shimmering, like a portal to the noonday sun. He kicked towards it, pumping arms and legs and wings all at once.

His head broke surface and into musty, dusty air – and he grabbed onto the edge of a platform of cold, damp stone. He hauled himself up and a deluge of water came pouring from his throat as he hacked and coughed, wheezing – and then gasping, gasping, gasping desperately for air. His wings flared wide and he shook his head, blinking water from his eyes.

He knelt at the edge of an impossible pool, in a ruin of completely unknown make – deep beneath the sea. His eyes boggled at the elegant stone carving, all straight lines and geometric, at the shimmering crystal that provided illumination even in the depths of the sea, and thought wildly that every scholarly text he had read about the ocean depths had been staggeringly incorrect. The ocean was not bottomless in the slightest. There was only one door from the chamber, and it was flanked by a pair of statues. Hooved creatures unlike any he had ever seen, with horned helmets and heavy mauls, stood as if prepared to guard the door with their very lives.

He prayed they were stone as he reached for any weapon he might have carried with him – but in the long plunge, it seemed he had lost each.

The water behind him burst with a frothing spray and the sea elf that had dragged him down her hauled herself up, her eyes blazing with fury.

“Damnation!” Othar growled.

“You destroyed my ship, you twisted mockery of a dragon!” she snarled, her gill slits fluttering with agitation. She crawled up onto the platform that rounded the impossible pool and drew from an ankle sheath a small roundel – the kind of dagger one might used to plunge deep into the armored vitals of a knight. She tossed it from hand to hand, her eyes fierce as he hunched low, his own fingers clenching as he felt the L’ara blessed claws that his transformation had granted him burst from his fingertips, glittering like obsidian.

“You elves attacked us first,” Othar said – before he caught himself. When had it become us? A part of him still felt a deep indignation at what the orcs had done to his kingdom, to him, to his fiancee – if he could even think of her as his fiancee, considering her preferred passtime was now to make love to orcs and glance at him not at all. And yet, they had given him the very wings that he now prized more than his manhood.

“I’m sure they claim that, even as your brutes rape their way across the snow elves lands!” The sea elf darted forward, her armor plating shedding water like rain droplets. It was only now that Othar really recognized just how strange her armor was – the plate over her chest was formed to the curves of her body, and her entire belly was exposed, as if she was taunting the whole world with her abdomen. He tensed, ready to strike – only for the adrenaline hazed state of his brain to betray him. For it was only as he put weight upon his leg that the memory of the arrow that had wounded him flashed to the fore in a blast of agony. He fell to one knee with a growl – then caught the wrist driving the roundel at his eye. The elf was shockingly strong, skidding him backwards along the smooth stone floor. He shoved her arm up and away – then slashed at her belly.

His claws struck air, as if it was solid!

“Hah!” She drove her knee at his snout and only by beating his wings once did Othar spring backwards in time to avoid the armored greaves of her leg. He managed to keep most of his weight on his other leg as she sprang at him, but the two fell backwards as the weight of her body bore him down. The knife slammed home, and Othar cried out in pain as it pinned his wing to the stone floor, blood welling. The elf grabbed at his wrists, then shoved them above his head and snarled what he took as an oath – until her gauntlets locked and then slammed down even as her fingers drew backwards.

Her hands were now bared, and her gauntlets held him in place, as if they had been melted to the floor. He writhed, squirmed, and she panted, glowering down at him.

“All right, beast,” she said. “I am Athelen Cthonic, and you can yield ... or die.”

Othar, his teeth clenched, glared up at her.

“I yield,” he growled.

Athelen sagged back. Her voice was still dangerous. “I saw the speech that Lord Sidroc gave to the council on the magic crystal...” She said, her hands sliding along his chest, her eyes glittering and flinty. “I heard what happened to Lord Icewild’s wife – how she was raped for days by you brutes.” Her hands grabbed onto the edge of her breast plate. Her eyes were blazing with a wild passion as Othar realized that she was almost frothing with this passion – this rage and hate ... and lust. Her hands yanked the armor above her head, and the pauldrons and screws came free with a soft hum of almost subliminal magic, the same working that had fused her gauntlets into manacles for him, allowing her full, blue breasts to bounce free. She snarled. “It is time for revenge.”

“Y-You wouldn’t dare!” Othar growled up at him.

“Silence, beast!” She shoved her armored skirt down around her hips and swung herself forward in a single fluid motion. Her bare knees pressed to either side of her head and her hairless blue elf-pussy hung above his snout. The scent of her arousal struck his nose and the mixture of his indignity, pain, and the delicious view of her cunt all swam into his brain. He had his pride, though. He turned his head aside, trying to resist – but Athelen grabbed onto the horns that he now sported, yanking his snout around and then pressing her cunt to him. The taste of a sea elf’s pussy was like that of the sea – salty, yes, but also the taste of longing for voyaging, the flavor of returning home and sinking deep.

Damn! He thought, while she pushed down harder, forcing his mouth wider – and his tongue started to press to her folds before he could even stop it. Her cool fingers slid along his belly as she snarled softly. “Yes ... show me what all it is you are good for – eating elf cunt.” She panted. “For the crimes your people have done, we shall unleash our fury a thousand fold! Every orc shall be bearing an elf bastard by the end of this war!”

Her eyes blazed and she threw her head back, gasping as his tongue pushed into her cunt, writhing up and up and up into her – and pressing against her center of pleasure with a little wriggle. The tip of his tongue wrung from her not merely a moan, but a deluge of eager sea-elf pleasure, almost drowning him as her back arched and she grabbed onto one of her tits with her right hand, her other hand sliding further down.

Her fingers teased the hardening, jutting length of his shaft.

“Yesss!” she moaned, softly.

Othar strained, hard, against the manacles.

Her fingers closed around his shaft.

Then-

There was a loud grunt and suddenly, the weight bearing his head down, the pressure of her folds, all was released. Othar blinked as Athelen fell aside, sprawling onto the ground beside him. Standing above him, heavy crossbow clutched in his hands, was the oddest goblin that Othar had ever seen – clad in black clothing that seemed to mold to his body like a second skin, his ears were tucked uncomfortably into a head covering coif that seemed to cling as tightly as the rest of his ensemble, while two large metal cans were attached to his back, with an alarming array of tubes and pipes connecting to an armored mask that he had slung up over his brows, to free his face.