DarkFyre
Chapter Three

Master Edwin IronWing’s study smelled of oak and wood polish, and leather and old vellum. It was a spacious, open room. A huge window took up the north facing wall, staring out over the planting fields to the north. In the distance the DrakeSpine Mountains set a breathtaking backdrop, with the crags stretching higher and higher, huge and ancient and enduring.
Sitting at the foot of the window was a large lacquered desk of solid oak. The surface was cleaned and lovingly polished until it gleamed. The desk was neat and organized, the stoppered ink wells and quill pens laid out carefully beside a sheaf of thick papers waiting for use. 
At least, that’s how Silmaria remembered it. The servant girl ran her fingertips slowly along the smooth grain of the desk, leaving trails in the layer of dust covering the desk. Her bright green eyes scanned the familiar room with a sad look. The walls of the room were lined with tall shelves holding a wealth of books, volumes, and scrolls. Thick, weighty leather bound tomes with yellowing aged pages leaned against small slender books held together by leather thongs. Scrolls were rolled and piled in reed baskets. The shelves which were usually meticulously organized, the books dusted and cleaned, were now in disarray. Volumes were put into the wrong places, and a layer of dust covered everything.
Silmaria sank into the chair before the desk with a frustrated groan. The Gnari girl missed Master Edwin. He had loved this chair. The chair was a sturdily crafted cherry wood with intricately carved figures of animals both mystical and mundane roaming all over the smooth surface. The seat was a rich blue satin stuffed with feather down. 
During her youth, Silmaria was often assigned to the care of the study, tending to the dusting and cleaning and organizing of the book cases and tomes. Master Edwin would sit at his desk, penning his letters and reading over his maps. She would fetch him books and fresh writing paper when he translated an old text into the common tongue. He would smile at her youthful chatter and jokes, and tell her stories of his soldiering days and the foolish Nobles at Court.
  He had been a kind, warm hearted man under his gruff and matter-of-fact exterior. A soldier for most the years of his life, Lord IronWing was not the type to live out his early retirement quietly. The Nobleman was healthy and strong even as he entered the latter part of his forties, and seemed to have the youth and vigor of a man several years his junior. As such, he enjoyed frequent outings to hunt and ride, as well as an interest in falconry and animal husbandry. It was quietly wondered by all in his house why, being vibrant and capable as he was, Master Edwin had not only retired from active military action, but had given up any position of command or advisement from behind the scenes of the war effort. Master Edwin seemed content, in any case, to enjoy pursuing his interests away from the grimness of the war or the power games of the court.
In addition to hunting and riding, Master Edwin had a peculiar interest in scholarly pursuits. Ancient history, weapons, military texts, writings on foreign lands and cultures, and foreign languages were some of the many subjects he pursued. He was also especially fond of tales of rare, mythical, strange, or dangerous beasts and far away unsettled lands.
Sitting here in this room now, alone, Silmaria was filled with mixed feelings. She was angry and sad all at once as she glanced around the room; the dust and disarray, the way the tomes and books were disorganized and out of place on the shelves, even the smudges on the great window looking over the fields and mountains. All of it upset her. Yet, at the same time, this room never failed to comfort her, even if it was a tainted comfort. There were too many memories here, too many good times. Memories of Master Edwin were strong here. He loved this place so much, and she couldn’t look around the room without seeing him here. Even the smells in the room were his smells. 
It was a bitter sweet thing, and gave her a bittersweet smile.
Truly, the Nobleman had been a cornerstone in the young Gnari’s life during her adolescent years. That had been a hard time for her; on top of the usual struggles and hardships any girl goes through as she grows into womanhood, Silmaria had to contend with being a Gnari serving girl surrounded by Humans who didn't like her, with none of her own kind to help explain what she was going through. 
Master Edwin had been a kind, patient, strong presence who gave her guidance and direction when she was lost and confused. He'd even gone so far as gathering writings and scripts about her people, their customs, and their ways to help her understand herself better. Like most girls, Silmaria had craved kindness and attention, and the approval of someone who cared about her. More and more, Master Edwin had become that someone, and she grew to love the older Human for his quiet steadiness.
Then Silmaria entered adolescence, and her body blossomed, and strange, uncomfortable changes began to overtake her.
Even in the writings detailing Gnari lore and culture, information on the strange changes Silmaria experienced were scant. There was no word or proper term for it in the writings; the texts simply referred to it as ‘the Stirring’. Much like her bleeding, it was a span of days, sometimes weeks, tied to the Moon’s cycle. During this time, Gnari women experienced an acute, overwhelming increase in sexual arousal, sensitivity, and drive. It was tied to her race’s difficulty breeding and was a biological trait that encouraged females to mate frequently and successfully. 
A simple concept when read from a book. To Silmaria, living it, the writings didn’t even scrape the surface. The need for sex was a torment, a curse. The Stirring was maddening, a fire in her blood and her mind and her loins that was impossible to ignore and never remained sated long. The arousal was at times so intense that it was painful. Having a healthy sexual appetite to begin with, she lost near all ability to reason and restrain herself when the Stirring came on.
Coping with the trials of aging and puberty, the confusing and volatile shift of her emotions, and the feelings of being an outcast were bad enough. Adding to the mix the endless yearnings of her flesh, worse and worse every time the Stirring came on, made adolescence a long and miserable period for Silmaria. Her resolve to control herself, to quell her desires and keep herself restrained was a battle she waged for as long as she could. 
Yet eventually, her nature won out.
 Which found Silmaria one night in her fifteenth year, sitting in Master Edwin’s study, a dusting rag clutched in her hands as she cried and shook while her Lord watched with a note of confusion and concern on his face. She had served the man for years by then and trusted him deeply. She looked to the kind old warrior for guidance. He had always done well by her, giving her kindness and attention and patient direction when she felt most lost and alone. And so, filled with shame and self-loathing, she sobbingly confessed to him that she simply hadn’t been able to withstand the tormenting hungers of the flesh wracking her young body any longer. 
She told him, with an odd mix of embarrassment, shame, and a flutter of remembered arousal how she’d caught the eye of a workman who had accompanied a visiting merchant on a delivery to IronWing Manor. The man was in his late twenties, an average sort who fit the role of a hired hand well, with shaggy brown hair, work worn clothes and a plain face. He had big hands that were as worn as his clothes. 
Silmaria hadn’t been particularly attracted to him, but it was obvious he’d felt otherwise. She’d been outside, taking a rare break from her duties at the study, to help with some gardening in the front of the house, pulling weeds and replacing a few shrubs that had died the winter before. His eyes were on her almost the entire time, running over her young, lithe body. She could practically feel his eyes memorizing every budding curve and developing swell, the way her hips had begun to gently round. She hadn’t reached the full, lush shape of her womanhood, but even then as she blossomed and took shape, she was a sight to behold, her pelt smooth and glossy and like velvet to touch, and her young breasts firm and full and hinting at the promise of round weightiness to come. 
The Gnari girl noticed him, noticing her, and where she should have been frightened and uncertain, she instead saw opportunity. The young man was a wanderer, a workman who followed whatever odd job happened to be about. He knew nothing of her, just that she was young, exotic, and beautiful and he wanted her. It was a dangerous, risky situation, but she would probably never see him again and he wouldn’t be around to speak with anyone she knew afterward. It would be simple. 
That was all it took.
She made herself bold, whispered some promising words and directions to the workman, and Silmaria slipped out that very night to meet the man in a small grove of elm trees on a hill overlooking a meadow almost a mile east of her home. The moon was out, not quite full but fast approaching, glowing huge and heavy in the star streaked sky overhead. To Silmaria’s sensitive feline eyes, the night was almost as bright as the day, bathed in a glossy film of moonlight. The air was brisk but not too cold as it was spring, and the long grass in the meadow below filled the air with a rhythmic sort of rustling as the wind blew through.
It was a beautiful night. It should have been very romantic, the perfect night for a midnight tryst. It should have been a night to remember wistfully, all fuzzy edged and poignant like girls said when they boldly whispered tales of their first time.
The truth was far from it. The truth was uncomfortable and hard, her slender young body face down in the grass and the dirt. A thick root from the tree they huddled under dug into her flat belly. Her ass, small and firm and round was raised up high and her tail was lashing about in a panic where the man had yanked it aside, and he was on top of her and his fingernails scratched her through her pelt where his fingers dug into her hips. He was plunging into her deeply, rough and violent and uncaring, using her fresh young flesh for his own selfish pleasure. 
And Silmaria was beyond caring. It hurt, it was humiliating and shameful and he was a bastard, and somehow none of that could stop her arousal from swelling. Even as she cried softly into the soft earth, she thrust her budding hips back into him, making that deliciously hard, thick cock filling her so well drive all the deeper into her hungry cunt. The sticky flow of her pussy was beyond control now, glistening on her engorged young labia and dripping down thighs that shook violently with the efforts of their rutting.
For rutting it was. Desperate, carnal, loveless rutting, fucking that ground dirt into her knees and made her graceful young flanks heave and her pelt itch with sweat. 
And she fucking loved it.
That was the part that shamed Silmaria most of all. It was painful and embarrassing, the man had been crass and uncaring almost to the point of brutality, and her body hadn’t cared one bit. She had relished every moment of the simple, carnal thrill of the fuck. 
Yet afterward, she struggled with an overwhelming mix of shame, guilt, and aroused satisfaction. She felt dirty and used, and wicked beyond measure for how much she had reveled in the carnal, base fulfillment of her desires.
She told it all to Master Edwin, every torrid bit, because she could never seem to lie to him no matter how she tried, and the one time she’d tried to be secretive and deceitful and clever, it had come to this.
Master Edwin was not a man to raise his voice or shout or say cruel words. It was not his way. His reaction was, instead, a closing of his face, a hard set to his jaw and a narrowing, focused look to his eyes. Silmaria rarely saw his expression change so, but she’d served the Nobleman long enough to recognize it. 
That just made Silmaria weep all the harder, for she could never stand to see disapproval in the eyes of the Master she’d loved so. It had been Master Edwin’s words that held her desires in check for so long. He had warned her time and again how dangerous, in more ways than one, giving herself carelessly to men could be. How many ways she could end up getting hurt. He had always tried his best to be sensitive to her unusual condition, but his protectiveness never yielded in that regard.
For her part, Silmaria wasn’t stupid. She recognized the dangers. She was inexperienced, but not entirely naïve, and knew the ways a man would try to take advantage of a young, beautiful girl.
Exactly the ways one just had.
The Gnari had tried her very best to endure and not give in to the demands of her needy body, but in the end, it was simply too much. Disappointing Master Edwin had been nearly as unbearable as her body’s needs itself. It was a high price to pay, especially for a temporary relief to an apparently chronic problem.
And so there she was, crumpled at his feet in a sobbing mess. Her ears drooped atop her head as fat tears ran down her cheeks. Long moments passed, with Master Edwin watching her. The silence was as punishing as any rebuke. At last, her Master asked if she were going to repeat her explorations. Even then, miserable and ashamed, she knew. The Stirring would come over her again, and again, and again. She could resist it, for a time…but not forever. Likely, not even for long. She wilted under his stern gaze and, hiccupping, nodded meekly. 
Master Edwin took her to his bed that very night. Once his mind was made, the older Nobleman’s resolve was strong and his hand steady. 
Oh, it had been perfect. Even now it was vivid enough in Silmaria’s mind to bring a shiver at the memory. His smell, his touch, the weight of him, the knowing in his eyes. Even at the end of his forties, Master Edwin had been strong and fit, with a young man’s vigor and virility. 
As with everything else, he was gentle and patient. He showed her the tenderness and care that had been lacking in her first experience. His touch was slow and gradual, finding places in her that made her body ache so sweetly, that made her tremble as her core heated and grew slick and slippery for both their pleasure. She writhed for him, her body welcoming his with ease and responding with an urgency that nearly alarmed her. 
He made love to her, and then he fucked her. Master Edwin took her, not unkindly, but took her he did. His hands were firm and knowing as he drove his cock deep into her welcoming cunt. He was insistent, confident, and while he was not cruel, he was aggressive and took her as he pleased. Silmaria greedily accepted all he had to give. She relished every bit of it, drank in his attention and affection and lust and the way his thick length filled her clutching pussy over and over. She returned every bit in kind, her slim hips bucking desperately up to meet his every thrust. 
When he took her to bed a second time, and then another, she went more than gladly.
They had been quiet about it; it was not unusual for Lords to carry on trysts with servants, but it was not spoken of openly. Silmaria had no doubt that others noticed, but no one said anything on the matter and at the time she was too happy and fulfilled to care. 
Through it all Master Edwin changed little about the way he treated her; she had always been one of his favorites and this was well known throughout the house, if not overmuch appreciated. He continued to be kind, continued to patiently guide her, and continued to hold her accountable for her duties and responsibilities as a servant in his house. 
She didn’t mind; Silmaria had always enjoyed serving Master Edwin, and though she grew to love him more and more strongly, that never changed. The Gnari girl had adored the Nobleman as a Master and Lord, and now she adored him as a Man. She found herself wanting his direction, his guidance and his strength more than ever. And spending the nights no longer alone, no longer suffering when the Stirrings came on, serving her Master’s flesh with her own…there was nothing better in all the world to her.
So it continued, until Master Edwin grew sick.
Silmaria sniffled, and angrily dashed the budding tears from her eyes. “Stop it,” she muttered to herself softly, “He’s gone. He’s gone and been gone almost a year, and you’re stronger than this. He made you stronger than this.”
Yet strong as she was, grief still found her at times. Though her heart tried hard to hold the man’s memory in fondness and happiness, the wound of his loss was simply too deep and personal for her to ignore. She was healing, true; healing in the fashion of a wound slowly scarring over, hard and twisted and ugly. 
She hated it. Hated this world that left her without him.
Even worse, she hated herself. For despite the keenness of the loss, her body would not cease tormenting her. The Stirring continued on, as undeniable and impossible to ignore as ever. She’d resisted for awhile, but it wasn’t to last. She gave up fighting her nature some months ago. Her proclivity for seeking out different men to sate her needs was less than secret now and though she had come to terms with it and accepted it, neither was she entirely proud of it.
With a deep breath, Silmaria rose to her feet. She swallowed her grief and instead steeled herself with outrage as she looked once more around the room. The dust, the clutter, the disorganization. She’d never seen the study in such a state, not once in her young life serving in this house. It was disgraceful, and it left her seething.
Weeks, almost a month perhaps had gone by since she had been assigned to the study; where once she had spent almost every day tending her Master’s favorite room, now she found herself instead given duties all over the house. She helped Cook in the kitchens, scrubbed dirty linens and clothes with the laundry women, stored away supplies in the larder, restocked the candles in the wall sconces, scrubbed and brushed the soot from the many hearths in the Manor, carried out and emptied the chamber pots for the entire House, and washed, scrubbed, and brushed the grime and dirt from every floor and wall and surface in the place. All the chores were half done and lacking when she came to them. Mostly because she was one of so few servants attending them. Near half the House servants had been cast out by Steward Jonor. The man judged them all useless and unneeded, and decided they used more food and supplies than they were worth. 
As a result, everything around the Manor seemed to need more doing and attention, and though the remaining servants labored hard to attend their duties, they couldn’t keep up with the tasks. The staff was simply spread too thin. 
She spied a cobweb forming in one upper corner of the room, dust trapped on the spindly strands as a sunbeam flickered over it. Her wickedly sharp claws bit into the flesh of her palms as Silmaria balled her fists in anger, and she didn’t even notice. The sad state the once well cared for study had fallen into made her burn inside. Master Edwin would never have stood for this. And given her way, neither would she. She would preserve everything the man held dear. But it was nothing to Jonor to let it all fall to ruin.
After taking several moments to calm herself, Silmaria gathered the long tumble of her dark curls with her hands and bound it up in a knot atop her head, securing it with a leather thong. She set to work. 
Her graceful hands brushed over the many books, dusting the leather bound spines and wiping down the covers. Shelf by shelf she went, moving the volumes into place and arranging and organizing as she had so often done. It was tedious, repetitive work, and she gladly lost herself in the familiar, repetitive process.
Several hours had slipped past by the time she stopped. Through the large window, the sky was dotted with oranging clouds as the sun began to set. The short, fine hairs of Silmaria’s pelt itched where her sweat was trapped beneath. She looked around the study with critical green eyes. The shelves in the back right corner of the room still needed to be organized and dusted, but the rest of the study was in proper order at last. 
	And this time, Silmaria swore, it was going to stay that way. She had to attend to whatever duties were assigned her, of course. But she resolved she would find out who else was tending the study these days, and if she had anything to say about it, they would be doing it right from now on. Angry as she was, her approach probably wouldn’t earn her any new friends…but the way she figured it, she couldn’t really get much more disdained than she already was.
She didn’t care; that’s what she told herself as she gathered her rags and bucket and the small container of polishing wax. All that mattered was that this study, this space that had been so important to Master Edwin and such a significant cornerstone of her adolescence, was given the respect and careful tending it deserved. This was his place, and her place, and she’d be damned if she let it be kept up lackadaisically any longer.
	Silmaria turned to glance out the window again, noting the lengthening dusk. She was hungry. Cook would be serving up dinner in a few moments. As slim and unappetizing as the meal would likely be, her stomach growled at the prospect of any meal right now. 
	A moment later, her reverie was broken as a loud, echoing thud boomed through IronWing Manor’s halls.

***

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