Petal’s Dew

Fresh snow fell upon Faerivin Forest, coating the towering trees and sprawling green shrubbery in a soft, deceptive blanket.  Petal heard burdened branches strain and leaning trunks creak beneath the weight of her cousins’ ill-timed advance of the seasons.  The world was still supposed to be vibrant, full of living colors growing amidst a sea of green.  Only those wrong-headed winter fey could think a pale, uniform white was a good look for the world, let alone hasten to whitewash its living grandeur.

Petal was a pixie, the very best pixie at helping flowers to bloom in all their glory.  She loved seeing them slowly open to their fullness, and enjoyed sampling the sweet nectar and crumbly pollen inside.  She loved their vibrant shades of red and blue and yellow and orange and pink…  Well, she loved how pretty every flower looked, even the pale white morning glory.  But this snow, this endless white was too much, too much!  And worse still, it was so flooding cold!

Petal dashed through the forest, hoping to find a place where her cousins’ working had yet to smother the world.  A snow this early wasn’t good for her flowering friends, but there was nothing she could do for those already buried beneath the wet blanket’s biting snow.  As Petal flew, dodging branches and heavy snowflakes, she cut a striking figure.  Her voluminous, periwinkle hair may have been matted to her head, and her amber skin had paled in the cold, showing hints of blue at her finger tips, but her glimmering wings beat strong, her back was straight, and there was only the barest shiver in her arms and legs.

Petal dipped below a branch, spun around a particularly clumpy flake of snow, and her sapphire eyes caught a glimpse of movement up ahead.  A red squirrel was dashing through the trees to reach its nest, but it spotted Petal and paused on the edge of a branch as she drew near.  The nutty red squirrels had a bit of a bad reputation, but Petal doubted the flea warmer would do anything to her if she didn’t give him a chance.  Petal dropped lower and aimed to pass under the squirrel - she’d been hit by a branch twice before when flying over the red-furred menaces - and realized her mistake a moment too late.

The red squirrel jumped - not off its branch, rather it hopped in place - and a white wall of snow fell right into Petal’s path.  She tried to swerve, she tried to slow, but she had been moving so fast, and there was no way to avoid the rime-be-damned curtain.  

“Frostbite!” Petal cursed as she crashed into the falling snow.  Her world went white, and then she was falling, tumbling, freezing-

Petal didn’t remember hitting the ground.  She supposed the snow must have cushioned her fall, but she would have preferred to land on moss, or mud, or even the bare, hard ground rather than plummet into more of the heat-sapping snow.  By the time Petal staggered to her feet in the waist-deep frost-clutter, she couldn’t even feel her toes wiggling in her mouse skin boots.  She ignored the chittering laughter of the squirrel overhead, wondered briefly if a sprite friend of hers could make her a squirrel-skin rug, then refocused on herself.  Her translucent wings were straight and intact, even if they felt leaden with cold.  Numb hands cleared snow from her leather vest and wolf hair skirt, but the melting snow on her arms sapped what little feeling she still had in them.  She had left her winter cloak at home - it was for sitting warm in her hollow, not for flying to the rescue - but its absence now left her with little choice.

Petal had set out to save as many of her plant friends as she could, but now she was the one in deadly danger.  She needed somewhere the winter fey’s magic had not touched, somewhere she could get to before she could freeze to death.  A glance around the woods to orient herself told her she had three choices.  Fyreld the fire drake had a cave only four leagues away, but wet and cold as she was, Petal wasn’t sure she could make it.  Plus, Fyreld was a burning meanie, and had tried to sear off her wings the last time she had visited.

Petal would have preferred Lethellyn’s eternally warm glade, and the sun elf sorceress loved spending time with Petal, but it was more than a league further than Fyreld’s cave.  As the sensation of thorns and brambles replaced what little feeling remained in her extremities, Petal feared even the hot-headed drake was beyond her reach.

No, her last and only real hope was Shorna’s Rise, the hill-top home of a nymph formerly of the summer court.

And yet, Petal hesitated.  She had heard Shorna was being propositioned by Baroness Aurora of the winter court, and unseelie fey like Aurora would more readily watch seelie fey like Petal suffer with a smile on their face than render aid to a pixie in need.  Indeed, if Shorna had joined the unseelie it was entirely possible she was no longer a nymph, but rather some dark-natured creature of the winter court like an alp-luachra, or a cait sidhe.

But Petal had no other choice.  Not if she wanted to avoid freezing to death.  Home was on the far edge of the forest, and she could think of no other haven she could reach before the cruel workings of winter sent her to an icy grave.  Before Petal could further question the wisdom of willingly entering Shorna’s domain, her iridescent wings blurred and puffed up a tiny cloud of snow.  She was off, stiffly buzzing her way towards Shorna’s Rise.

As she flew, Petal’s thoughts ran through all the strange and silly stories she’d heard about Shorna.  A field mouse once told her the nymph slept throughout the day and frolicked beneath the stars.  A pygmy owl once hooted that any who saw her in the light of a full moon at twilight would be struck senseless, practically losing their head over her beauty.  That in no way meant she only cavorted with the bewitched; rather she was apparently a lascivious woman with a powerful desire to spend the twilight hours engaged in activities best relegated to that time.  A satyr once told Petal that Shorna’s preferred activities included dining, conducting dark rituals, convening a carnal congress, participating in vigorous stargazing, and confusing discourse with intercourse.  This might not have been so bad, and the satyr had been glad for the experience, except as she had finished her breakfast she had seen the tips of a pair of fairy wings sticking out of a hastily-closed box in the nymph’s larder.  It was only later that the satyr realized what the iridescent material had been.

The last thought made Petal shiver, only to realize the rest of her body had stopped shivering in the cold.  That…  That was not a good sign.  Thankfully Petal was now climbing as she flew, following a rise in the forest floor.  Just as her stiffening wings were starting to frost over in the cold, Petal could see the snow on the ground turning to slush, and a couple hundred feet further was the top of the hill, completely devoid of the winter fey’s chill touch.

Arrhythmic beats of her frosted wings carried Petal into a mossy glade that was bisected by a creek, and filled with twisted yet elegant wooden furniture, padded with a mix of mosses and furs.  A lithe woman rested in a chair, her elegant legs crossed at the ankle, her seat positioned perfectly to watch Petal’s approach.  The pixie intended to reach her, to greet the fey who embodied this glade, but as the frost on her wings melted and a chill seized her body, Petal fell short of her destination.  She plummeted, her wings sputtering thrice in short, desperate bursts, until the exhausted little fey collapsed on a simple table carved from the massive stump of an ancient, felled tree.

As Petal lay listening to the burbles of the spring-fed creek, a more regular sound came to her ears.  It was the soft brush of fabric and and gentle tamping of footfalls upon healthy grass.  In the waning light of day Petal rolled over, her numb body fighting her, until she laid eyes upon the nymph for whom this glade existed.

Her skin was a pattern of deep blue and purple, sinking from Navy to the depths of Midnight.  It startled Petal, as such colors were not to be found anywhere in the summer court.  And yet…

And yet her lips, the pads of her fingers, even her nostrils were the burnt orange of sunset, the delineation between the warm summer colors and the cold of a winter night not sharply separated, but bleeding rapidly from one to the other.  Shorna wore a scandalously cut dress of fine white silk that hugged her like a sheer bank of cirrus clouds.  Around her neck was surely some artifact of her fey power, seen only as a ring of dark, almost black flames.  The nymph’s measured approach and refined posture exuded a nobility which rivaled that of Titania herself.  

Rather, the former nymph, Petal should think.  There was no flooding way she was still one of those lovely, if fickle, fey.  Those black eyes, speckled with a vibrant, yet unnatural purple were quite rare even among the unseelie.  Outside of the winter court they were impossible, at least for an elvenoid.  The dark woman’s darker gaze fixed unwaveringly upon the pixie’s still form.

It wasn’t obvious at first glance what kind of fey now loomed over Petal, but something nagged at her fading thoughts.  Petal had seen it, some detail or three that would make Shorna’s transformation obvious, were it not for the tiny woman’s own frozen flesh smothering her ability to think.

Snow, Petal’s thoughts managed to grasp.  Where is all the flooding snow?  Though once she may have been of summer, Shorna is a winter fey now.  Snow should be laying especially heavy over her demesne, yet it melts in her presence, and all across her demesne.  What would cause…?

Her neck, Petal realized, the question and its obvious answer connecting in her chill-hindered mind, the connection filling in another detail.  Her neck bears the flaming circlet, the abyssal ring of ebon flames.  It is not an artifact of her power, but a physical manifestation of her new existence.  And she saw my coming, she was watching my fading life approach its ending.  Oh, fire and flood, her blighted name!  Her name is who she is, and who she is has changed.  All of faerie would intrinsically understand this change, knowing her only by her new name, with all memory of the old as lost as her abandoned form, but I didn’t realize it had been changed, and failed to realize the flooding importance!  Of course, it all makes sense!

The mistress of the glade moved a wide and well-cushioned silk pillow beside Petal, and ran a hand through her hair.

Her enchanting, yet hauntingly elven appearance as well, I should have known, I should have realized!  I expected a nymph, but the summer court has not a monopoly on forms which share shape and size alike with the elvenoid races.

Shorna’s fingers clenched in her silky, black hair, and her arm lifted with strength and surety.

It was so obvious, and yet I failed to see.  One who has cast aside her seelie life, one who makes others lose their heads, one who is known now as an accomplished midnight rider.  Shorna, newest lady of the winter court, is-

The arm lowered, and Petal’s final hope for salvation rested her gorgeous head upon the silk pillow, those haunting eyes staring down at the dying pixie.

- A dullahan.

Those abyssal eyes were known to see things beyond the physical, and the violet whorls twisted as they looked past Petal’s unmoving form to see her very nature, that which in humans might be called a soul.  Emotions flickered across that proud face - elegant lips curled in amusement, sharp nose wrinkled in concern, thin but severe eyebrows raised in expectation, and otherworldly eyes focused with incredible hunger.

“Welcome, fair pixie, to my home.”  Shorna’s words were smooth and cool with a hard edge, like a rich, winter honey poured over a frosty blade.  “I know of you, sweet Petal, by reputation.  A tender caregiver to the flowers of the forest, are you not?  I don’t have many flowers for you to attend - really just my personal flower, so I am uncertain as to why you are here.  Have you come seeking shelter from my liege’s storm?”

Petal eyed the talking head looming over her, and focused on the thin, expressive lips to better understand what was being asked.  The dullahan’s breath rolled over petal like a warm breeze off a campfire in the creeping chill of a late autumn evening.  It was more floral than Petal expected, yet more smokey than her alluring voice.  It smelled like an incense of holly and mistletoe.

Petal opened her mouth to respond, but her voice failed her.  She couldn’t blame a chattering jaw, as her body was chilled far past the point of shivering.  Eventually she nodded, as that was all she could do.  Thankfully, it seemed enough.  Petal wasn’t sure how, but the pillow-bound head nodded slightly in return.

“I thought as much, maiden of Summer.  I would be willing to help you, to warm you and aid in the recovery of your strength, but as you are of Summer and I am of Winter, I must insist a price be paid in kind.  Would you be willing to spend the night with me, plying your greatest skill until morning or until I deem your work complete, and to owe me a favor of my choosing to be named according to my need?”

Petal had been ready to agree to the terms right up until a favor was mentioned.  Favors owed to the fey - especially fey nobles - were never to be taken lightly.  Even should the favor called be a simple task to complete, the repercussions of such a favor could drown one’s prospects for centuries.  Petal know of an innkeeper who was called to kidnap a princess as a favor, and that had resulted in the fall of both kingdoms, the torture and execution of the prince, and the princess giving birth to a troll, who ended up eating his own mother.

But Petal could not refuse.  Not if she wanted to live.  Already her vision was dimming, the darkness closing in.  It was agree or die, and if she died, who would care for her flowery friends that survived this early winter?  Petal was the only blossoming pixie in the Faerivin forest.  She had to survive.  She had to…

Petal nodded her acceptance of the terms.

The dullahan’s disembodied head frowned.

“No, no, that just won’t do.  This is a fey bargain, my dear pixie, and I need you to speak your answer.  I need to hear your sweet, dulcet voice agree to be my servant for the evening.  I need to hear you say that you owe me that oh, so little favor.  I need to hear you agree to my terms before I can save you.”

Petal tried.  She gasped in a shallow breath, the warm, incensed air searing to her half-frozen lungs, but she made herself draw deeper.  Petal’s tiny chest rose, and fell again as she spoke.  Or as she tried to.  Only a chilled wheeze left her parted lips, the pitiful sound distorted as her jaw began to chatter.  The ambient air had warmed her body enough that the involuntary life-saving functions of her body could resume, but it would not be enough.  The chill of winter was in her now.  It had claimed her to her flooding bones.  Moreso, the warmth rolling off the looming dullahan was not the life-giving warmth of spring, but was rather of the flame that consumes and destroys.  It bore an element of finality, of endings, and that nature refused to save her life.

The disembodied head sighed in mild annoyance.  Petal closed her eyes and mustered her determination to try again.  She inhaled once more, her chest rising higher, her lungs burning worse than her tongue after a jalapeño julep.  There came a rustling from the headless body looming above, and Petal felt a rush of air as something passed overhead.  But Petal did not fear the towering Shorna’s actions.  If Petal didn’t warm quickly she would die regardless of outside interference.  But still, she had to consider; agreeing to an open favor was a greater peril than any physical harm Shorna might inflict upon her, if not for herself then for others.

But if she didn’t agree, she would die.  In the end, it all came down to that.  Petal was immortal.  Would all her long centuries of life boil down to a death from exposure to an early snow?  There was no burning way she would let that happen when there was a way she could live.  Eyes still closed, she took a shuddering breath and made her decision.

“Uh-uhhhh…  I…  I, agree.”

It was faint as the flap of a moth’s wing, but Petal spoke her agreement.  For a moment she couldn’t imagine that the dullahan, that Lady Shorna had heard her, but she felt a weight settle over her as soft and smothering as the waist-deep snow.  How?  How did she hear me?  The towering fey likely had great hearing, but Petal’s voice was so faint.  There was no way Shorna heard her, even from her pillowy throne mere inches away.  But she had been heard. Her promise of payment for salvation had become a part of her being.  She may be frost-damned in her desperation, but at least she was no longer going to die.

She opened her eyes and stared, at first failing to comprehend the sight before her.  Held in long, elegant fingers was a purple-black ear, itself long and elegant, its tip sharp as the barbs hidden in Shorna’s offer.  Like the pads of Shorna’s fingers, the interior of the ear was orange, but with hints of pink hidden deeper within.  The ear was about as long as Petal was tall, and its interior was aimed directly at Petal’s face.

Oh, and it was completely disconnected from the disembodied head on the pillow.

As the ear was lifted away, Petal could see with rising horror that the back of the ear was a flaming circle, and a matching ring of ebon fire smoldered among the hair on the left side of Shorna’s smiling head.  The back of the ear was replaced, and the dark flames flared for a moment before disappearing entirely.  The ear remained in place as the shoulder-length hair again covered the slender, sensitive organ.

It was incredible.  It was horrible.  This Shorna could freely disconnect parts of her body?  Petal had always thought that dullahan were headless riders; she hadn’t known they could separate more than their heads!  That was…  That was crazy!  It was flooding, storming crazy!  It was…

It was not immediately relevant to the predatory grin spreading across the dullahan’s pillow-top face.  No, that look was far more concerning.

“I’m so glad you decided to join me for the evening, little pixie,” Shorna purred.  That sound encouraged Petal’s chilled blood to freeze in her veins.  It was the coy mewling of a playful cat pawing at its prey.  Petal had actually seen that happen to a fairy.  The joy that lynx had taken in batting a broken-winged fairy about was horrible.  Petal had saved the monarch-winged woman by first luring the cat away, and then diving in and flying off with her battered friend, but she’d had nightmares for a solid month after that.  She knew if she survived this night, that horrid dream would make a most-unwelcome return, with the cat replaced by a violet-blue face and a disembodied head.

“In accordance with our agreement, I shall give you the lifesaving warmth you desire.  I hope you enjoy it as much as I will.”  Shorn’s lips curled in anticipation, and those elegant fingers returned, gently lifting Petal off the table.

“Such rough little clothes you wear,” Shorna said.  She looked over Petal as she dangled at eye height.  Shorna’s expression was contemplative.  “Your garments are soaked through and practically frozen!  Now that just won’t do.”  Those dexterous fingers pulled at Petal’s bindings, and in moments her boots were pinched between thumb and forefinger, and being set gently upon the table.  

As her head lolled in exhaustion, Petal could see her toes were tinged with blue, and her feet were pale to the point of seeming bloodless.  Moments later her pale thighs were revealed as her skirt was removed in a slow and gentle manner.  Petal felt a momentary flush of embarrassment fight her chilled body as her own flower bud was exposed.  Centuries of casual flings still hadn’t quite worn away her prudish attitude from childhood.  She tried to tuck her hairless petals away in the cold, but she wasn’t strong enough to cover herself.  Then in a moment of lucidity, she recalled that embarrassment was a tertiary concern, relegated below not dying from exposure, and not being killed, enslaved, or eternally indebted to her contracted savior.

Those elegant fingers returned to gently pinch her legs, and the warm touch sent the sensation of nettles scratching across Petal’s frost-touched skin.  Petal groaned, but bit off the complaint quickly.  The painful sensation was a sign of her body heat rising, and as storming annoying as it felt, it was never-the-less a good sign.

Petal was carefully flipped upside-down, the shift in the grip of the fingers holding her now directing Petal’s gaze to Shorna’s bare navel.  There was no belly button as would be seen on an elf, but there was a small, gentle depression of smooth skin where it would have been.  Yet another detail twisted by elvenoids learning of themselves, and informing the shapes of those who mocked and mimicked aspects of their form.

Then fingers pinched at Petal’s back, and her vest was forced over her head.  Petal’s view was blocked as her modest chest was exposed to the world.  Petal quickly found herself turned so Shorna’s resting head could see, and Petal heard a pleased purring sound before the vest was completely removed, and she was eye-to-upside-down-eye with an enticed dullahan.

“There now, that’s better, wouldn’t you say?”  Shorna asked, the question clearly rhetorical.  Petal said nothing as she waited to see what would happen next, and fortunately she needed not wait long.  Petal felt the fingers dangling her shift their grip to hold her securely within a loose fist.  Her shoulders and head protruded from the top between thumb and index finger, and her toes wiggled free just below the smallest finger.  Petal could feel the massive fingers that were holding her tight begin to loosen.  Soon they rubbed and pressed upon her warming, prickling body, and so distracted by the sensation was Petal that it took her a full minute to recognize two significant details.

Firstly, the fingers were not offering her a massage, nor were they providing stimulation to promote blood flow.  No, the attentive caresses were the lascivious groping of a horny fey.

Secondly, Petal realized the body had moved away from the table, stepping beyond Petal’s limited sight.  As she was still held in the dullahan’s grip, Petal feared for a moment that she was hallucinating.  That was, right up until she noticed one of Shorna’s arms ended in a ring of black flames just below the shoulder.  Petal was jerked about as the disconnected arm nudged the disembodied head into a more imperious tilt.

“Does my beauty dumbfound you, little pixie?  You have barely spoken since you arrived.  Or perhaps, is your tongue typically so tied?  I cannot say the tales I’ve heard of you tell of a stoic pixie, but I suppose tales do not tell us all.”

Petal didn’t bother trying to answer.  She was distracted by the painful return of sensation to her naked body, and by the phantom feeling of Shorna’s grasp.  Though the thorns and brambles were foremost in her mind, there was a warm, smooth allure to the feeling of Shorna’s palm and fingers wrapped around her body, especially as they concentrated on Petal’s chest, waist, and ass.

“Ah, I see,” Shorna said with a self-satisfied smirk.  “My tactile investigation has wrapped you around my fingers, and deprived you of your faculties.  Appropriate, is it not?  Well, do not worry.  I have something that should warm you to your roots, and reap your reservation with the same stroke.”  

Petal could feel the rising warmth in the air as Shorna’s body returned, and it set a massive silver goblet next to Petal.  From her plucky perch she could make out steam rising from the goblet, before a fruity, yet spicy magical fragrance smothered her with its heady aroma.  The fingers lifted Petal into the air - the arm must have been back in place - and Petal could see a blood-red wine steeped with various spices.  She could make out cinnamon and anise, as well as more exotic spices like powdered dewdrop and shaved moonbeam.

“My dear Petal, have you a taste for fae wine?  I myself enjoy such refined delights, especially when served warm with proper mulling spices.  Can I interest you in partaking?  I myself would love a goblet with a full-bodied bouquet.”

Petal eyed the silver chalice with mild trepidation.  Unlike mortals, a fey need not fear to partake of fae food or drink, yet Petal suspected - nay, she knew that Shorna implied more with her offer than a few sips of the warm wine.  But it was so warm, and smelled so delightful, and her body was so cold, and she could use a drink to settle her nerves, and it was so warm…

“I would be happy to partake, Lady Shorna,” Petal said, her words a bit stuttered by her clenched jaw.

Shorna hummed in appreciation, and Petal was lifted over the silver goblet.  Petal could feel the warm air rising from the wine, the floral, fruity aroma forming the lines of a beautiful scene that was masterfully colored by aging and the mulling spices.  Petal closed her eyes as she sank towards that warmth, but it disappeared for a moment.  Then it was back, not quite as pleasant, but the warm air was rising quickly - then it was gone again, but only for a moment - then it was rising slowly but with an intensity, breathing new life into Petal’s aching limbs.

Her feet sank into a wet warmth, and Petal sighed in relief before she realized the floral scent was more astringent than her first breath of the wine - and where were the mulling spices?  Then her feet touched down on something smooth and slick just beneath the surface, something soft and warm, and that flexed at her touch.  Her eyes shot open in a primal fear.

The corners of Shorna’s open mouth curled up as Petal realized she was being lowered not into the goblet, but into the dullahan’s grinning maw.  Petal flailed, trying to move her legs out of the mouth, trying to climb the very fingers holding her, but she was so tired, so weak.  She couldn’t possibly hope to oppose this storming, burning, unseelie horror.  The rules of hospitality were out the window, and suddenly Petal found herself restrained by the cold iron rings of the food chain.

She screamed, she kicked, but she was dropped into that yawning mouth, and quickly drawn towards the Stygian depths by the reaping tongue of the dullahan.  The mouth closed, and Petal prepared herself to be swallowed, though she had no idea how that would work with the head still luxuriating on the pillow.

Petal’s world shook as her dark, wet cell was repositioned, and Shorna’s agile tongue made the most of the situation, tasting every inch of Petal it could reach.  It tickled across her tiny toes, speared between her shaking thighs, basted her breasts in a viscous saliva, and flaunted its tip against Petal’s face until she was tempted to bite the dullahan back in an act of petty revenge - but Petal stopped herself.  She hadn’t yet been harmed, at least not yet, and there was an outside chance the rules of hospitality were still in effect.  She suppressed her wroth, her terror, and her trepidation, and resolved herself to making the best of the strange situation.

The shaking stopped and above the lips parted.  Light flooded the open mouth, revealing a dripping pink palate, only for the light above to dim.   There was a silvery glint, then the downpour started.

Marvelous mulled wine flooded Petal’s cell, and its warmth washed over her like a lifesaving spell.  Frost-damaged wings began to shine in the dark, and her flesh was imbued with a vital fae spark.  The thorns that once bit at Petal’s fast-fraying nerves were cast from her flesh, replaced with hearty reserves.

The wine’s taste was a wonder, its bouquet refreshing, intense.  The arctic doom was no longer, though it’d come at great expense.  Petal basked in the magic and imagined what lay ahead.  Hopefully nothing too tragic, though fate suggested a bed.

The darkness beside her yawned with an unseen ‘gluck,’ and the wine-whirling Petal feared she was all out of luck.  The mulled, fruity magic drained into the unknown, leaving Petal to lay panting, solitary but not alone.

Ugh, Petal groaned to herself.  Fae wine is always a trip and a half.  At least she felt better now.  The wine had warmed and revitalized her, leaving her extremities tingling in a manner not at all unpleasant.  It was as if a magic spark had energized her entire body, and she felt a shiver of excitement pass through her surroundings as well.

Petal climbed to her knees, and fought to keep her legs from sliding into the throat beside her.  She could feel an intense heat washing over her throat-tickling toes.  It reminded Petal of one of Lethellyn’s high-powered warming spells, though this seemed more sinister, like a corrupted forge fire.  Petal was just thankful the heat wasn’t painful, but rather intense - much like the fey inside of whose mouth Petal was still trapped.

The softer of the two fleshy walls around Petal seemed to close in on her, and she felt herself shoved against the harder wall - the roof of the mouth - as she was repositioned away from the throat.

“Haven’t you had enough of your full-bodied bouquet?” Petal called, hoping for release.  The sensation of the warm flesh and wet saliva was an improvement over freezing to death - and in the right circumstances might even be welcome - but she was at the mercy of an unseelie fey with a concerning reputation.  To Petal’s distress, the response she received was a passionate chuckle, and the return of the goblet overhead.

Again and again came the magical deluge, its wondrous embrace another lie of this refuge.  The delight of the dullahan at the pixie’s inclusion was Petal’s only measure if safety were an illusion.  Yet as the cup was refilled and the drink was imbibed, Petal bore a new feeling she could not quite describe.  She knew of such pleasures as friendship and joy, and this new feeling was similar, as if with a new toy.  Yet this feeling was deeper, seated not in the heart.  From her loins burned a passion, squirming thighs she did part.  By the third goblet hands began teasing a bud, and the wall-tongue lapped forth like some passionate flood.  More wine was quite welcome, no reprieve was required, and sleep was forgotten as none present were tired.  Still, a bed would be key to the dullahan’s trap, and Petal soon longed to frolic in her hostess’ lap.

No words were exchanged, no thoughts spoken aloud, yet fey large and small their attraction avowed.  Though tongue-tossed the pixie refused to be cowed - she would soon see the Lady’s field properly plowed.

As the umpteenth mouthful of wondrous fae wine drained away deeper into the passionate dullahan, Petal found herself flushed, soaked, and randy as a cherry-chomping harlot.  She had swallowed enough of the wine that her smooth tummy had been comically distended, and its magic was flowing through Petal’s entire body.  She felt relaxed, yet energized, and any concerns weighing on her mind were now light as a feather.  Her senses had been heightened such that she could begin to see in the dark confines of the dullahan’s closed maw, and she could feel every individual tastebud as the randy tongue caressed her entire left side.  She could hear the soothing sea-sounds of the magical blood flowing through Shorna’s head, and she could taste the traces of venison, eggs, and asparagus on the Lady’s breath.  Petal was full to bursting with vitality, and with the desire to go forth and experience life.

And she was horny, so flooding horny, she was horny as she had never been in her long life.  She had enjoyed nice evenings with another pixie or a fairy, shared an acorn cap of fae wine between them before retiring for an all-night affair, but this…. Petal had been bathed in the magical wine, in the drink of the fair folk, known for their beauty, their trickery, and their wild abandon in the interest of hedonistic pursuits.  The wine had not simply caressed her lips, slipped over her tongue, and slid passionately down her throat.  No, the four - or was it five? - goblets had soaked into her skin and set her passions alight.  She wanted nothing more than to lose herself in carnal pursuits, and from Shorna’s wording and actions Petal was certain she would get that chance.

Petal sat up and wrapped her arms and knees around the seeking tongue, and she felt the base push hard against her chest and crotch.  It wriggled, freeing a delighted gasp from Petal, and unleashing a full-body moan from Shorna herself.

Then the dim, fleshy world shifted, and Petal found herself riding the tongue while facing the narrow band of lighter shadow where perfectly kissable lips were poorly hidden behind parted rows of perfect teeth.  Goodness, it seemed everything was just perfect now that Petal was saved.

Then the darkness of the mouth was pierced by the evening light.  Shorna’s lips parted, and Petal used her arms to drag herself forward, keeping her crotch stimulated by dragging her nethers across the supple tongue.  It may have been undignified, but this was passion, this was pleasure!  What good was pride when it would just make you grumpy?

When Petal reached the opening, she stared down at a sight worthy of the gods.  Shorna’s head seemed to be resting on her shoulders as she lay back on a soft forest bed with icy-blue silk sheets.  It was incredible how well the dark colors of Shorna’s wonderful skin contrasted with the frosty sheets.  With the sheer fabric of her hostess’ garments removed, Petal could see a gentle, purple rise ascend into modest midnight mounds capped with beautiful pink buds.  The valley between stretched out across an azure field that rose and fell with the breath of the fey, only to part and rise as two powerful thighs ascending to twice the elevation of the humble hills.

Between the rising thighs Petal could see some sort of padded contraption, colored alike to the silken sheets.  It seemed to be some sort of narrow and tilted basket, or cradle.  Beyond it Petal could barely make out Shorna’s long, elegant feet resting on padded pedals, or a push bar.  Petal couldn’t imagine what it was for, but she was sure she was going to love it.

Petal shifted her thighs on Shorna’s tongue to better stimulate her own rising excitement, and that earned her another moan from the Lady - but it also caused those distant thighs to tense, and the legs to push out on those pedals.  As they did, the basket moved closer.  It still left plenty of space between its shallow bottom and Shorna’s flower garden, but the movement intrigued Petal.  

She wanted to know more, but fingers came forth and plucked her from her warm, slippery cave.She was set upon the Lady’s collarbone, and it took a moment to tear her gaze from those sumptuous hills to face her hostess, and her soul-piercing gaze.

“Did you enjoy your taste of fae wine, little Petal?”

Petal bowed where she kneeled, and replied with excitement.  “I certainly did, Lady Shorna.”

“I am delighted to hear that, my sweet, and I could tell from your, efforts, that you are hale once more.  I believe we had discussed your payment involved you plying your skills at blooming flowers in my personal garden.  Are you ready to begin?”

Petal’s reply was a delighted squeak and a buzzing of her wings that set driplets of spit flying everywhere, but she zipped from a kneeling position into a gymnastic twirling backflip that landed her on the peak of one of the midnight mounds, with a fresh, growing bud settled between her legs.  Petal wasted no time in caressing the growing bud, coaxing it with a gentle touch and a firm, guiding fingers until it almost doubled in size.

To be sure the bud would reach its full potential, Petal decided to imbue the pink nub with her own fertility, and promptly locked it in a grip between her thighs as she settled her gently dripping watering can right on top.  Petal made sure to water every bit of the firm, yet spongy bud with her natural lubrication.  Her job done, Petal flipped herself forward into a hand-stand with her hands on either side of it, and she gently lowered herself down to kiss the fully grown bud, while spreading her legs overhead and wiggling her hips and wings alike to entice and entertain Lady Shorna.  When the midnight mound rumbled beneath her in a sultry giggle, Petal buzzed her wings and rolled forward, holding herself aloft and tickling the bud with her fluttering wingtips for just a moment before launching into the air.

Below, the Lady squeaked in surprised and giggled her delight, only for Petal to drop upon the second bud, and repeat her careful ministrations.  Only, this time when Petal dipped her handstand into a passionate kiss on the tip of the bud, a gentle poke from a finger almost as long as she was tall knocked her into the shallow valley of Shorna’s cleavage.  Petal laughed and rolled with it, coming to lay on her tummy, legs crossed casually, and torso held aloft on her arms as she looked up at her hostess.  Petal beat her wings again slowly, the iridescent membranes tickling Shorna’s cleavage.

Petal watched the dullahan’s expression as she fought not to react, but after only a few seconds the land jumped with a huge guffaw.  When she found herself in the air, Petal sped up her wing beats and darted forward to plant a kiss on Shorna’s wonderful lips.

“Thank you, sweet Petal,” Shorna said, her eyes twinkling in the quickly fading light.  “I’m already quite glad that I welcomed you.  I am, however, finding myself mildly bothered by your progress, and as time goes on without my flower blooming, I find myself becoming increasingly frustrated.  Would you be a good pixie, and tend to my petals?  I would be only to happy to watch you do your good works.”

Petal nodded and took to the air, only wondering as she passed over Shorna’s navel what precisely she meant with that last statement.  She didn’t;t have long to wait to learn.

Petal settled on the feminine mound overlooking the flower’s musky plot, only to see a glimmer from below as a shadow passed overhead.  Petal spun and looked up, only to complete the turn as she followed Shorna’s once-again disembodies head as it was rested comfortably in the mysterious basket.  The dullahan’s face was now scant inches away from lovely labia, and things clicked solidly into place for Petal.  She sat down upon an orange-pink hood overlooking the darker pink cleft of delight, and slid down to find herself fenced in by smiles on two sides.

“There, now isn’t this nice and cozy.  Please, Petal.  Show me those skills I’ve heard so much about.”

Beneath that otherworldly gaze Petal set to work.  She took a deep breath, and was almost overwhelmed by the incredible blend of holly breath and spicy, smokey musk mixing in the intimate hollow between head and thighs.  Petal shook her head and focused again on the slightly swollen outer lips, getting down on her knees and reaching out to make contact.

There was a soft rocking, and Petal felt the air flow in as Shorna’s head shifted back for a better view, but as the head rocked, Petal saw a brief glimmer from between the lips.  It was a pale off-white glow that was there for a moment, then gone before her eyes could focus on it, but it was undoubtedly there.  Petal almost asked after what she had seen, but the swirling fragrance of femininity drove her to her task.  Petal’s tiny, dexterous hands reached out to touch the soft, but firming outer lips, and she could feel the fiery passion pushing even more warmth into her excited body.  Petal shifted forward, spooning the growing petal as it reddened and grew in the gap of her thighs and the space between her breasts.  She could feel the supple flesh pushing into her cleavage as it grew into its fullness, spreading her own modest breasts apart.  It was like hugging a fiery, fleshy avatar of love, and Petal loved every second of it.

But it wasn’t to last.  Her impatient host was losing her head over the slow pace, and cleared her riven throat to encourage Petal to move on.  She spent less time with the other outer petal, already more than half-full, but with the major petals parted, she could see the softer, even more supple petals within.

The pixie ran her teeny, tiny fingers along the curled up inner lips, then delicately plucked one into each hand, and gently pulled them towards her to help them grow.  She placed a soft kiss on each, fighting to hold back her roaring passion as she drew the flower towards its fullness.  Petal dipped her head and placed the fleshy flower petals against her cheeks.  She took a moment to breath in their musky fragrance, and she could hear their rushing vitality as the petals swelled to their fullness.

The hot and heavy panting from her edging hostess drew Petal’s attention when it turned to a soft but insistent mewling.  Petal turned around to place a wordless kiss on the dullahan’s tooth-swollen lips.  Petal watched that lower lip once again curl back between daunting teeth, and turned back to find a blooming flower winking excitedly at her.

“Hello there, my dewy friend,” Petal crooned at the fully-opened flower.  “What fun should we have tonight?  Would you share your sweet nectar with me?  Shall I dive in and pollinate like there’s no tomorrow?”

She ran a hand along the inside a supple petal, and the landscape jumped for a moment in concert with a powerful gasp from behind that set Petals wings aflutter.  Petal removed her touch, and found her hand had a partial coating of smokey, viscous lubrication.  It was encouraging, but not nearly as plentiful as needed.

“Now, that just won’t dew.  Let’s ply the watering bulb shall we, and see if we can water you properly.”

Petal stood up to her full height, and looked down her nose at a shockingly pink nubbin spattered with glowing violet dots.  It was almost the size of her head.  A gentle caress of her hand and a slow, sensual press of her lips unearthed another soft, needy moan, and Petal doubled down on her attention.

Shorna’s hips shifted and bucked, both discombobulating the dullahan and making it difficult to tend to the bulb as those looming legs shook in excitement and anticipation.

When Petal became frustrated by the shaking of the hips she locked both hands on the purple-pink bud and held on tight.  Her fingers dug in, and her arms were bounced around, right up until an awkward hop and a bad angle with her elbow leveraged the pleasure bulb in a way it wasn’t designed for.

In a puff of black fire, the dullahan’s clitoris popped free from its hood.

Petal immediately jumped back in surprise, tossing the precious bud into the air.  She fumbled the catch, and the pleasure bud bounced in her hands.  A string of invectives mixed with desperate moaning, and Lady Shorna of the winter fey lost her patience.

“Enough playing, tiny bloomer.  It is time to dig deep and plant the seeds of my completion.  Tend to my flower with the passion it deserves,” Shorna said, pausing to move her head close enough to nose Petal back against her blushing bloom, “or I shall satisfy my hunger with you.  Now go!”

Petal wasted no time, and dove for the depths of Shorna’s blooming lust.  She hugged the fiery bulb to her chest, and used her legs to drive herself forward.  She was shocked to realize her surroundings were glowing that strange off-white she had seen before, then she realized the glowing was coming from herself as well, from everywhere Shorna’s feminine nectar had coated her skin.  She thought it might be a quality of the spicy black flames in her arms, but something else caught her attention before she could reach a conclusion.

A pair of warm lips wrapped around Petal’s still-exposed legs, and a wriggling, searching tongue pressed hard against her ass.  Petal was overwhelmed as Shorna used her mouth to push her pixie gardener deeper into her fertile flower bed.  The heat was everywhere, and the spicy, smokey, flooding musk was all consuming.  The wine still flowed through Petal’s body, and turned the slick, silky walls into a tactile celebration.  Petal’s sex drive was beyond anything she’d experienced, and every sensation was building it higher and higher.

Petal wiggled and wriggled her way deeper inside the pulsating flower bed, and as she approached its depths she began kneading and nibbling on the flesh bud in her hands.  She could hear the racing heartbeat all around her pick up its pace, and the lubricants painted over the passage flowed with another new coat.

Behind her feet Petal could hear a sucking, squishing sound, and through a brief parting in the flower’s passage, she could see a hungry tongue seeking nectar of its own.  Petal groaned at the knowledge Shorna was eating herself out while Petal squirmed deep inside her, and Petal reached a hand for her own needy flower, only to decide on something better.

The dullahan’s clit may be about the size of her head, but with some effort and timing Petal maneuvered it between her legs.  She squeezed the bud against her entire flower, and rode the waves of the walls and the most sensitive part of her unseelie lover in concert.  Petal could hear the moaning, the screaming, the heaving breaths of a fey woman in need, and added her fingers to the touch of her own passion and thighs.  Petal could feel the walls clamp down all around her, and the weeping of the walls nearly submerged her in the nectar of lovemaking.

When the walls eased their grip, something new wriggled against her feet.  In the depths of Shorna’s garden of dreams, Petal found the dullahan’s questing tongue.  It had detached from her mouth, and penetrated deep into the flowers depths under its own power.  Moments later, the hungry pink flatworm was aerating Petal’s flower bed as well.  Petal let the squirming, writhing tongue carry her and the watering bulb to the deepest level of the fleshy flower pot, and Petal thrust the purple-pink nubbin against the pot’s small drainage hole while the tongue writhed and ravaged her body.

Petal couldn’t believe what was happening.  It was so wild, so strange, so sexy and intense.  Her mind and body were coming apart from the intense sexual overload.  Then the walls crushed down again, and all of those sensations were heightened as she found herself gasping for the heavy, musky air.

Beginning to feel as if she was coming apart at the seams, Petal worked her way back to the outside world.  Before she reached it, the hungry tongue decided it was going to help her along.  It wrapped around Petal’s legs, and drew her back into the maw of the impassioned dullahan.  For a moment a corner of Petal’s wine-warped mind panicked that she was about to be eaten, but the rest of her reveled in the sexual contrast of sensual flesh and slick fluids.  Petal found herself a participating observer to the most lewd example of self-gratification she had ever experienced, and it didn’t take long before rubbing the wayward clit between her tits and the tongue brought Shorna to another ear-splitting orgasm.

Petal felt the world fly past her, and suddenly she was back in the flower’s depths, this time with her feet deeper than her head.  She had managed to hold onto the love nub through this latest transition, and she tucked it under her arm as she explored her surroundings.

Her fingers soon brushed over a section of the slick ceiling that felt different from the rest, and with a burble and a giggle, Petal moved until her chest was directly beneath the special spot.  Then she wedged the clit between her tits and the ceiling, and proceeded to savage Shorna’s clit against her g-spot with a vigorous tit job.

The cries from outside were wild and intense, and as the walls closed in around her, Petal found the fleshy, fiery clit pressed tight against her throat.  Her entire body was being crushed in the sexual vice of a fey lady’s orgasm.  She could hear the pleasured screams from mere inches away, and as the sexual nexus of sensitive nerves was crushed ever harder against Petal’s windpipe, she could feel herself moving towards a height of passion she had never known before.

This was it.  She was being crushed inside the fey Lady’s flower, and there was nothing she could do about it.  She was no better than a toy, than some magical aphrodisiac the Lady had consumed earlier in the night.  Her whole body, her whole purpose, her whole existence was being distilled into this single, pleasurable purpose, and in some ways Petal knew her centuries long life had been lived for this moment.  She had been made to tend to this fey Lady’s flower, to bring it to bloom in its fullness, to taste of its nectar, and to strewn its petals with musky dew.

The Lady’s passage pressed tighter and Petal reeled as the dissociation, the cognitive fuzzing closed in around her.  It lifted her sexually charged senses to a dangerous new level, and as the flesh and fluids ensconced her entire existence, as that sensitive bead felt her life being taken for the Lady’s pleasure, Petal’s mind came undone, and she lost herself in a carnal euphoria.

She awoke sometime later, laying in a pool of nectar between midnight thighs, and looking up at the glassy eyes of a satisfied dullahan.  Those soul-piercing eyes briefly dipped down towards Petal, and they regained both a measure of their former vibrancy and a new, wicked glint when Shorna realized her guest had awakened.

“Petal dear, I am pleased to see you well.  The things you were doing inside me, I’m surprised I didn’t crush you.  I would hate to have broken the rules of hospitality.”

Shorna’s eyes looked up to the darkened sky, and Petal’s followed. By her reckoning, they were still some time before midnight, but Petal had completed her task, and satisfied the dullahan.  Now she could sleep, and then-

“Yes, my sweet, I am quite pleased for our first round.  Come here, let me lick you off and prepare you for round two.”

Petal froze, suddenly more concerned than she had been when she arrived in Shorna’s Rise.

“Did I not complete my work?” Petal asked, voice shaking.  She had enjoyed that insane experience, but it had literally rendered her unconscious.  If she had to do this until morning, would she even survive?

Shorna’s giggle was excited and dangerous.

“You have brought me to release, dear pixie, but I would hardly deem your work complete.  When I am so satisfied I cannot move, I will give you leave to rest.  Oh, and before I forget, I decided on the favor I wish to call sometime round my fourth orgasm.  You see, I have yet to acquire for myself a gardener-”

“You told me when I arrived that you only had your personal flower?” Petal asked, half confused, half dreading the answer.  The smug, almost predatory smile chilled Petal to the bone, despite the fae wine still working through her system.

“So I did, my dear pixie, and I was honest in that telling.  Yet I have come to realize that my personal flower needs a gentle, practiced, and nightly tending.  Therefore, I ask of you the favor of becoming my interim gardener, until such a time as I can find a gardener in a more permanent capacity.  Why, I fully expect to have a proper gardener, oh, sometime in the next century, and as you will be tending a single flower, I expect your duties will be reflexive in no time.  So, my dew-dappled Petal, what do you think?  For a blossoming pixie like yourself, I cannot envision a more appropriate way in which you can repay me what I am due.”