Sahuagin

You always wondered which kind would take you.

Living on the edge of the Monster Wilds, of late, tends one towards a certain degree of fatalist speculation. The Order patrols come by less and less frequently in the past few years; whittled down little by little, as Knights fall in the line of duty to ferocious monster attack, and there are fewer and fewer children left to replace them. But it is not just this province, not just this kingdom. Mankind itself is failing. Little by little, year by year; pushed back from lands once thought unshakably held, retreating to huddle behind the walls of the old, great cities. Preacher Mordekai always used to talk about the last days of humanity, up on his pulpit; but they were tales of fire and wrath, with armies of angels and rivers of flame. Not this. Not this slow, lingering wasting-away. Death by demographics, rather than death by graphic demons.
It is a tale played out in microcosm on your own farmstead. First your eldest brother vanished. Then father; then little cousin Rohan, only 14 years old, lured into the forest by a unicorn right before his mother's eyes. So you've always wondered which kind would take you. Always thought it might be a werewolf; the kind you hear howling at the moon over the plains every night. Didn't expect it to happen when taking a bath in the stream a ways upriver.

You've been captured by a sahuagin, confined to her underwater grotto for the last... four days? Five? There's no way of keeping time, here. And absolutely no way out for you; the only exit is a pool of ice-cold water leading into a network of submarine caverns you have no hope of navigating. The light comes from phosphorescant algae on the walls, illuminating a bleak, cramped cavern floor scattered with old fish bones - and some you have a horrible feeling might be human. You're terribly afraid; afraid that you'll never see the sun again, afraid you'll never feel the wind on your face, afraid of HER.

Again and again, she comes to you; a glistening blue form rising out of the chill pool. You always keep perfectly still, as she approaches. Never daring to resist or flinch, as she places her webbed hand on your tattered breeches. Suppressing a shudder of fear and revulsion, as her clammy, scaled fingers close around your manhood. And then she lowers her human-but-inhuman face down, down, to sup silently from you like a babe at its mother's breast.

Sometimes, it's over quickly; her delicatley forked tongue bringing you to a head in no time at all. Other times... when you're withered by horror, or hunger, it can take hours. But she never alters, never stops; pressing your chest down with one fin-hand, while those unreadable, aquatic eyes stare up at you behind translucent double-lids. The only sound she ever makes is a soft *gulp* *gulp* *gulp* when her meal finally arrives; then, without even pausing to wipe her mouth, she departs. Flinging herself into the grotto's pool to swim the icy depths below this cool, dank prison; leaving you to curl up on the mossy floor, and shiver in loneliness and self-loathing.

But after four days, you're starting to flag. Four days with nothing to eat, and only cold, dark water from the pool to drink. You're no stranger to an empty belly, after that mandragora ruined the second cropfield three harvests ago; but the hollow feeling in the pit of your stomach stems just as much from depression as low nutrition. Your captor doesn't help. If anything, she seems to demand more of you the worse you feel; her jet-black hair bobbing mechanically above your erection for longer and longer each visit. "Food", you croak at her. She blinks her double eyelids, little gills flaring open and shut at the side of her neck to breathe even as her throat is stuffed with your cock.

"Food", you try again, pointing to your mouth. With a fleshy, wet noise, she retracts herself from atop your burgeoning member, letting it flop out of her gullet like a fat, dead fish. The sahuagin slides down your chest, bringing her face towards yours; little fanged teeth poking out of red lips, pursed as though to kiss you. You recoil in terror, and she stops abrubtly. Blinks. Then slowly retreats, eyes down, returning your penis to her mouth and resuming her quiet sucking.

As always, it eventually ends. You scatter your white expulsation against the back of her throat, and the mamono consumes it silently. But this time, she doesn't swim away into the chill waters like usual. As your shaking fingers pull your breeches back into place in some vestigial ghost of modesty, she just sits there at the edge of the pool. Staring at you; face the same blank, expressionless visage as it was the day she slipped between your legs in the river and dragged you under; the same face she uses when she sucks your seed to fill her belly. "Food," you try again. "For... for me. Human. To eat. I..."

Nothing. No hint of recognition or comprehension. Her yellow eyes glisten wetly in the pale viridian fungus-light. Alien eyes; from the time when monsters were even more ab-human than today. Eyes for a life in the cold, dark depths, where man was never meant to be taken.
Strange, terrible, and beautiful.

And with barely a splash, suddenly she's gone again. You let out a breath you didn't realise you'd been holding - your exhalation loud and plaintive in this claustrophobic cavern - and wrap your arms around yourself. Genuinely, you can't decide what's worse: those unwavering golden eyes, staring up at you as she drinks your sticky essence; or the absolute, total solitude you endure when she's gone. You rest your head against a rock, and try to sleep, fitfully; hoping to regain some small measure of energy for when she comes back, to drain you yet again.

How long you're out isn't something you can know, but nearby splashing and shuffling about alerts you to the sahuagin's return. The creature's motion on land is always ungainly, built as it is for a life beneath the water; though the flop flop flop of fin-feet indicate that she's making more of an excursion than usual. Exhausted as you are, though, you only manage to lever yourself upright in time to spot her slip away again into the pond. A visit without a meal? That's... unusual.

And then you see what she's left behind.
A boot.
The thing has clearly been in the water for many years; the old leather is frayed and ruined, half the sole is missing, the laces are gone. And there's... what looks like teeth marks. Little testing nibbles in the fabric of the shoe, with dimples made by pointy canines.

Sahuagin pointy canines. HER pointy canines.

She's brought you a boot to eat.
Ha... ha ha... ahahaha. You don't know whether to laugh or cry, so you do both. A boot.
A pissing boot.
Eventually, you decide the noise coming out of your throat is laughter. The mamono understood what you were trying to say... but at the same time, she didn't understand at all, with such a fundamental incomprehension of what humans are and need that you can't help but giggle in the darkness at the absurdity of it all.

Ha.
Well, next time she's gulping down your little swimmers, you'll have to try and explain to her something about the rest of human anatomy. And if it succeeds... maybe, just maybe, you can get through the week without starving to death.