Root and Blood

The man appeared at the forest edge, gaunt and hollow-eyed, bone fragments woven through his matted hair. His skin stretched taut across jutting ribs as he extended a dirt-crusted hand toward Aldryn.

Aldryn squinted and shook his hand. This guy was a Gloomweave cultist, no doubt about it.

"She awaits," he rasped. "Mistress Xalquira demands your presence."

Aldryn's knuckles whitened around botanist's notebook. Xalquira or Quira, their family's nickname for her. His father's daughter from first wife. She became part of family at nine, after father married his mother, one year before he was born.

Quira was a troubled disruptive child. Aldryn shaked his head remembering tales of vandalism, dissected animals in the yard, and her infamous brawls. But mother always treated her like one of her own, showing unwavering patience, defending her to everyone, staying up nights when nightmares plagued the girl and refusing to give up on her.

Her violent proclivities never scared him as a child. She always showed unexpected patience with him. Aldryn smiled, wistfully reminiscing fragments of his childhood - Quira at eighteen, tall and athletic, protecting him from Clan Blackspire children, teaching him to climb the tallest oak in their yard, stealing pastries for them from Glimpscale Market... and countless other memories from the time they spent together.

After their father was murdered, nineteen-year-old Quira embarked westward. Only leaving occasional cryptic letters to family, mostly his mother, the only humans who truly showed her kindness. Aldryn surmised her whereabouts from the letters. All of them were postmarked from the closest village, hundred miles east from these dreaded woods. The Gloomweave cultist uttering her name in the forest merely reaffirmed his conjecture.

"I'm ready," Aldryn said, following the tall cultist's shambling gait into the trees. Neither noticed the stalkers trailing fifty yards behind. All throughout the journey, terrified locals warned him not to venture too close to western half of Klyzandor continent which was a nightmarish forest, colloquially known as The Grisly Forest. Even Sable Crown legions, unarguably the strongest military force in history of Klyzandor, were forced to halt their conquest at its malefic borders.

"Stay close," the cultist warned, glancing back with hollow eyes. "The forest hungers for those who wander."

Aldryn followed closely, unease crawling up his spine. Still unsure why he was following him or cultist's ties to his half-sister. Gloomweave Order was an obscure powerful cult, their barbarity dreaded even by Dragonflare Covenant.

The forest swallowed the path behind them with each step as they ventured deeper. Massive trees along the way twisted into grotesque shapes that resembled screaming faces. Trunks were wider than castle walls and their branches drooped like broken limbs. The air was musty and heavy, every swallow felt like sandpaper scraping against the back of his throat.

The path led them into a clearing scented in petrichor. Sunlight fell like spotlights through gaps in the canopy. At its center loomed a tree that dwarfed the others. At least fifty feet around, bark black as coal. Strange symbols had been carved into its surface, crude angular cuts pulsating with light. Roots as thick as dragon's tail snaked across the ground, digging into the surface.

And there stood Quira.

The athletic teenager from his childhood memories was gone. Now in her early thirties, she had transformed into a ravishing goddess. Standing at least 6'6", she towered over his six feet frame, few inches taller than he last saw her.

At 275 pounds, her previously lean frame was bulked with dense muscle and a layer of fat. Mostly concentrated in lower body and her chest with some of it on those burly arms and broad shoulders. Huge thighs and muscular calves supported her hourglass figure. Pale skin seemed to glow in the dim light, stretching over her powerful musculature.

The right side of Quira's head was shaved to the scalp while long bluish-green hair fell exquisitely down the left side and broad back. Lightly freckled cheeks were fuller now, face more rounded, but still had a distinct sharp angle that he remembered.

The facial piercings and colorful tattooed sleeves were new. Three curved thorns protruded from her right eyebrow, two more from her bottom lip, and a bone ring passed through her septum. Ears adorned with hoops hewed from human ribs. Soft rounded breasts strained against her tight leather top fashioned from wyvern hide. Her green eyes cut through the shadows of the forest and locked onto Aldryn's face, thick wide lips curling into a warm smile.

Quira's expression suddenly changed as she took a step towards them.

"You bought the empire interlopers," she snarled, her voice furious. Her eyes fixed on him intently, then flashed past Aldryn. Her expression contorted with resignation.

"I should have gone myself," she muttered softly, shaking her head.

"But the path.." the cultist who brought him stammered. The excuse died in throat. Quira's hands flicked dismissively. A vine wrapped around cultist's neck. The man's eyes bulged hideously as Quira clenched her fist, causing the vine to tighten. A sharp crunch silenced his protest. Limp body swung from the massive tree in the center, blood trickling from his open mouth.

It was then, a horrifying realization dawned on Aldryn. Purple-green roots and vines spreaded on her upper arms, sprawled in a chaotic tangle that gradually thinned out till it reached her shoulders. Meaty forearms now resembled a bough, completely interwoven with them. Fingers turned unnaturally long, nails blackening like a sharp obsidian. The strange rumors about his father's first wife, her disruptive behaviour and those nightmares growing up suddenly crystallized into terrifying clarity. Quira wasn't fully human. Something ancient and inhuman coursed within her that belonged to the wild.

The ground convulsed beneath their feet as Quira raised her arms. Roots thick as a man's arm erupted from the soil like spears, whipping through air at her command. Behind them, men screamed. With a jabbing motion of her finger, she sent a root through a man's throat, blood jetting in a crimson arc as his windpipe shattered. Another gesture impaled a second man through the chest, the root punching clean through sternum with a crack of fragmenting bone, the tip emerging gore-slicked between shoulder blades.

The scout almost escaped, managing three desperate strides before roots snared both ankles. She yanked them in opposite directions. The wet, meaty tear of his groin splitting echoed through the clearing as his entrails spilled onto the forest floor.

"Fuck!" Aldryn stumbled, taken aback by unfolding brutality. "I didn't know they followed--"

Quira's fingers shrank back to human proportions as the blackened talons receded into normal nails. Her hand, now deceptively human, clamped around his arm. Fingers dug into his flesh with bruising force.

"You led them here, Aldryn," she accused with a soft growl. "Empire mages seeking to drain the forest's power."

Her eyes, thin violet slits cutting through jade irises changed back to their human form. "They tear out the heart trees, bottle the essence, leaving nothing but dead wood behind. You were meant to die with them for bringing such danger here."

"Sis Quira, I swear, I didn't know," Aldryn gasped. "I only came because our mother insisted. She thought you could help with my research..."

Her grip loosened fractionally. "Your research?"

"She keeps every letter you send," Aldryn babbled, desperately. "She told me you 'work with the forest'. I'll keep your secret, I swear. No one needs to know what I've seen today, not even her.."

Xalquira studied him intently, from his trembling hands to his face, noting the botanical notebook clutched against chest. No staff, no spell components, no imperial robes. Just a scholar's tools and her brother's frightened face.

"I know, you didn't mean to bring the intruders, little brother," she said, voice gentling. The murderous rage from earlier completely vanished. "But the forest demands appeasement," her tone now sombering.

"Death is a fair price," she said finally, regret evident in ominous words. "Now, there's no way but to do that."

At her sign, thick vines erupted from the ground, thinner than those that had impaled the loggers but no less strong, wrapping Aldryn's wrists and ankles.

"Sister? No please," Aldryn screamed, convinced he was about to die.

"Aldryn!" she roared. "Calm yourself and listen!" The sudden burst of volume shocked him into silence. "There's an ancient rite. An offering, not blood, drawn from the pure," she said, soothing him.

"Now, answer truthfully. Have you ever been fucked by a man?" she asked bluntly. "And are you a virgin?"

He tensed, realizing where this was leading. She needed an offering from "pure".

"No," he answered, thinking of his past dalliances with women. He thought about lying. But Quira had always been able to see through his deceptions.

Quira smirked, just like when she teased him as a child. She deliberately asked the last question with ambiguousness, knowing full well he'd misunderstand.

"Not that kind of purity, foolish brother. The ritual needs a virgin untouched there," her nail scraping his rosebud. "Your essence, simulated that way, can nourish the sacred tree instead of your blood."

The worshippers circled them, chanting in a language that made Aldryn's ears hurt. The blood of impaled men continued to drain, flowing in rivulets toward the great tree.

Horror dawned upon him as a cultist approached, wielding a knife carved from femur. The blade slashed through Aldryn's clothing. Cool air raised goosebumps across his completely exposed skin. Cock retreating against his body, balls drawn tight against his groin.

The vines repositioned him, bending him forward at the waist and pulling his arms above his head. They spread his legs wide, exposing his ass to the air.

"What--stop--" he gasped.

"You don't get a say in this, Aldryn," she said flatly. "I am not killing my baby brother. Besides, mother would be displeased if something happened to you." Part of him was relieved. She was still the same overprotective sister from their childhood.

Aldryn felt her kneel behind him. Breath hot against his perineum and the wetness of her tongue against his hole. He writhed in the vine restraints, a strangled sound escaping his throat. Her tongue was inhumanly long and dexterous. Slick with tree sap that burned then numbed his entrance. It circled his rim, tracing the tight pucker before pushing inward with firm pressure.

"Fuck--" he moaned.

Her prehensile and alien tongue probed deeper, lubing his rectum with sap. The sap spread inside him creating a strange warmth that loosened his sphincter against his will. She rimmed him thoroughly. Her saliva and the sap mixing to form a slick coating both inside and outside his hole.

"St--stop it," he gasped.

Despite his terror, blood rushed to his cock. It thickened and lengthened, hanging heavy between his spread thighs.

"Good," she muttered against his skin, her tongue withdrawing with a wet sound. "Your body is responding well."

The blood of trespassers soaked the ground. Roots feeding on it writhed like awakening serpents.

Quira stood. With a gesture, roots before her twisted together and merged, forming thick, knotted beads that rose between her legs. The sinister thing was nine inches long, with bulbous knots turning larger every few inches. The root-beads glistened with sap.

Aldryn's eyes widened in horror. "No way that's going to fit."

"The tongue was only for you, Aldryn," she whispered tenderly. "A mercy from your sister to ease the passage." She positioned herself behind him. Root-beads were jutted between them like a dick raring to go. "Now the true rite begins."

"The forest demands," she intoned, pressing the blunt head at his slickened entrance. "And I am its voice, unbound. Scream if you must, the trees enjoy the sound."

"Wait, wait--" His plea was cut short as she pushed the root-beads forward.

Pain shot up Aldryn's spine as his virgin hole stretched around the root-beads. The head breached him with a pop that sent waves of agony through him. He screamed, body instinctively trying to expel the intrusion, but the vines held him immobile.

"Fuck it burns! Take it out!" he sobbed, tears running down his face.

"Take a breath, Aldryn," she instructed. "The sap will help it slide. Don't fight it. It's only gonna hurt more."

"It's too much.." he whimpered, barely audible.

She was right. The sap from her tongue had relaxed his opening. Initial tearing subsided and tight ring of flesh surrendered completely to that monstrosity.

The root-beads drove deeper, its bark-textured surface scraping his inner walls with each inch gained. When it hit 2 inches deep, head rammed against his prostate. A jolt passed through him that made his half-hard cock jerk upward, a clear drop of sticky pre-cum connecting tip to soil.

"Oh god," he moaned, shocked by the sudden pleasure. His legs trembled but vines anchored them secure.

"There you go, baby brother," Quira said, pleased with him.

She twisted her wrist, manipulating the root inside him. The root-beads withdrew slowly, the rough-edged knots dragging across nerve endings, catching on his distended rim hard enough to make it bulge outward.

"I can't," he choked out, "I can't take another--"

Then she slammed it forward again without warning. Aldryn's rectum stretched to accommodate the intrusion, pain signals rewiring to pleasure as the sap altered his body's chemistry.

"Aaah... Aaah!" he cried out in ecstasy. His fingers clawed at the roots, searching for something to grip.

His cock swelled to full hardness, seven inches hanging heavy and bouncing with each brutal thrust of grotesque beads. His glans drooled steady pre-cum that darkened the soil where it dripped.

Xalquira conjured from ground twig-like vine gleaming with sap. It was smooth as glass with diameter of a pencil lead. Another vine circled the base of Aldryn's cock, squeezing tight enough to make the veins bulge.

"What the fu--" His protest died as she pressed twig-like vine into his piss slit. The urethral opening resisted for only a second before it slipped inside, parting the tissue with ease. The slender vine tunneled deep into his urethra, reaching the prostate. The pressure created connected intrusion up front directly to his stuffed ass.

"Noo--not thereeeee," he screamed from the uncomfortable feeling.

His eyes rolled back. "Oh fuck, oh fuck," he babbled, drool escaping the corner of his open mouth.

"The seed must flow freely," Quira explained. Root-beads drilled deeper, the knots pulling his hole wide enough to show pink inner flesh before shoving back inside. The urethral vine moved in tandem, sliding deeper into his cock with each thrust, then withdrawing as the root pulled back. Both of his holes were under her control.

"But only when I allow it," she smirked. Then, with a twist of her finger, the slender vine thickened inside him, swelling to about five millimeters, almost as wide as the urethral passage. He felt it balloon, a sudden expansion locking his tube from within.

"No, I can't--it's too much..." His words dissolved into incoherent moans. Dual sensation of fullness overwhelming him.

The now-thickened urethral vine held firm. It blocked his release as fluids from prostate and seminal vesicles continued pooling in prostatic urethra. The root-bead continued grinding his prostate, the sensitive bridge between frontal and rear invasion.

Aldryn's body betrayed him completely. Each strike to prostate combined with the urethral blockade built unbelievable pressure in his balls. They drew up tight against the base of his cock, sperm production accelerated by the sap's chemical influence. His sac filled painful fullness despite his mind's horror.

"Need to cum," he begged, voice hoarse from screaming. "Please, Quira, let me cum--it hurts--"

She rammed the root-phallus to maximum depth. The final golfball-sized knot at its base forced his sphincter to stretch beyond its natural limits. It lodged directly against his prostate, vibrating with mind of its own. The knot grind against the gland relentlessly while the tip flexed to probe deeper, nearly grazing his intestine.

His entire body shook, teetering on the edge but unable to release. Fresh tears streamed down his face. "Please," he begged. "I can't take anymore."

"Release," Quira commanded. Urethral vine withdrew in one smooth pull, unleashing the flood pent up inside him. Cum erupted from his cock in thick ropes, spattering onto hungry roots below. A gush of built-up fluid followed, spurting in heavy bursts. His ass clenched involuntarily around the beaded monstrosity, as wave after wave of pleasure tore through him.

"FUUUUUCK!" he howled, his body convulsing from intensity of the climax. He almost whited out, consciousness slipping away as the pain and pleasure overwhelmed his body.

Quira crouched beside him pulling out the root-beads slowly. The knots popped free one by one, sending aftershocks through Aldryn's shivering body. The abomination dissolved back into the earth as the vines released his limbs. He collapsed onto the damp ground, a mixture of sap and blood leaking from his gaping hole.

The earth shuddered. Her forearms, interwoven with roots and vines flared bright, then dimmed to an amber glow, their tips trailing off at her upper arms. Soon after, her arms shifted back to human flesh.

"The forest accepts your tribute, brother" she stated. "Your life is spared."

Aldryn couldn't respond. He only shivered as he processed the aftermath of intense orgasm and ritual violation. Quira helped him up and they sat together against the great tree. She pulled him close, letting him lean onto her side, huge arm wrapping around his shoulders. Cultists moving like shadows disappeared among the trees leaving them alone.

"I'm sorry for hurting you, Aldryn, and for scaring you like that," Quira said consoling him. "I have a duty to the forest, and I couldn't just let you die."

Aldryn looked up at her, breathing still unsteady. "I get it, sis. I don't hate you."

He rested his head on her chest, arms circling around her waist. They stayed like that for a bit, quiet, her hand rubbing on his back.

A cultist returned with new clothes. Quira helped him to unsteady feet. Legs giving out twice before holding his weight. His hole felt destroyed, loose and gaping, sap still leaking down his inner thighs.

Quira grabbed his notebook from the dirt.

"Still chasing plants, huh?" she asked, flipping it open.

Aldryn nodded, wiping his face. "Yeah, trying to figure out this forest."

"Oh, I'm afraid I can't allow that, little brother." she said, voice playful but carrying a firm warning.

Aldryn snorted. "Yeah, right. Your precious forest."

"Don't worry, I'll give you just enough to keep that curiosity of yours happy," she added, lightly squeezing his cheeks like he was still a kid.

"Come on. I'll show you around. Just don't touch anything glowing or--actually, just don't touch anything at all."

After they were done, Aldryn looked at her, suddenly hesitant.

"Xalquira. What are you exactly? The roots, the forest... you're not completely human, right?"

She grinned. "The same girl you clung to when you were scared and the one you came crying to when bullies picked on you. That's all you need to know, isn't it?"

He rolled his eyes. "You're dodging it, sis." She just laughed. "Maybe. But I'm still your big sister, so deal with it.

"Return to mother," she said, her voice softening. "Tell her I'm well." Her eyes hardened. "Next time you return, come alone. No followers, intentional or otherwise."

"And take this," she said, extending a pouch of dark leaves. "It will help with pain and prevent festering."

She walked him to the edge of the forest. "Before I forget, you've been marked by the ritual," she said, gesturing at his back. An intricate white etching now marked his lower back. "Now you belong to me." Part of her braced for him to despise her. "It is mark of the Ancient. It means you can't say no to me. The mark will hurt like hell if you refuse me."

"Oh, nice, you wait till I'm out the door to tell me?" Aldryn replied sarcastically. She was relieved he didn't resist the mark.

"Don't worry, I won't make you do anything too crazy, Aldryn," she chuckled, teasing him.

"Knowing you, you would totally do it, sis," he said, feigning disappointment.

Aldryn looked at her, smirking. "Maybe, I would nourish the forest again. But no restraints this time."

Xalquira raised her eyebrows, seeing right through his intentions. She stepped closer to him, her body almost touching his.

Suddenly, vines shot up from the ground. They silently coiled around Aldryn's limbs, not threatening, just a reminder of her power. The scent of petrichor emanated from her skin as she bent down.

"Humans and their illusion of choice," she mocked with a mischievous smile, amused by his bravado.

Vines hoisted him up to her eye level, his feet dangling. She leaned in, planting a quick kiss on his cheek. The vines guided his hands forward until they fleetingly pressed against her breasts.

"Return soon, baby brother," she said with a sly grin. The vines gently set him down just beyond the last tree of the forest. "And we'll see about those restraints."