"Noah, get away from that!" Liora's voice came out as a scream of fear, her eyes bulging from their sockets as she shivered every time the dryad's gaze landed on her. Growing up there had been story of Dryads, trickster monsters, mimics of nature who lured in men and women to feed them their fruits before drawing them in to drain them of their ethos before ultimately turning them into monsters. Women would become dryads themselves, their bodies twisted into a seed that would be planted and would grow with none of their previous humanity, while the men, they be draw into the trunk of the tree, their bodies melded with the wood to become a provider of sex, semen, and ethos for the rest of their now eternal lives. Some have said that when a man's body has been corrupted enough and the dryad who'd claimed them had been killed, would turn into an ent, giant, walking monsters who sought out women to sate their everlasting lust and to act as the womb from which their dryad queen will be born from as a forest nymph.
And one of those was now before her.
It was still, barely moving as it loomed from the hips from the tree, only its mockery of hair dancing in the wind. Every now and then small vines would squirm here and there, barely noticeable but from the focus Liora placed on it, she could see everything.
Noah looked to the dryad and shrugged. He was calm, uncannily so considering his distance to a creature that would gladly force him down and drain him dry of all his male essence. Then again, Liora noted, just as Noah was calm, so too was the dryad. It wasn't moving ready to attack, nor was it licentiously drawing Noah in to keep him as its personal sex toy. It was just… there. Besides Noah. Looking at her curiously.
"You made me eat a dryads fruit!" Caina screeched, her voice so loud Liora winced as it thrummed painfully in her left ear. Wiping her mouth down with her sleeve to cleanse any of her… expulsions, Caina sent a fiery glare Noah's way and a cautious glare the dryads. "Do you know how dangerous that is!? And get away from that monster before it fucks you into a tree!"
Noah looked absolutely baffled by what he was to say, so he said the only thing he could think of, "Sorry?" in a confused, I didn't know what I'd did was wrong, tone.
"My brethren perhaps may seek to converge men into ents, but I seek no such action." The dryad spoke, the moment she did Caina's lips were sealed and she stepped twice backwards into the hayfield. Her olive tone paling a shade as her throat writhed with a gulping swallow of saliva.
"Not unless Noah may request such of me, then I shall gladly bring him within my embrace to forever become my fruiter."
She spoke with little emotion which only further unnerved the strange hum that came from her barely moving lips. Whenever they did, the inside of her mouth was revealed, she lacked teeth, at least from what Liora saw from this distance and the little movement she made. But what she did have was a pink void of writhing, glossy strings. It was like those books had said, another hole it used to drain men or women of their vigour.
"Noah, please. Just, come here." Aching to her feet, Liora stood on the precipice of the verdant ring. Her entire body shaking both in fear for her own safety and most pressingly, Noah's safety. If he would get away from it while it was still calm, he would be safe and she could find someone to get rid of it.
"Don't worry, It's fine. I'll be fine. Let me introduce you to Serris." Straining with what to say, Noah opted to just further along his agenda and introduce the dryad, which surprisingly had a name. 'It must have stolen it from one of its victims.' Thought Liora, still fearful for Noah possible demise.
"No you won't! That's a dryad Noah! A dangerous, trickster monster that kill hundred of people every year!" Caina bellowed.
"I have yet to kill anyone."
"Yet?" Noah perked an eye the dryads way.
"There have been opportunities. I found watching humanity over the years more intriguing. People also have tendencies to startle upon my appearance such as Liora and this other one have. Oft that leads to them running away and somehow tripping and landing on stones. They tend never to awaken after that."
"You… you weren't tripping them, were you?"
"Of course not. It would be simpler to have my flesh spear them. Much swifter and they likely would twitch less after such a wound."
Draining of colour, Noah shivered and tried to push the deadmans thoughts to the back of his mind.
"It-it knows my name," hyperventilated Liora.
"I did sort of mention it the few times I was talking with Serris." Scratching at the back of his head, Serris spoke, interrupting his chain of thoughts.
"I have known Liora's name long fore you came Noah. Oft the man Harv would bring her below my leaves, and they would copulate into the night fore falling to bed atop my soil and verdure."
In turn, Noah's cheeks flushed. A sprouting image of Liora nude, her body brisking with sweat as her voice echoed against the meadow of gold, appeared in his mind. 'dammit, not the time for fantasies brain.'
So too did Liora shimmer a red tone. Though little care was put behind the concept of sex for her, having her past endeavors with Harv revealed was less than a pleasantly endearing idea. Quite the opposite as it sent her flaming a shade of cherry, that soon drained as a realization bared forth.
"Oh god, I've had sex next to a monster."
"Three hundred and thirty-one times to be exact." Serris added, completely unnecessarily so as Liora was soon stood squat on the ground face in her hands and shrivelling into the wall of hay like she was wanting to be engulfed in it and forgotten.
Noah awkwardly chuckled, "Serris, maybe you can not talk about Liora's err… love life, so casually."
Serris tilted her head like a confused puppy, her drupes and blossoms shifting with a soft rustle before responding, "if that is what you will, I shall speak little of her and that man's endeavours."
"Thanks."
It occurred then and there how little Serris' EQ was likely to be. Considering her indubitable years of lonesomeness without any meaningful interaction with humans or her own kind, it was understandable how uneasily she picked up on social markers.
'I should work on that.' Noah reasoned. If she was going to be here for the foreseeable future, it was better to have her at a point where it was less likely for her to anger a lumberjack who'd come a chopping.
"Right." With one hand on hip, Noah scanned between the pale Liora and the twitchy Caina. "So. Long story short, this is Serris, as I just said. As you can see, she's a dryad—"
"Hamadryad now, after your seeding I am no longer a dryad."
"Of course, he fucked the dryad! He fucked the wolf, why not the tree!" Caina threw a hand up, bags hanging heavily beneath her eyes just moments away from ripping her hair out. Instead of doing that though, Caina shot a hand into her bag and pulled from it a murky glass bottle filled with a sloshing gold liquid. Unlatching the metal cork from it, she brought the bottle to her lips and tipped her head back, glugging half what was left in two gulps. When she looked to Noah again, her eye twitched and the rest rapidly disappeared down her gullet leaving her to gasp and belch unreservedly before stuffing the empty bottle into her bag, now with a bright, alcoholic flush taking her cheeks.
"Okay, in my defence, that was prior to me learning that sex could turn me into a monster. Not exactly something that just popped up on my curriculum when I was still on Earth-" Jolting suddenly, Noah zipped his lips, but quickly saw both the girls latch onto his choice of phrasing. "Uhh. While I was still in… god I have no idea where I am." His diversion attempt failing whole heartedly.
"Still on Earth…" Caina trailed off, the longer she kept still the further her jaw would hang. "Earth… Earth… Earth… that was… oh what was that…" she muttered, attempting revitalize a faint memory at the tip of her tongue.
"Noah." Liora stole the control of the situation, her tone digging into his sides and sending him on alert. The sheer burning blaze steadily rising in her eyes even more terrifying than both Mother Camelia and that Kanyon wolf. "Get away from the dryad now." Clear on her face were her attempts to hide the embarrassing revelation of the extent, she and Harv had went.
"Can I just say something."
"No. After you're safe. Then yes, you've got some things to explain."
"Like why you fed us a dryads fruit." Offhandishly, Caina spoke, quickly returning to her mutterings of earth.
"Okay, just. Let me say one thing."
"And that is?"
"That uh… um… I wasn't actually expecting you to let me speak. I didn't think this far. Look, Serris is a kind girl… tree?" he looked to her for confirmation but got nothing but a blank, pink sparkling look in return from the dryad. "And as she said, she's not out to kill anyone. Look, I'm still here and I was wrapped in her vines for a while before she let me go."
"You were what?"
"That's not important. Just, can you calmly listen to me without that terrifying mother hen look."
She wasn't comfortable with that idea, not at all.
"If you find my appearance displeasurable, I may leave so you may be calm."
This isn't right, the dryad is too calm, too… kind. It's not anything like those stories mother would tell me. Liora thought, chewing on her lip. "Just, Noah. Please just get away from the dryad for now. I-I need to calm down before this gets any further."
"kay, fine, if that's what it'll take for you to calm down." One step lead to two, then three, then Noah was before her. Throughout the short trek she'd been watching the dryad, ready to lunge and rip Noah back if it made any sort of movement. Yet, it didn't. It stayed as still as before, seemingly uncaring for its morsels increasing distance. Did it really not want to sap Noah of his seed? This wasn't right. It was unreasonable.
"Is this alright?" Noah questioned just a few steps away from her and the hiccupping Caina. The mead already hitting her mind causing her to wobble a bit though not taking the clarity of sanity from her eyes.
Sticking a single finger up, Liora silenced Noah and began to slowly breath and calm her own heart. "Just, give me a few moments."