I stayed in the car the next day. The giant was apparently worried I'd pass out during the day again and fall off him without him noticing. I did, however, greet him when we took rest breaks and he thought the smell of our shower products a great curiosity. He especially liked the smell of the shampoo and kept sniffing my head for a whiff.
By the end of the day, we were only half a day's journey from the Tangled Ranges. That night, we received the Forest Mother's message to follow one of the tributary rivers into the mountains, so that we would not cause too much damage to the forest.
Unprepared for this, the Director made a call for two boats to be arranged. The food for the Forest Mother was loaded onto a barge. A medical team was also arranged to join us for our trek into the dangerous wild mountains where few humans dared to go.
Homeward met us when we were loading up the boats. With him around, there was finally no need for conversations or arguments to take place in my head anymore. Between him and Shigure, they'd be able to communicate with the giant just fine. Finally my head would be able to take a break.
"There are a few rapids and a waterfall further upriver," he told Director Worth. "All of this is not very feasible. It would make more sense to tie everything onto the Desert Father's back and let him carry it into the Tangled Ranges."
Director Worth hesitated and then suggested we ask the giant for advice. When asked, the desert giant seemed to shrug and moved a boat with the people still in it with his mouth. Very carefully.
"That works too," Homeward said.
Once the boats were ready, we set off. What we thought would only be half a day's journey took more than two days. Going by water was slow and tedious, because the waterway was not clear or deep enough the whole way through. We had to divert to other tributaries and walk part of the way when the boats were being moved by the Desert Father.
I could feel the big dinosaur's nervousness and excitement slowly building as we travelled. He kept asking how he looked. His anxious anticipation infected all of us and made moods short. Even so, he seemed to notice that Big Brother and Wing Blues Chad had an unusual interest in me. He guarded me against them with jealousy and an angry eye.
When no one was looking and we had stopped for a break, Chad would try to sidle up to me to talk. Big Brother and my friends were on guard against him, and so he didn't have a chance. Big Brother often tried to ingratiate himself with the giant by offering some wild fruits of foods he had found in the forest on the way. The Desert Father would eat them but then still turn his head aside when Big Brother tried to talk further with him to convince him to allow him near me.
The Desert Father also helped us deal with any beasts that tried to attack us during our travels. A huge water monster in a deep and wide stretch of river was snapped in half with a bite and tossed into the trees at the side. A herd of carnivorous beasts fell dead when they attacked at night with a thought from him. Their bodies were found in the morning. A type of black lizard - the mental ability eating type - were found sneaking up on us and were skewered by a bunch of branches that he spat at them. Having the Desert Father around was somewhat comforting when compared to the wild creatures in this lawless forest where only the strong survived.
At last we heard the welcoming bellow of the Forest Mother. Without waiting any further, I was scooped up off the deck of the boat I had been sitting on by his gentle but stinky jaws, and then the Desert Father went lolloping and crashing through the forest to meet the Forest Mother. Trees crashed and the ground shook. We went down a mountain ridge into a very deep valley where a very big lake - almost an inland sea - was located.
I was tossed in the air between the two giants, at once shrieking with fear and delight. Eventually I was placed by the Desert Father onto the Forest Mother's back where I could hug her neck. She gave me a loving croon and then rubbed necks with the Desert Father. I heard them communicating with each other in their own way, forgetting about me for a moment. Long enough for a big ape to swing out of the trees, climb up to snatch me from the Forest Mother's back and kidnap me.
I was carried off and away into the deep forest by hairy arms and bodies that smelled strongly of sweat, body oil and poor body hygiene. Surrounded by a family of jealous apes who felt I was a captive female who had somehow wandered into their territory, teeth were bared at me whenever I tried to stand up or move. I attempted to open a communication channel with them, but was cuffed across the side of my head for my efforts. The alpha male of the group stalked over to examine me with a ghastly grin. He stank strongly of unwashed male and potent urine. My clothes were examined and then torn from me, tossed to his females to play with.
Falling to the ground, I tried to stand my ground so as not to be bullied and fight back, but he smacked me whenever I tried to look directly at him. The apes were far stronger than me and handled me as if I were just one of their half grown children. Seeing that I wasn't obedient, the alpha sat down, threw me over his knee and slapped my backside until I cried and stopped struggling.
Satisfied with my seeming surrender, the alpha male ape examined me with his fingers, poking and feeling my bare skin. When I tried to escape, I was knocked back toward him by the other apes. Whereupon I would have to suffer another round of spanking.
My backside felt like it was a swelling balloon of prickly needles.
I was sniffed and licked and then forced to sit while my hair was groomed by the other apes. The females thankfully had a slightly improved sense of hygiene and didn't smell as nauseating as the males. One of the curious and more naughty youngsters took this opportunity to play with my breasts which were larger than those of the other female apes. Emboldened by him and my feeble inability to stop him, other young males crowded around, pushing into the way of the apes grooming my hair, touching, feeling and tugging.
Although I fought them, I was punished until I lay on the cold ground panting and in too much pain, dazed from the many cuffing fists to my head.
I was pushed down onto the ground and weighed down by heavy, hairy bodies while they examined me. A finger poked me and wriggled at my nether hole, making me flinch and yell. Excited by this reaction, the other apes began to imitate this action until my crying made the alpha male slap all the younger males aside. He, however, took over the role of probing me and making me jerk with pain at the roughness of his fingers, while he thoroughly examined my female anatomy.
The voice of the Desert Mother barked and the whole troop froze. Another bark and they fled, leaving me naked, sore and alone. The Desert Mother had heard me crying and I felt her try to tell me something. My head was too dazed to figure out what she was saying.
Wet feet slapped the ground and a slimy and scaly arm slid around my back, making me jump and scream with fright. The fishy scent of water weeds and fish intruded upon me like a sharp metallic tang into the heavy apish body odour that had previously surrounded me. I jumped so high that I saw the treetops, but not high enough that I could see beyond the treetops. I was caught in those slimy and scaley arms and a humanoid but fishy looking face bared its teeth at me in a lewd grin.
Ugh. Fish breath.
"The Great Mother has commanded that I bring you back to her," he said with a strong accent. "You are beautiful."
His face loomed close and I shrunk back, fighting against his arms to break free. I fell and landed heavily on the ground, knocking the breath from me. He took this opportunity to grasp my head in his webbed hands, creating a watery mental barrier isolating me mentally from the rest of the world.
My mind became enveloped in the murky and muffled sense of being deep underwater. Trying to think was slow, delayed and off kilter, like moving underwater with no firm ground in sight. Hard to know what was up and where was down. His pressure to surrender to him was like the water pressure five metres deep underwater upon me and increasing.
"You will tell no one of me," he told me seriously, his voice entering my ears and mind with that watery, metallic tang. The only point of clarity in the drifting, murky blur that my mind had become. "When your people come, you can insist on staying here. I want you for my mate."
"You can get in line," my teeth chattered, holding onto some mental anchors, refusing to give in to him and end up feeling lost enough in this floating, pressured sensation, to want to anchor myself to him.
The fishman snarled in irritation. He cupped my breasts in his large webbed hands and I felt something sharp sting me. I yelped and jolted. His lips fell upon my breasts and kissed them gently, finding the nipples and then sucking gently, his tongue playing with the buds, covering me with his disgusting metallic and fishy scent.
A strange and dizzying sensation whirled through me and I tried to push him away.
"You will want me and seek me by dark," he told me in a dark tone, seeming irritated at my refusal, and picking me up because I could no longer stand firmly. With my mind and head floating in deep waters that he had surrounded me in, there was no way to keep physical balance on my own two feet. He carried me back to where the two giants were still rubbing necks and talking.
Upon my appearance in the fishman's arms, they sniffed me. The Forest Mother glared at the fishman and then flicked him into the water with a snort, leaving me behind. She and the Forest Father bathed me in the icy cold water of the lake and their slimy tongues, waking me up a little more. Seeing it wasn't helping much and that I wasn't understanding anything they tried to say to me, the Forest Mother and Desert Father placed me with a family of large otter like mammals for safe keeping.
The otters rubbed me dry and then surrounded me to keep me warm.
The two giants headed off in the direction of where my people had been left behind. Then the fishman tried to take this opportunity to steal me away, but the otter family snarled at him, chasing him away.
I felt dizzy, hot and cold. The world was silent, save for what I could hear with my own two ears. But even that felt distant and off balance because of the watery grave my mind was still drifting in. It felt like I had ants crawling up and down the inside of my bloated skin. Seeing how uncomfortable I was, the otters continued to rub their bodies on me to try and relieve some of my discomfort.
The troop of apes came to try and distract the otters in order to kidnap me again. I was picked up, dropped. Tossed and kicked. In the fight, the apes tried to use me as a shield and when the alpha male's back was turned, a younger male tried to mount me. I found a stick from somewhere and brained the young male hard enough that he reeled. Another ape jumped on me in anger, beating me, while the stick was yanked from my grip and used to beat me up. There were too many for me to keep track of. I was easily beaten into the ground.
Was there something about me that attracted creatures to want to mate with me? Why was I being targeted?
The trembling ground heralded the arrival of the giants and the apes fled. The otters swarmed over me in concern.