Page 84 of To Trap a Soul

He tilted his head as he inspected the mostly brown, bulky creatures. “I believe humans call them cows?”

A creature gave a lowing snort and tossed their head as they presented their large horns to ward Nathair back. It was the only one with horns on its head, and Weldir assumed it to be a male for that reason, although its bigger size compared to the others of its herd was another indication.

It protectively charged when Nathair slithered closer.

The battle was over quickly; the bull, although large and strong, was slow and easily caught with a mere tackle and fang lance. Yet Nathair, struck with excitement from fleeing prey, was quick to charge after the females.

Orson, attracted by the scent of blood coming from the male, was left behind when they leapt off to scuttle towards easy food. They stayed behind to eat.

The discs unlinked from their conjoined state so both his offspring could stay in his sight. Nathair seemed set on a particular female cow, while the others ran in opposite directions, the night filled with terrified lowing.

Weldir’s mind was able to soak in the information from all three discs effortlessly, and he watched them all at the sametime. Nathair claimed his prize, and without any of the other cows in his line of sight to distract him, he began to consume it. Lindiwe continued to float through the forest, but Weldir could tell that she wasn’t close by.

“Lindiwe, Orson is...”

“No,” she whispered. “Are they okay?”

“They are eating a horned male. If Nathair doesn’t come to claim his prize, then they will consume it in full. They are already growing quite large.”

“Fuck!” she screeched, throwing her hands up with rigid fingers. Weldir’s mist collected tighter, unused to this usually prim female swearing so ferociously. “I wanted to be there when they gained their horns. Is there anything you can do to stop it? Anything at all?”

No, there was nothing.

“I’m sorry, little female.”

“But...” Her voice broke, leaping an octave higher, as her eyes crinkled in obvious sadness. “But I wanted to say goodbye to them as they are.”

The right side of his face tightened with pressure, and his reflection in the disc showed he’d winced.She merely wanted to be there in their final hour as a youngling.Weldir couldn’t fathom what it was like going through all these different ordeals, especially as her emotional ties to them were so much more profound than his.

He was just as detached as they were.

Nathair, finished with his meal, slithered back towards the carcass his sibling ate at. He didn’t fight them for it, as if he didn’t even seem to notice their very presence or perhaps didn’t care.

The cool hue of the moon’s fading light glistened upon Orson’s white bear skull as their newly formed tail, long and thin with a furry tuft at the end, flicked to the side. They swiftly ate theirway to the bull’s upward-jutting horns, quick to consume them before Nathair could steal the head for himself.

June 21st, 1709

Keeping her arms pressed to her chest, Lindi grimaced as something thin, smooth, and wiggling slid out of her pussy. She tried to ignore the trickle within when it threatened to spill from her and closed her knees to shield her privates.

Her face remained heated from the awkwardness of having a shadowy tendril inserted into her. At least it was never painful, since Weldir treated her with the utmost care regarding this now.

“Hopefully this time it takes,” Weldir commented, withdrawing so completely from her as though time and space were closer to each other.

“I think it’s due to how closely the last attempts were to my monthly blood,” Lindi admitted, hating how her cheeks flared even hotter and she felt the need to be elsewhere. But there was no denying it.

This was their third try for this child, once before her monthly, once afterwards, and now.At least it isn’t always a one-shot event.But he seemed to be hyper-fertile, partially to her dismay.

She’d like more time, more attempts, to ready her mind for the next child. To learn that she would not only be inseminated by a gross tendril and then pregnant a few days later, and a mother again in around five weeks, was a lot for her to swallow. She’d hate having to dothispart of the procedure repeatedly, but at least it’d give her time to settle into the idea.

Then again, spending the last month near the Veil was gruelling.She stayed near Weldir’s mist because there was no point in venturing far if she was just going to be brought back to it. Which then brought on the issue of her smelling like blood with Demons nearby when her monthly cycle came.

There wasn’t really any winning for Lindi.

He did give her a year before asking to create another child, though. She’d needed a break, and to rejoin society temporarily to learn what had happened in her absence. In the year she’d spent with Nathair, the desert had almost disappeared, and Demons were running rampant throughout Austrális.

No one was safe anymore.

In the year and a half since she left, she’d seen the devastation up close, and it was heartbreaking. But as much as she wanted to dwell on it and grieve for humankind, she couldn’t.

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