Military life lost its glamour after a while, the corporal thought to herself as she cupped

a gloved hand above her eyes, shielding them from the relentless deluge. It had rained for days,
seemingly without pause, and her armour felt close and waterlogged, leather jerkin heavy and
chafing with every sodden step she took through the ankle-deep mud.

Her patrol had been out in the wilds for about a week, ranging far from the city's walls in
an attempt to keep eyes out for any legion scouts. Rumour had it that the war between
Ebonhawke and the charr was winding down, but command claimed that that was no excuse for
relaxing. If anything, it meant some of the more feral beasts might try something before their
masters reigned them in.

The patrol had found little, however. A single campsite, seemingly long-since abandoned.
A few tracks that could just as easily be those of a stalker or other feline predator, age impossible
to figure in the sludge the unending rain had turned the ground into. They were now returning
home weary and downtrodden but glad nevertheless. Quiet patrols were boring, but the
alternative was worse.

They were nearly home. Another few hours, and they should be able to see the walls--

--She stopped. Something was off. Behind her, her meagre unit ground to a halt, eyes
scanning their surroundings. There was little to see - the rainclouds obscured what scant sunlight
might have pierced the canopy of the forest they were traversing, and the gaunt pine trees
seemed to merge into a solid black curtain after a short distance. Nothing appeared to stir, but
her disquiet remained. Something was nearby, something was watching them.

The recruit was the first. Lowering his bow after several moments of vigilance, he turned
to his companions with a relieved smile, and opened his mouth to make some comment about
there being nothing out there. A snap-hiss behind him transfixed said goofy grin on the young
man's face as an arrow thudded into the back of his helm, toppling him over into the mud with
an almost comical squelch.

The others stood and simply stared in disbelief for what seemed like an age. Nothing
moved, nobody breathed. They just stared at their fallen squadmate, and then turned to look
slack-jawed at their leader. By the time the order to get down had left her lips, it was already too
late.

Two more heavy arrows lashed out of the darkness, one puncturing a trooper's stomach
and throwing him backwards, another lancing a swordsman's thigh and bringing him down
yelling. Her second in command, a seasoned soldier who deserved a better death than this,
brought his shield up between himself and the unseen archer, only to collapse gurgling and
clutching his throat as something big uncurled from the shadows behind him and drew a
serrated dagger the size of a human's shortsword across the man's neck.

She was all that was left. In under ten seconds, she had gone from full squad strength to
alone. There was nothing else for it - she followed her own orders, muttering a prayer to Grenth
for the fallen's safe passage, and ran, plunging blindly away from the path and into the forest.

Branches lashed whiplike as she sprinted past them, snagging her coat and cutting thin
red scrapes into her exposed skin. The mud clung onto her boots, slowing any progress, but
onwards she ran into the dark.

She did not get far. Just as she thought she might lose her attackers, the soldier gasped
as something small and sharp pierced her thigh, lancing through the padded trousers like paper.
Instantly, her strength began to fail as an insidious warm numbness spread up through her from
the injury, and with horror she reached down to close her fingers around the foreign object
embedded in her leg. A chitinous barb, hollow and laced a black, sticky substance - what could
only devourer venom.

The soldier yanked it out in desperation, but it was already far too late. The cursed
poison had already spread and was flowing rapidly through her body, leaving a tingling weakness
in its wake. With a cry, her legs went out from under her and she crashed into the sucking mud,
unable to do more than groggily raise her head and stare up blurrily as two hulking figures
emerged from behind her.

Each was enormous, twice her height if they were to stand upright, their bestial species
unmistakeable even in the half-light. Both were bedecked in smog-grey leathers, skilfully
designed to break up the beasts' otherwise obvious silhouettes. One, the marginally smaller of
the two, was wiping the serrated dagger she had seen earlier clean on the hem of his jerkin,
amber eyes bored and disinterested as they looked down at her helpless form. The other beast
was yet another half-head taller, sporting a thick sable mane that gave him the appearance of
some sort of nocturnal lion, four straight horns swept back through the coarse hair like some
sort of folk-lore demon. His eyes flashed crimson in the patchy moonlight as they passed over
her, scrutinising her with malignant intelligence before turning their attention to his pet; a
monstrously large devourer that clicked its mandibles over her, seemingly only kept from living
up to its name by some unspoken command.

She could feel the last of her strength failing her, even her senses losing the fight to the
seductive fatiguing effect of the poison. As her eyes flickered shut and her head inexorably
drooped back into the mud, however, she picked up a growled rasp from the larger charr.

"Bring that one alive. Might find a use for her."

---------------------------

She was tiny, Ramlek thought in silence, looking down at the unconscious female. All
humans were, even their males. Small, furless, frail and weak. They bled easy, the cold of winter
pierced their fragile skin and the heat of Ascalon's less hospitable regions seared them red and
raw. They were so prone to injury, they even wrapped their feet in protective shoes or boots for
simple day-to-day walking. How this wretched race had even overtaken the grawl, let alone
become a threat to the charr, was beyond him.

This human was small even by her race's standards, barely reaching Ramlek's midriff
were she to be standing. Swaddled as she was in padding under her armour like a newborn cub,
he could only guess at how petite she must be underneath it. Her helm had been lost during the
brief battle - if it could be called that - and her scalp was crowned with a mane of dark curls,
currently pulled back into a practical tail at the base of her head. Her face, the areas not
splattered with mud, was the usual Ascalonian pale hue, and littered with small marks and
defects - freckles, as the charr was dimly aware was the term for them. Her eyes were closed at
present, dark lashes twitching slightly as she began the journey to regaining consciousness, but
Ramlek recalled them being blue when they'd glared with futile defiance at him. She was
attractive, he supposed. At least by human standards.

A click of the tongue ordered his devourer to stand down, the beast having slowly
scuttled toward her as she began to stir. She let out a low groan, hand subconsciously making its
way to the wound the trained insect had inflicted on her thigh. As her eyes flicker open,
however, the grogginess appears to leave her rapidly. A swift, assessing glance scans the area -
Ramlek's camp, lit by the grey dawn-light of the overcast morning, the silent woodland
surrounding it, the quietly chittering devourer to her left, and him towering over her, paws
folded across his slowly rising and falling chest.

She decided what to do quickly. Pale eyes narrowing briefly, she lept to her feet in an
instant, aiming to dart under Ramlek's reach and past him, swift hand reaching out to grab and
draw the long dagger at his hip. She was quick, he had time to think.

He, however, was quicker. Turning smoothly to remain facing her and giving a clipped
order to the devourer to hold its fire, he lanced out a massive paw to wrap around her
outstretched wrist, fully encompassing it and twisting it hard behind her back. With a cry of
surprise and pain, she went limp in his grip and toppled to the ground.

"Stay still, meat," he growled, using the centuries-old term for the squishy hairless
creatures without thinking. A firm push down on her back appeared to temporarily convince her,
and she stopped struggling - likely realising the futility of the act. Grunting in acknowledgement,
Ramlek moved his paw off her, straightening up. "Don't try to run and don't try to fight me, and
I'll have no reason to kill you. Clear?"

The female did not reply, but she did not appear to be preparing to flee again. Slowly,
she sat up, rubbing crusted mud from the side of her face with the heel of a gloved hand. Her
gaze traversed the clearing and the camp again, slower this time. Small and fragile she might be,
but there was an intelligent calculation to those eyes, Ramlek mused to himself. Not entirely
unlike a charr in that regard.

"I'll be blunt," he said, adding a layer of weight and depth to his voice. To him, it was
simply a way to add emphasis, but he'd gathered that humans thought charr to be savage beasts
- he may as well use that. "You've got a day. Maybe two or three. My warbandmate's gone to
find out what we're doing with you, but it likely won't be nice." Ramlek padded around to stand
in front of her, muzzle lowered to be a mere foot or two from her face as she carefully avoided
eye contact. "You'd best cooperate, meat. Tell me about any other patrols in the area and I
might put in a good word, see about getting you imprisoned, instead of executed."

He'd expected her to not take that well, of course. Maybe beg. Perhaps at least argue, or
call him a monster - that was usually how it went. What he hadn't expected, however, was
silence. The mouse of a female simply stared at him, then lowered her gaze to look through him,
apparently ignoring his demand.

"Gave you an order, little girl," he uttered with another growl, parting his lips slightly.
"You don't want to make me angry." Again, she paid his demand no heed, expression a measured
and controlled neutrality, eyes calm and indifferent. It was infuriating. This was a human, his
prisoner, utterly at his mercy, and she wasn't in the least bit intimidated? The growl in his throat
rose to a snarl.

"Answer me, meat!" he barked, paw reaching out to wrap muscled, clawed digits around
her pale and unarmoured neck. That got a response, he thought with satisfaction and no small
amount of pleasure as she gasped, demure expression shattered and eyes wide in alarm as she
grabbed his wrist with both hands. With next to no effort, he hauled her to her feet and beyond,
the toes of her boots barely scraping the dewy grass as she struggled in his grip. He pulled her
close, feeling his own hot wet breath reflected off her face and back onto his muzzle. "Where are
the other scouts? How many? Speak!"

When all he got in response was a choked whimper, he abruptly let go. The girl tumbled
to the ground, her own tiny hands wrapped around her throat in feeble self defense, and she
pulled her legs in to form a ball, hugging her knees. Ramlek towered over her, breathing hard,
but when it became apparent she wasn't going to answer, he turned in contempt and stalked
over to his bedroll, barking an order to his pet to watch the prisoner. A part of him had wanted
to continue, he knew. Something about the female, the moment when she went from defiant
superiority to helpless fear, something about that.. enticed him. But it could wait. She'd break.

He had time.

---------------------------

The charr was asleep by now, she was sure. It had tried several times throughout the day
to get her to talk, each time more brutish and physical than the last, but without success - it
would take more than being thrown around to get her to break. The bruises hurt like hell,
naturally, and her armour rested heavy and waterlogged on her exhausted shoulders, but she
wasn't going to wait around for her captor to wake up and have another go. In silence, she rolled
shivering into a sitting position and panned her gaze around the camp.
 It was soaked, the perpetual drizzle of the day lending everything a dull wet sheen. The
beast was curled up on its bedroll, a hulking brute of coiled muscle and matted grey fur. Judging
by the slow growling purr coming from the monster's throat - a snore, perhaps - she presumed it
to be deep in slumber. She was a few paces away, without shelter from the unending rainfall, her
hands tied together in front of her and staked to the muddy ground a few paces away. The
devourer was nowhere to be seen.

Quietly, she stretched her shoulders, tugging at the knot of thick rope around her wrists.
No use - the beast knew how to tie a knot, at very least. Biting her lip in frustration, she searched
around for another option, before pausing with her attention on the stake. The ground was a
quagmire of thick wet mud, the hard dirt reduced to a soft sludge. Maybe that was her exit.

Moving slowly, she shuffled on her knees over to the stake, throwing a brief glance over
her shoulder at the charr. Still asleep, albeit Gods knew for how long. Quickly, she turned her
attention back to the wooden wedge impaled into the ground and gripped it with both hands,
straining. Mud or no, it was in deep and had been stabbed into the ground by something about
twice her size. With effort, she dug her heels in and pulled, splinters digging into her gloves, until
eventually the foot-long wooden stake came free, nearly toppling her backward.

She allowed herself a brief moment of elation, adrenaline flushing through her at the
prospect of escape. It did not last, however, as her honed senses picked up once again on
something being wrong. Even as she turned, her mind joined the dots.

The snoring had stopped.

---------------------------

Ramlek roared as he threw himself at her. A cub's mistake, one that would have had his
primus beat seven shades of pain into his hide, but one he could not help. He had expected the
female to attempt to escape, perhaps even to try to kill him, and yet the action still stoked some
inner fury within him. The furless mouse's defiance throughout the day had pushed buttons he
didn't know a human could push, and this crossed a line he didn't know he'd set.

The roar had some tactical use, at least. The deafening bellow of an apex predator, it
resonated off the surrounding trees, causing panicked birds to take flight en masse, and
apparently shaking the female as if he had physically struck her. She raised the stake like a sword,
but her movements were slow and clumsy as Ramlek cannoned into her, paw tearing the
improvised weapon out of her grip and tossing it aside. The impact bowled her off her feet, and
she thudded onto her back in the mud with the Blood Legion warrior landing on top of her, a
paw on each shoulder and a knee pinning one leg in place.

Recovering fast, the female's eyes flashed with respectable anger of her own, narrowing
as she thwacked him across the muzzle with both balled fists. A heavy blow, but a lot less than it
would take to stun or dislodge an incensed charr. He growled and put a stop to that, grabbing
the rope binding her wrists and forcing it above her head, holding them in a vice-like grip. She
tried a poorly aimed kick with her free leg, but it glanced harmlessly off his padded flank. To
dissuade further attempts, he put his free paw over the female's neck yet again, not squeezing,
but making it abundantly clear that he could.

They lay like that for a moment, amber glare holding blue, the only sound being the
incessant pitter-patter of the rain. Rivulets of water ran cold down Ramlek's face and mane,
dripping off his twitching whiskers and bared teeth to drop onto the girl's defiant stare. Slowly,
she opened her mouth, and for the briefest of moments, Ramlek wondered if he had won; that
the stubborn mouse was going to talk.

Instead, she leaned her head back to prepare momentum, then hawked a large globule
of spittle directly into his face.

That was it. Ramlek felt a feral growl building in his stomach, rising into a snarl as it
made its way through his throat. That was the line, and she'd just crossed it. It was time the little
bitch learned her and her species' place, and he - he was going to have some fun.

Keeping her hands locked in place, he moved his other paw off her neck and down,
claws trailing over the rise of her chest. Not bothering with the jerkin's buttons, he hooked said
claws under the hem of the armoured garment and pulled, tearing the flimsy piece of protection
away as if it were made of paper. The contempt in her expression turned to confusion and, as he
rended the padded wool shirt in half and revealed her pale and shaking breasts, rising horror.
Immediately she began to squirm with all her might, writhing like prey caught in a hunter's net,
accomplishing nothing more than splattering her half-naked body with more mud. Ramlek
noticed with vague interest - an interest that surprised him, as the subject was a human - that
the "freckles" were not exclusive to her face.

Despite himself, the warrior found himself leaning forward, damp muzzle twitching as he
breathed deeply. With her restrictive gear gone, her scent was not all that unfamiliar - sweat,
blood, a trace of whiskey - and a taste on the air that he'd only inhaled when around females of
his own race - females in heat. The thought and connection ignited something in his mind, and
he felt himself hardening.

Releasing her hands, the charr clamped one of his around the side of her waist, pinning
her panicked and shaking form in place as the other pulled her belt away from her hips, trying to
work it loose. The effort lifted the tiny human's abdomen clear of the ground, robbing her
pathetic kicks and twists of what little impact they had possessed.

Quickly, Ramlek found his frustration rising with the thin strip of leather holding the
female's pants in place, and with a hungry growl bared his fangs and sank them into the belt,
twisting the tortured material in his jaws like a predator with a particularly stubborn bit of gristle
still attached to its kill. This action inadvertently brought the struggling female's crotch into
contact with his muzzle, the scent and warmth of which set off a chain of detonations in the
soldier's brain, dulling any thoughts beyond the desire to have his way with the mewling
creature in front of him.

The thoughts in his mind came to an abrupt end as a spear of agonising pain shot
through one of his ears. The female had coiled forward, hands wrapped around one of his horns
and mouth dark and bloody. The combination of the excruciating pain and the tuft grey fur that
she spat to the side joined dots in his mind. The bitch had bitten his ear off. As this thought
registered, the pain increased tenfold and he bellowed in agonised fury, shoving the female away
hard and clutching a paw to the side of his head.

The little mouse was sent sprawling, but - again, to her credit - found her feet quickly.
Spitting aside a mouthful of bloodied fur, she staggered dazedly before breaking into an
unsteady run, maybe hoping to lose her jailer in the trees.

Rage gripped Ramlek, overwhelming the pain and fuelling his body. In an instant he too
was on his feet, thundering after her on all fours. Ahead of him his mark weaved through the
trees, head low and arms raised over it as branches lashed whiplike at her exposed skin. Behind
her, the trailing rope Ramlek had used to restrain her trailed through the undergrowth, the long
stake jerking crazily like an animal in its death throes.

Ramlek pounced with a roar, and the human chanced a glance over her shoulder as he
appeared to miss. He saw her lips curl up in a brief smirk before she turned back to look ahead,
dashing onward and thinking her escape now guaranteed.

That thought was crushed as the rope in the charr's hands snapped taut and the little
soldier's wrists jerked backwards, her speed crashing her to the ground with a cry of surprise and
pain. Ramlek's own lips parted in a feral, predatory grin of his own.

---------------------------

Closing the the distance slowly, the charr looped coils of the restraint around his paw
and bared his teeth as he advanced. He was breathing hard, and if he was honest with himself,
unsure whether he would have been able to bring her down had she not been lashed to the
stake, but he was now confident in the knowledge that she wasn't going anywhere. And as she
began to roll onto her back, inadvertently flashing him the sight of her stippled skin and slender
curves, his hunger for violence once again gave way to other desires.

Reaching her, the charr planted a heavy hind paw against the girl's side and pushed,
rolling her back onto her front again with contemptuous ease. As she tried yet again to crawl
unsteadily away, he yanked the paw holding the rope upward, pulling her struggling arms above
her head like an unwilling puppet. Blood pounded in his ears and countless millenia of evolved
instinct urged him to press down on the flailing little thing and thrust himself into her without
further foreplay, but he kept himself in check, savouring the moment. Beneath him, the girl
twisted in desperation, legs kicking uselessly in the mud, doing nothing but churning it up into
slush and further inflating Ramlek's certainty of her helplessness. Only after several long
moments did her struggles slow, and the girl craned her neck to look up at him, naked fear and
confusion obvious in the wide blue eyes staring up at his.

Ramlek smiled - a sight he knew to be intimidating even to other charr - and dropped
the mental leash holding his hunger in check. Dropping to his knees over her, he took the taut
rope with his teeth, using his now freed paws to sink their extended claws into the tough fabric
of the female's belt. Immediately her struggles resumed, thrashing like a fish out of water in her
attempts to get away, but a savage twist of his head yanked her arms out from under her,
robbing her panicked flails of any potency.

Snarling through the thick rope in his mouth, Ramlek pulled with both paws, and the
thin strip of leather that had resisted him tore in half. With the belt no longer holding them in
place, he had no difficulty stripping the waif of a female of her pants and undergarments -
pulling the fabric free of her legs where he could, tearing it to shreds when that took too long.
The sight of her bare rear and the entrance below it rendered his groin almost painful, and a
detached part of his mind was vaguely amused at how little the lack of fur or a tail affected him.

Pinning her squirming form in place with a heavy paw on her lower back - smooth and
soft to the touch, a new but far from unpleasant sensation - Ramlek reached down to his own
clothes, parting the folds of the fabric and pulling free his erection. He had not felt this incensed
with desire in as long as he could remember, and it felt as if every nerve ending had been
rerouted to the throbbing hardness in his paw. As his eyes locked on the crevice of the woman's
groin, and every other thought in his head dulled. With a vice-like grip keeping her lower half
still, his ears deaf to her cries of fear and revulsion, the charr lined himself up and thrust into her.

..Or tried to. He had positioned himself correctly, and humans and charr were more or
less the same shape, but her entrance was small, impossibly so. If anything, the force of his
thrust pushed her away a couple of inches, and sent brief spikes of pain through him as he
effectively pushed himself into a wall. Roaring his frustration, the charr tried again, but it was
akin to trying to stab through armour plating.

The idea of giving up due to something as simple as his victim being too tight did not
even occur to the lust-powered charr, however. Propping himself up on his knees and pinning
the woman's kicking legs in place with his shins, he let go of her back and instead grabs a
wriggling thigh with each paw. Lining himself up again, he roars - a primal bellow of supremacy
and dominance- and pulls the horrified woman's hips toward him, shoving himself into her at
the same time.