In a Dark Wood

An Fire Emblem: Sacred Stones darkshot

By

EvilFuzzy9

Eirika's heart was pounding in her ears as she ran. Sweat was pouring down her face, her bosom rising and falling with the effort of every breath. The crunching of grass beneath her feet echoed in her ears. In a moment of foolishness she had separated from the group in the middle of battle and gotten herself cut off from her companions.

She was alone, now. The forest seemed to close in around her, and from every direction it seemed she could hear the snarls of beasts and worse. Much of what little armor she wore was muddied and dented, and she was nigh out of breath. By now Eirika looked more like a wild-woman, her clothes ripped and muddied, hair tangled and stuck full of twigs, than a noble, elegant princess of Renais.

But still she ran. Far worse things than bandits hunted her now, and the very woods themselves seemed to conspire with her pursuers. Naked, clinging branches and brambles snagged at her clothes and hair, tearing the former and tangling the latter. Leaves on the forest floor concealed slicking muddied puddles and knotted uprisen roots that slipped and tripped her at every turn, and only her nimble footwork had kept her from falling and being overtaken.

However she could not keep this up forever. Already she grew faint and weary, and even her light armaments felt unconscionably burdensome upon her shivering frame.

A single misstep was all it would take to spell her doom, and who knew when or where that might come, as she tumbled blindly through the thick, thorny foliage of that dark wood?

As Eirika ran through the underbrush, she could hear the snarling and snapping jaws of her pursuers. Out of the corner of eyes, through the thick foliage, she once or twice caught flashes of white fangs and yellow eyes set against forms black as shadow.

Of wolf-shape they were, but meaner and fouler. Their bodies were lean, almost emaciated – as though starved by some cruel master – and their fur was mangy and coarse, but black as murk. Long legs carried them forth in great, loping strides, and powerful jaws snapped in the darkness as their fell voices filled the air with hellish shrieking and yowling, like the voices of the damned crying out in their eternal torment.

But it was their eyes that most haunted Eirika as she ran, gleaming out of the blackness like pale ghost lights. For they shone indeed with an inner light, a dread, cursed light which caused mortal hearts to quail in fear. They were like other-worldly flames, like will-o-the-wisps peering through the veil twixt life and death. And they were filled with a fey madness, a consuming hatred for all living things.

These things, these demon wolves, hunted Eirika, pursuing her relentlessly, tirelessly. For an eternity – or so it felt – they chased her, and she ran. They seemed to suffer no weariness, those terrible creatures, but the same could not be said of Eirika. She endured long, far beyond the limits of most, but all it took was a single misstep, a single knotted root catching her foot, to trip her up at last.

Panic overtook her when she fell, and desperately Eirika struggled to free herself and get back up, but the eyes swiftly surrounded her. She was trapped. She heard the howls coming from every direction, drawing all too near. She saw flashes of white fangs and red tongues from the encircling shadows, and eyes like ghostly lanterns glinted all around her.

Dread took her heart nearly then, but it was staved off at the last by a final desperate blaze of hope. Cornered and harried, looking Death in the eye, even the meekest of creatures could grow terrible and fierce, and soft-spoken though she was, Eirika yet had a bold heart in her breast, and hot blood in her veins.

Freeing her foot with a final yank, she sprang back to her feet with a terrible cry. Eyes flashing with the light of ancient queens, she sprang forward in a final burst of speed.

Adrenaline surging through her veins, Eirika leaped forward with a mighty shout. She charged through the wolves surrounding her, attempting to dart past. The ring broke for a moment, the wolf-beasts briefly faltering in the face of this sudden resolve.

Eirika ran. Her life depended on it. All she could do was flee - that was her last hope.

But it was in vain.

Even as she fled, one of the wolves sprang upon her back. Its weight knocked Eirika to the ground, and soon others were upon her as well. They pawed and clawed at her clothes and armor, tearing them off. Their eyes gleamed with a cruel intelligence, and the wicked creatures leered hatefully at her soft, smooth, alabaster skin.

Eirika whimpered, feeling the weight of the beasts upon her back and their claws digging into her skin. Tears welled up in her eyes as she heard the wolves jeering and howling in their vulgar, despicable manner. She was disarmed and stripped naked by the wicked cunning of these creatures, and she no longer had the strength to fight. She was spent, utterly and completely.

Her death was near, this she knew.

Then she heard the beasts quiet down, as though some mockery of order had been established among them. And the wolves began to feast.

Upon her, they sprang, the largest ones first. Jaws filled with uncanny strength, and countless teeth like jagged razors, snapped down on her once flawless skin. But flawless it could be called no longer, with how they pitted and gouged and marked and ripped.

Eirika's pained, terrified, agonized screams rang through the forest, an eerie, haunting noise which warned away other travelers, or at least such travelers as could be found on the choked, narrow, winding paths which straggled through that dense, dark, damnable wood. She shrieked, the feel of these creatures' fangs piercing her skin aggrieving her with all the excruciating torment of a cat-o-nine-tails.

Her screams continued longer than most would have. The beasts, cunning and hateful, did all in their power to prolong their prey's torment. They ripped away strips and chunks of flesh from her back and arms and shoulders and legs, but they refrained for as long as possible from dealing any mortal wounds, from ending her misery.

These were creatures of a hateful intelligence, a brooding, bestial malice which desired only suffering for all other things. No higher aim had these vile, brutish beasts than that – it was not to nourish themselves that they devoured man and woman and child. They inflicted suffering wherever, however they could.

And Eirika's death was no exception.

The world would never know just what it had lost. Not until it was far too late.

A/N: A dark, meaninglss deathfic taken from something I did in, of all things, a vore interactive back on WDC. The original version... well, let's just say that the wolves did a whole lot more than just eat her.

HOWEVER, when I looked back at it, I realized that it had some decent prose, and could maybe work as a dark little horror ficlet. So I did an alternate ending that completely bypassed anything that might have been sexual and just made it ALL ABOUT THE HORROR.

Because I am the worst person.

TTFN and R&R!

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