Verdie’s Story Hour<p>I made my monthly quota on time, damn straight</p><p>CW: Bondage, Drugging, Impact Play, Religious themes<br>Starring: Sissy the Thrumbo</p><p>A Thrumbo village was a beautiful and anachronistic thing, a motley assembly of technology and people from eras colliding in the worst and best of ways. They lived in semipermanent homes made of wood and reeds woven together by expert hooves; they wore furs and skins and fibers of the natural worlds. But the weapons they wielded were dangerous monomolecular blades that glittered in the morning sun, their wigwams filled to bursting with computers and geological survey drones; such the Thrumbo had lived for millennia. Impossibly ancient human ruins covered the landscape and underground of their home worlds, and the Thrumbo had taken from them what they needed to survive and thrive. Technology and hard work as one, such were their ancient ways.</p><p>Within one such village lay Sissy, shaman of her tribe. She laid on her side on a reed mat, inspecting the three Coalition foreigners bound in front of her. A green gryphon, resplendent emerald plumage now splattered in mud. A black dragon, matte and imposing even when bruised and bound. And a wolf, his deep red coloring hopefully being natural and not blood. <br>Each of them were bound to the solid ridge pole of the wigwam by their wrists, legs played apart by sticks lashed to their ankles, and tails chained to the neck. They had been gaged by the remains of their own clothing, shredded during capture. Sissy wore a red-brown leather dress elegantly stitched together, and a woven bandolier carrying small ouches and sachets of colorful description.</p><p>“So.” she said to them. “Adventurers, is that right? Delvers of ruins, seekers of humanity?” The three nodded. “Do you know what the spirits call people like you?”</p><p>“Thieves.”</p><p>“Mhhphh!” The three wrestled with their bonds as she rose, gathering a leather cord from the floor. </p><p>“Thieves in our lands are not permitted. Thieves must be punished for transgressing upon the realms of the spirits and their most scared places.” She wandered behind the gryphon, running a hoof over his exposed back. Such mighty plumage he had! Such a waste of a fine body on a pillager! She raised the cord over her head, whipped it around her horn, and struck. </p><p>CRACK</p><p>“GGHHHMPPPHHHHHGGG!” The gryphon arched his back, a red welt shining through his green back feathers. He wiggled in his bonds with fierce but futile efforts.</p><p>CRACK </p><p>CRACK</p><p>He went limp. His shoulders heaved with panicked breaths. “Three lashes.” Sissy said with an iron edge to her voice. “Three lashes for thieves.” She pulled an herb-filled sachet from her bandolier, reaching around to stuff it over the gryphon’s nose. He coughed and sputtered to not allow it in, but a hoof pressed into his welts caused him to gasp and inhale the sweet vapors. He shuddered and went still. Drool leaked from his beak.</p><p>“Three lashes for those who lay their hooves on another out of greed.” She stood behind the wolf then, who tore and bit at his gag and bonds. It didn’t help him any. He screamed and screamed into his gag, barely heard over the whistle of the cord through the air.</p><p>CRACK</p><p>CRACK</p><p>CRACK</p><p>“HNNNNGGGGGGPPPHHHHHHNN!” He wept and wiggled, trying to dodge his punishment. Three more lashes across his buttocks, these for theft. He couldn’t fight the sachet, and he too went limp. The dragon, for his credit, stood firm. He seemed to try to speak real words, to reason with her. But she was the law; and she had spoken. He took his three lashes without screaming, without crying. She saw a chink in his scales, a series of scars that told a tale of misery and strife he had endured. Slavery, perhaps? Not unheard of for pirates to slip from the darkness above and attempt to carry off children or even young adults, and she surmised that the Coalition could suffer such raids as well. When the time came, he didn’t fight the drugs. In fact, he inhaled them with a strange level of desire.</p><p>She returned to her mat, and with a wave of her hoof summoned a fire in the pit between them. A spirit danced there, pulled by her whims from the Dreamlands, that roiling void of potential. She pulled another packet off her bandolier and tossed it into the flames.</p><p>“Souls of my ancestors, dream for us the future. Children of the future, shepherd our present. Warriors of the present, safeguard our past. This I desire, and for the future do I call upon the spirits.” The flame turned purple and white, casting the blackest of shadows on the walls. Her captives stirred, the drugs allowing them to dream of what awaited them. The flames reached higher; she cast out her witch sight into the fire. There she found three spirits, beckoned by their eternal and most benevolent draconic master. </p><p>“Spirits of the Dreamlands, hear me! The Living Saint of unity comes, a man shall fall into slumber and so shall his desires come to pass. Our war is at an end, our future secured, should he do this. These three bodies are prepared for you, and they shall be there when the Dreaming Horror creates ascends Unity to being. Such as I have seen, such as it shall be.” Wisps of fire split from the pit and caressed the bound men. The spirits had dreamed of such a thing, for the Void Dragon had told them the story It desired to tell; yes, these would do nicely. For on a dead world of ice, the grave of a Saint, shall emerge a more Saint for a new age. </p><p><a href="https://cubhub.social/tags/lore" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>lore</span></a> <a href="https://cubhub.social/tags/thrumbo" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>thrumbo</span></a> <a href="https://cubhub.social/tags/tribal" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>tribal</span></a> <a href="https://cubhub.social/tags/bondage" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>bondage</span></a> <a href="https://cubhub.social/tags/drugging" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>drugging</span></a> <a href="https://cubhub.social/tags/druguse" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>druguse</span></a> <a href="https://cubhub.social/tags/impact" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>impact</span></a> <a href="https://cubhub.social/tags/impactplay" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>impactplay</span></a> <a href="https://cubhub.social/tags/whip" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>whip</span></a> <a href="https://cubhub.social/tags/whipping" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>whipping</span></a> <a href="https://cubhub.social/tags/religousthemes" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>religousthemes</span></a> <a href="https://cubhub.social/tags/religous_themes" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>religous_themes</span></a></p>