“You smack my ass one more time, Starros, and I’ll snap your thumbs off!” Fleyah barked at the satyr crouching behind the corner of the neatly trimmed hedge wall.

“My dear High Guard Fleyah! I was only trying to swat away a pesky wasp that must have mistaken your rump for a bouquet of flowers,” Starros replied, crouching low and leering at the blonde elf’s powerful buttocks barely concealed under a pleated leather skirt.

“And you know you really should address me as Lord Keyholder,” Starros chided, shaking the large jeweled key that hung from a silver chain around his neck.

Fleyah scowled and swept a kick at Starros’ head. She knew she’d be reprimanded and probably exiled if she actually struck the honored Keyholder for the Ethrana Empire’s secret arsenal, but she never worried about her blow landing. Starros catapulted himself backward on his powerful goat legs, cackling to see he had gotten a rise out of Fleyah.

“Ho, ho! Careful love! You could cause an accident with that thing. Maybe we should head behind the spruce tree over there and I could give you a chance to work out all that tension?”

Fleyah scoffed, nearly amused. “Yeah, by kicking you in your fucking goat balls again and again!”

She had to admit, the idea was very tempting.

Starros twirled his finger through his beard. He was a younger satyr, which made his incessant horny energy all the worse, but he still had a long, bushy tuft of hair on his chin.

“Hmmm! Sounds kinky! Well, I’ve tried worse things with the minotaur bunch. Shall we get started?”

Starros reached for his loincloth, gently pulling back the thin fabric. Fleyah got a glimpse of his swollen nut sack before she threw up her hands in disgust.

“Oh! By all the stars and goddesses! This is the worst fucking assignment ever!”

Starros rolled his eyes. He had to hear this rant at least once a day. Fleyah would shriek and scream that it just had to be her to babysit the most obnoxious, randiest satyr in all the Realm, and that it was just plain stupid that the Ethranian elites would even trust the Grand Key of the Vault of Legends to a goat-legged, horndog like him, and if she had to put up with him grabbing her butt or leering down her shirt once more she’d cut his balls off!

The young Lord Keyholder had to admit he also wasn’t completely happy with the situation, either. The Vault of Legends contained some of the most powerful artifacts in the empire and could be used to secure its downfall should they ever fall into the wrong hands. The elves didn’t trust their own kind enough to leave that responsibility to a potential usurper or a spy for the dark factions.

But satyrs?

They were a frisky, devilish, wild lot, but they kept their word when they gave it and had always been a steadfast ally to the Empire through the ages.

There was just the little problem of satyrs’ libidos. Sure, they were crafty, quick, and excellent magic weavers (making them adept at resisting many forms of magic), but wave a pretty nymph in front of them and all sense of honor and duty runs away with the wind.

That was why Fleyah alone was entrusted with guard duty around the Vault of Legends. It was her job to shoo away pretty much anyone with breasts who might try to distract the Lord Keyholder.

So instead, she ended up becoming the distraction from the distractions, and it was unfathomably miserable. Some of her kind may go for satyrs, but certainly not her! The whole Empire knew of Fleyah’s sapphic proclivities, hence her appointment to keep an eye on Starros.

“Alright, alright!” Starros held up his hands when he couldn’t tolerate the elf’s rantings anymore. “I can tell you need some time to reconcile your feelings. Why don’t we patrol the opposite sides of the grove for a bit, and then we can regroup and work out all that stress you’ve been building up.”

Fleyah’s lips pressed into a thin white line that contrasted nicely with her face, now a furious red.

“The first part.” She growled. “And so help me Starros, if I hear that key jingle because you’re offering it to the first sprite that sucks you off, I will absolutely impale you with your own horn!”

“I believe I have a strap-on harness that might help you with that,” Starros gloated.

“Raaaaghhh!!” Fleyah roared as she stormed away, fuming all the more to feel Starros’ eyes tracing her curves from behind.

Starros smirked as the statuesque elf warrior disappeared behind one of the hedge walls. He stretched and scratched his balls, giving his turgid cock a small jiggle. Too bad pestering Fleyah was the only fun they allowed him to have on this cursed post of his. That and practicing his music, always a favorite for satyrs. 

He turned and picked up his bound wooden set of pan pipes, sat down on his favorite moss-covered rock, and began piping out a medley of jaunty tunes, promising that he’d get back to ‘patrolling’ right after a few songs.

On the other side of the small clearing, bordered and partitioned by verdant hedges, Fleyah also chose to practice her specific skills instead of patrolling the perimeter. She grasped her birchwood bow, reinforced with moonsilver, and fired arrow after arrow into a gnarled tree stump that happened to have a very uncanny resemblance to Starros’ head.

When the tenth arrow split through what she pictured as Starros’ ‘eye’, she let out a strained breath through her puckered lips. She didn’t mean to let Starros’ impropriety get to her, but she had been on patrol for the whole of the past month, and his aggravating, grating, impishly childish behavior was beginning to make her…well, irritable.

Fleyah holstered her bow over her back and was about to circle around the grove when the rustling of a distant oak branch caught her attention. Something flitted through the eaves of the forest, against the wind.

She unsheathed her bone-white knife from her belt and stalked closer, keeping against the sides of the hedge wall. She didn’t smell any kind of deer or bird that might have shaken the tree by accident, but any sort of squirrel or critter could have taken a bad step. Still, it was her duty to be suspicious, fully aware of how many of her enemies were out to infiltrate the Vault of Legends.

The grove that concealed the Vault was designed with several labyrinthine paths and alcoves in order to confuse and disorient would-be intruders. The noise that grabbed her attention had come from the end of one such alcove, the hedge walls stretching to a small fountain garden about fifty paces from the main path.

Fleyah peered deep into the foliage, using her keen eyesight to spot the broken branch on the oak tree just above the bordering hedges. It looked like a fairly solid bough of wood, something no squirrel could have snapped by accident. She crouched low, stalking her way down the grassy path.

The brush in front of her was quiet and still, which set the elf on edge. No voles or rabbits scampering, no jaybirds flitting from bush to bush, something was silencing them, intimidating them. For a brief moment, she thought about summoning Starros, just to give him a heads up that something was amiss. She pictured him running up and ‘accidentally’ bumping into her backside with his throbbing phallus.

She staunchly decided against it.

Suddenly, Fleyah lifted her head. She had just caught a scent, a whiff of something, drifting on the breeze. She sniffed for it again, trying to track down the elusive smell. Something sweet, yet pungent and spicy. She moved her head around in small circles, sniffing at the air like a tracking hound. Every so often, she’d pick up a blast of it, floral and almost sour, then the smell would fade, and she’d jog a few feet further down the path.

She found herself desperate to get another sniff. It was such a strange, unfamiliar scent. She had to figure out what it was, searching for it in the air with an ardent fervor. Another hit of flowers mixed with spice, mixed with sex.

Was that it? Was Starros getting seduced by some bimbo goblin floozy? She had to see! Had to find the smell tickling her nose and making her face flush.

Fleyah broke into a full run but stopped short when she realized she was plainly headed for a dead end. The pathway ended at the small limestone fountain with nobody in sight, only the fountain and an ornate wicker chair with a throne-like hood. She brought her hand to her head, reeling and a little dizzy. The smell was overpowering. What in Ethrana was making it?

She stalked around the fountain, sniffing at every corner like a soul possessed. She felt if she couldn’t find whatever was making the sweet, spicy musk, she’d have a fit.

Then, at the height of her exasperation, she saw it. A single, large flower, its four large triangular petals a confounding blend of fiery reds and orange that faded into pale yellow, dotted with iridescent spots near the tips. The aroma driving Fleyah mad was so thick about the flower’s long stamen, she could practically see it, like a fine pink mist.

What kind of plant was this? She walked closer, the smell invading her head. She needed to see the incredible, aromatic flower closer.

It was…beautiful! She sighed and slumped to her knees.

The swirling, confusing patterns of the petals captivated Fleyah’s eyes as much as the flower’s scent had captivated her sense of smell. She stared wide-eyed at the petals, trying to make sense of it all.

The sour, spicy, yummy smell…the pretty, shimmering, brilliant colors.

Watch it.

The words crept into Fleyah’s mind in a voice that didn’t sound like her at all. Part of her wanted to glance up and look around, but her gaze was stuck on the pretty flower. She couldn’t look away now.

Smell it.

The voice bounced through her head again. Fleyah immediately inhaled deeply, letting the mesmerizing scent fill her entire body, making her muscles melt, and her nether regions heat up.

Pick the flower.

The idea was so obvious. She was so fascinated with the strange, beautiful, enticing flower. She should pick it and get a closer look. Her hand twitched, hesitantly drifting towards the compelling blossom. Why was she doing this again? Wasn’t she supposed to be on patrol for…something?

The heady aroma was making it so hard to think. She tried to shake her head, to shake loose the befuddling fog that had descended over her brain. She felt lost, dazzled by the shimmering colors and wonderful smell.

Pick the flower.

Fleyah’s hand stretched out and, without a second thought, snapped the flower off its thin stem, growing entwined with the thick hedges. She brought it closer to her face, the stupefying patterns and scent doubling in potency. The powerful elf felt her body sink, heavy on her knees, and her head tilted to one side as she marveled at the strange flower, her eyes glassy and her mouth hanging open.

Stare at it. Smell it. Listen.

The words trickled through Fleyah’s head, hijacking her mental faculties. The more she stared and bathed in the flower’s scent, the more her thoughts dissolved into pretty, shimmering sparkles, guided by the strange words that tickled her ears.

So entranced was the elf that she hardly even noticed when a silky hand, pale green in complexion, gently snatched away the mind-consuming flower and brought it gently above her head, letting rosy pink pollen gently shake off the girthy stamen and into her eyes. Something tickled her between her legs, and she let out a small giggle.

The long, thick stamen looked like a tiny penis. Fleyah smiled sleepily and followed the flower around with her head as the green hand swayed it above her in gentle circles.

A face appeared next to her ear, soft dark green lips curling into an evil smile with small, pointed fangs that crossed from her top and bottom teeth.

“That’s a good girl,” the mouth whispered. “Now listen closely….”