Fae Encounter

The hiker stepped out of the shimmering heat into the cool forest shadow. He breathed the fragrant air deeply and smiled to himself. He had set his eyes on this cleft, where the mountainside fell like rippled curtain, hours earlier. The lush greenery nestled there, which stood in stark contrast to the rocky shrubland that covered most of the surrounding mountains, suggested to him a cool place to rest and a likely spot to find water.

The locals had warned him off this area. They had told him not to go wandering off alone, that only thirst and starvation awaited him out here in the canyons.

As evidence, they told of how, only a month previous, an old man, so emaciated by thirst and hunger that he could barely support his own weight, had been discovered out here by a local herder. The man was wasted beyond anything they had seen before, and completely out of his mind. All they could get out of him was some mixed up nonsense about running backwards through water.

The hiker shrugged it off as a folktale, used more to entertain the tourists and heighten their sense of adventure than to properly ward them off. He had not even bothered to ask them what had become of the old man, it was so clearly a fabrication. Certainly, no one had tried to stop him when he set off on his hike, backpack loaded with several days worth of supplies.

He had found, to his chagrin, that the rocky mountains passes were, as he had been warned, treacherous. He also had to admit they had been right about the scarcity of water. He had been hiking only two days and, while his food was in good supply, his water was running dangerously low. He was just starting to panic when he had spotted the thin green ribbon of life that changed everything. It would have been invisible had he not happened to look down at just the right time as he was traversing a high ridge between canyons.

Now he stood, triumphant, at the edge of a verdant forest that he doubted any of the cowardly locals even knew about.

He took out his water bottle and shook it. The thin layer of water resting on the bottom sloshed pathetically. He was thirsty, but the thought of the hot brackish water in his mouth discouraged him from drinking. He knew there had to be water nearby. He could feel it.

Once he stepped into the forest, he stood there a while, allowing his eyes to adjust to the sudden gloom. When he shifted his boots he no longer heard the rasp of dry gravel, but rather the soft squish of muddy earth loosely partially covered by fallen leaves.

He turned his head this way and that, hearing the wind caressing the trees. With his eyes closed, and his concentration focused, he began to discern the faintest difference in the sounds around him. In the brief moments, where the wind stilled, the susurration actually continued. His eyes snapped open and he smiled when he realised he had picked out the more musical notes of running water.

He could see further ahead now, although his eyes still felt like an overexposed film. He trod cautiously into the forest, somehow feeling like an intruder in a sacred place. Yet, the now audible trickle of water, which his mind had separated from the other tracks of forest sounds around him, drew him forward. The rawness of his throat, he knew, would only be satisfied by sweet, cool water from a mountain stream.

In a short time he had left the brightness of day behind. His eyes were now used to the gentle green tinted light that filtered between the leaves above. He stepped lightly, even taking consideration not to tread on the delicate mosses that grew underfoot.

There was no path, but there was also no underbrush, though the tree trunks grew thickly, and he was able to make his own way through the forest. He saw no signs of life, beyond the flitting of small birds in the foliage above and the occasional lazy buzz of insects. He might have been the first man to walk in this forest in a thousand years.

He used his ears to constantly redirect himself, homing in on the sound of the water, which grew louder with each passing moment.

At last, he came upon it. Rounded, tumbled rocks, covered in lichen bordered a gentle stream of water. It gurgled playfully, leaping and dancing around rocks. Dividing and joining back with itself around obstacles, or flowing over them in capricious abandon.

He dumped the contents of his water bottle and dropped to his knees to fill it. Then, thought better of it, and scooped the crisp water up, dumping it over his head and neck and letting it run over his face. The coolness set his skin to tingling. He tasted the water in his hands and, as he expected, it was pure and sweet on his tongue.

He dropped to all fours and put his face into a gap between the rocks. He sucked thirstily at the water, feeling the coolness run over his tongue and caress the ache in the back of his throat. He drank and drank, more than he would have thought possible, until he could practically hear the water sloshing inside him. Then he filled his canteen, stoppered it and sat back on a rock, with his back to a tree, feeling pleased with himself.

Quite possibly he fell asleep, because he felt some time har passed when he sat up next. A shadow had fallen across his closed eyelids. Or had he dreamed it? He looked up stream, but could see nothing now. The shifting of the dappled light filtering through the trees above constantly made new patterns and highlights on the murky world he now inhabited.

He shook himself, and took out a snack to eat while he contemplated. In the direction he now looked he could definitely hear a deeper rumble from the water. Had he heard that before? Perhaps he had been too focused on the stream to observe it.

The light, too, seemed to change in that direction, growing dimmer. He felt uneasy. Yet, he was out here to explore, was he not? Where others would be put off, the hiker had made it his mission to investigate.

After brushing the crumbs of his meal from his clothes and another sip of his water, he rose, slung his backpack over one shoulder and began to trudge upstream.

In a short time he found, again, one of the mountain's intimidating cliff faces. This time it was an overhanging wall that halted the lateral forest growth abruptly, and disappeared into the treetops above.

The river ran along this, seemingly, impenetrable boundary for a short distance and then disappeared under a shelf of rock. He could not have fitted his arm in the narrow space, yet he knew there had to be more to it. He could now definitely hear the thundering of what must be a waterfall nearby. It had to be just on the other side of the rock wall.

He kicked at a damp clod of earth with one booted toe. The hiker looked around. He had time. It was early afternoon yet and he had enough supplies to stay outdoors for several days if he wanted. In addition to this, he now had a source of water. Besides, he was fit and young, barely out of his teens. He had plenty of endurance and a world to discover.

He ran his hand over the rock face. It came back wet and gritty.

He hauled his backpack onto his other shoulder and walked on. The waterfall grew softer. He was close to turning back when he noticed a thicket in the cliff. He approached it without expectation. He placed a hand on it. It was soft and moved easily under his touch. He brushed some branches aside and saw that it partially concealed a crack in the rock. There was just enough room to squeeze through, if he crouched low.

He looked back at the forest. The hiker was, by choice, in a remote part of the country. This forest was clearly not a frequently visited place, if at all. He suddenly felt the weight of loneliness upon him. Then he looked back at the entrance. It was everything he had come to discover. He took off his backpack, it would only hamper him in the tight space, and he promised himself he would return to it shortly if he did not discover anything.

He stooped and crawled into the dark hole.

It was only few hunched-over steps before the tunnel opened above and he could straighten up.

It was no longer a tunnel, but the bottom of a deep crack. Shafts of sunlight pierced the gloom, lightening up the dancing fairy dust motes. Ferns and moss clung thickly to the walls. He took a moment to take a mental snapshot of this unexplored natural wonder.

The waterfall was loud now, its sound being channeled up the narrow canyon. He moved onward, excitement rising in his breast with every step. Somehow he knew that this was the spot he was meant to discover, a secret place on this over trampled Earth, yet untouched, A place of beauty only he would know of.

Even prepared, as he was, he was taken aback by the pool. He was at the bottom of a deep rift. The pool itself was irregular in shape, large and utterly depthless. To one side there arose a small island draped in luxuriant mosses. Light drifted down from high above and made visible a single column of water that fell away from the rock wall and splashed into the depthless black waters. The sound around him reverberated off the walls and seemed to roar inside his head, buffeting his senses.

Oddly enough, trees grew in this dark place, their thick, gnarled roots clung to rocks like so many octopi. All around them grew ferns and many shadow-loving flowers in astonishing abundance and variety. It was, without doubt, the most enchanting place he had ever seen. He wanted to shout his pleasure at this incredible discovery.

Then, letting his eyes drift once more over the water, he caught a flash of movement. Something white swirled in those stygian depths.

He stepped back and felt adrenaline flood his body, preparing his fight or flight defences. But he looked again and it was gone. He calmed himself for a minute, then stepped forward to inspect the water more closely.

Nothing. An unbroken sheet of purest night, apart from the foam around where the waterfall plunged in like an icy dagger.

But wait, was there a face in the waterfall? Black eyes stared out of a white face that merged with the roiling water. Then it too was gone. He felt unnerved. He started to back up. He stumbled as his heel caught a rock behind him, and he landed hard on his backside, feeling his cocix crack against hard stone. He cursed, and was forced to lie there a moment while he assessed if the shooting pains he was receiving were as serious as they suggested.

He gritted his teeth and moaned. Yet, somehow, the pain seemed as nothing when, suddenly, from the depths of the water, something emerged. A face, so black in color that he could only distinguish it from the water by the curtain of purest white hair, which framed it. The wet, almost luminous tresses pooled on the figure's shoulders and snaked playfully to hint at the supple curves and generous protrusions below.

The figure was female, there was no doubting that. It was not human, there was no doubting that. For, when it opened its eyelids , he found himself staring into two entirely white, faintly glowing eyes. The creature rose with unerring composure from the water, her movements seemingly free of the jerky rhythm of feet stepping on slippery rocks.

He was utterly frozen as she stepped, in her state of exquisite nudity onto the beach of river worn pebbles.

She moved forward into a shaft of light and he could make out her features. She appeared young, yet ageless. Her obsidian skin was unmarked and unlined. The smile that broke across her flawless face revealed a set of perfect, even white teeth. It was a predator's smile, yet it melted his heart and sent it trickling down into his boots.

She was the loveliest creature he could have imagined; ethereal in her perfection. He allowed his eyes to fall from her face to the heavy swell of her breasts, down her flat belly to her smooth mons and to the delicate fold of her cleft. Her faultless skin was bejeweled by glistening droplets of water that clung lovingly to her and made visible her dark form in the uncontrasting dimness.

Despite his fear, and his surprise, he felt himself swell in his shorts like a flower blooming in time-lapse photography. In a second he had a bulge visibly straining at the fly of his khakis.

He tried to speak, but found only a moan escaped his lips. At least, that is what he thought had happened, he could not even hear his own voice over the deafening roar of the waterfall. The pain where he had struck the rock a moment before had faded into insignificance.

The delicate little figure, girlish in its ripeness, stood over him now, still smiling and gazing down with those inscrutable eyes.

Then, it was as if the waterfall had been turned off. The silence that roared in his head seemed more intense than the pounding of the waterfall.

"What have you got there, sister?" A musical voice asked, filled with the suggestion of a thousand tinkling laughters.

The figure standing over him turned and responded to the unknown voice, "I am not sure, sister. I was about to ask it."

He looked over in the direction, in which the figure before him spoke, and saw a second figure, seemingly identical to the one that stood before him. Only she was a complete photo negative.

Where they sisters, as they claimed? He certainly thought they would have been identical had they not been polar opposites in nearly every other way.

This new figure had appeared, as if out of nowhere, and was now lounging on the island. Her skin was as white as her sister's eyes. Her own eyes and hair were the black of her sister's skin. Blacker, that is, than the water, blacker than the darkest shadow in the gully.

"Well, do hurry up. It looks a very tasty little morsel." She replied, tartly.

The hiker felt panic rise in him, but knew himself to be utterly trapped. He was as good as a fly wrapped up in spider's silk. The obsidian figure bent over. He unashamedly watched, hypnotized, the wonderful play of gravity on her perky breasts as they moved heavily with her. The ache in his groin ratcheted up and he felt he might burst his zipper.

"What are you?" She asked. Not "Who are you?" But, "What are you?"

He struggled to form a response. Strangely, he found, his mind was fixated on trying to figure out what had happened to the sound of the waterfall. Yet, in his mind, it was probably one of the least strange things about his new predicament.

Finally, hoarsely, he grunted out, "Hiker."

"Hiker?" The figure's perfect little rosebud of a mouth twisted in forming the strange word. "Do we know of these 'Hikers', sister?" She asked without turning this time.

"Oh, don't play with it, dear. You know it's a human." She directed her next comment at the hiker, saying, "Ignore Plest, we so seldom get visitors, she does so like to tease them."

She returned her focus to her sister, who he now assumed was Plest, "Stop messing about and bring him over here. I want to see him up close. Is he as yummy as he looks from over here?"

Plest looked him over closely. "Hmm," She mused, "He's a little rougher than I expected. He could do without the hair on his face, and a needs good bathe. But..." Her empty eyes fell onto his bulging crotch, "There is definitely something here to work with."

She held out a hand to him, "Come." He seemed powerless to resist. He took her hand and, with surprising strength, she pulled him to his feet. Standing up next to her, he realised he was a full foot taller than her. He also became aware that he had not yet shut his gaping mouth. His swiftly did so.

She smiled up at him and coyly twirled a lock of white hair around a night black finger. "Will you join us? You will have to excuse Veen," she gestured in the direction of the ivory figure. Veen lay propped up on one elbow on the flat island, the fine lines of her naked body; her breasts, swollen like ripe buds, and gracefully curved hip; contrasted sharply with the dark rock around her.

"She does not know how to behave properly when we have guests. We have them so rarely, you see. Just stay close to me though, I will look after you."

Then, she left him with no choice, by grabbing the hard blunt tip that tented out his shorts, and pulled him towards the rock island, where Veen pouted prettily. He followed meekly in Plest's wake.

He paid no heed when his boots stepped, without the hint of a splash, into the pool, or when he felt the shock of coolness when his socks absorbed the water. Knees and thighs followed, and then he gave an involuntary gasp as the frigid water slapped the underside of his scrotum. The tug of Plest on his rigid cock, however, was insistent, and irresistible. In no time he was up to his neck and paddling awkwardly, owing to his heavy leather boots, after the strange creature that led him. The coldness of the water shocked him, and made it hard to breath. Plest seemed not to notice.

With her help he made it to the island. She climbed out first. He bit his lip as her finely sculpted backside rose just inches from his face, it's lush curvature perfectly framing her tender scalloped cleft. He fought a sudden urge to bite that unblemished skin. Then, two sets of hands, one black and one white, were on him, hauling him onto the island. It was coated in a thick bed of moss, soft against his skin.

"The poor dear is frozen!" The Veen exclaimed. "We need to warm him. Here," she addressed Plest, "help me with his clothes."

The hiker felt drugged. He rolled onto his back at their insistence and let their small hands move over his body. He felt like a giant against their twin small forms. He relished every brush of their soft skin on his flesh. His boots were untied and hauled off first. Followed by his socks, shorts and shirt in short order. He was heedless of where they went, he only knew he wanted to feel the sisters press closer to him, and his clothing stood in the way of that. Only his grey boxer briefs, which had gone translucent in the water, remained. They did nothing to hide his extreme state of arousal.

He took a long, slow breath in as a sheet of white hair fell across his face, while Plest worked over him. Her scent was rich, sweet and heavy with unexpectedly arousing scents of earth and dark secret places.

His skin burned with the cold of the water, but he could feel the heat of their skin, even before they touched him. He was shivering uncontrolably now, his teeth chattering. They rubbed at his chest and thighs, trying to bring warmth back to his limbs. He had not fully reslised how cold the water was. Had he gone into shock? He felt somewhat detached from his own body.

Finally, Veen lay down beside him and wrapped a delicate white arm across his chest. She pressed her soft, ripe, naked breasts against his side and held him close. Her sister did the same on the other side, and he suddenly felt their heat radiating on either side of him. He lay back on the soft moss and stared up at the narrow sliver of sky high above. The shivering began to subside. He thought he might stay happily like this forever, embraced by these two equal, but opposite aspects of beauty.

Then he felt a hand, he could not tell whose, delicately trace a single finger, over the thin wet material, along the length of his cock. A deep moan rumbled in his throat. Each place they came into contact him seemed to burn with heat. He could still feel a line of warmth gradually fading along the length of his shaft where he had been touched.

The night black hand of Plest came to rest on his cheek. He was clay to be moulded to her desire. The hand turned his head so that he was staring into the two burning suns of her eyes. He felt he should be squinting in the intesity of the white gaze, but he found himself opening his eyes wider, trying to take in even more of her perfection. Tears welled in the corners of his eyes and he could not be sure if it was from her beauty or the glow burning his retinas.