The Architect Who Yielded to All Her Laborers

As Vaeldris’s light spread through the bottomless caverns, every ancient route had to be paved anew. It was the only way to ensure the passage of soldiers, supplies, and messages between the outposts the city drove into the darkness. Where once there had been only wet stone, tunnels now rose with jade lanterns and small chapels dedicated to Aurelia, the martyr who had united the creatures of the depths under a single banner.

On the edge of a bottomless cliff, where one road ended and another had to begin, a modest crew of builders was deployed. Satyrs and arachne, directed by a single hand.

That hand was Mirena’s, a nymph architect. Her body resembled that of a plant cell, aquamarine, almost translucent within and opaque at the edges. She wore formal clothes: a cloak that covered her back all the way to the ground and dark glasses that hid her black-sclera eyes. Her hair was a tangle of cell wall, gathered into a long yellow braid. No one would have guessed, beneath that solemn figure, the young body she concealed.

The worker satyrs were short and stocky, with brown fur, keratin plates for natural helmets, and short horns above round heads. The arachne, by contrast, gold and enormous, had a woman’s torso atop a spider’s body, four pairs of legs, and raptorial arms that wove supporting silk between the beams. Twenty laborers, five weavers. With that, Mirena had to save the abyss.

—More wine, architect? —there was none. Only dry rations and impossible deadlines.

The work began with the Cycle. The satyrs carved bricks from the rock; the arachne suspended the beams with their thread. Mirena drew up the plans in her tent, calculating the weight, the distance, the twenty meters of void that separated her from the other side.

Then the envoy arrived, a runner satyr with orange fur, bearing a blunt order: the bridge had to be ready as soon as possible. Otherwise the guard protecting them would be sent to another front, and the crew would be left at the mercy of the cave fauna: abyssal centipedes, the kric, the banshees howling in the dark.

***

The captain of that guard shared her tent that night, and the argument over deadlines soon bent toward something else. He held the power to stay or leave; she had only one coin with which to bargain, and they both knew it.

—A nymph does this for free —he said, while forcing her to her knees with a yank on her braid that drew a whimper from her.

He opened her cloak and tore her blouse at the chest to bare her small breasts, two aquamarine drops crowned by dark nipples that hardened in the cave’s cold. Then he loosened his belt, pulled down his leather trousers, and thrust a thick cock at her face, the root hairy and the glans purple, already dripping a thick pearl before it even touched her.

—Open, architect. No teeth. Like you know how.

Mirena obeyed. She ran her tongue from the swollen balls to the tip, licked the hanging drop, and took the whole glans into her mouth in one bite. The satyr growled, grabbed her braid like a rein, and started shoving her down to the hilt. She worked with her mouth what her tongue had failed to do. She took him whole, all the way to the back of her throat, until her nose sank into the rough fur of his groin and tears streamed under her glasses. The cock throbbed inside her, thick, marking her throat with every thrust, while he rocked her back and forth as if she were a toy.

—Good little momma, whore. Suck, suck, that’s what you were born for.

Saliva began to run in thick strings over her bare tits. He pressed both hands to her skull and rammed her to the hilt three, four, five times, until she felt his balls knock against her chin. When she sensed he was about to cum, she tried to pull away to bargain; the satyr stopped her by clamping his thighs around her head. He emptied himself into her throat with curses, a long, pulpy burst that filled her mouth until she coughed semen through her nose, and left her lips trembling and her chin dripping thickly.

When he finished, she lifted her face, swallowed what remained inside her, and asked, her voice broken, whether he would reconsider. The answer was a slap that splattered her against the floor. The satyr shook himself out of his clothes and left without the guard.

Alone at her desk, Mirena did not cry. Indignation lit her head on fire. She reviewed the budget, the hours, the assets and liabilities, and found a margin to finish sooner. She would send her scouts farther out by an alternate route. And she would ask her workers for six more hours of labor.

The laborers refused. They argued, raised their voices, reminded her that without meat they could barely move a brick. The arachne watched from the ceiling, hanging in their own webs, indifferent to the dispute. Mirena discovered, with a chill in her stomach, that she had no real authority over any of them.

That night five of the loudest came into her tent. They wanted meat; she had none. What she could give them was the usual. She knelt against the wall, her braid falling over one shoulder, and they formed a half-moon around her, five cocks out in the open, all thick, all red from being rubbed raw before they came in. She started with the first, a potbellied satyr already spilling into his foreskin. She took his cock in her small hand, put it in her mouth, and sucked from root to tip with long licks, spitting saliva over the head to lubricate the motion. The satyr grabbed her by the ears and used her like a sheath, driving in and out until she tasted the bitter flavor of semen flooding her palate.

—Swallow it, nymph. All of it. Don’t waste any.

As soon as he was done, the second caught her chin, forced her mouth open, and slammed into her with a thrust. Mirena had to breathe through her nose while he throat-fucked her without mercy, his balls battering her chin. The other three could not bear to wait: one came up on one side and put a cock in her hand, another on the other with the same, and she started jerking them off with both hands while the one in the center kept fucking her mouth. The five of them fucked her one after another, one after another, each finishing in her mouth or over her face. The third filled her cheeks with thick semen. The fourth aimed at her chest and doused her breasts in long streams that ran down her belly. The fifth pulled out of her mouth at the last second and spattered her glasses and forehead. When the last one emptied himself into her small mouth, her face was sticky, her braid speckled, and the bitter taste coated every corner of her tongue. They withdrew, threatening mutiny if she did not comply. The nymph was left alone with her shame and the bitter taste, repeating to herself that no title freed her from her old trade.

***

The next Cycle brought an unexpected entourage: thirty soldiers escorting four armored priestesses in exosuits that covered them like bells, not a single patch of skin in sight. Each carried a staff of emerald light. They were called the Sisters of the Single Eye, and they alone had the authority to handle the arcane technology buried in the stone, a legacy of the Ancients that Aurelia had studied.

Mirena admired them. They were living proof that a nymph could aspire to something beyond pleasing. She watched them cross the abyss on half-finished webs, enter the narrow tunnel, and disappear toward the chamber where, it was said, a mountain-sized engine slept.

The leader drove her staff into the ground and recited words in a lost tongue. The ruins woke, emerald circuits lit up, and for an instant the whole place vibrated on the edge of danger. Then everything shut off at once, like objects falling from a shelf. The sergeant escorting them refused to allow any more experiments. And Mirena was barred from entry and given another shortened deadline.

The laborers worked beyond their strength, and the unrest grew with every stoppage. Food began to run out. When Mirena asked for supplies and there was not enough, the five loud ones returned to demand her services. This time she refused and faced them: they were workers, not spoiled children. The answer was a kick to the stomach.

On the floor, in front of the other laborers, the five took their revenge for the slight. They beat her bloody, ripped off her clothes with tugs and contempt, and left her half-naked and trembling before twenty males. Beneath the cloak of a solemn lady, the body of a girl was laid bare, young even for the long years of her species.

And just then the Sisters returned. “Maintenance,” they said, though no one had notified them. The laborers, suspicious, only let them through if they were closely watched. The priestesses agreed with suspicious haste and went back into the ruins.

***

Someone brought Mirena garments woven from spider silk. She took them in surprise; she had not expected kindness. But the fifteen laborers who remained came toward her like lambs to their shepherd, and she knew that hunger all too well. She did not want to relive it. But from the far end of the tunnel came lights and thunder, and they barred her way “for her own safety.” Unless she paid a toll.

She ordered a break and stripped completely, because the new garments were useless to her now. Fifteen satyrs surrounded her with their members in the open, fifteen cocks of different sizes pointing at her from every angle, a forest of curved shafts dripping with need. The sensation that rose inside her was the same as in her student years, when she paid for her books with her body. It shamed her to the core, and yet she would be lying if she said there were no moments of pleasure. Beneath her translucent skin the cytoplasm began to move on its own, warming from the groin, and she felt the inner walls of her cunt moisten with a thick juice, aquamarine like her sap.

She started with her mouth. She blew them in groups of five: kneeling in the center of the circle, she moved her tongue from one cock to the next, sucking heads, licking balls, letting them push into her mouth at whatever rhythm they chose. The satyrs grabbed her by the braid, the ears, the neck, and took turns using her like a cup passed from hand to hand. All of them tasting her toothless lips, all of them finishing inside her or over her slender body. The first five came one in her throat, two on her tongue, one on her cheek, and one on her tits. The second five wanted more play: they put her on all fours and fucked her mouth from above, made her suck two cocks at once, came over the back of her neck and her braid until she was dripping everywhere. She satisfied most of them, but of course they wanted more.

One satyr lay on the floor with his cock erect as a mast and she mounted him. She fitted him with her hand, parted her lips, and lowered herself slowly, letting him fill her completely. The thickness opened her inside with a sweet burn and she moaned without being able to control herself, feeling split in two. She began to ride him, raising and lowering her pelvis in a long sway, her tits bouncing and her braid striking her back, begging that he be the only one, her mind fixed on what the Sisters were doing in there. The satyr grabbed her hips and drove her into a faster rhythm, thrusting from below every time she came down, until her aquamarine ass was slamming against his furry belly.

When she felt him close, she remembered a trick from her days as a servant: satyrs go mad when you scratch their neck, just behind the base of the horn. She leaned over him without stopping her ride, dug her nails into that exact spot, and scratched firmly. He convulsed and thudded against the floor like a grateful dog, pumping faster, eyes rolling white, until he spilled too soon. Mirena felt the hot stream flooding inside her, a long pulsing release that filled her belly and began to leak down her thighs as soon as he slackened.

Another six wanted the same. One more climbed beneath her, she speared herself onto him, and she rode again, this time with a third man’s hand caressing her breasts from behind and a fourth asking for her mouth. She went from cock to cock, always mounted, always scratching their necks to make them cum quickly, letting each one spill inside her or over her stomach. The fifth had her from behind, on all fours, while two more used her hands. The sixth came over her buttocks. The seventh, already without strength, barely managed to pour out over her navel. When it was over, her cunt was aching and a thick coat of semen mixed with her own aquamarine sap was running along the inside of her thighs.

When the session ended, Mirena dressed in her temporary garments and headed toward the other end of the cliff, her groin sore and pleasure spreading inside her like ink in a glass of water.

***

She reached the entrance to the ruins in silence, only to find disappointment. The heirs to Aurelia’s legacy were not studying anything: three of them were busy with the satyrs from their escort. Their armor had retracted into metallic bikinis that revealed their fairy bodies, with very pale skin and round breasts crowned by pale pink nipples. One rode a soldier lying on his back, raising and lowering her pelvis with his cock buried to the hilt, every descent wringing a sharp moan that bounced off the walls. Another was taken from front and back, suspended in the air between two satyrs who held her by the thighs and underarms while they drove into her in sync, spearing her cunt and ass at the same time, shouting something half pleasure, half insult with every thrust. The third, on all fours, was servicing two at once: one drove his cock into her from behind and gripped her hips to fuck her hard, while the other shoved his into her mouth to the hilt, holding her head while she swallowed and drooled in equal measure.

I counted three. Where is the fourth?

She tried to slip by without being seen, but failed. As soon as every gaze turned toward her, she ran into the chamber. The satyrs tried to hold her back, but the priestesses showed their true face: from their exosuits sprang pincers and cables moving like snakes to silence their lovers.

Inside, the fourth Sister, the leader, worked alone at the far end, reciting to bring life back to the buried motor. Metal broke the stone and transmuted it. The collapses began, and from outside her scouts were shouting for her. Just then a messenger arrived with the news that changed everything: the Sisters of the Single Eye had fallen into treason.

None of her men wanted to give up their lives to stop the priestesses, however just it might be. Mirena, fed up with no one respecting her rank, reminded them that they were the only ones who could act; any other force would arrive too late. The laborers looked at one another. No one moved.

—How do you win the loyalty of someone who owes you nothing? —she asked herself, and she knew the only answer they would accept.

***

They carefully removed her silk garments, difficult to tear, and set her on her knees on a blanket spread over the floor of the tent. She was already wet before they touched her. One man positioned himself behind her, spread her buttocks with both hands, and drove his cock into her cunt in a single thrust, drawing a long gasp from her. Another grabbed her braid and put the glans to her lips; she, resigned to everything, yielded and opened her mouth. The double motion began: they penetrated her from behind while another asked for her mouth, and she let herself sway between the two rhythms, her ass pushed back every time the one in her mouth buried his cock down her throat.

Soon the others stripped to take their turn with the impaled nymph. A circle of hard cocks formed around her. Those waiting pressed against her sides and put their cocks into her hands so she could jerk them off while the ones at either end fucked her. She went through several positions: one inside her and three being serviced by mouth and hands, her kneeling with her tongue on a glans, her fingers gripping two cocks, and her hips rhythmically pushed by the one who was pounding her cunt from behind. When the first one emptied himself into her with a roar, another replaced him without giving her a break, entering her as soon as the previous stream began to run down her thighs.

Then they put her face down, tits flattened against the blanket, head turned aside, and the count stayed the same: one riding her from behind, a third fucking her mouth from below, two cocks in her hands. Every satyr who finished made way for the next, and she kept receiving bursts inside her cunt, over her buttocks, in her mouth, on her back, always ending up full inside and stained outside. Her sap and foreign semen mixed on her translucent skin until they formed patterns that shifted with every thrust.

The peak of that session came when three took her at once. One lay on the floor and she let herself down onto his cock with her cunt, moaning as it settled all the way in. Another positioned himself behind her, spat onto her clenched hole to lubricate it, and drove his cock into her anus with a slow thrust that tore a muffled cry from her. The third grabbed her head and pushed his into her throat, until Mirena was pierced by three cocks at the same time, the double penetration stretching her front and back while the one above covered her mouth. A phallus in each hand —two more satyrs had pressed against her sides asking for her fingers— and the rest bathing her in streams from the circle. When the three came almost simultaneously, she felt three releases at once: one filling her belly, another scalding her ass, the third overflowing from the corners of her mouth. The others spilled over her hair, her breasts, her back, in a hot rain that left her covered from head to toe.

She thought that would be enough. But then the arachne came down from the ceiling on their threads. They had been spectators for too long and swore to follow her to hell, for a price. Mirena rolled her eyes. It was exactly what was missing.

They laid her on the floor, held her arms with silk threads tied at the wrists, and spread her legs nearly to the limit. One of the five positioned itself between them, trapped her thighs with its raptorial arms, and lowered its head. Mirena saw, a handspan from her cunt, complex mandibles open to reveal hundreds of tiny appendages, vibrating palps, and a forked tongue. The arachne closed its mandibles over her crotch. The sensation of a thousand appendages parting her lips and sucking the clit with impossible precision made her writhe all over, and they had to hold her tighter. The palps moved inside her like little fingers, one by one, exploring every fold within, while the forked tongue worked the hood with a steady vibrating rhythm. The orgasm came in spasms and long moans, a tremor that shook her cell walls and made her soak the arachne’s mouth with her own aquamarine juice.

The arachne pulled away, leaving her soaked, lips swollen and throbbing, and the next one replaced it. This one began to lick more slowly, with its whole tongue inside the open cunt, and sucked her clit between two palps as if milking it. Mirena came again, arching against the silk. The third preferred to open her buttocks and work both entrances at once, its tongue in her anus and its palps in her cunt. The fourth put her on all fours and devoured her vulva from behind, nibbling without harming. The fifth climbed on top, in an inverted sixty-nine, and buried its face in her sex while offering Mirena its own arachne groin, vertical, juicy lips that the nymph learned to lick through muffled moans. Some kissed her mouth with long cold tongues; others her breasts, sucking her aquamarine nipples until they went hard and purple; all of them exploring every corner of her young body.

In a frenzied frenzy, all her collaborators took her without exception. An arachne lifted her by the waist, holding her against its own torso, while a satyr settled behind her and entered her cunt hanging in the air, thrusting from below with his cock to the hilt. Another climbed up and put his in her mouth from above. They hung her from the ceiling with silk threads around her spread thighs, her wrists tied above her head, and in that position they left not a single opening unused: two satyrs at once, one in her cunt, one in her ass, while a third came on her face from the floor. They bound her in a thousand ways with spider silk, always with her legs open and some hole in use, always with her translucent skin soaked in sap and semen. She spent hours impaled, sucking when no one was inside her, cumming from the cunt again and again until she lost count.

And in the middle of that pleasure she began to feel fear. That sudden interest had something of real hunger in it, as if mouths and teeth wanted to force their way in to devour her. The arachne’s palps lingered too long inside her; the mandibles closed too hard on her thighs. She could only pray to Aurelia that she would not die among them.

When they were done, they all collapsed exhausted, asleep like corpses. Only the last one was still moving against her, inside her, thrusting slowly, almost in a trance. His release mixed with her cytoplasm, pierced the cell wall at its finest point, and stroked her organs from within, a morbid sensation that overflowed every pore of her skin. Mirena had one last orgasm, silent and deep, a tremor born from the very core of her. Then he curled up against her chest, and when she stroked his head, he answered like a happy little dog. He had earned her loyalty. Now he had it.

***

In the ruins, the treacherous leader prepared the final ritual, determined to awaken the relic no matter the consequences. But her three sisters saw that her ascent would leave them behind, and opened fire with the blasters mounted on their shoulders.

A web yanked Mirena out of the line of fire. Her arachne leaped on the preachers; the satyrs ran to break the nodes surrounding the relic. In the chaos, the architect advanced toward the conjurer, who kept reciting as the motor came back to life.

—You want ascension? —the priestess asked in a silken voice—. I’ll take you to a plane where no one will demean you. At last you’ll have what you desire most: respect.

Mirena stood still for a second. Then she raised her flare.

—My loyalty belongs to Vaeldris, to the vision of its founder.

The projectile burst against the ray shield and the reaction broke loose. The ritual shattered, the entire place began to mutate out of control, and a beam struck Mirena full on: her walls gave way and her cytoplasm splashed across the stone. The traitor did not get angry; she only smiled with irony before the vertical lights pierced her and made her disappear along with her own. The ceiling began to fall, and those who remained fled, taking whoever they could with them.

***

The bridge was completed, solid as the rock it was made of. Mirena was given no prizes or recognition, but something had changed: that team no longer merely obeyed her, it valued her, and offered her loyalty and protection. Though not without one last price.

They had rescued her, nearly dead, held together only by silk and stitches that kept her vital contents from spilling out. And then came the five scoundrels who had humiliated her, barely saved, begging forgiveness. Mirena had only one thing on her mind. The arachne surrounded them, the rest waited eagerly, and she said, in a calm voice:

—To mine I promised meat.

With one motion, the arachne tore them apart, and those bodies served as rations for those who had truly defended her.

Mirena packed up her sketches, set the crutch under her only arm, and left the tent for her next project, a plaza in the city where she had grown up. She walked toward the jade light, repeating under her breath, like a prayer:

—For Vaeldris, for Aurelia... for me.