The Toll

"Friend Guardian, we would bargain for our crossing", Benivere called out in the traditional words of the Covenant, as his party completed the precarious climb to the chasm-span.

Agnok stood at the gated entrance to the span, hands resting on his long sword. Broad-shouldered and heavily-muscled, he stood two feet taller than Benivere, who was himself a tall man. "You may cross for a toll of value that does not unduly hinder your quest" Agnok replied, also using the traditional words.

Regarding them more carefully, he said "Two humans, a dwarf, an elf, and..." he looked quizzically at the petite young woman with long green hair "...a nymph of some sort?"

"Yes sir, a water nymph, sir, though we prefer 'naiad'", she replied, half hidden behind Benivere.

Agnok nodded and began the negotiation in earnest. "For weeks I've taken nothing but gold and have no need of more till the chance comes to spend it. I've been looking for a spare work pony, but you have none. Have you seeds I can plant? Drink you can leave? Or..." he said with a knowing smile "perhaps one of your party would join me in my lodgings to persuade me."

"Friend Guardian, we have neither seed nor drink -- we have had no food since yesterday and we need to cross to resupply. And..." Benivere laughed, trying to deflect the Guardian's last comment as a jest "you surely could not ask that toll of my wife Miranda, and the nymph remains a virgin -- but perhaps we could pay you a sufficient sum to hire a camp-follower?"

"I didn't say it had to be one of the females," Agnok laughed in return. "From the look of that elf it wouldn't be a new experience for his mouth!" Benivere laughed along hollowly, making a placating gesture. The Guardian began to say "But, if not that..." when he stiffened, his eyes unfocusing for a moment and his back straightening. A moment later he shook his head, clearing it, and glared at Benivere with sudden anger.

"You would try to Sway me?! Are you a complete fool?"

Benivere hastened to say "Friend Guardian, I assure you, I attempted no enchantment! I know that you were jesting, I'm sure we can..." He was cut off by Agnok booming "Do NOT lie -- I felt the spell! I will not stand this insult! Now one of you will satisfy me or none of you will pass!!"

The party broke into a babble of voices, talking over one another: "...so STUPID as to..." "...does he mean..." "...days to any other..." "...do it?" "...you shouldn't have..." "...proposed a camp follower!!" "...can't seriously expect ANYONE..." "...did not attempt..." "...ran out of water this morning..." "...will do it..." "...practically invulnerable..." "...other options...".

Agnok, still angered, called out to them "Decide now or go back. Soon no toll will do."

"Friend Guardian" Benivere began, but in the pause before he spoke again a small

voice, unnoticed, said "I'll do it." Benivere continued "There must be some other arrangement!" "I'll do it" the voice said again timidly, before Agnok called out "You brought your party to this -- live with the consequences". "I'll do it!" the voice said, more loudly.

Benivere held a hand up to hush the naiad standing at his side, beginning again to say "Guardian, surely we can..." The naiad gently put her hand on Benivere's arm, pleading "please, Benivere, I said I'd do it, there's no other way, please don't make me say it again!"

Benivere looked down at her with concern. "Ariel, you don't understand what he's saying, he's..."

She cut him off with a sudden rush of words. "He's SAYING he wants to put his penis in my mouth until he ejaculates!! I understand, but can we please stop TALKING about it?! PLEASE don't make me keep saying I'll do it, I'll do it, but I can't keep saying it!!!"

Benivere stepped back as though he had been slapped. Emboldened momentarily, the naiad wheeled on Agnok. "But you have to let them cross first! Only after you let them cross!!"

Agnok pondered this. "What is to prevent you running off?" he asked.

She paused for a moment, then took off her pack and placed it at her feet. "I'll give them all my things. I couldn't run off -- I'd have no supplies, nothing, and we're leagues from anything but you. I couldn't leave until you agree that I have...that, that...I've done that thing you want."

Agnok narrowed his eyes. "Speak words of binding," he ordered.

"NO! Don't!!" cried out Miranda, but was cut off as Ariel placed her palms flat against each other, fingers pointing to the sky and said "I vouchsafe to the Naiad Council that I shall give my companions all my belongings to take with them across the bridge, and that I shall not join them until you agree that I have..." her voice broke a bit "...let you...ejaculate...in my mouth." She raised her hands, palms still together, over her head, where the air shimmered around them for a few moments before a soft beam of light shot from them into the air.

Agnok mirrored her movements, saying "I pledge myself as a Guardian to your words of binding", and light shot from his hands as well. "We have an arrangement" he said, smiling as he looked at her.

........

The others, subdued, avoided eye contact with Ariel as she folded her cloak into her pack, and then took the knife hanging from her belt and attached it to a strap. She removed a ring from her finger and then finally a pendant from her neck and placed them in an outer pouch, before handing the pack to the elf, Valinel, and turning back to Agnok. "There's a brooch in your hair" he said.

Ariel reached up meekly to remove it, and placed it with the ring and pendant. "Can they cross now?" she asked.

"You said all your belongings."

Ariel looked in confusion at Agnok for a moment until realization dawned on all of them. "Bastard!" cried Miranda, but Ariel shut her eyes for a moment then held up her palm to her friend. "It's ok. It's ok. He's right, it's what I said, I have to follow the vouchsafe", she said resignedly.

Ariel lifted each foot in turn, slipping off her moccasins. She unbuttoned and took off her vest, pulled her blouse over her head, removed her belt, and slid out of her leggings. Wearing only a thin linen undergarment and a band of cloth covering her small breasts, she looked hopefully at Agnok, who simply stared back. Suppressing a small sigh, she untied the band of cloth and pulled it from herself, turning away from him as she did so, and then bent down to slide the linen from her hips to the ground, placing these last scraps of cloth on top of her small pile of clothes. Naked, placing one hand over the tuft between her legs, green like the long hair flowing down her back, and the other arm across her breasts, she turned to him. "Now?" she said meekly.

"Turn around" he said, and she spun slowly. When she finished he nodded at her curtly.

Miranda stepped forward to pick up Ariel's belongings, first wrapping her arms around the nymph in a hug. "There must be another way!" she said in a hushed tone. Ariel leaned into the hug, replying "We both know there isn't -- and I've already vouchsafed. And, and..." Ariel looked with embarrassment at the ground "...well, you solved the three griffins' riddle, and Thrask cured everyone of the Screaming Pox, and Benivere and Valinel saved us all in the Dragonvale woods, and all I've done so far is be the reason we needed to be saved in the Dragonvale woods! I...I have to do this."

Suddenly a large arm swept between the two, the hand spread roughly across her breasts and lifting her off her feet and carrying her to the gateway station. She watched as the gates to the span opened and her friends walked disconsolately across, Miranda pausing at the other side to look back and wave sadly. It was the last thing Ariel saw before the gates swung shut.

........

Hesitantly, she turned to face the Guardian, eyes aimed just above his head, again with one hand between her legs and the other arm splayed awkwardly across her breasts, and said "um, hi, my name is Ariel, if, if that matters, it, um....it's nice to...meet..." Her voice trailed off. "So, um, should, should I...sit on the...." she looked around the room "...um, so there's a bed, I guess that makes sense, this is where you live, should I sit on the bed, or did, are you going to, to sit on the bed, or, um, there's a chair, too, I guess, though you are so very tall that, you know, maybe, I mean, I'm not that tall, we're practically in the right, um..." her eyes darted to his belt "...orientation...as, as it...sorry, I'm nervous, I tend to ramble when I'm nervous, I think I'm sort of -- "

Her voice cut off as Agnok's hands grasped her by the shoulders, lifted her bodily into the air and across the room, and placed her in front of a stool. He walked away to sit in a chair a few feet from her, leaning back in it and resting one ankle across the other knee.

Ariel swallowed. "Should I...sit? On this stool, I mean?" Agnok fixed her with his eye, until eventually, hesitantly and eyes looking in case of disapproval, she bent at the knees and sat down, hands still covering her nakedness as best she could. She sat there, looking uncomfortable. She tried to smile, but her eyes and mouth crinkled too often into barely concealed dismay to have much success at it.

In the midst of a long silence which made Ariel even more uncomfortable, Agnok asked

"Aren't you a bit old to still be a virgin?"

Ariel blushed. "Um, so, there actually aren't any male naiads? I mean, river gods, yes, but they're hardly ever around. So growing up in the brook, it, it just kind of never came up."

"You never saw any humans? They fuck naiads, don't they?"

Ariel winced a little. "Theoretically we can mate with humans, yes, I mean, you know, the...pieces would all, um, fit..." Her eyes involuntarily glanced between Agnok's legs. "...I guess. And if you were doing Riverbank, well, yes, young men did hunt through the forest near us, so you had to keep an eye out for them so they didn't defile the river. But we'd never get out of the water around them! That was against the rules! Mostly we, um...we just, well, tempted them to join us in the water. You know, look kind of...inviting, then swim out just a bit from the bank? So they'd get in the river with us."

"And you couldn't fuck them then?"

Ariel looked a little shame-faced. "I mean, I, I guess you could mate with one after he's in the water, but, um, to be honest?" Her lips crinkled awkwardly. "Mostly we just, um...well, we, we...drowned them." Ariel smiled weakly. "I mean, that was the point of tempting them into the water in the first place, it's kind of...a naiad thing. So there's not really all that much of a chance not to be a virgin."

Agnok laughed out loud. "Remind me not to swim with you!" Ariel bit her lower lip, looking with embarrassment at him. "So", he carried on, "your first sight of cock." Ariel's eyes darted away for only a moment, but Agnok caught her expression. "Hah! What did THAT mean?" he chortled.

"Well, not...actually...my first sight, sir. Because, because some of them took off their clothes before they got in the water. So, so, I mean, yes, I have seen...naked...men's...things. I mean, that makes sense, right? You think you're getting out again so you'll want dry clothes? And, and, well, they probably wanted...um...not, not to have clothes...in the way, as it were, because, because they were expecting something was going to happen after they got in."

"But nothing ever did?"

"After they got in? Oh, no sir! Well, the drowning, of course, sir. But nothing, you know, um....to do with, with sex."

Agnok narrowed his eyes at her.

"Sir?"

"Why did you specify 'after they got in'?"

Ariel tried to fix her gaze on Agnok. "Um, well, some young men..." Her eyes dropped away from his. "...some of them...took more tempting than others." As Agnok roared with laughter she said defensively "Well some of them had more sense than to just dive straight into a brook with a supernatural creature they'd never met!!!"

"And so you'd lure them in?" Agnok chortled.

"Well, usually once they'd come to the water's edge all you needed to do was tease them with a hand running down a shoulder, or soft warm whispers in their ear, and they'd be convinced that, that, well, that if they got in the water things would get even better? And, you know, if -- not me, but, but really experienced naiads? -- can be...sort of...hypnotic? But for most of us you could only do that so long, I mean, come so close before they'd decide you just weren't going to, um...do anything?"

"This gets better and better!"

Ariel shifted uncomfortably on the stool, looking at the floor. "The Fluvial Priestess did teach us all that if a hunter was really reluctant? That, that if instead of running your hand down his shoulder you ran it up his leg, well, he'd be a lot more interested. And, and..." Ariel began to turn red "...if necessary you could touch his...thing, you know, like, just run the back of your fingers down it and then gently push yourself away from the bank and float there waiting, smiling at him? Especially if he'd already taken his clothes off, that almost always worked!"

"'Almost' always?"

"Yes sir, almost always."

"And if it didn't...you...let them leave?"

Ariel swallowed nervously, looking up at him for a moment before here eyes dropped to the floor again. "We, we weren't really...supposed to let them leave. Not once they'd been right at the bank with us, I mean. Not if we could help it."

Agnok grinned broadly at her. "I'm guessing you could help it. Out with it!"

Ariel, still red-faced, sighed. "It was Clarissa -- my friend, Clarissa? -- who, who came up with the idea." She looked into his eyes. "Ok, don't laugh at me, this is going to sound naïve, so don't laugh, ok? She was the one who worked out that if, instead of your hand, you, um, used, used your...mouth, not just kissing, but, but used your mouth on his...thing...then, my gods, did they become pliant!!"

"Clarissa invented blowjobs?" Agnok said laughingly.

"I said not to laugh at me! I know it sounds naïve, I mean, obviously, no, she ...obviously other people had thought of it too, I mean, it's what you are demanding right now, but, but we didn't know that! Not then." Ariel shrank down, arms still covering her nakedness. "So it just seemed like this brilliant discovery of hers, that worked so well! And she was really good at it!"

"SHE was good at it?"

Ariel nodded vigorously.

"Only her?"

Ariel looked carefully at a place a few inches to the side of Agnok's eyes, swallowing nervously. "Couldn't you just...do the thing now?"

"What's your rush?", asked Agnok, smiling.

"I just want to get it over with! You're going to do it, I, I vouchsafed to let you do it, let's just..." Ariel shuddered faintly "...do it. I'm ready." Ariel straightened her shoulders a little, arm still crossed over her breasts and, looking at Agnok, opened her mouth.

Agnok gave a small grunt of amusement. "You look ridiculous."

"I'm sorry, sir, should I close my eyes?" Ariel shut her eyes, opening her mouth again after saying "Is this better?"

"Is this the point where I'm supposed to take pity on the poor virgin and let her go? Another day that might have worked, but today I am determined to do this. And frankly I'm planning to enjoy it."

"No, sir, I vouchsafed to give you a...service, and I'm ready."

"There's time", Agnok replied "and I want an answer to my question first. Only her?"

Ariel opened her eyes and looked shyly at the Guardian before casting here eyes to the side once more. She sighed heavily. "Ok. So, well, yes, Clarissa was the real expert! She'd be, um, between his legs, using her, her mouth, you know, kissing and licking his, his thing, and I'd try to help by smiling seductively" Ariel smiled, looking not even slightly seductive "or maybe leaning in really close, so that it looked like I was going to do it too, and he'd drop his guard so much that WHOOSH we'd just drag him off the bank by surprise!!"

Agnok held up a hand to stop her. "I have a question about that. Why did you drown them?"

"So they wouldn't defile the river, sir, it was our job!"

"But how did you know they intended to defile the river?"

Ariel looked at Agnok with an expression suggesting she was trying to explain something to a particularly slow child. "Well, they got in it, didn't they, sir?"

"Because...you tempted them."

"Exactly!" Ariel smiled triumphantly at Agnok.

Agnok shook his head for a moment, then said "But then...why not just...not -- you know what? Never mind. Carry on."

"Well, sir, so usually it was Clarissa who took charge in that way?" Ariel dropped her voice slightly. "But, um, there was this one time, usually we'd be in a group, like, three or four of us? But it happened to be just me that day, and there was this hunter and we were talking, and I'd tried everything! I'd done that thing where you bob up out of the water just enough that he's sure you're naked but he can't quite see anything..." Ariel glanced down at her arm, still crossed uncomfortably across her breasts "...and then fix your gaze on him and you slowly sink down in the water, your hair spreading out in a semi circle behind you, till it's just your eyes peering out at him, filled with desire? And then you bob up slightly so that your lips are above the surface, obviously waiting for a kiss, but just far enough away that he'd have to lean over? And he still was being standoffish, so I thought, well, it always works for Clarissa, so I figured maybe I could tempt him by, by, using my mouth." Ariel turned a deeper red.

"Blowjobs by the water's edge! Amazing!" laughed Agnok, as Ariel, meeting his gaze despite her blushing, somewhat indignantly replied "Well what would YOU suggest! We couldn't get out of the water, that was a rule, because the whole point was to get him into it, and if it looked like I was going to, you know, do the Clarissa thing then that pretty much required him to get nearly half in to the river to get his...thing...close enough to my mouth."

Ariel paused, crossing one leg over the other tightly, and removing the hand which had been covering her. She brought that arm up to her chest, arms crossed and hands resting on her shoulders, covering her breasts.

"Of course the trouble was" she continued, looking away again "that it was just me, so even though he was pretty distracted when I...started doing that with my mouth... I, well, I didn't think I'd be able to surprise him and pull him off the bank and under. I wouldn't be strong enough? So, so I just...kept going until, until he..." Ariel squirmed quite noticeably, her voice dropping as she continued staring at the floor "until, well, until he...finished. You know. Until...until he... In my mouth. Until he finished in my mouth."

Ariel swallowed nervously as she looked up at Agnok, who was regarding her with a changed expression. "But, but it worked! Really well!! Because once he was done, once he, he finished, he just flopped backwards, looking completely spent, and and so then, my gods it was so easy, I don't think he even noticed me grabbing his legs, and I felt so strong and then SWOOSH there he was in the water, I pulled him in all by myself, it was so easy, and I dragged him to the bottom and he didn't even struggle! So really it was a good idea, it always worked really well!!" Ariel looked smugly at Agnok.

Agnok grinned. "'Always'," he said laughingly, "meaning you did it more than once."

Ariel's eyes darted guiltily away again, blushing deeply again. "You little cocksucker!" chortled Agnok.

Ariel looked indignant. "It wasn't often!! Actually, it turned out there was a reason we hadn't been taught that technique? The older generation, they kind of disapproved, they thought it was sort of -- not sporting? You know, because they were basically so helpless afterward, if they'd, they'd, done that, you know, in your mouth. So we'd try to get him without, like, any actual contact, but we all did it sometimes. Sometimes you'd be the one floating seductively in the middle of the river combing your hair, but sometimes you'd be the one, um, putting his, his thing in your mouth, maybe you only had to do that just for a moment before you slid underwater temptingly, but sometimes you had to, well, make him...satisfied. So you could pull him in. But, but not mostly! It was just a...few times, it wasn't a big deal!!"