Winter had set in alarmingly early in the tri-peaks this season. Snowfall shouldn't have been a concern before the harvest moon, though that fact was no comfort to the white demon-raptor freezing his scales off. Ahastar had spent years exploring these mountains and knew them as well as his own tail, yet he had never expected a blizzard to set in before the trees began to lose their leaves. The reptile knew he had to find shelter soon, before the wintry chill rendered him too cold to move, or he would likely freeze to death before dawn. There were plenty of caves at least, and Ahastar knew which ones tended to hide animals that wouldn't welcome his company and which ones should be empty enough for his use. One such cavern was only a brief walk away.
Ahastar quickly made his way into the vast entrance in the mountainside. Animals would stay well clear of such a large, open area - even one underground - enabling the raptor to stay undisturbed until the storm passed. He hastily assembled a fire using a few twigs and some kindling from his pack to both warm and light the passage. His efforts did not go unnoticed, however, as the cave already had a resident. From within the shadows a feral dragoness made hir way forth. Hir scales glistened like the snow itself, catching the firelight as it danced across the room. The dragoness was at least two dozen times the raptor's size; shi filled the cavern with hir presence as shi slowly sauntered toward Ahastar. "Hello there," shi rumbled soothingly, "My name is Shira. What brings you here tonight?"
But the raptor didn't speak a word of draconic, leaving him unable to even guess at the feminine beast's intentions. Rather than responding with kind words of his own, the raptor grabbed a knife from his pack - a pitifully small weapon compared to the dragoness advancing upon him - and snarled threateningly. "I see. You're one of those types," the dragoness said, shaking hir head slowly. With a quick flick of hir tail, shi knocked the weapon from the raptor's claws. Another swipe of hir tail nearly extinguished the fire, leaving only the faintest glow in the dragoness' lair. "Then I see no reason to continue to offer you hospitality, but perhaps you can still earn your keep here this night."
There were many things that Shira planned to do with the small invader of hir space, but the one thing shi didn't intend to let the offending creature do was escape. Shi reared onto hir hindpaws, balanced hir forepaws against the wall, and quickly brought hir right foot onto the raptor to pin him between the car-sized appendage and the snow-crusted floor. "Lick," shi snarled before shi grabbed the small one's snout between hir two largest toes.
In that one moment, the world was reduced to nothing more than the underside of the feral dragoness' hindpaw. He could smell the faint hints of snow and dirt between hir scales, taste the dust that had collected on them, and feel his entire body straining to hold up that single foot. His ribs creaked under the mass of the dragoness even though shi was using just a tiny fraction of hir weight. With the ball of hir foot pressing squarely against his chest it was difficult to even breathe. Any movement at all was severely restricted; the snow on the cavern's floor had been compressed into ice and packed around Ahastar's body, as if forming an icy tomb for the raptor. Was this going to be the end of him?
Rather than licking, though, Ahastar began to fight and squirm in a vain attempt to escape the wrath of the dragoness. His claws raked uselessly against the herm's toes as he tried to worm his way out from beneath them. Shira seemed completely unimpressed and simply squeezed his head harder."If you want to know what it's like to breathe again, you'll do what I tell you to," Shira growled as shi held him there. "Now lick." In an attempt to make him understand, shi stuck hir tongue out and pantomimed a long, slow lick once shi knew he , then pointed down at hir wiggling toes.
Though he had been underfoot for barely a minute, the lack of air and the cold were starting to get to the demon. His pride wouldn't let him let the dragoness 'win' though, even in his dazed mental state. Death before dishonor was a thought firmly ingrained in Ahastar's mind. Rather than licking, he used his remaining strength to forcefully bite the nearest toe and inflict what little pain he could upon the giantess. Shira roared - in anger more than pain - and quickly lifted hir foot from the ground. Ahastar was briefly stuck to the dragoness' sole before he fell onto the ground in a graceless heap. This time, shi didn't give Ahastar another chance to comply and brought hir right foot down directly on top of the offending beast, allowing only his head to peek between hir toes at the giantess above him.
"I tried to give you a chance. But now that you've shown no intention of being of any value to me you really leave me no choice..." The dragoness' intentions were clear, whether or not Ahastar could understand what shi was saying. The look of sheer contempt and hatred needed no words; shi seemed intent on taking out every frustration shi'd ever had on the raptor's body. "Almost every time one of you foul beasts comes here I have to defend myself. And you," shi paused, shoving a fore-toe accusingly in Ahastar's face, "Are simply the latest in the line of indignities I have to suffer. Perhaps your mangled corpse will be warning enough for the next traveler!"
Without further warning, the herm shifted more of hir weight squarely against Ahastar's chest. The force caused his sternum to crack, while the rest of his torso started to compress under the pressure. The dragoness didn't want to crush him right away; that would be too merciful for what such an insolent bug deserved. Shi instead simply allowed hir weight to settle and let the raptor struggle for air. His body slowly started to flatten as he proved unable to cope with Shira's wrath. His ribs gradually gave way under the herm's mass, one snapping after another as hir paw slowly pressed down. Seconds stretched into minutes, then seemingly into hours in the little one's oxygen-starved brain.
Shortly before the saurian would have passed out, Shira lifted hir paw slowly. The demon's body stuck to hir sole from his congealed blood before gravity slowly peeled it away and let him fall weakly to the ground. The dragoness gave him just long enough to get a painful breath before pressing down once again with even greater force. Shi rocked hir paw back and forth upon Ahastar's body to grind his damaged bones and joints against one another. His body squished and squelched as organs began to fail, popping beneath the cruel dragoness. Ahastar might have cried out in pain, if his left lung hadn't already collapsed beneath the herm's paw.
As Ahastar drifted in and out of consciousness, Shira shifted hir paw down his body to move the raptor's snout between hir two largest toes. Shi lifted off just enough for him to draw another pained breath; even breathing was excruciating as he tried to force air through his damaged body. In this position, the ball of hir foot covered his torso, while his feet were somewhere halfway down hir paw. The little trample-toy could just barely make out the dragoness' face far above with his damaged eyesight, framed by those two toes. A toothy smirk was spread across hir snout as shi let hir prey squirm pathetically beneath hir tread. Shi finally stepped off him and stood above, hir feet framing Ahastar's body as he lie beneath them.
"Now how should I finish you off..." Shira hissed, letting the battered thing writhe on the ground for a few moments. He could barely even move despite being completely free from the dragoness' crushing weight. His chest was covered in a large, paw-shaped bruise. His arms had been crushed beyond recognition by the herm's toes. His legs were mostly intact, but his shattered pelvis left them - and his cloaca - completely useless. He coughed up a small amount of blood as he lay there, wheezing for air, but barely getting enough oxygen to remain conscious.
A faint rumbling came from the herm dragoness as shi leaned hir muzzle in close to the thoroughly abused creature at hir feet. It almost looked like Shira was going to give Ahstar a kiss until hir muzzle opened and a blue 'flame' erupted from hir snout. Rather than the fiery blast of hir brethren, the frosty herm's breath weapon was that of ice. In seconds, the raptor found himself unable to move at all; he was frozen to the core, his senses dulled but not disabled. He was little more than an icicle on the ground, unable to even plead for mercy from a dragoness that would offer him none. "Farewell, little one," The dragoness purred, lifting hir paw into position one more time. Shi let it hover above the immobilized Ahastar, letting him witness the stain of his blood upon it, with his feathers and scales slowly dropping off. A moment later, Shira brought it down with the force of a meteor.
The raptor's body shattered in an instant. He had been frozen to his core; skin, muscle, and bone were all brittle from the cold. Shira ground hir paw against Ahastar's remains and turned his frozen corpse into little more than pile of blood-stained dust. Hir paw ground contemptuously back and forth to spread it around and mix the remains of the raptor into the powdery snow on the ground. When the foot lifted, there was no trace at all shi had ever had a visitor. As Shira walked away, the last of Ahastar's remains fell from hir paw, unnoticed by the dragoness; shi simply curled up and went back to sleep as if hir unwanted guest had never been there at all.
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