Chapter 45: In The Clutches Of The Beast

45

Monique struggled against the crushing weight of the Great Beast as it bore down upon her. It mocked her and laughed at her mounting anger, her growing distress. It made remark against her futile struggles.

“Little felani,” it growled. Its voice grated like a massive, grinding rock-slide. “Don't struggle so. This won't be long. You won't feel much, when it's done.”

Monique felt her blood boil. The heat grew, was turned inward by the Great Beast. She was contained. She felt helpless. But unafraid.

“Ah, there it is. I see it,” The Great Beast purrs, shifting back down through to her human form. “You so want to kill me, yes? The need to do so burns within you.”

Monique can't speak. She can feel the beast's sickening black threads weaving around her, tightening, binding her.

“I can still smell my little brother's blood on you, whore,” she taunts. “Do you fancy yourself a demonslayer?”

The Great Beast felt powerful. Unchallenged. She gloried in this, her latest awakening. She basked in the open air.

“There was a time when my kind walked the worlds freely,” she says, turning her back on Monique. She was enjoying the moment, toying with her prey.

“Supposedly it was your kind that drove us away,” the beast taunts.

“Can you imagine that?” she asks with a sneer. “Now, why should I fear such a little thing like you?”

Monique can feel the pressure increasing within her. The heat from her fires futilely raged against the bindings of the beast. She felt as though she'd explode. Her insides burned, her mind burned against the unyielding containment.

The Great Beast laughed wickedly, amused by the futility of her struggles and Monique descended further into a useless rage. Her fury drowned out the voice of the newly discovered Matriarch within her, it denied her, blocked her path towards a connection.

“You ought'nt fight so. I am mistress now to your energies. The more you fight, little felani, the more you feed me,” the Great Beast says, spinning Monique about as she dangled helplessly upon the end of an invisible web.

Monique can't speak, she struggles to gather thoughts that break and shatter upon the forge of her outrage and anger. Her focus narrows into a thin, red line. Held in check within the beast's powerfully woven enchantments, her fires swirl and rage and batter uselessly against their restraints.

The Majora Shitani laughs and laughs, its jaws distending, uncurling across its slavered fangs.

“Oh this willd be great fun,” it thinks. “Great fun indeed.”