So this here is a little gift for  Generationslayer for...huh...you know, I'm not actually sure if Generationslayer is a guy or a girl. I'll just go with "he" and fix it later if I'm wrong. It's his birthday today, so I'm presenting him a birthday present that's also a thank you gift for lifting me a bit out of my creative rut.

Anyway, this came about some time ago when I first saw this picture. It wasn't the first time I'd seen his character Zegar, the vorish wolf assassin, but in a time when creativity was lacking, seeing that illustration sparked some inspiration, and after a little research and a few (okay, more than a few) questions, found myself really liking her, and appreciating the amount of thought he'd put not only in her, but in the world she occupies. To be honest, I've had to resist the tempation to make a too similar character myself.

The story is of one of Zegar's more recent trickier hits, both from its nature, and the unexpected complications fate decides to throw her way. Hope you enjoy it  Generationslayer, as I certainly enjoyed writing it.

Literary elements belonging to  Generationslayer were used with permission.


Story written by J.R.Sinke
Zegar, beastlings, and the world of Laven belong to Generationslayer


Taste of Treachery


As she silently tailed her target by the light of the moon, in the back of her mind Zegar thought about how close she had come to not taking the job. When she had begun reading the provided documents, she initially thought it suspicious that the target was a rebellion spy, one supposedly a traitor to the cause. It seemed more like someone in the beastling army was looking for an assassin to do the job theirs couldn’t, and somehow got to one of her contacts by chance.

She had been about ready to pitch the thing, despite the generous amount of money offered with over half up front, until her eyes hit on a name; Rhiana Korston, the spy’s contact in the beastling army. Zegar, however, knew that name, had known Rhiana personally, albeit briefly. The document said that the spy, one Victor Yearson, referred to Rhiana as his contact, a beastling wishing to defect and leaking information to gain assistance from the resistance to achieve her goal of defection.

With that, Zegar had taken the job without a second thought, convinced that it was indeed legitimate, and glad for an opportunity to work against the beastling army. Rhiana certainly hadn’t struck her as the type to ever want to defect. Indeed, she was an elitist, viewing humans as smarter than average animals and even taurs with a bit of scorn. To be wishing to defect…Zegar knew something just wasn’t right about that.

Victor hadn’t been easy to find, even with the information she’d been given on him, which was more thorough than she’d thought one could accumulate on one whose profession was “spy”. Zegar found herself having a lot of professional respect for the man before long. It had been quite some time since she’d had a job that was anything like this, and she found the test of her skills to be welcome. As it was, she’d found herself needing to alter her appearance some while tailing him, as he’d already begun to suspect her after the second day’s worth of tailing. It was amazing what some dyes and a change of fashion could do for one’s looks. Even after nearly two weeks of watching him, no good opportunities had arisen, and he hadn’t met with Rhiana yet.

This night, however, seemed to be the night. She watched as he discretely entered a modest little inn situated in a little rest stop village, entering via a window on the third floor. Quite likely the only reason the little hamlet had an inn, and more than one, was that it was situated along a main travel route between two cities, making for a great place to stop and rest. It was the opportunity she had been waiting for.

Unfortunately for Victor, Zegar knew something he didn’t. She’d become aware that Victor in fact knew she was following him, and that this whole thing was a setup. After the first week, despite her altering looks, she’d begun noticing that whenever he scanned an area, his eyes always fell on her a few seconds longer than any place else. He was good at what he did, but she was even better at what she did, and knew exactly how to turn this situation to her advantage. Whenever someone thought they had an advantage, they’d completely let their guard down. She knew better, and that was why she was alive her marks no longer were.

Comfortable that she had a little time, Zegar considered how best to approach the situation. The job needed an element of subtly and stealth. Compounded on that was the fact that it was an extremely delicate situation. If her involvement were to be known, or even speculated, it could generate complications that could make getting work more difficult, and she had the children to look after. Once she weighed all the necessities, and the situation at hand, the answer seemed simple; he needed to disappear without a trace, and she knew exactly how to go about doing that.

It took only a few more moments for the rest of the plan to fall into place, and before long she was making her way to the inn. However, she did not seek to go to Victor directly; she had some tasks of preparation that needed to be completed first.

Getting in proved a simple enough matter, simply using a touch of magic to unlock the ground floor window to the office and let herself in. Even without the light, it wasn’t too difficult to find the records she sought; the most recent ones were sitting atop the desk. Opening the log book to the last page, she noticed that it seemed the owner had updated them quite recently, very likely shortly before retiring to his bed. After looking over the records, she grabbed a pen and added a record of her own, indicating that one Seline Borgen was checked in to room 32, and would be for the next week. To add further legitimacy to the forgery, she found where he stored his earnings, and put the appropriate amount therein. After all, she was using the room, and anything that wasn’t in order, such as a mysterious shortage of funds, could be noticed and investigated.

The harder portion of making the ruse work was in making sure there wasn’t a second record kept at the front desk, and acquiring the key to the room she was to occupy. Those elements would be positioned at the front desk, where some attendant would be awake to greet late entrants. But as she quietly cracked the door open, approving of the owners maintenance of his facility for the doors to be well oiled, she discovered that the task would prove not nearly as difficult as she had anticipated. The one attending to the counter sat with her head atop crossed arms, snoring ever so lightly. With a smile at this uncommon bit of good fortune, Zegar made the necessary arrangements and grabbed the key before making her way outside once more.

Dropping the key into a pocket, she began to scale the walls much like Victor had, making her way to the third floor. This was, perhaps, the most dangerous part of her plan, as this was partially what she was sure Victor would be expecting. However, she knew the man did not have her measure, and so was not overly worried, though still cautious. Normally she’d use a little of her magic to boost her strength and make the climb easier, but she had a feeling that she would need to conserve her mana for the night, and being in excellent physical condition, the climb was not in the least a strain on her mundane capabilities.

With a little help from a hand mirror, she was able to get a look into the room. It took a while to find the full length mirror such inns often put in rooms, but it was only a few moments after finding it that she had the right angle. It wasn’t the best viewing angle, but it was enough to see Victor in the room, without exposing herself in the slightest. Not surprisingly, he had a gun at the ready, surprisingly with no silencer attached. There was something unusual about the firearm as well, but she couldn’t view it clearly enough to know what. A little frustrated, she decided to look once he was out of commission. If all went according to plan, he’d never have the chance to pull the trigger. What was important was that he was simply sitting, lying in wait.

She smiled, knowing the job was almost as good as done. With a little adjustment, she managed to get a view of the door, and with it, the doorknob. Tapping into her reserves, she used her magic to jiggle the handle. It was locked of course, but Victor soon stood by the door, looking through the peephole, right where she wanted him.

Once he backed off from the door a but, she gave the knob another jiggle as she clicked open the widow lock, much as she had done for the first floor window, and this time he made her job even easier as he flung open the door, apparently thinking to catch her by surprise. As he did, she opened the window, the sound being covered by his actions. As she did though she heard an oddly high pitched “pew” noise instantly followed by a light “think”, and realized why the firearm had looked so strange; it was a dart gun. He was still pointing the gun into an empty hallway as she crept up behind, and before he could even turn around a solid blow to the side of the head knocked him out cold.

While now would normally be the perfect time to dispose of him, part of the contract was to, if at all possible, ascertain exactly why he’d turned traitor, and it would be much more difficult to do that if he was dead. Normally interrogation wasn’t a part of her job description, and it wasn’t something she was precisely trained in. Still, the contract only stated “if at all possible”, so she felt obligated to at least try before dealing with him permanently.

Of course, she couldn’t just leave him lying by the open door, so she dragged him over behind the bed before making her way back to close it. As she was contemplating in the back of her mind if the sheets of the bed would be strong enough restraints for when he woke up, or if she’d need to find something more suitable, she heard a slight creak of wooden boards emanate from the hallway.

In an instant, Zegar was under the bed, hidden by the low laying sheets, unsure if the noise came from a potential threat or simply a passerby come in after a late night. When a set of brown and white furred feet stopped in the doorway, she knew it was the former, and that the feet most certainly belonged to Rhiana. She mentally kicked herself for leaving the dart sticking in the hall wall, tipping off Rhiana to danger, until she realized that with the timing, they would have both been in the hallway at the same time, with Rhiana having the distance advantage, as well as potentially the elements of surprise.

Zegar waited until the weasel woman took two cautious steps into the room, pushing her luck on the effectiveness of her hiding spot, before using her magic once more to slam the door into her. She’d spent a lot more mana tonight than she normally did, and had a quick worry at the back that she might run out if she needed to use much more, but more pressing was in eliminating the armed threat before her.

Unfortunately she had to take time getting out from under the bed, graceful as she was with a little magical boost, and Rhiana almost recovered before Zegar could reach her. A quick lunge and thrust to the wrist took care of the firearm, coming free of a hand that had not yet fully reaffirmed its grip. However the attack left Zegar mildly exposed, and Rhiana brought a knee up into her gut, almost doubling her over. The blow might have knocked the wind out of her had she not leaned forward as far as she had in anticipation, but it was still less debilitating than a gunshot anywhere.

Grabbing a hold of the doorframe with one hand to steady herself, impressed at the amount of force the slight woman had been able to muster, she thrust her head back, slamming into Rhiana’s face at the same time an elbow slammed into her back. She wasn’t sure exactly where the sharp cracking noise came from, having not expecting to have connected with her target so quickly, but as she could still move, she was sure it wasn’t her back. She was only still standing because her grip on the doorframe had remained true.

Whipping around on the momentum of her thrust, despite the fresh stab of pain that sent through her back and the slight surge of dizziness, she could see a bit of blood on Rhiana’s short muzzle, even with one hand clutching it. More importantly, Rhiana hadn’t recovered from the blow. Darting forward, almost losing her balance from the pain in her head, she reached up under the woman’s muzzle and jammed her fingers into Rhiana’s throat. Rhiana’s attempt to block was misplaced, and with a gasping cough she fell to her knees. Even as she fell, Zegar cocked her other arm back and put a little extra magical force into the blow as it arched down towards Rhiana’s face. The impact not only knocked the woman out onto the floor, but removed a few more of her teeth as well.

As Zegar caught her breath, and clutched her still throbbing back, she reevaluated the situation as her head cleared. This wasn’t exactly what she had anticipated, and would need some adjusting of her original plan. More than her fair share of good fortune seemed to be with her today, and she realized just how close she had come to the whole situation had come to blowing up in her face. Had even one shot been fired from Rhiana’s gun, everything would have been ruined. This hadn’t been a setup to eliminate her, but to capture her for Rhiana to identify.

But both were now her prisoners, and the close call was over. Off the top of her head she couldn’t think of a time that had been quite this close in some time, but now wasn’t the time to reminisce. She had a bit of time before either regained consciousness, and in the interim she’d have time to think, clean up the blood spots on the carpet, tie up her captives, and move them to a more “private” location.

Fortunately, nobody had seemed to notice either scuffle that had taken place, and she was able to carry the both of them, one at a time, to her own room with no one the wiser. With the sheets from both beds, she was able to bind them securely enough. Now they sat propped up against the wall, both stripped down to their under things. It was easier than methodically searching them, and would save time later. As they sat unconscious, Zegar weighed her new options. Having two prisoners made the process of interrogation a little less straightforward. If they were together, Rhiana might be able to cow Victor to silence, no matter the threats Zegar herself made. Keeping them apart would mean that one of them would be out of her sight for a length of time, which seemed a risky proposition.

Even worse, Rhiana knew her, and what she could do. However, she realized that she didn’t actually need to question Rhiana at all. And seeing as how at this point she couldn’t let the woman leave alive, and potentially endanger herself or her children, or even be found lest it cast suspicion potentially her way, she quickly went back down to the inn’s office and carefully changed her stay time to two weeks, glad the innkeeper preferred to use numeric instead of lettering.

After carefully inspecting Rhiana to make sure the woman was well and truly out, not recovered and shaming, Zegar removed the makeshift bonds. As she got a firm grip on Rhiana’s upper arms, she activated her devouring magic, feeling the changes begin quickly and easily. Her bones, muscles, and skin began to stretch and widen as she opened her mouth, quickly enveloping Rhiana’s head, and in a few moments more, her shoulders. Rhiana being a rather slender woman, Zegar’s mouth did not have to stretch quite as far as it usually needed to, and she had the feeling the woman’s thin frame would slide down her throat with ease. Her outstretched cheeks gave her the appearance of a weird cross between a wolf and a chipmunk, with her lower jaw stretched to nearly two feet across. Zegar’s saliva production quickly picked up at that point, wetting the woman down so that with the first pull and gulp, Rhiana slid in easily. Some of that saliva also fell to the floor, but that was of no concern to Zegar. Even with the assistance of magic, breathing around Rhiana’s head in her throat wasn’t easy, but she was in no danger of choking.

Much as her mouth had done, her throat and neck stretched obscenely to accommodate the large portion. Though she could feel Rhiana’s body pressing a bit against her spine, it was as though there was an extra layer of padding between it and her esophagus, making for just a light pressure against it without being painful. In fact, nothing about the stretching and expanding hurt at all, else the magic would be next to useless. However, the magic didn’t protect her from the beginning ache of arching her neck down further to get more of the woman into her. Despite it being a bit awkward, Zegar scooted around until she had her back to the side of the bed, giving her something to lean on for balance when she lifted her head to straighten her neck.

Another quick pull and powerful gulp had the woman in down to her bellybutton, and Zegar could feel Rhiana’s head push into her stomach. She began to gag a little as some of the damp fur began to tickle her throat, and she stopped momentarily to give a few quick coughs to clear it. While her magic did much to break the laws of nature in making what she was doing even possible, it still had its limitations, with fur and clothing occasionally becoming a nuisance. It also didn’t help her with keeping the weight of her meal balanced to that she didn’t fall over. And with her arms moving to Rhiana’s legs, she had only her equilibrium to work with, which irritated the soreness in her back from Rhiana’s elbow.

That’s when Rhiana’s legs suddenly began to thrash, and Zegar nearly lost the grip she had just gotten on them, as well as her balance. It seemed her activities and coughing had woken the agent up. But it was far too late for any struggling to do her any good, and Zegar gave another strong pull with her throat, lifting her head up further to allow gravity to assist, pulling more of the woman in and causing her belly to distend. All of her other organs, and even her ribcage, were gently pushed aside to make room for her quickly expanding belly.

Rhiana had a lot of fight in her, and Zegar had to deal with punches and elbows in her stomach and contend with keeping the weasel’s legs reasonably still. Before long she conceded and once again made use of her other magical talent to increase her strength, though now she could feel the drain she was beginning to put on herself. But she couldn’t simply spit her back up at this point, and so she made another swallow, pulling the woman in and pushing her belly out.

Clamping down none too gently on the woman’s legs just above the knees, and tasting a hint of blood on her tongue, she held Rhiana still as she adjusted her grip from around the knees to the ankles. A slight shudder went up her spine; while she had long ago become acquainted with killing and was not too bothered by it, there was something about the taste of blood in her mouth, especially the blood of others, that she found herself uncomfortable with. It caused only a moment’s hesitation before she was back to her task. She didn’t enjoy killing, or devouring, but it was what she was good at, and in the end a great deal of good came from it, and her methodology aided in achieving the good she wished to bring about. In a world such as this, many times blood must be spilled, and lives taken, to protect the lives of the innocent, and bring about peace. And with a few final, powerful gulps, Rhina’s legs slid down into her stomach, and Zegar’s mouth and throat returned to their usual forms and feelings.

Zegar took a few moments for Rhiana to settle, or at least reposition herself. Even now, she thought it was an interesting sensation, especially with how she intimately felt all the movements, able to visualize with her mind’s eye exactly how Rhiana was moving. Though she could feel that Rhiana was doing a lot of yelling as it reverberated through the walls of her stomach, all she could understand was mumbling rumbles. But really, that was all she could do. Without any weapons, she did not have the means to escape. That was a major factor in her decision to strip the woman bare; it disarmed her of all her weapons. The scratching of hard nails against her stomach walls, however, was mildly uncomfortable, but she knew she was in no danger of any real harm, and before long exhaustion and depleting oxygen would minimize the force Rhiana could bring to bear.

It was a few more minutes before Victor began to stir, and it seemed to take him a bit to realize part of the predicament he was in once his eyes were open. More telling was his unrestrained look of shock and surprise at seeing an unnaturally large bellied wolf beastling before him, especially with how much said belly was moving. She gave him a few moments for everything to sink in, and for him to regain his composure, before she began.

“It’s about time you woke up,” she said calmly, like she was merely talking to someone who’d decided to sleep in. “I was beginning to think I may have hit you too hard. Now, I’d like you to answer a few questions for me, starting with; why are you working with the beastling army?”

To the man’s credit, he defiantly kept silent. His eyes, on the other hand, were far more telling, as they never left Zegar’s massive girth and all its little movements. It also seemed to Zegar that the man was mildly confused. Seeing as she was a beastling herself, and there weren’t all that many beastling who weren’t loyal to the beastling authority, her question would come off as an oddity. Respecting the man’s intelligence, she was sure he’d put the pieces together soon enough.

When they remained staring at each other for at least a good minute she continued, “Perhaps this will ease your tongue. As it seems you know, when one of your kind gets caught, you expect to die, so why say anything? Take your knowledge to the grave and all that. Now, in here,” she said, rubbing her belly, “is your contact Rhiana. She was less then cooperative with me. As you can see, she is still very much alive at the moment, though I can’t be certain how much longer that will last, seeing as how she’s not putting up all that much of a fight anymore.”

In actuality, Zegar was getting a little annoyed at how little Rhiana had seemed to settle over the past few minutes. However, she was banking on Victor’s inexperience with such magic to know how much her stomach would distend from the force of the struggling within. Even among her own kind, devouring magic was rather uncommon, due to its normally limited useful applications.

“Now, you can either join her, which I assure you is quite the viable option for me, and experience being digested alive, or you can answer my questions and I’ll do it quickly and painlessly.”

She didn’t interrogate very often, but Zegar did find it interesting to watch the gears turn in his head. For being a spy, his poker face seemed in need of an awful lot of work, for she could almost read what was going on in his head. While he thought, Zegar contemplated the irony of Rhiana’s actions. Her struggling only seemed to further discomfort the man, who was likely thinking over all the ramifications of being eaten alive. Nothing about the process was “quick”, and a great deal of it was painful.

Zegar looked up at the clock, then back to Victor, then at the clock again. With resignation she decided that he indeed wasn’t going to answer. As she leaned forward, resting a bit on her gut to get her head over his, he said, “I want to be like you,” to Zegar’s surprise. “I want to become a beastling, to be able to use magic, to be more than I am now.”

That stopped Zegar cold, as that was about the last thing she expect him to reply with. Without prompt he continued to speak, “Your kind is just…superior to humanity in every way. Why bother continuing to fight for the losing side? I’d rather become one of you, become something far greater, than die for a worthless cause. I suppose an assassin like you wouldn’t understand. So long as you get paid, you don’t even give a damn, do you?”

Zegar didn’t even know where to begin. After that answer, she’d heard all she needed to. His smug look also told her that he thought he knew everything about her, that she was just some cold hearted, emotionless killer. It was almost as though he thought himself in a superior position, like he was some sort of superior being to her. The thought of explaining the logical flaws in his thoughts quickly evaporated; he was clearly too delusional to ever be persuaded away from his goals.

“You’d be surprised,” she said, giving him a pleasant smile to match his smirk before using a pressure point to knock him out once more. His words did give her some pause, as it would be rather disconcerting if there was one with that kind of power. While she suspected they were merely playing on his desires and stringing him along, she couldn’t completely dismiss that the potential was still there, no matter how unlikely. However, that was not her job, and her job had yet to be completed.

Putting a gag on him, she made her way to the bed, glad that the bed frame only sagged a little under her weight, and doubting it would hold once she added Victor to her weight. She’d let Rhiana settle down first before adding Victor though. Having potentially two squirming and thrashing bodies in her usually ended up being rather uncomfortable, and she felt like she needed to recuperate some mana anyhow. It was likely to be a long night, quite likely sleepless night. She’d phone a friend in a few days, once her stomach had shrunk to a more normal size, to let her children know that she’d be home later than expected. Maybe once she was ready to go, she’d have a walk around town and pick up a few things for them as thanks for their patience. But for now, she would enjoy a much needed and deserved rest.