Returning from Hermitude with: Meepo in the Forest of the Fey (M/F)
Well, it's been quite awhile since my last story, but ShiningIce has managed to drag me from my cave in the woods to write this collaboration. This is a continuation of my first two stories, although it skips a chapter inbetween. I might tell that one later. Anyway, see if you can find out which parts are mine and which are ShiningIce's
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In the verdant depths of the Elven Woodlands, there lies a stretch of forest that falls between the snowy peaks of Moradin's Mountains, where the dwarves and other subterranean beings make their homes, and the wooded plains of the Wyldaranth Protectorate. It is in these tree-covered foothills that the elves tell stories of great enclaves of powerful forest spirits who had claimed that lush forest as their domain long ago, before even the elves could farm or build homes. They, along with most all of the other nature spirits known, call themselves the Faeries, or Fey in the tongue of the first humanoids to come into contact with them, the elves. For this reason, the elves have dubbed that land, Feylaranth, the Faeries' Forest.
Despite the many legends of bountiful resources, plentiful game, enchanted springs, and the treasures of the Faeries, no elven settlements exist in the Feylaranth for the simple reason that the Fey are just too fickle with the powers they wield. Thus, the forest remains pristine and untouched by civilization under the auspices of it's whimsical caretakers. Those who have ventured into the Feylaranth and returned to tell of it, say that it is a wondrous place of immaculate pulchritude which is only heightened by the beauty of its inhabitants.
When most refer to the Faeries of the Feylaranth, they mean only the dryad tree spirits. Although they are the most numerous, they are certainly not the only type nor even the most beautiful of the Fey in the woods. Each dryad is attuned to a specific tree, usually one of some special importance or one that sits upon some kind of magical leyline. They all appear as human or elven maidens, slender, youthful, and beautiful to behold. They're skin is a brown color that matches the shade of their tree's bark as do their hair and eyes match the color of its foliage. Because of their appearances, dryads are vain to a fault, often spending vast amounts of time braiding intricate patterns of ivy into their hair and fabricating jewelry and clothing from the natural elements of the forest (although they are never seen wearing footwear of any kind).
Althrough dryads live as long as their trees, potentially thousands of years, they must find mortal men to procreate with so, because of the Faeries' insular nature, new dryads are born very infrequently. Few stories of handsome human or elven adventurers becoming lost in the forests of the Fey are untruthful, but death is rarely the fate that awaits these individuals. One such story tells of a skilled young elven wizard who entered the Feylaranth to procure enchanted water to cure his hometown of the wasting epidemic that plagued it. The story was actually started by his gnomish partner and, as time passed by, people forgot that it was true and it became more a legend.
The gnome told of a dryad named Veia who abducted the two while they made their way through the forest. She became enamored with the elf, but he and his partner soon escaped her after they had tricked her into getting them a flask of the enchanted water for their town. But what the story doesn't tell was of how the wizard hadn't been entirely adverse to the dryad's affections and, shortly after he left, she found that she was with child.
Our story is about that dryad who was born to Veia. Iodes, as she was called, quickly came into her own as a highly strong and independent Fey attatched to a willow tree that sat beside the waters of an enchanted pool said to give incredible might to the pure of heart. She was a very skilled fighter, unlike most dryads, and so was ordered by one of the ruling Fey to guard the pool that her tree shaded.
Despite the fact that she was even more beautiful than many of the other dryads, with her flowing hair as soft as willow leaves and lovely curving features, Iodes was a very unhappy dryad and was rather unliked by her peers for her somewhat violent temper. To explain her unusual temperment, one has to look at the two things that she thought were the sources of all her problems: her feet.
Although, like the rest of her kind, Iodes' body was thin and slight, but her ever-bare feet were disproportionately large. It wasn't that they were ugly, or misshapely at all, simply far larger than the feet of the other dryads, something that they constantly teased her about. Iodes was always trying different herbal remedies or magical incantations to make her feet smaller, but none of it worked. In fact, because of all the special treatment she had given to them, her feet had become even more soft and sensitive than those of the other dryads, all of whom had skin kept supple and youthful by their very nature.
Dryads must rest periodically by merging bodily with their trees to reconnect themselves to the forest's spiritual being. While in this merged state, the dryad is still fully conscious and aware of her surroundings and can move the boughs of the tree about as if they were her own limbs. Unfortunately for Iodes however, whenever she would try to merge with her tree, her over-sized feet would refuse to enter with her for some reason and would be left sticking out of the willow tree's trunk, the creamy, light brown soles displayed helplessly to the rest of the forest.
Of course, considering how conspicuous her feet were made by their size and the fact that their tenderness made her feet extremely ticklish, the time Iodes spent merged with her tree was never terribly restful. Tiny pixies would often perch on her feet and, being the mischievious creatures they are, usually couldn't help but give them a good tickle before they went on their way. The clever squirrels had also discovered that by tickling her feet with their tails, claws, or whiskers, they could make the tree tremble and shake, which caused the tasty seed pods to fall off for them to eat.
Eventually, Iodes tried submerging her feet in a nearby stream to keep them safe. For awhile, this both kept her feet safe from tickles and was very soothing for them after her many, long walks through the forest. But her relief was short lived as the nixies, small water spirits that resemble aquatic pixies, soon found out about the ticklish intruders into their stream. They took great delight in bringing the dryad to hysterics with their tiny claws. Poor Iodes would often feel as many as eight of them, all scuttling thier claws against her tender feet while the forest echoed with her mellifluous laughter.
This could only continue for so long before Iodes became furious and paranoid. Her small grove soon became a place that both animals and Fey feared to tread upon because of the mad dryad who would attack them with powerful swats of her tree's limbs. And so, by driving the others away, a resolution she wasn't entirely pleased with, she managed to save her large feet from the torture of constant ticklings until one day, when an unexpected visitor came her way.
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Meepo, the kobold eagerly raced through the underbrush. His eyes darting back and forth constantly. He chided himself for wrecklessly wondering through elven territory. He would have forfeited his life had it not been for his prized possessions. When he and his former mistress, Eva the frost giant, had parted ways after another story (which will have to be told some other time), she had given him a large share of gold from her treasures that he had used part of in a nearby city to procure a pair of magic bracers. With these he was as fast as a quickling. However even with these two items the she-elf would have surely taken his life had it not been for a certain odd ability that Meepo had apparently developed during his servitude. He was quietly moving through a clearing when suddenly something grabbed his ankle, quickly turned him upside down and hoisted him 6 feet in the air. Meepo the kobold came face to face with Iodes the Dryad.
“Well, well look what I’ve caught invading my woods” Mused the fowl-tempered dryad. She was in no mood to deal with unwelcome intruders. Perhaps she would have a little fun with the rodent before she killed him. Meepo soon got over the shock of being snatched by such a beautiful yet angry looking creature. His mind was quickly going through idea of how he might yet survive his present predicament. Suddenly Meepo realized the obvious choice. “Perhaps Ill feed you to the wolves, or maybe just pluck out your eyes then leave you on your way. Filthy vermin did you really think you could just wonder in and AIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIEAHAHAHAHAHAHA” Iodes for some reason could not stop laughing.
Perhaps it was because Meepo, as fast as light had thrust his small and limber hands into the armpit hallow of Iodes’s outstretched arm. Iodes knew her feet were ticklish but no one had ever tickled her anywhere else. It was apparent that she was not just agonizingly ticklish on her feet but other places as well. Meepo was a master tickler. He had honed his skills after pondering the strange power he had over his former master on occasion. He had practiced on the she-elf he had come across days before and was now sure he could defeat this new foe. Iodes drooped the kobold as soon as she felt his eager fingers on her flesh.
She thought to simply step on him, but the little vermin was much faster than he looked and as soon as his feet touched the ground he quickly scrambled up onto the angry dryad and began to mercilessly dig into her sides and stomach. Iodes had never laughed harder in her entire life. Even the playful pixies could not best the kobold when it came to tickling. She had long lost her ability to stand under such ticklish torture and was now helpless on her back as the kobold tickled her with wild abandon.
“AHAHAHASTOOOOOOOOOOOOP” She pleaded hysterically. Meepo however was without compassion apparently on this fine day. “No no silly tree-lady. You try and hurt poor Meepo. Me tickle you till you turn blue!... Er... browny blue, me guesses.” The zealous kobold scolded. Meepo’s fingers were lightning fast, the dryad never stood a chance. She found herself unable to use any of her spells. All she could do was laugh. Meepo pried his fingers once again under Iodes’s arms and tickled feverently. Iodes’s laughter got louder and louder and louder.
In the back of her mind she knew that if the kobold got to her feet she was DOOMED. After several torturous minutes of having her underarms tormented Meepo scrambled down to her belly button and began eagerly use his forked, reptilian tongue as an instrument of pure EVIL. The dryad’s eyes bulged, madness pure madness. She howled with forced mirth until Meepo was done licking her poor navel and paused for only a brief second.
The kobold knew that if the dryad had time to use her magic he stood no chance. His only course of action was to tickle the dryad till she fainted or went insane. Whichever came first. Meepo viscously squeezed the dryad’s shapely thighs and legs. Iodes cackled like a madwoman. She was in hell, would her torment ever end? She wished she had never come across this wretched kobold. After many long hours of tickling Iodes’s legs, sides, stomach, and underarms Meepo noticed her alluring yet strangely large feet.
The size of her feet reminded the diminutive reptile of his old mistress, Eva. Remembering how much she would giggle and snicker when his claws tickled the soft soles of her feet, he quickly figured that using the same tactic on the dryad would result in a swift victory.
However, Meepo's moment of thought gave Iodes the chance she needed to push the small creature to the ground and run.
He landed with a shrill "Oof!" as the dryad dashed off into the forest, still overcoming giggles. The kobold stood and shook the confusion from his head as he watched her flee, her feet kicking up large clumps of leaves as she went. "Tree-lady run away, Meepo should do sames." And with that he was off.
But unfortunately for him, Meepo wasn't very good at travelling in the confusing forest of the Feylaranth. He soon had gone in a circle, although he didn't know it, and ended up at a small pond being fed by a pristine creek. Panting from being so tired, he quickly spotted the large willow tree that stood beside the pond and decided that it would be a good place to rest momentarily.
As he neared the tree, however, the kobold began to hear what sounded like a woman crying. Tiny droplets of dew were falling from the willow's leaves like teardrops, although Meepo didn't notice that as he walked to the other side of the tree, thinking there might be someone else lost in these woods.
To his surprise, he instead found a pair of large, brown-skinned feet sticking out of the tree trunk. As he looked upon the protruding feet, realization suddenly dawned on him, these were the dryad's feet.
At first, Meepo was afraid that she had found him again and this time, he'd be done for, but he soon found out that the sobbing coming from the tree was in the voice of that dryad as well. He had never wanted to hurt anyone, so he summoned the courage to swallow the lump of fear in his throat and quietly squeak out: "Tree-lady?"
The crying stopped shortly and Iodes' angry voice resounded from the tree. "What? Who is that? Where are y-oh it's you! Come to torture me some more have you? Fine, go ahead, it's not like I can stop you." A quick sniffle punctuated her miserable, wrathful statement.
Hearing someone talk like that always tugged at Meepo's heartstrings. He looked up at her feet (as that seemed like the only part of the tree that it made sense to address) with his red eyes large and full of guilt. "Meepo sorry."
This took Iodes somewhat by surprise. She hadn't expected sympathy from the little lizard. "You're... sorry?"
"Yeah, Meepo sorry for tickles. Not means to make tree-lady sad. Is that why you cries?"
The dryad certainly hadn't expected this. She was still a little unsure of whether the kobold genuinely felt bad for her or whether it was just trying to trick her so it could tickle her some more, but she decided that she may as well confide in him, she didn't get chances to that every day.
She sniffled again and a dewdrop tear fell to the soft, mossy earth next to Meepo. "I'm sad because everyone does that to me. I can't stand it, but everyone tickles me and then they get mad at me when I try to stop them. It's not fair! And it's all because of these ugly feet of mine." She curled her toes shamefully as she said this.
The little reptile blinked and turned his head to the side. "Tree-lady feet not ugly."
"What did you say?"
"Meepo say Tree-lady feet not ugly. Tree-lady feet very pretty."
She paused thoughtfully. No one had ever said anything like that to her before. "You... you think they're pretty." Unconsciously, her toes uncurled at this compliment.
Meepo bobbled his head in a rapid nod of agreement. "Yep. Tree-lady feet remind Meepo of old mistress' feet, very very pretty." He grinned broadly at her.
Iodes was quite confused by having anyone compliment her feet, which she had thought to be repulsive her entire life. "Really? B-but, they're so big, I feel more like a sasquatch than a dryad."
The kobold rolled his eyes and scratched his scaly noggin in thought for a moment. "What Tree-lady point? Meepo head bigger than other kobolds' head, but it not so bad. Besides, big feet means more feet to be pretty." Unsurprisingly, Iodes really couldn't think of any way to deny that logic. "Feet looks very soft too, like mistress' feet." He slowly reached out a small claw towards her large feet.
At this advancement, Iodes let out a sudden shriek and her branches quivered, sending the remainder of the dewdrop tears to the forest floor. "EEEEEK! Don't touch them, you'll tickle them!"
The sudden screech made the tiny kobold jump and flail his arms spastically. "Ack!" He calms down in short order however and looks up at her feet again. "How come Tree-lady hate feet tickles so much?"
"Because... uh..." Iodes suddenly realized that she didn't really know why she hated it so much. All this time she had pretty much taken it for granted that having her feet tickled was a torturous thing, but now that she had to look at it from Meepo's simple perspective, she was surprised to find that she couldn't point out any one thing about it that was so terrible. "... well I... I... am not really sure."
"Then how you knows it be so bad? Maybe you just maded it up? Meepo know mistress always likeded feet tickles from Meepo."
Iodes was shocked to find that she was just starting to see it his way. Maybe, just maybe, if she tried to enjoy it, it wouldn't be so terrible, it might even be nice. "Well... I guess you could tickle my feet... a little bit."
Meepo smiled at her, feeling that he had redeemed himself for making her cry. He reached out with one claw to her nervously twitching foot and slid the tip along the lengthy, tender sole. Sweet giggles immediately came from the willow as Iodes' feet and branches began to quiver. "Eeeheehee! That really tickles!"
The kobold waited till she calmed down to speak again. "Was feet tickles bad?"
She pondered the simple question painstakingly, before sighing and admitting what she knew to be true. "... No, not really. It was kind of nice actually."
Even inside the tree, Meepo could tell she was smiling and he reciprocated with a toothy grin. He had always enjoyed making other people happy, and now it seemed that he had solved the dryad's most vexing problem. In celebration, the little creature pounced upon the sensitive bottoms of Iodes' feet and went into a frenzy of tickling with his claws which quickly brought a crescendo of laughter from the ticklish faerie.
"Aaahahaa! Stopstop! I wasn't readeeheeheehaahaa!" She laughed with glee as Meepo's claws skittered across the spacious canvas of her ticklish feet. But as she was driven to hysterics by her new friend, something remarkable happened. "Hahaa! Heeheeha... huh?" The tickling feelings on Iodes' feet abruptly stopped and she soon realized that they had melded with the tree like the rest of her body.
As Meepo stood, blinking confusedly, Iodes considered what had happened. "Perhaps this is the doing of the willow tree itself or maybe some powerful Fey from the Sidhe caste. Could it have been a test of self-acceptance? There are stories about such happenings. That must be it," she thought, for she was quite a smart dryad, unlike many of her peers. Her thoughts were interrupted, however, by Meepo's shrill, raspy voice.
"Well, Meepo should be goings now. Many places to be." He turned and began to walk away.
"Meepo, wait!" The kobold blinked and turned back to her with a bit of surprise, both that she had called him back and that she had used his name.
"Meepo?"
He could tell she was smirking even while merged with the tree as one of her bare feet slipped back out and she wiggled her long toes at him. "Why don't you stay a little longer?" Meepo smiled and toddled back over. For the rest of the afternoon, Iodes' laughter filled the grove and, for once, it was without the slightest touch of anger.
When Meepo left the forest the next day, he had made a new friend and was carrying a bag full of gems and a canteen of enchanted water. He was very happy with himself and his achievement on the first of what he expected would be many adventures. And Iodes never rested with her feet inside her tree ever again.
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EPILOGUE
Iodes cackled with laughter, her nubile, dryad form in the sinister clutches of her two best friends, excluding the absent third friend of course. Bow, a living plant that resembled a giant venus flytrap with numerous, leafy tentacles, had cocooned her in his appendages from her neck to her ankles, leaving only her head and oversized feet exposed.
Meanwhile, a small crow Fey named Flitten sat upon a nearby tree stump and was stroking black feathers (that he had shed) along the sensitive bottoms of Iodes' feet. Since their first encounter, Bow and Flitten were always together as Flitten was quite a smart bird and there was little that could stop Bow from getting what he wanted. Although their relationship seemed utilitarian, they were indeed close friends.
"Ahahaa! Flitten! Heehe stooohohop! Eek, not my toes!" Despite her cries for mercy, the small faerie continued to relentlessly stroke her feet with his feathers as he was well aware of how much she was really enjoying it. Whenever the three of them met, Iodes being tickled was sure to happen eventually. Bow would occasionally contribute a quick poke to her side or stomach, but for the most part, it was Flitten's tickling on her soles that was the cause of her hilarity.
"Guys! Aahahahaahohohahaa! Bow let me gohohohooo!" The dryad let herself laugh hysterically as she enjoyed the tickly feelings on the bottoms of her feet. Although she enjoyed being tickled on any spot on her body, her feet were still her favorite. She thought back to the day, two months ago, when she found a little kobold in the forest and, in one afternoon, his simple perspective helped her come to terms with herself. He hadn't stayed long, but she couldn't help but anticipate his promised return.
Iodes wondered where Meepo had gone and what adventure he was on now, before one of Flitten's feathers slipped between her wriggling toes and her thoughts were displaced with uproarious laughter.
Meepo had been on many adventures since he had left the Feylaranth, but each of those is a story of its own.
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I look forward to your feedback guys. Thanks for reading and give your compliments to ShiningIce.
Well, it's been quite awhile since my last story, but ShiningIce has managed to drag me from my cave in the woods to write this collaboration. This is a continuation of my first two stories, although it skips a chapter inbetween. I might tell that one later. Anyway, see if you can find out which parts are mine and which are ShiningIce's
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In the verdant depths of the Elven Woodlands, there lies a stretch of forest that falls between the snowy peaks of Moradin's Mountains, where the dwarves and other subterranean beings make their homes, and the wooded plains of the Wyldaranth Protectorate. It is in these tree-covered foothills that the elves tell stories of great enclaves of powerful forest spirits who had claimed that lush forest as their domain long ago, before even the elves could farm or build homes. They, along with most all of the other nature spirits known, call themselves the Faeries, or Fey in the tongue of the first humanoids to come into contact with them, the elves. For this reason, the elves have dubbed that land, Feylaranth, the Faeries' Forest.
Despite the many legends of bountiful resources, plentiful game, enchanted springs, and the treasures of the Faeries, no elven settlements exist in the Feylaranth for the simple reason that the Fey are just too fickle with the powers they wield. Thus, the forest remains pristine and untouched by civilization under the auspices of it's whimsical caretakers. Those who have ventured into the Feylaranth and returned to tell of it, say that it is a wondrous place of immaculate pulchritude which is only heightened by the beauty of its inhabitants.
When most refer to the Faeries of the Feylaranth, they mean only the dryad tree spirits. Although they are the most numerous, they are certainly not the only type nor even the most beautiful of the Fey in the woods. Each dryad is attuned to a specific tree, usually one of some special importance or one that sits upon some kind of magical leyline. They all appear as human or elven maidens, slender, youthful, and beautiful to behold. They're skin is a brown color that matches the shade of their tree's bark as do their hair and eyes match the color of its foliage. Because of their appearances, dryads are vain to a fault, often spending vast amounts of time braiding intricate patterns of ivy into their hair and fabricating jewelry and clothing from the natural elements of the forest (although they are never seen wearing footwear of any kind).
Althrough dryads live as long as their trees, potentially thousands of years, they must find mortal men to procreate with so, because of the Faeries' insular nature, new dryads are born very infrequently. Few stories of handsome human or elven adventurers becoming lost in the forests of the Fey are untruthful, but death is rarely the fate that awaits these individuals. One such story tells of a skilled young elven wizard who entered the Feylaranth to procure enchanted water to cure his hometown of the wasting epidemic that plagued it. The story was actually started by his gnomish partner and, as time passed by, people forgot that it was true and it became more a legend.
The gnome told of a dryad named Veia who abducted the two while they made their way through the forest. She became enamored with the elf, but he and his partner soon escaped her after they had tricked her into getting them a flask of the enchanted water for their town. But what the story doesn't tell was of how the wizard hadn't been entirely adverse to the dryad's affections and, shortly after he left, she found that she was with child.
Our story is about that dryad who was born to Veia. Iodes, as she was called, quickly came into her own as a highly strong and independent Fey attatched to a willow tree that sat beside the waters of an enchanted pool said to give incredible might to the pure of heart. She was a very skilled fighter, unlike most dryads, and so was ordered by one of the ruling Fey to guard the pool that her tree shaded.
Despite the fact that she was even more beautiful than many of the other dryads, with her flowing hair as soft as willow leaves and lovely curving features, Iodes was a very unhappy dryad and was rather unliked by her peers for her somewhat violent temper. To explain her unusual temperment, one has to look at the two things that she thought were the sources of all her problems: her feet.
Although, like the rest of her kind, Iodes' body was thin and slight, but her ever-bare feet were disproportionately large. It wasn't that they were ugly, or misshapely at all, simply far larger than the feet of the other dryads, something that they constantly teased her about. Iodes was always trying different herbal remedies or magical incantations to make her feet smaller, but none of it worked. In fact, because of all the special treatment she had given to them, her feet had become even more soft and sensitive than those of the other dryads, all of whom had skin kept supple and youthful by their very nature.
Dryads must rest periodically by merging bodily with their trees to reconnect themselves to the forest's spiritual being. While in this merged state, the dryad is still fully conscious and aware of her surroundings and can move the boughs of the tree about as if they were her own limbs. Unfortunately for Iodes however, whenever she would try to merge with her tree, her over-sized feet would refuse to enter with her for some reason and would be left sticking out of the willow tree's trunk, the creamy, light brown soles displayed helplessly to the rest of the forest.
Of course, considering how conspicuous her feet were made by their size and the fact that their tenderness made her feet extremely ticklish, the time Iodes spent merged with her tree was never terribly restful. Tiny pixies would often perch on her feet and, being the mischievious creatures they are, usually couldn't help but give them a good tickle before they went on their way. The clever squirrels had also discovered that by tickling her feet with their tails, claws, or whiskers, they could make the tree tremble and shake, which caused the tasty seed pods to fall off for them to eat.
Eventually, Iodes tried submerging her feet in a nearby stream to keep them safe. For awhile, this both kept her feet safe from tickles and was very soothing for them after her many, long walks through the forest. But her relief was short lived as the nixies, small water spirits that resemble aquatic pixies, soon found out about the ticklish intruders into their stream. They took great delight in bringing the dryad to hysterics with their tiny claws. Poor Iodes would often feel as many as eight of them, all scuttling thier claws against her tender feet while the forest echoed with her mellifluous laughter.
This could only continue for so long before Iodes became furious and paranoid. Her small grove soon became a place that both animals and Fey feared to tread upon because of the mad dryad who would attack them with powerful swats of her tree's limbs. And so, by driving the others away, a resolution she wasn't entirely pleased with, she managed to save her large feet from the torture of constant ticklings until one day, when an unexpected visitor came her way.
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Meepo, the kobold eagerly raced through the underbrush. His eyes darting back and forth constantly. He chided himself for wrecklessly wondering through elven territory. He would have forfeited his life had it not been for his prized possessions. When he and his former mistress, Eva the frost giant, had parted ways after another story (which will have to be told some other time), she had given him a large share of gold from her treasures that he had used part of in a nearby city to procure a pair of magic bracers. With these he was as fast as a quickling. However even with these two items the she-elf would have surely taken his life had it not been for a certain odd ability that Meepo had apparently developed during his servitude. He was quietly moving through a clearing when suddenly something grabbed his ankle, quickly turned him upside down and hoisted him 6 feet in the air. Meepo the kobold came face to face with Iodes the Dryad.
“Well, well look what I’ve caught invading my woods” Mused the fowl-tempered dryad. She was in no mood to deal with unwelcome intruders. Perhaps she would have a little fun with the rodent before she killed him. Meepo soon got over the shock of being snatched by such a beautiful yet angry looking creature. His mind was quickly going through idea of how he might yet survive his present predicament. Suddenly Meepo realized the obvious choice. “Perhaps Ill feed you to the wolves, or maybe just pluck out your eyes then leave you on your way. Filthy vermin did you really think you could just wonder in and AIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIEAHAHAHAHAHAHA” Iodes for some reason could not stop laughing.
Perhaps it was because Meepo, as fast as light had thrust his small and limber hands into the armpit hallow of Iodes’s outstretched arm. Iodes knew her feet were ticklish but no one had ever tickled her anywhere else. It was apparent that she was not just agonizingly ticklish on her feet but other places as well. Meepo was a master tickler. He had honed his skills after pondering the strange power he had over his former master on occasion. He had practiced on the she-elf he had come across days before and was now sure he could defeat this new foe. Iodes drooped the kobold as soon as she felt his eager fingers on her flesh.
She thought to simply step on him, but the little vermin was much faster than he looked and as soon as his feet touched the ground he quickly scrambled up onto the angry dryad and began to mercilessly dig into her sides and stomach. Iodes had never laughed harder in her entire life. Even the playful pixies could not best the kobold when it came to tickling. She had long lost her ability to stand under such ticklish torture and was now helpless on her back as the kobold tickled her with wild abandon.
“AHAHAHASTOOOOOOOOOOOOP” She pleaded hysterically. Meepo however was without compassion apparently on this fine day. “No no silly tree-lady. You try and hurt poor Meepo. Me tickle you till you turn blue!... Er... browny blue, me guesses.” The zealous kobold scolded. Meepo’s fingers were lightning fast, the dryad never stood a chance. She found herself unable to use any of her spells. All she could do was laugh. Meepo pried his fingers once again under Iodes’s arms and tickled feverently. Iodes’s laughter got louder and louder and louder.
In the back of her mind she knew that if the kobold got to her feet she was DOOMED. After several torturous minutes of having her underarms tormented Meepo scrambled down to her belly button and began eagerly use his forked, reptilian tongue as an instrument of pure EVIL. The dryad’s eyes bulged, madness pure madness. She howled with forced mirth until Meepo was done licking her poor navel and paused for only a brief second.
The kobold knew that if the dryad had time to use her magic he stood no chance. His only course of action was to tickle the dryad till she fainted or went insane. Whichever came first. Meepo viscously squeezed the dryad’s shapely thighs and legs. Iodes cackled like a madwoman. She was in hell, would her torment ever end? She wished she had never come across this wretched kobold. After many long hours of tickling Iodes’s legs, sides, stomach, and underarms Meepo noticed her alluring yet strangely large feet.
The size of her feet reminded the diminutive reptile of his old mistress, Eva. Remembering how much she would giggle and snicker when his claws tickled the soft soles of her feet, he quickly figured that using the same tactic on the dryad would result in a swift victory.
However, Meepo's moment of thought gave Iodes the chance she needed to push the small creature to the ground and run.
He landed with a shrill "Oof!" as the dryad dashed off into the forest, still overcoming giggles. The kobold stood and shook the confusion from his head as he watched her flee, her feet kicking up large clumps of leaves as she went. "Tree-lady run away, Meepo should do sames." And with that he was off.
But unfortunately for him, Meepo wasn't very good at travelling in the confusing forest of the Feylaranth. He soon had gone in a circle, although he didn't know it, and ended up at a small pond being fed by a pristine creek. Panting from being so tired, he quickly spotted the large willow tree that stood beside the pond and decided that it would be a good place to rest momentarily.
As he neared the tree, however, the kobold began to hear what sounded like a woman crying. Tiny droplets of dew were falling from the willow's leaves like teardrops, although Meepo didn't notice that as he walked to the other side of the tree, thinking there might be someone else lost in these woods.
To his surprise, he instead found a pair of large, brown-skinned feet sticking out of the tree trunk. As he looked upon the protruding feet, realization suddenly dawned on him, these were the dryad's feet.
At first, Meepo was afraid that she had found him again and this time, he'd be done for, but he soon found out that the sobbing coming from the tree was in the voice of that dryad as well. He had never wanted to hurt anyone, so he summoned the courage to swallow the lump of fear in his throat and quietly squeak out: "Tree-lady?"
The crying stopped shortly and Iodes' angry voice resounded from the tree. "What? Who is that? Where are y-oh it's you! Come to torture me some more have you? Fine, go ahead, it's not like I can stop you." A quick sniffle punctuated her miserable, wrathful statement.
Hearing someone talk like that always tugged at Meepo's heartstrings. He looked up at her feet (as that seemed like the only part of the tree that it made sense to address) with his red eyes large and full of guilt. "Meepo sorry."
This took Iodes somewhat by surprise. She hadn't expected sympathy from the little lizard. "You're... sorry?"
"Yeah, Meepo sorry for tickles. Not means to make tree-lady sad. Is that why you cries?"
The dryad certainly hadn't expected this. She was still a little unsure of whether the kobold genuinely felt bad for her or whether it was just trying to trick her so it could tickle her some more, but she decided that she may as well confide in him, she didn't get chances to that every day.
She sniffled again and a dewdrop tear fell to the soft, mossy earth next to Meepo. "I'm sad because everyone does that to me. I can't stand it, but everyone tickles me and then they get mad at me when I try to stop them. It's not fair! And it's all because of these ugly feet of mine." She curled her toes shamefully as she said this.
The little reptile blinked and turned his head to the side. "Tree-lady feet not ugly."
"What did you say?"
"Meepo say Tree-lady feet not ugly. Tree-lady feet very pretty."
She paused thoughtfully. No one had ever said anything like that to her before. "You... you think they're pretty." Unconsciously, her toes uncurled at this compliment.
Meepo bobbled his head in a rapid nod of agreement. "Yep. Tree-lady feet remind Meepo of old mistress' feet, very very pretty." He grinned broadly at her.
Iodes was quite confused by having anyone compliment her feet, which she had thought to be repulsive her entire life. "Really? B-but, they're so big, I feel more like a sasquatch than a dryad."
The kobold rolled his eyes and scratched his scaly noggin in thought for a moment. "What Tree-lady point? Meepo head bigger than other kobolds' head, but it not so bad. Besides, big feet means more feet to be pretty." Unsurprisingly, Iodes really couldn't think of any way to deny that logic. "Feet looks very soft too, like mistress' feet." He slowly reached out a small claw towards her large feet.
At this advancement, Iodes let out a sudden shriek and her branches quivered, sending the remainder of the dewdrop tears to the forest floor. "EEEEEK! Don't touch them, you'll tickle them!"
The sudden screech made the tiny kobold jump and flail his arms spastically. "Ack!" He calms down in short order however and looks up at her feet again. "How come Tree-lady hate feet tickles so much?"
"Because... uh..." Iodes suddenly realized that she didn't really know why she hated it so much. All this time she had pretty much taken it for granted that having her feet tickled was a torturous thing, but now that she had to look at it from Meepo's simple perspective, she was surprised to find that she couldn't point out any one thing about it that was so terrible. "... well I... I... am not really sure."
"Then how you knows it be so bad? Maybe you just maded it up? Meepo know mistress always likeded feet tickles from Meepo."
Iodes was shocked to find that she was just starting to see it his way. Maybe, just maybe, if she tried to enjoy it, it wouldn't be so terrible, it might even be nice. "Well... I guess you could tickle my feet... a little bit."
Meepo smiled at her, feeling that he had redeemed himself for making her cry. He reached out with one claw to her nervously twitching foot and slid the tip along the lengthy, tender sole. Sweet giggles immediately came from the willow as Iodes' feet and branches began to quiver. "Eeeheehee! That really tickles!"
The kobold waited till she calmed down to speak again. "Was feet tickles bad?"
She pondered the simple question painstakingly, before sighing and admitting what she knew to be true. "... No, not really. It was kind of nice actually."
Even inside the tree, Meepo could tell she was smiling and he reciprocated with a toothy grin. He had always enjoyed making other people happy, and now it seemed that he had solved the dryad's most vexing problem. In celebration, the little creature pounced upon the sensitive bottoms of Iodes' feet and went into a frenzy of tickling with his claws which quickly brought a crescendo of laughter from the ticklish faerie.
"Aaahahaa! Stopstop! I wasn't readeeheeheehaahaa!" She laughed with glee as Meepo's claws skittered across the spacious canvas of her ticklish feet. But as she was driven to hysterics by her new friend, something remarkable happened. "Hahaa! Heeheeha... huh?" The tickling feelings on Iodes' feet abruptly stopped and she soon realized that they had melded with the tree like the rest of her body.
As Meepo stood, blinking confusedly, Iodes considered what had happened. "Perhaps this is the doing of the willow tree itself or maybe some powerful Fey from the Sidhe caste. Could it have been a test of self-acceptance? There are stories about such happenings. That must be it," she thought, for she was quite a smart dryad, unlike many of her peers. Her thoughts were interrupted, however, by Meepo's shrill, raspy voice.
"Well, Meepo should be goings now. Many places to be." He turned and began to walk away.
"Meepo, wait!" The kobold blinked and turned back to her with a bit of surprise, both that she had called him back and that she had used his name.
"Meepo?"
He could tell she was smirking even while merged with the tree as one of her bare feet slipped back out and she wiggled her long toes at him. "Why don't you stay a little longer?" Meepo smiled and toddled back over. For the rest of the afternoon, Iodes' laughter filled the grove and, for once, it was without the slightest touch of anger.
When Meepo left the forest the next day, he had made a new friend and was carrying a bag full of gems and a canteen of enchanted water. He was very happy with himself and his achievement on the first of what he expected would be many adventures. And Iodes never rested with her feet inside her tree ever again.
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EPILOGUE
Iodes cackled with laughter, her nubile, dryad form in the sinister clutches of her two best friends, excluding the absent third friend of course. Bow, a living plant that resembled a giant venus flytrap with numerous, leafy tentacles, had cocooned her in his appendages from her neck to her ankles, leaving only her head and oversized feet exposed.
Meanwhile, a small crow Fey named Flitten sat upon a nearby tree stump and was stroking black feathers (that he had shed) along the sensitive bottoms of Iodes' feet. Since their first encounter, Bow and Flitten were always together as Flitten was quite a smart bird and there was little that could stop Bow from getting what he wanted. Although their relationship seemed utilitarian, they were indeed close friends.
"Ahahaa! Flitten! Heehe stooohohop! Eek, not my toes!" Despite her cries for mercy, the small faerie continued to relentlessly stroke her feet with his feathers as he was well aware of how much she was really enjoying it. Whenever the three of them met, Iodes being tickled was sure to happen eventually. Bow would occasionally contribute a quick poke to her side or stomach, but for the most part, it was Flitten's tickling on her soles that was the cause of her hilarity.
"Guys! Aahahahaahohohahaa! Bow let me gohohohooo!" The dryad let herself laugh hysterically as she enjoyed the tickly feelings on the bottoms of her feet. Although she enjoyed being tickled on any spot on her body, her feet were still her favorite. She thought back to the day, two months ago, when she found a little kobold in the forest and, in one afternoon, his simple perspective helped her come to terms with herself. He hadn't stayed long, but she couldn't help but anticipate his promised return.
Iodes wondered where Meepo had gone and what adventure he was on now, before one of Flitten's feathers slipped between her wriggling toes and her thoughts were displaced with uproarious laughter.
Meepo had been on many adventures since he had left the Feylaranth, but each of those is a story of its own.
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