Chapter 2: Eggs of Compassion
Korra chuckles after leaving that stupid meat head, Reyna, with the mimic. That should give her a good head start. Hopefully it takes its time playing with her.
The thought of the disciplined soldier succumbing to a glistening pile of magical flesh brought a thin, cold satisfaction. It was proof. Willpower was a vanity. Only purity of purpose mattered—the ruthless excision of corruption, root and stem. She adjusted the strap of her null-stone belt, feeling the dormant hum against her hip, a comforting reminder of a world that made sense. Cause. Effect. Sin. Purification.
The corridor narrowed into a grotto. The walls here pulsed with veins of bioluminescent fungi, casting a sickly, undulating light. Shadows writhed. The air thickened, smelling of damp loam and something else, something cloying and sweet like rotting honey. The floor was treacherously slick in patches, either with natural seepage or something more deliberate. She stepped carefully, her white robe whispering against her thighs.
Suddenly Korra hears a wet growl.
It came from her left, a guttural, phlegmy sound that vibrated in the cavern’s damp air. She spun, her enchanted blade—a length of cold-forged iron etched with silencing runes—already in her hand.
The creature emerged from behind a fat, dripping stalagmite. Dog-sized, moving on four powerful, digitigrade legs. Its skin was the color of a bruise, mottled purple and gray. The head was a nightmare of practical design: a toothless, sucking maw surrounded by four short, prehensile tentacles that writhed in anticipation. But it was the underside that defined its purpose. A concave belly lined with longer, grasping tentacles, and between its hind legs, a thick, pale ovipositor, already glistening, already crowned with a vicious-looking knot.
An Ovidor. She’d read the bestiaries. Knew its function. A biological delivery system. Disgusting. Efficient.
“Oh, come on,” Korra muttered, her voice flat. “This is just pathetic.”
It charged. Not with wild abandon, but with a low, scrambling gait. She met it, her blade a silver arc. It bit deep into one of the grasping tentacles, severing the tip. Ichor, black and syrupy, spattered the stone. The creature didn’t scream. It made a wet, chuffing sound and two more tentacles lashed out from its belly-mass, wrapping around her sword arm with shocking strength.
She planted her feet, heels skidding on the slick stone. She twisted, using its own momentum to try and throw it off-balance. Another tentacle snaked around her ankle and yanked. The world tilted. She hit the ground hard on her back, the breath punching out of her. The null-stones on her belt clattered uselessly against the rock.
The Ovidor’s weight was immense, a warm, living press that pinned her shoulders to the slick stone. Those four short tentacles around its maw latched onto her face, not to bite, but to hold, their grip cool and rubbery against her skin. She couldn’t turn her head. She could only stare up at the pulsing fungi on the ceiling, her mind coldly cataloging the biology at work.
An incubator. The thought cut through the adrenaline. It’s going to put eggs in me.
A clutch of pups swelling her belly for days. The sheer, logistical delay of it ignited a panic sharper than any fear of pain. She’d be hobbled, heavy, vulnerable. Vespera would win just by making her sit this one out.
“Get off!” The command was muffled by the tentacles over her mouth.
She bucked, muscles corded in her neck and back straining. Her left hand scrabbled for the dagger at her belt. The Ovidor shifted, its hind legs scrambling for purchase. One of the longer tentacles from its belly lashed out, not at her, but at the front of her white robe. It gripped the sacred cloth and pulled. The sound of tearing linen was obscenely loud in the grotto.
A cold draft hit her skin. The robe ripped open, then was yanked down her arms and away. It happened in a second. She was naked. The null-stones, strung on their thong, were suddenly loose. The creature’s movement jostled them from her hip. They skittered across the wet stone, coming to rest just out of arm’s reach. Their dull hum seemed to mock her.
“No.” Her purity, her purpose, her tools—all scattered. A feral snarl ripped from her throat.
She lunged for them, ignoring the thing on top of her. The movement twisted her body, rolling her onto her stomach. Her fingers stretched, nails scraping the grotto floor. The stones were a handspan away.
The Ovidor adjusted instantly. Its weight settled on her back, pressing her down. Her world became the feel of cool stone beneath her palms and knees, the animal heat of the beast mounted over her. One of its belly-tentacles wrapped around her waist, hauling her hips up. Another guided that thick, slick ovipositor to her entrance.
She froze. The position was absolute, degrading. She was on all fours. It was behind her. The symbolism was not lost on her, a final blasphemy.
“Don’t you—” she hissed.
It pushed inside. The intrusion was brutal, a deep, tearing stretch that forced a choked gasp into the stone-damp air. It wasn't gentle. It wasn't meant to be. It was a mechanical act of deposition. It fucked her with a steady, rhythmic piston of its hips, the sound wet and animalistic in the quiet cave. Each thrust drove a grunt from her lungs, each withdrawal a shudder.
Hatred boiled in her chest, a pure, clean flame. But beneath it, traitorously, her body responded. The friction was undeniable, a crude stimulation that built a low, unwelcome heat in her core. She squeezed her eyes shut, teeth grinding. She would not enjoy this. She couldn’t.
But the heat spread, a creeping tendril of pleasure winding through the violation. A quiet, reluctant moan escaped her clamped lips. Her arms trembled, not just from strain. The creature’s rhythm was relentless, practiced, finding an angle that made her spine want to arch. Shame flooded her, hotter than the pleasure. This was the labyrinth’s lesson. It made a lie of her contempt. It proved Reyna’s struggle was universal.
Just as that humiliating coil of sensation began to tighten, a new pressure bloomed inside her. The knotted base of the ovipositor swelled, an impossible, burning stretch, and lodged deep. It locked them together. The fucking stopped. A different movement began.
A deep, internal pulse. A slippery, profound pressure passing through the core of her. The first egg moved through the ovipositor, across the threshold of her cervix. It was a distinct, burning fullness, a violation so complete it wiped her mind clean of anything else.
She cried out, a raw, ragged sound that echoed off the grotto walls. Her forehead dropped to the stone.
It deposited the egg inside her with a soft, internal pop. The sensation was followed by another. And another. A slow, deliberate packing. She lost count after three, lost in the overwhelming feeling of being filled, of her body being repurposed. The creature remained knotted, keeping every deposit sealed inside her.
Time lost all meaning in that locked, humid stillness. There was only the weight on her back, the impossible fullness in her core, and the shallow, ragged pull of her own breath fogging the stone beneath her cheek. Minutes bled together, marked only by the occasional twitch of the creature’s spent body. Then, with a soft, wet sound, the Ovidor’s grip loosened. Its tentacles retracted from her face and waist. The heavy weight lifted off her back as it clumsily dismounted.
Relief was instant and short-lived.
A sharp, internal tug made her gasp. The creature shuffled away on its four legs, its grotesque task complete, but the thick, knotted base of its ovipositor remained. It was still lodged deep inside her, a brutal anchor tethering her to the spot. She was free of its weight, but not its claim.
“You have got to be kidding me,” she whispered, her voice hoarse.
She tried to push herself up onto her hands and knees. A fierce, stretching pain flared from her hips to her navel. The knot held fast, an internal lock. She couldn’t stand. She couldn’t even straighten her legs completely without a burning, tearing sensation. She was stuck on all fours, naked, her belly already feeling unnaturally full and heavy. The cool air of the grotto washed over her sweat-slicked skin, raising goosebumps. She could feel the faint, shifting weight of the eggs inside her with every shallow breath.
A soft, almost imperceptible intake of breath echoed from across the chamber.
Korra’s head snapped up. Across the grotto, partially hidden by a curtain of dripping moss, stood a woman. Short, curvy, with glossy red skin and the subtle curve of black horns peeking through fiery hair. An imp. Her vertical-slitted eyes were wide, fixed on Korra’s exposed, compromised form.
Shame detonated in Korra’s chest, white-hot and suffocating. Worse than the violation, worse than the physical entrapment, was this witness. To be seen like this—knotted, filled, helpless—by another creature of this cursed place. It stripped her of every shred of dignity she had left.
The imp, Silva, took a hesitant step forward. Then another. Her movements were quiet, cautious, as one would approach a wounded and dangerous animal. Her gaze wasn’t mocking, though. It was stunned, curious, and filled with a painful kind of empathy.
“Don’t,” Korra snarled, the command lacking all force. She was too exhausted, her muscles trembling with strain and aftermath. She couldn’t chase her away. She could barely hold the position.
Silva ignored the weak protest, drawn forward. She stopped an arm’s length away, her eyes tracing the visible shape of the knotted flesh, the faint, taught swell of Korra’s lower abdomen. A complex dance of emotions flitted across her pretty face—pity, fascination, a dawning horror.
Hesitantly, Silva reached out. Her fingers, tipped with neat black nails, hovered just above Korra’s distended belly.
Korra flinched, baring her teeth. “Don’t you touch me.”
The imp’s hand settled anyway, palm flat against the warm, firm curve. The touch was startlingly gentle. A soft, pulsing light bloomed under Silva’s own fingers. The stylized womb tattoo on the imp’s lower belly ignited, casting a warm, intimate glow across both their skin. It brightened steadily, a blatant, physiological response.
“Oh,” Silva breathed, her voice a shaky whisper. Her glowing red eyes met Korra’s cold gray ones, glistening with unshed tears. “You’re so full. There will be many babies."