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Tensing his arms and calves, his muscles ready for action, Mandrake prowls across the low-hanging branches hidden from sight, his claws deep in the wet bark of the beech tree, feeling its delicate life force wither under his grasp. 

The figure behind the cluster of dripping leaves moves closer, the wings of its bird setting the rain-misted air alight with a low hum.

Almost.

Mandrake's heart a steady rhythm in his chest, he inhales deep for the last time, oxygen bathing his lungs, saturating his blood, before he propels himself forward with a hard kick, throwing himself at the Leafman.

His body weight crashes into the other, sending them both through a wall of ferns, thin capsules bursting and releasing a thick cloud of spores that stick to Mandrake's skin and clothes, tickling his nose.

With a dull thud, they hit the muddy forest floor, Mandrake proudly pinning the smaller soldier against a patch of moss against a dirt wall, his grin big with the adrenaline and success of his hunt, his hackles raising, each serrated tooth visible behind his cracked and stretched lips. 

Ronin writhes helplessly against him like a mouse trapped by the tail, falling into a bout of coughs that wrack his whole frame.

But Mandrake only tightens his hold until his nails pierce the armour, nicking the soft skin, Ronin facing him with a kindled fire in grit teeth and pinched brows.

Mandrake licks across his gums, savouring the scene, tracing each deadly tip of his teeth in preparation, eager to witness the struggle, the screams, before he finishes it once and for all.

For Dagda.

However, that fight burning behind blue eyes gradually diminishes into an ember blown out as a tint of red spreads across his freckled face down to his neck, most of his valiant attempts at resistance turning to weak shoves and strokes of his hands.

As expected from a helpless child rather than a renowned general, a strong warrior.

Mandrake honestly expected a bigger struggle than this. 

A battle of fists and claws, agility and strength, spit and blood showering the ground, and not this… pathetic excuse of a surrender.

“Fight!” He screams, anger bubbling in his throat, straining his voice, making it crack. “Fight me, you wannabe Leafman! Face me for your actions!”

Mandrake digs his claws into the front of Ronins's rain-wet armour, hauling him into a weak kneel to study the defeated expression of closed eyes, heavy breaths and the red-hot skin radiating unimaginable heat. 

This is mockery at its finest! Mandrake won't bother with this. He wants the anger. The fire. The spirit! And the satisfaction that comes from crushing his bones, rotting his flesh down to the core as he calls out for his beloved dead queen Tara.

His flesh will provide a nice feast for the young of his folk.

“Why.” Mandrake lifts Ronin into a stand, levelling their eyes.

“Won't.” He pulls Ronin flush against his body, a sickly sweet scent dripping off of him, coiling around them. 

“You.” Mandrake lowers his tone to a raspy whisper.

“Fight me, you coward!” With a scream, he hurls the embarrassment of a Leafman warrior into the dirt wall behind them, his body smashing into it with a sickening thud.

A weak hiss. Otherwise no response. 

With renewed vigour, Mandrake drags Ronin by the armour once more, a faint flutter of lashes greeting him as he repeats the process. 

Once, twice, thrice, undiluted fury burning in Mandrake's lungs each time he only earns a feeble groan for his efforts.

“You're weak!” The earth crumbles, a few pebbles and chunks of dirt rattled loose sliding to the ground.

“You're nothing!” A small crack splices the wall.

“You couldn't even save your precious Queen!” The plants nearby turn to rot in Mandrake's fury, once shiny green leaves glistening with the rainwater blackened and moldy by his anger.

Ronin tilts his head, daring to look amused as a smug smile spreads across his dust-smeared face. “And you couldn't even save your own son. What's his name, Mandrake? Daggard? Bogdard? Pathetic of us both, no?”

Something vulnerable in Mandrake's core, rubbed raw by the death, the murder, of his beloved heir, snaps in an instant, releasing all the fury and hatred he's kept in check since then, boiling beneath his grayed skin and blazing through each nerve and muscle, tensing him for the attack. 

“Take my son, my precious Dagda, out of your filthy, undeserving mouth, Leafman!” An ear-piercing howl shaking the earth, Mandrake pounces Ronin with the force of a thousand warriors trained for battle, the brittle dirt wall breaking under the force of impact, sending them straight into the cave that lies below.

With a splash, they topple into the puddle pooling at the bottom, stale water drenching Mandrake to the bone with even more rainwater coming from above.

Mandrake shakes himself, hands wiping the excess from his face and bat pelt before he pinpoints Ronin again, motionless except for a faint twitch of his limbs and a deep groan that rattles his lungs, and crawls over to him. 

Nose-to-nose, bleary eyes stare up at Mandrake as he pins Ronin's shoulder to the mud, Mandrake tightening his clawed grasp until the seams of Ronin's armour rip under the weight.

Sneering, Mandrake bares his pointed teeth. He's in control now. “Dagda's ten times the general you will ever be, Ronin.”

Ronin struggles to pull himself free, but the angle offers him no leverage, forcing him to stay put right under Mandrake as his sharp nails flex with murderous intent, burrowing to the bone, the site sizzling with the stench of rot, of death.

“Say hello to your beloved Queen, Leafman,” Mandrake croons, nosing the fragile neck and the thunderstorm heartbeat pounding against his delicate lips as he opens his jaw wide.

Oh, he'll savour this, he'll tear out his vocal cords and decorate his throne room. He'll bite down and…

Drink the gush of blood as if it were…

Were…

But instead of the lethal bite Mandrake intended, that scent finds its way to him again, circling him like predatory vultures and slipping beneath his skin, making it prickle with goosebumps and an urge that manifests itself south, his cock pressing against the cloth.

This can't possible be, this is…

Cupping handfuls of the murky water, he pours them over his face, scrubbing thoroughly before repeating the same motions on the Leafman.

Ronin obliges to his rough treatment until he splutters and coughs, chest heaving as he struggles to breathe. But the scent is still there. Even stronger than before. 

The thick, undiluted scent that burrows itself into his nose and messes with his mind, his senses, his wavering control. 

So fresh. So heated, pulsing, quivering. So alive. Such vivid contrast to the rot of his kingdom. The murky waters and the spoiled bodies, the decaying leaves and the moldy shores, carcasses infested with the larvae of his folk. The visceral and vivid scent of death permeating the air.

Yet nevertheless as addictive as rotten flesh. As familiar. 

Simply aggravating, irritating, maddening.

Stoking his carnal impulses, his innate urges. Coaxing them into fruition. Into action.

To breed.

His groin pulses desperately, hard and aching and needing, and his fingers itch to tear the rest of the clothes from Ronins's frame to drag him through the mud, clay and stone himself. Finally rid him of that maddening scent and proceed with his initial objective.

“You're hurting me,” Ronin croaks, his voice rather a whine than the intended complaint as his hand struggles to scratch his neck, the pale skin itchy with bumps of irritation and streaks of red from crescent-moon nails sinking deep into the flesh. As if he could dig out the itchy pollen if he just tried hard enough.

Not that it seems to fix the situation at all. The nails far too short to achieve anything of value. Pathetic. 

“I’m sorry, oh, mighty general. But I'm just trying to get this stink off of you so we can both move on from this embarrassment,” Mandrake hisses between sharp, clenched teeth, lines of spit dripping from his lips and flying into Ronin's face. “Trying to seduce a breeding response from a Boggan to evade death. Now that's even beneath you, Leafman.”

Ronin tilts his head to the side, avoiding any further strings of saliva. “Should I remind you that you pushed me into those ferns? Why don't you just kill me, huh? Would save yourself the trouble.” 

Ronin tests Mandrake's hold once more, attempting to rip himself free, but Mandrake forcefully shoves his shoulders back down, the water splashing on impact.

“Because you're driving me mad, Leafman!” Mandrake grits out, mindlessly scrubbing at the other’s clothing with his sharp claws, the last shred of him that could've possibly cared about etiquette and dignity disintegrating into the misty air as it shatters under his desperation. “This won't just go away if I wish it to. It'll consume me. So now I can't even get the small satisfaction of your death. Why do you have to keep ruining it!”

“Stop that, Mandrake, I— You don't know what you're doing,” Ronin pleads, but Mandrake won't be deterred, fixated on following through until the last piece of Ronin's garments float in the rainwater puddle, carried away by the ripples of their motions.

And… oh. Oh. 

He miscalculated the potency of the pollen. It's already taking effect.

Mandrake's hands still, slacken, eyes glazing over, offering the Leafman enough space to pull himself free. But he doesn't get far. Flushed face, panting, eyes manic, needing, wanting, knees buckling under his own weight as he drops back into the water with a loud splash, his stomach down and his head barely above the surface.

Every part of him is drenched, flushed red and leaking, his glistening spine curved to expose his lower half to the Boggan behind him.

And Ronin looks delicious. A perfect fit for Mandrake's brood.

First to harbour- and then to be devoured by it.

And the remaining, miniscule part of him that fought against the thick, tenacious scent, and the urge it prompted deep within him, falters, vanishing into nothing as that idea, vivid and bright and, oh, so simply delightful, manifests itself in his very core, deciding his actions.

“You took my son from me, Ronin. You and your group of Leafmen,” Mandrake all but purrs as he casts his flimsy cloth aside, letting the motion currents of the water take it away as well. 

Pulling his bat pelt tighter, he focuses his full attention onto the cowering figure that calls itself a noble general. “You killed him. An innocent and brave Boggan, my pride, gone too soon because of the arrogance and paranoia of a few Leafmen.”

He leans over Ronin until his mouth hovers next to the other's ear, letting his words drip into it like morning dew condensing and trailing down the length of a flower stem, leaving a viscid, sticky, trail in its wake. “And now, you shall become the host of my new heir.”

Mandrake grinds his hips down, his shaft sliding between the cleft of Ronin's ass and tempting the tender hole beneath awaiting to be bred. To embrace its new duty. “A child born from my seed carried out by you alone, Ronin. Wouldn't that be wonderful?”

Ronin splutters, heaves, protesting words lost to the ripples bubbling with air, barely disguising the needy whimper crawling up his throat. The effect of the pollen in full force now.

“You'll carry my heir then.” Mandrake nods to himself, sliding the spiked tip of his cock to the willing entrance. “My new child. It's only fair, no?”

Snarling, he pushes forward, his spiked length disappearing into the heated channel until he's fully sheathed, soft walls enveloping him in addictive pulses.

A grunt escapes Mandrake, focused, entranced, as he sets a fast pace into the fascinating heat beneath, the ridges of his sheath catching on the stretched rim, nicking the sensitive flesh.

Ronin gasps in response, little hitches of breath shaking his ribs and disturbing the surface of water he's pushed past due to the mud beneath, slippery, no mercy, nothing for him to hold on to as Mandrake increases his force.

Digging his fingertips deep into Ronin's fevery flesh, Mandrake tries to keep the other's shivering frame, weakly thrashing and gulping for air, in place as he ruts into him with abandon, the fur still hanging from his shoulders dragging through the waves.

Drawn in by the sight and the sound of their mating, Mandrake lowers his attention to where they're connected, Ronin's entrance greedily grasping at his cock, the rim already rubbed raw with the ridges forcing their way inside, encouraging him to plant his seed, his heir, deep within. 

And Mandrake’s hands wander south, nails carving into the roundness of his cheeks to spread them further, the full glory of their coupling unobstructed to his greedy gaze, spurring him on. 

“You're so tight, have you ever been properly bred before, Leafman?” he drawls, caught in his train of thought, his redirected strength allowing Ronin to return to the surface, ribcage heaving to expel the lungfuls of water, bouts of dirty liquid trickling down, clouding the muddied stillness beneath.  

“Bat's got your tongue?” Mandrake teases through grit teeth, his gums itching for blood at the sight of the other's flushed neck so beautifully presented to him, his carnal Boggan urges threatening to spill into his actions.

But when Ronin sobs so softly, so tired and dejected and needy without any snarky, challenging words to spare from whatever effect those spores have on him, whatever force of nature twisted his mind to accept such visceral, such desperate coupling and forgo a bloody fight, he can't help but lean down to the soft flesh quivering beneath the tips of his fangs and bite down. 

Heavy iron and stale water flood his mouth in an instant, the taste prominent and lasting, staining until he unclamps from the site, allowing the thick globs of blood to well from the wounds and trickle along his neck to his chest and cloud the puddle below in a murky red.

There's no resistance, not anymore. Only an acceptance of his fate.

Mandrakes's abdomen coils low with the feeling, winding to the point of no return and he clenches his blood-red teeth dripping with viscera and tightens his grip until Ronin's hips bruise and his sheath nestles deep.

With a throaty cry, he releases himself into the tight, raw passage accepting his seed, his offering, his heir, pulses of it streaming into Ronin, filling him and this twisted desire the pollen inspired to the point of boneless clarity, where Ronin collapses into the puddle with shaky knees, his head held barely above the surface with a content sigh.

Grinding further, he allows the last few spurts of his release to pool in the other's entrance as raw walls clench around him with a sudden force, announcing Ronin's climax as well.

His chest levelling with even, steady breaths, Mandrake wraps his arms across Ronin's chest to pull him into his lap where he remains, his shaking body reluctantly settling into his embrace.

“Don't think this is settled, Ronin. This is but a start,” Mandrake says, coaxing an exhausted sigh from the Leafman. A bit of the spirit returning back to him.

“Shut up, Boggan.”

“Hmm, feisty,” Mandrake muses, swirling the word around his tongue, letting it settle, fester, one of his claws tracing over the arc of Ronin's cheek. “I'll break your will, that ridiculous attitude, while you reside in my kingdom, Leafman. That you can be sure of. Savour it while you still can. I'll sap every last ounce and replace it with some Boggan obedience by the time my new child hatches.”

Mandrake won't have to worry about any interferences till then. No one would bother rescuing Ronin if they learned of his predicament.

The storm still rages outside, carrying the scent of petrichor — earth, leaves, decay.

He lets his tongue trail over the bleeding wound on Ronin's neck and up to his jaw, tasting iron and salt while his palm moves down to cup his abdomen, cradling it. “You'll make a delicious feast for them. Fattened and rotting and ready.”