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djarinsbeskar-writes · 1 year ago

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HERE, THERE BE MONSTERS: THE MINOTAUR PART 4

A/N: We're getting closer. Brace yourselves... Artwork by machiavellicro on deviantart!

Pairing: Minotaur!Din Djarin x Nymph!Reader

Rating: Explicit (18+ NO Minors)

Word Count: 3.2k

Warnings: gross misuse of mythology, gore, horror, suggestive themes. Reminder that this is a MONSTER FUCKING fic, so be warned for future chapters.

NOTICE: If you want to keep updated on when I post fic turn on notifications for @djarinsbeskar-writes ! c:

Day 10

You thought you had escaped him.

You considered yourself lucky.

But you soon learned there was no such thing in the labyrinth, and the Minotaur lingered with you long after you fled the carnage he caused in the forest.

Twigs and filaments of hedging scratched at your face and neck where you made a break into a barely visible gap onto another path in the maze. Your heart pounding, you couldn’t quell the terrified shriek when the air was disturbed behind you, a massive shadow racing past where you had just escaped from.

Another close call.

It wouldn’t take him long to circle back when he lost the trail. You needed to hurry.

Swimming through the hedgerow, you clawed your way to the other side desperately. It was too dark suddenly, the thicket too dense for you to see farther than your nose where you were coffined within the black foliage. When you hand finally breached the other side, however, it wasn’t open air that met it.

It felt like a living volcano under your fingers.

If the magma and rock and fury could be made man as a growl began deep in his throat, vibrating under your hand and filling you with the most intoxicating dread. It surrounded you in a sea of lava, cutting off your every exit. Made you hot when you realized the rock under your hand was instead solid muscle.

But instead of pulling away – burned – your hand moved on its own, tracing downward… getting hotter the closer you came to the source. The cloth at his groin gave you pause when something swayed beneath it.

Something mean.

Something designed to break you into submission. Or death. Whichever came first.

You finally reacted to the burn, yanking your hand away as common sense rammed into you ruthlessly.

He found you already.

How-

You didn’t have time to finish the question, a massive hand erupting through the hedging to collar your throat, his blood-thirsty bellow drowning out the sound of your neck snapping as you were dragged from a fitful sleep with a gasp.

The underside of a large root met your gaze, your hand flying to your neck to ensure you were still alive. If your pulse racing under your fingers didn’t convince you, your ragged breaths did as you tried to swallow around the fear lodged in your throat, your mouth fuzzy with thirst.

A… a dream?

You groaned, pressing the heels of your hands into your eyes as you willed your heart to slow. Not again…

Not even in your dreams were you free from being hunted. Not even sleep rid you of the all-encompassing punishment the labyrinth insisted on subjecting you to. It truly was hell on earth, with no way out in sight.

You’d be stuck here for an eternity if you weren’t run down and killed first.

What would you even do if you escaped? The question sobered you as you pulled yourself out from the small dimple of space you’d taken shelter in under a root, the entrance to which was hidden by a sheet of draped moss.

It was impossible to tell how long you’d been asleep, stretching your aching arms above your head. The concealed sky hid the suns movements, but since it still shone behind the clouds, you knew it couldn’t have been for very long. The glare pounded behind your eyes, your dream finally catching up with you at the same time you became aware of something equally disturbing.

A decided slickness between your legs and a familiar throb you never normally had trouble finding someone to take care of.

But this wasn’t due to the drunken high of a midnight dance, or the wandering hands of a handsome god while you slept in his bed after a night of passion. It was… because of him.

Curse your nature as a nymph.

It was a well understood fact that nymphs – by their existence – were personifications of the natural world and therefore, were often drawn to the primal. To areas of potent carnal energy and overindulgence that often manifested in the parties Dionysus threw night after night, the whisper of an arrow from Artemis’ bow to fell a boar whose head would decorate the tables of plenty. The sex and orgies and decadence that you now found yourself on the flip side of.

You were connected to nature, to the very essence of the primordial and so… you were attracted to it. In all its’ forms.

But a beast? That was a far cry from an over-indulgence of wine and pleasure.

Something was wrong with you. It had to be.

The labyrinth was making you mad… it had to be.

Realization propelled you to your feet as if you could escape those unwelcome thoughts and intrusive truths by simply running from them.

But they, like him, clung to your subconscious like nightshade you’d foolishly mistaken for burdock. Now, removing the burs was an obsolete task. The poison had already taken hold. A poison that made your hand tingle and pussy clench with the memory of a monstrous girth your imagination cooked up.

You blamed it on everything you could as you tried to find your bearings. You blamed it on the maze itself. You blamed it on Hera and her proclivity for curses. You blamed it on Zeus and his wandering gaze. You blamed it on the water, believing it to be bewitched even as you dropped to your knees to guzzle great handfuls of the life-giving essence at the first stream you found.

You even blamed it on the Minotaur himself.

In taking so long to catch you and put you out of your misery, you were forced to become accustomed to the fear… leaving room for other, more dangerous emotions to fill the space it once took up entirely.

There wasn’t time to ponder what those emotions might be when a shriek echoed across the labyrinth, raw and terrified before it was cut short with unnatural abruptness. That wasn’t unusual. You had grown accustomed to the way the wind carried screams far more willingly than any other sound to torment the labyrinths inhabitants.

It did, however, remind you of how exposed you were by the water. Especially if he had started hunting so early.

That was unusual.

He was usually far more active at night. As though cloaked in shadows, he could pursue his victims with a deadly invincibility. The shadows themselves an extension of his terror, confusing the instincts of every prisoner as they fled his tireless pace.

But he wasn’t the only villain within the confines of the labyrinth.

It had been a harrowing realization that just because he was the apex predator, didn’t mean there weren’t others willing to do anything, hurt anyone to ensure their own survival. You might have been wrongly convicted and sentenced here, but that wasn’t the same for everyone.

The back of your neck prickled suddenly with awareness, making you whirl where you came face to face with a man and a woman standing a short distance away, their hands raised in the universal sign of surrender. Their dress more worn and features more weathered, it was clear they’d been here much longer than you had.

Eyes widened and mind fresh with the knowledge that humans were capable of as much brutality as the gods, you backed away slowly. How could you not have heard them?

“Easy,” the woman began, her voice smoky and attractive, calling to the sisterly attachment you had been devoid of since coming here, “you are alone in this hellscape, traveller?”

That question was too loaded, and your guard fortified further.

You gulped, eyes flicking mistrustfully to the male standing silently by her side, his hand palming the butt of a crude knife of carved stone while sharp, black eyes scanned their surroundings. The woman noticed, placing herself half in front of him to drag your attention back to her.

“My name is Penelope, and this is one of my companions, Nikos.”

“One of—” you heard yourself speak warily, eyes darting to bushes, shrubs, the maze itself… all capable of hiding others.

“They’re not here.” You gulped when Penelope continued, your eyes finally pulled back to her. “We got separated during the night and have been trying to find them ever since. You are welcome to join us if you’d like.”

You didn’t miss the stifled noise Nikos made as his eyes snapped to Penelope, but she remained focused on you.

Tangled black hair was pulled away from her face in a long mane, various braids throughout the locks reminding you of those worn by Artemis’ hunters whom you often guided throughout the night. She wasn’t one. You were merely trying to find familiarity in her dirt-stained skin and keen, green eyes.

“There are about twelve of us, we look out for one another, work as a team—pool resources, take turns keeping watch, finding food. It works, and I’ve been part of it since it was formed. It’s the best the likes of us are ever going to get in here, traveller.”

Your jaw tensed at her ready acceptance of the way things were and you didn’t miss the way Nikos’ grip tightened on his weapon.

“You’ve seen him, haven’t you?” She continued when you remained silent. You averted your eyes, the woman misinterpreting it for agreement and not the blush you were attempting to hide.

“This place robs us of everything but hope.” A chill entered Penelope’s voice. “That is his to destroy. It’s why so few last beyond escaping him. They realize there is no hope, and simply give up. You can see it in their eyes.”

You didn’t like her insinuation, nor the dullness in her gaze. Is… that what she meant? Did you look like that? Catching your frown, Penelope shook her head.

“But not yours.” Penelope smiled, the first tug of kindness stinging your eyes suddenly. “You still have some hope inside you, we could use that.”

“Pen—” Nikos began on a rumble, turning towards her with a familiar hold to her elbow while he cast a suspicious glance towards you.

“The fact you’re still alive is admirable, traveller. But it won’t stay that way if you remain alone.” Penelope ignored him to keep talking to you. Were you so transparent that she could tell you were being swayed? That the thought of company in this abyss was as tempting as the thought of being swallowed by it?

Your brows fell over your eyes suspiciously, suddenly unsure of their intent. You saw what you got out of this offer, but what did they?

“We don’t have much, but there is strength in numbers. “

You cursed your lack of experience with mortals. Maybe if you lived among them instead of observing them from afar in the safety of the night sky, their actions might make more sense to you. But in reality, outside the occasional dalliance with a warrior or three, you had no notion of why humans did… anything they ended up doing.

They were much too juvenile, their lives too short to be sure of anything before they died.

“We cannot linger, Pen.” Nikos insisted once more, drawing you out of your mind. “It’s clear she doesn’t want—"

Penelope silenced him with a pat to the bicep. Ah. Lovers. You understood that. The man grizzled, but subdued as she took a testing step towards you, smiling when you didn’t retreat.

“When was the last time you ate something other than a few raw nuts? Slept longer than an hour at any one time? Felt protected?”

You didn’t know.

Honestly, it felt like an eternity since you’d experienced any of that. Your stomach growled treacherously, telling her your answer. Still, you wouldn’t be swayed. That only ever got you in trouble, being swayed by others.

“I know enough about life to know nothing is free…” You flinched internally when Nikos shifted, the wind mercifully carrying your voice, as soft as it was. “How do you benefit from having another mouth to feed?”

In your periphery, a sprinkle of stardust shimmered atop the stream you stood within. If they didn’t already know you were a divinity, they very soon would. And the greed of humans could rival that of Zeus himself…

“That—”

A branch snapping made you jump, the sound of your neck breaking in your dream flashing across your memory along with a clamour of instinct.

Danger.

It wailed in your mind, forcing you back several steps, snapping out of the fantasy you’d found yourself in with the sudden dread that you’d been hoodwinked.

But it wasn’t the mortals.

They looked just as taken by surprise as you were, all pleasantness from the exchange falling as survival instincts kicked in and Nikos pulled out his dagger, Penelope palming her own weapon at her hip cautiously.

Another snap and then it was silent. Dreadfully so.

“Into the maze, quickly!” Nikos hissed. “Now!”

You didn’t need to be told twice. Without looking back, you sloshed across the river, the tell-tale silence of the water breaking around you heralding his arrival like the crack of a whip spurring you faster. You only realized the others were following by the sound of their laboured breathing.

So… the labyrinth silenced everything but the people within it. What a terrible mechanism for hunting.

But you couldn’t concern yourself with their welfare, yours was at stake and they had each other.

Breaking left on instinct, déjà vu struck you when you caught sight of a gap in the greenery. You would’ve missed it entirely had a similar shortcut not been present in your dream earlier that day. And echoing your dream further, the mortals sprinted past it, losing you while you shimmied through the small space onto another path entirely.

A bellow sounded across the silent maze, an explosion of noise sending birds into the air and those stuck on the ground to flee or hide.

“Shit, shit, shit—” you whispered under your breath when you noticed the flurry of stardust coating the leaves of the hedge where you passed through it. It practically signposted your route to anyone who passed by.

Futilely, you tried to knock it off but only succeeded in spreading it further. Your panic over covering your tracks overshadowed all else until you heard it. A sound that made your stomach drop as you lifted your eyes to the hedging.

A snort.

It froze you in place as the other side of the gap you had passed through was blocked by something dark and massive.

But unlike your dream, it wouldn’t take much to reach through to the other side.

You really were going mad…

Why else were you still here? Why were you not running?

A dangerous game presented itself to you suddenly, one you had no idea you’d been playing all this time when the monster on the other side of the hedgerow stayed where he was instead of charging you like you’d heard him do to countless others.

Would he be as molten hot as he was in your dream, you wondered in awe. Would he be as hard?

Maybe the entire thing hadn’t been a dream at all, but a premonition of your fate. One last gift of Atropos before she cut the string of your long life. But that hardly made a dent in your psyche the way it ought to, the way it once would have.

Indeed, it hardly made a ripple as the thought of huge horns and wide shoulders you’d only seen in shadows mated with the burning recollection of a touch only present in your dreams to create a single, enticing creature before you.

You took a wary step closer, the eldritch shadow on the other side shifting at the sound.

Another snort followed the first. Sharper, your scent caught, and you halted before you could get any closer. A throaty growl rumbled around you, giving you a split second to step back before the hedging shook and a forearm burst from the same gap you passed through with ease.

It was all that could fit, you realized, his forearm alone as thick as your thigh. Dark skin was littered in constellations of scars and hair, and the hand attached to it… was that of a man. Knuckles bruised and bloody, fingers thick and palm broad while a ring of fresh bruises surrounded his wrist and gave you pause when he pulled it back.

A warriors hand.

Apart from its size, you’d seen countless hands like this in your time and been touched by as many. That violent possessiveness and brutal affection was unique to hands who caressed their weapons the way they did a woman’s body. That sought to protect or destroy in the spilling of blood and ecstasy.

Either was possible until the moment it happened. There was a thrill in not knowing until it was too late.

You resented the trickle of wetness you could feel slip down your inner thighs, his growl deepening.

You should have run.

You should have run ages ago. If you had, you wouldn’t have been burdened with what you considered the last nail in the coffin on your sanity. The last vestige of hope Penelope was talking about. For when you heard his voice… attraction bloomed in a way it never had before inside you.

In a way you feared you’d never be able to return from.

“Lost… little… star—” His voice was so low it shook the earth, a primal gravel that removed all notions of humanity were it not for your ability to understand him.

“Run.”

You finally broke from your frozen stupor, dashing blindly any which way. It didn’t matter if you disoriented yourself. If you lost yourself completely. You needed to ensure you couldn’t find your way back there… to him and the filthy promise in unspoken words if he caught you.

Tears streaked down your cheeks as you did, unable to care if they – or your stardust – were leaving a scent trail for him to follow when it dawned on you that he wasn’t just hunting randomly anymore.

He was hunting you.

But the worst thing was, as you ran, breath stolen and heart hammering, your tears were joined by a delirious smile of adrenaline filled ecstasy. While separated from the stars, you found your lost connection to the core of nature through fear, brazen danger. Him.

It terrified you enough that when another endless night of evading his singular pursuit came to a close and you staggered on jelly legs to the closest body of water only to run into Nikos once again, you didn’t hesitate to beg for his help.

To take him up on Penelope’s offer though she was nowhere to be seen. You were blind to anything else but the panic-induced need you had to flee what had happened in the labyrinth that night.

You needed to stop these feelings from growing. Stop them, even if it meant cutting yourself off from the very nature you once thought lost to you that now pounded on your psyche with a wild, bestial need.

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djarinsbeskar-writes · 1 year ago

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Am I intentionally making him look more like Oscar Isaac? The world way never know...

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djarinsbeskar-writes · 1 year ago

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HERE, THERE BE MONSTERS: THE MINOTAUR PART 2

A/N: Me? Updating within a week? Surely we're in the wrong timeline, but believe it! This update is indeed a canon event, as is our poor nymph's first encounter with the brutality of the Minotaur. Once again, special thanks to @astroboots for the beta and cosntant hype! Artwork by machiavellicro on deviantart!

Pairing: Minotaur!Din Djarin x Nymph!Reader

Rating: Explicit (18+ NO Minors)

Word Count: 2k

Warnings: gross misuse of mythology, gore, horror, suggestive themes. Reminder that this is a MONSTER FUCKING fic, so be warned for future chapters.

NOTICE: If you want to keep updated on when I post fic turn on notifications for @djarinsbeskar-writes c:

Day 4

Something was out there.

Maybe you were naïve to assume the size of the labyrinth would ensure you wouldn’t cross paths with the monster who made his home here, and for several days, you didn’t.

A gust of wind made you whimper and curl into the pocket of space between raised, gnarled roots of the tree you’d taken shelter in. Burying your face in your knees to wait out the gale, you berated yourself for the nth time for thinking the forest would be a better bet than the maze.

It was so, so much worse.

At least in the maze, there was only four directions, and it was easier to tell when things changed. In the forest, it was next to impossible.

Half the time, you suspected you were the one being altered, not the labyrinth. As though, by some divine power, the wind was sweeping you off to a different part of the prison to disorient you anew. But nothing was crueller than the moments the wind changed nothing.

You knew you should be grateful in those moments, but it had the opposite effect.

It plagued your mind with paranoia, leaving you doubtful of the route you planned to take, your vision tunnelled on trying to find every little difference with frantic eyes and a pounding heart.

Was that tree always there?

Had the next left turn always been that far away? Was it even left? Maybe it was right…

Does the ground feel more uphill than before?

It was hell, and a few days within its snare made you feel aged beyond your cosmic eternity.

But that wasn’t the worst of it… because like all prisons, there was always a gatekeeper.

Something was out there…

Instinct had sent you hiding as you scavenged for fallen walnuts and bramble berries to fill your empty stomach. Like one of Artemis’ deer, your head had snapped up when a sudden hush fell over the land. An unnatural disquiet that was imperceptible at first until you looked up at the organic awning of leaves and branches, none of which were making a sound as they rustled against each other.

A warning breeze disturbed the litter of leaves around you silently, causing goosebumps to erupt with molten adrenaline all over your body.

You hid in the first place you could find, slight enough to fit into such a cramped space entirely, the only perk to a disadvantageous physique that was continuously punished by the unrelenting environment.

Cold water drenched your spine now, locking your bones in place and refused to let you move even as your muscles complained from how small you made yourself huddled between the roots.

And then… whispering.

Humans?

“I’m tellin’ ya,” the voices were faint, far away but still too loud in the oppressive silence, “this dust is comin’ from somewhere.”

In the air, a heavy oppressive presence poisoned the air. Your eyes widened, trepidation coating your tongue in fluff.

Whatever was out there, whatever you sensed, was not them. Your stomach sank at the realization; they were doomed. Walking passengers of Charon… their sacrificial coins blinding them to the death they were walking into.

How did they not feel the atmosphere shift? The potency of malice thickening to a point it felt like even the blood in your veins was congealing, so tight you just knew the tension would have to burst eventually. But too skittish to give your position away lest you suffer another humiliating encounter as you had in the village, you were forced to wait them out and listen.

“We need food, not dust.” The other human grizzled.

Dread draped over you as your eyes dropped to your muddied feet where your toes curled into the dirt. A faint glimmer of stardust surrounded where you sat and doubtlessly littered anywhere you spent any prolonged amount of time in.

“Are ya kiddin’?” The footsteps stopped, your heartbeat following. “Look at how this shit glows. It could help us navigate this hellhole. Outside’a havin’ the strength and sword to kill the beast, tha’s the most valuable thing we could have in this place.”

Oh, merciful gods… you lamented, burying your face in your hands.

Your fear and anxiety were so heightened here that, unbeknownst to yourself, a fissure had formed that allowed your essence to escape. Your astral soul was instinctively reacting to the burden of stress placed on your physical body and expelling stardust tracks in a bid to guide you home.

But here, in this netherworld, even it didn’t know what direction to lead you and ended up falling in a flurry of cosmic snow that did the opposite of help. Indeed, it led everyone in the labyrinth to you.

If those people found you…

If he found you.

The thought surfaced just as you realize the voices had halted.

They finally noticed, the atmosphere a tightly drawn back bow and their hurried steps the trigger to finally release it. Suddenly, the vacuum of silence was dispelled, the rustle in the canopy a battle cry of nature and the thick foliage a shield of leaves that continued to separate you from the light of the stars.

The hairs on your arms stood on ends, a drag of fingers up the back of your neck that resulted in a violent shiver when you glanced behind you, paranoid. You inhaled shallowly; lungs suddenly starved of oxygen as though you’d been holding your breath since you first hid.

Maybe the land wasn’t the only thing affected by whatever caused that silence to fall.

And then, as if to prove its iniquitous presence, the silence was finally filled with a dreadful sound.

Crunch… crunch… crunch…

Your stomach dropped into a pool of freezing water, blood pounding in your ears as your heart hammered wildly. The weight behind those footsteps… it wasn’t human. It wasn’t divine. Not even Hephaestus with his mighty hammer and full belly carried the power of this new presence. Every footstep sank into the detritus littered forest floor, telling you in no uncertain terms that whatever was out there… was huge.

Monster…

A tumult of noises, animals fleeing as they were possessed by their instincts, resonated through the air.

Crunch… crunch… sniff… crunch… crunch… crunch… sniff.

Tears welled in your eyes.

You knew, on an instinctive level, what was up there. The very thing that gods and mortals alike spoke about in whispers, a warning tale to scare naughty children into obedience lest they find themselves where you were now.

The Minotaur.

Fear like you’d never known before – not when you’d first been thrown into the labyrinth or even when you were dragged before the Queen of Gods herself – overcame your senses as it consumed you. It eradicated your identity in an icy riptide of terror, dragging you under until only your fear floated and became your entire existence.

A horned silhouette stretched across the treetops in front of you, a shadow among shadows. Darker than the blackest hole and just as hungry to destroy anything that came close to it.

He was close…

You covered your mouth to silence the sob that sought to escape you, unable to blink as you witnessed the shadow of the bull-headed monster hunting you grow as he moved.

He turned his head, a wide muzzle exaggerated in his profile and distorted by the disorderly wall of trees that created a mismatched canvas for his shadow. You watched the silhouette lift his head towards the sky, intentional, measured… followed by another series of sniff sniff sniff.

You didn’t even realize the tears were falling before they pooled in the crevice where your hands were folded over your mouth, tracking down your cheeks in a constant stream as a bugle blared in your mind, resisting the existence of such a nightmarish creature even as you saw his shadow with your waking eyes.

Closer he walked, crunch crunch crunch, his shadow growing from the bovine head to the body of a man—strong, broad shoulders large enough to carry those horns and the defined curve of his muscles evident even through the flatness of his silhouette.

You were trapped.

Bark dug into your back as you pressed as far back into the roots as you could, silent and wishing you possessed the wood nymphs’ ability to sink into the trees themselves for protection. But your salvation was out of reach, far above the trees and cloud cover that the twinkling light of stars couldn’t pierce.

A bellow—bullish and remarkably, with tones of a human voice undercutting it, echoed throughout the forest. The wind carried it farther than it ought to have travelled, in service to him and reminding all who dwelled within this prison, just who the jailor was.

Did he know?

You tucked your knees and feet tighter against your body, eyeing the treacherous trail of stardust in front of you. He only needed to catch sight of the gleam and it would lead him directly to where you hid, cornered against the roots.

You could risk it and run. Either into the maze or up one of the trees, but you had little faith in your speed given your only experience with running was in pleasure. In coy chases through the trees that ended with you sprawled in some meadow with your hunter’s cock buried inside you, claiming the prize you presented.

That train of thought led you somewhere taboo in your mind, somewhere sinful… somewhere you shouldn’t linger as the image of a bovine beastman doing just that flashed across your mind.

You shied away from it, confused by the sudden rush of adrenaline that banished the cold on your skin. There was a harsh exhale above you, he smelled something.

Get a grip, you scolded yourself harshly. This wasn’t some flirty chase of your own design… where your pursuer even seeing you, let alone catching you was at your will. This was different.

Here, with him… you would be running for your life. And if he ran you down…

What prize did a Minotaur want? Was it the spilling of blood like legend would tell? Was it something more carnal… like all those of flesh and bone desired?

No.

The only other option you had was to remain still and pray he moved on, so you never had to find out. Every step closer he took to the precipice of the roots you were under, however, diminished that hope and when you could practically smell the musk on his skin and fur, hear his exhales, and see the billowing clouds of condensation from his breath, you tried to make peace with the fact that you’d been caught.

But it was not to be your end.

Another bellow proved to be your salvation as the noise broke the courage of the other poor souls hiding close by, those who had followed your stardust and who you initially thought long gone.

Your heart seized at the sound of them scrambling out of hiding and running, their ragged breaths overshadowed by a ferocious snarl as the Minotaur’s shadow whirled around. Instinct overtook him, or luck was on your side, his heavy footfalls charging – too fast – after their fleeing forms and away from you.

There was no relief though, not when the sudden scream some distance away warned of you meeting the same fate if you didn’t move now. The screams were cut off as suddenly as the drop at the hangman’s gallows, that same cruel wind carrying the wet gurgle of flooded windpipes to you.

It chased you as you pulled yourself out of your hiding spot, fleeing the carnage and praying you could put enough distance between you and the carnage. At least until the wind picked up again and dropped you somewhere else in this maze of madness.

For surely you were going mad… because no matter how fast and far you ran, there could be no other reason that anything other than fear or revulsion should fill you at the thought of that murderous brute.

You hoped you were going mad… to justify the inkling of attraction that continued to simmer low in your navel hours later.

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djarinsbeskar-writes · 1 year ago

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HERE, THERE BE MONSTERS: THE MINOTAUR PART 2

A/N: Imagine not updating a fic for nearly two years... hah-- couldn't be me (sweats). But my Minotaur is one of my most darling boys and I just couldn't leave him sitting in my drafts. Special thanks to the #1 Minotaur fan probably ever @astroboots for giving this a look over and for being the biggest hype woman for out hornyed hero. Artwork by machiavellicro on deviantart!

Pairing: Minotaur!Din Djarin x Nymph!Reader

Rating: Explicit (18+ NO Minors)

Word Count: 2k

Warnings: gross misuse of mythology, mentions of unsolicited attention/dub-con, discrimination and prejudice, suggestive themes. Reminder that this is a MONSTER FUCKING fic, so be warned for future chapters.

NOTICE: I learned the new lay of the land, so there's no more taglist. Instead you can turn on notifications for @djarinsbeskar-writes to stay up to date.

Day 1

The stars were veiled.

Something hovered just out of sight that impeded your view of them. They remained dim despite the darkness and shied their faces away from shining down on such a netherworld.

You’d never felt so alone.

Taken immediately from Hera’s court, the guards who had once addressed you as familiars, friends and lovers over the years escorted you to your prison with rough hands and cold hearts. In that moment, they became strangers to you, and you had to wonder if you ever knew any of them at all.

A sprawling void of space greeted you when you arrived. A no man’s land forsaken by the gods as unconquerable, and those that lived trapped within its ever-growing perimeter at the mercy of the beast that prowled with eerie bellows and heavy footfalls.

Half man, half beast. With the horns of a bull and the strength to match, you feared you wouldn’t survive the night as you were pushed unceremoniously through the outer hedge.

You squeaked – frightened – and stumbled through the dense brambles that should have prevented your entry, but instead dragged you in deeper with thorny, greedy branches snagging on soft skin and the wafer-thin linen of your dress.

You fell to your knees on the other side, hands sinking immediately into a morass of mossy, damp earth. Hair falling around you in a tangle, you blew at the strands futilely before giving up and used your hands to push them back instead.

Scrambling to your feet, the dainty sandals you normally wore were useless against this unrelenting land. You’d never had to worry about footwear before… you hardly even needed it dancing under the moonlight or swimming among the stars.

The breathless, euphoric laughter of that time felt eons ago as your lungs constricted with fear.

Just breathe, you coached yourself, in and out… in and out.

It wasn’t working.

Not when your eyes finally moved past the initial, blinding panic to take in your surroundings. What you could see of them, anyway. A coffin of shrubbery greeted you on all sides, so tall they practically eclipsed the sky, the air cloying with a simmering malice you were reluctant to inhale as it tightened around your windpipe with the flex of a brutal grip.

And still, your wracked breathing was too loud in the oppressive silence.

Disturbed carrion birds flying overhead made you jump, squeezing your eyes closed reflexively. A fell wind followed the birds, blowing through the maze ruthlessly. It howled and whipped up the detritus as you folded in on yourself for protection, screaming in your ears with the anguish of those who found themselves trapped here.

However, unlike their torment, the wind eventually passed, and you cracked an eye open warily.

The labyrinth had changed.

Already? You thought with a hitched sob, swallowing it soon after lest you burst into tears and never stop.

There hadn’t been a path behind you where you first fell through the hedging. But by the looks of the narrow stretch of dirt that eventually became clouded by fog, you were deeper into the labyrinth than you first anticipated.

The thought had your stomach sinking.

There went your plan to keep to the perimeter in the vain hope of possibly escaping. You had no choice but to follow the path, deeper into the maze and towards the maw of the beast that inhabited it.

The wind returned intermittently, sometimes changing the labyrinth, sometimes not. Sometimes, it revealed hidden holes between hedgerows that led to another pathway that – while thrilling initially – proved just as complex and endless as the path you escaped from.

Hours of walking and nothing changed.

You were completely lost.

Tears spilled freely down your face now as you tried to stifle the sobs that escaped on every hiccupped inhale when your doom finally dawned on you. No one was coming to save you. Your feet hurt, your dress was filthy, and you were freezing.

You just wanted to go home.

But there was no one to hear your sorrow or respond to your pain. No one to care for you or comfort you or tell you that everything would be okay. You were alone after an eternity of living amongst others.

How little you knew of your own self.

Your vision blurry, you swiped the back of your hand across your eyes to glance at the next intersection of more dreary hedges. Quelling your sniffles, you listened. Trying to pick out any sound that wasn’t the breeze or your misery. A din of chatter or a chime of music, a—

Wait.

You held your breath. Was that—?

There!

A faint gurgle of running water filled your heart with song. There was a river nearby! Or a stream at the very least. You wanted to squeal at just the sound of something other than the wind and rustling branches you’d been subjected to for the last few hours.

And a river meant you could finally bathe.

It was hardly the most useful thing you could’ve done. You should have been looking for shelter, for warmth, for company and safety in numbers, but just the thought of getting clean… it was something familiar and you couldn’t let it go. It was something you would do whether at home among the stars, in the residencies of various deities or indeed, even here, in hell.

Yes, you smiled as bravely as you could, a bath would make everything better.

But you still had to find said river and that proved more than difficult. It was nigh on impossible after several more hours of walking.

Your grand plan of keeping left as much as possible proved fruitless as you came upon two dead ends that forced you to double back until you were confused again. It seemed like the promise of getting clean was growing less and less likely, your feet aching, and spirit defeated.

What a cruel… cruel place…

It was during your pursuit of water, however, that you happened upon the first settlement unfortunate enough to have been swallowed by the maze.

Doors latched shut and chimney’s smoking, you mistook the warm glow behind shuttered windows for warm inhabitants. But this was the labyrinth. No one cared for a sobbing woman banging at their doors for help, whether she was innocent or not.

You carried the condemnation of a goddess and for that you were shunned by even those forsaken by Olympus.

“Please, help me…” you hiccupped, voice raw when your forehead met the cold wood of the last door you tried to no avail, self-pity turning your fear to fury for a white-hot second. “It wasn’t my fault! It wasn’t me… he—”

Your voice broke as it rose, agony bringing you to your knees on the doorstep of indifference.

“Why won’t anyone listen!” You roared at the door, your face a mess of tears and a supernova of hurt illuminating your irises.

“Damnable woman!”

Everything that followed happened in a blur. The door flew open far enough for the man on the other side to shove you off his doorstep where you fell back on your bottom heavily.

“You’ll bring him here with all your wailing.” A frosty, uncompromising glare met you where the human looked down his nose at you. “Take your wickedness away. We might all be prisoners here, but do not think for a second that makes us the same. We were born into this hell, you were sentenced to it, filth.”

“But I—” You scrambled back to your knees only to be met with a bucket of dirty water that chilled you to the bone.

“There, consider it a gift.” He scoffed. “He won’t be able to smell you under all that for a while. Be grateful for this much and leave our village in peace!”

You sat frozen, in shock and unable to speak or move or do anything as the door was slammed in your face once more. Humans had… never treated you this way before and even though you knew their cruelty could rival the gods, it shook you to your core to be on the receiving end of both.

A rank smell made you gag, breaking your stony cage enough for you to get back up on shaky legs and leave.

Suddenly, scattered cottages became bear traps in your eyes, and you fled from them lest you get punished by their fiery teeth once again.

The maze was safer and, perhaps it was coincidence, but when you came across a lazily meandering river breaking the perpetual rows of hedging minutes later, you chose to believe the land had rewarded you for thinking as such. Turning your face up to the kraken-cruel clouds above, tears tracked through the stains on your face gratefully.

How odd… where before gifts of splendour hardly made you bat an eye; you’d never felt more thankful to an environment that was technically your foe for merely leading you to a river.

When you looked back down to take in your surroundings, you were shocked to see trees line the far side of the river in place of towering hedges. A forest lay within the maze, a fact you’d never heard about in rumours before. But then, an endless forest could be as disorienting as the labyrinth itself… so you didn’t count yourself lucky just yet.

But first… you stripped.

Down to the nude, your nipples pebbled at the cool air as you kicked off your ruined shoes to step into the gentle course of the water. Cold! You shivered. Accustomed to more tepid warm waters, the cold was startling on your soft body.

Baths here were less about enjoyment and more about brevity, you supposed.

You gave yourself a hurried wash, scrubbing yourself free of the dirt and grime and who knew what else had been in that water you’d been drenched in. Cupping the water over your hair, the back of your neck prickled from something other than the cold, but when you looked back, only ominous shadows greeted your paranoid gaze.

Right, you swallowed around the bulbous lump of fear in your throat, best not to linger. Something told you staying in one place for too long would spell disaster.

That in mind and with a wrinkle of your nose, you pulled back on your soiled dress with the promise to wash it during the daytime. A soaking dress during the night would only make things more miserable for you, after all.

And that was how you made your way into the forest, for nothing else if but a change of scenery and hopefully, a safe enough place to rest your weary, heartbroken bones.

It wasn’t half an hour later, though, that the same patch of grass where your dress had lain while you bathed was disturbed anew. A scent, tempered by filth that irritated his nostrils, cut through the bloodlust that guided him every night and caught his attention. That, and a trail of light powder clinging to the grass like morning dew.

It led him to the water’s edge, a great horned shadow that hushed even the rivers gentle gurgle when his eyes fell upon it.

The powder clung to him when he touched it, iridescent specks catching in the reflection of his dark eyes before he brought it to his muzzle and sniffed. His pupils dilated, starlight catching like kindling in the back of his mind, his body responding.

An exhaled plume of condensation sent the dust into the air where it scattered like the spray of blood from his last victim’s jugular.

Stardust…

He crouched low to find the scent again, picking it up over the water where his long tongue moved distractedly over his muzzle to catch what remained of the powder there. Suddenly, lust of a different kind rose to battle with his insatiable desire to spill blood, and the trajectory of his hunt changed.

A star had fallen into his domain, and he was going to find it.

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