Oh, how I love cellars. Thick walls of stone and earth protect the outside world from the sounds contained within… Ehrenon mused, hands reaching up to untie the thong holding his hair up in its prominent ponytail, allowing the tresses to fall freely down over his shoulders to caress his chest. The strands did just that, waving about as if possessing a will of their own.
"Oh, yes...they do," the young elf hissed softly, answering the unasked question. "My hair is special. It does what I want it to do. It loves to wrap itself around a pretty little throat, to squeeze the life from stupid little things of beauty." His hair stood up off his shoulders, twining into intricate braids as it grew impossibly quickly, reaching toward the restrained form of the exquisite courtesan.
"You can answer my questions, or I can make you wish that you had," Ehrenon said, putting every ounce of available personality into his words. Admittedly that wasn't his strong suit. Choking the life out of resisting victims was his strong suit. The threat of the latter tended to produce answers in short order, however.
The young woman's head shook silently, a look a defiance beaming from her features like a beacon to Ehrenon's sadistic nature. "Okay, have it your way," he intoned, allowing the braids to wind themselves about the girl's throat and chest.
”Unngh!” the court prostitute's breath was violently ejected as first the lower, then the upper strands of hair compressed her respiratory system violently, denying her air, slowly turning her face purple with the strain of the lack of oxygen. Her arms attempted to flail, but were restrained by the bindings holding them to the arms of the chair. A half-minute later, the hair loosened its hold, but did not withdraw. The sucking intake of breath was deafening in the enclosed confines of the dark cellar.
"Shall we try this again?" the lithe elf whispered encouragingly. "This doesn't HAVE to hurt. You could just tell me who the Marshal was meeting with during your, shall we say, companionship?"
"You'll never get that information out of me!" the young woman spat in defiance.
"Oh, but thank you for that piece of information, my sweet. You just confirmed to me that the Marshal WAS meeting someone. That is all I really needed to know. Others will be able to ferret out the details. We have logs, you know. Lists of who was where at what times, who MIGHT be involved with which plots. It's all just a matter of process of elimination, my dear," Ehrenon breathed, his hair tightening up just a bit as his face broke out into a grin of ultimate pleasure.
The strands resumed their pressure, cutting off the girl's protests once more, leaving visible marks of their constriction on her perfect unmarred skin. Her hands slapped the arms of the chair violently, driven mad by the lack of breath until Ehrenon loosened his grip once more.
"I'll tell you..." she gasped, dragging precious air back into her lungs, sending it to nourish her every fiber.
"But that would be no fun," the elf grinned cruelly, returning to his crushing squeeze. "Doing the investigation will be so much better practice for my operatives, and I will very much enjoy watching you plead until it amuses me no longer."
Ehrenon continued his pleasure for several more minutes, each time taking the unfortunate creature closer and closer to the release of her soul before bringing her back.
"You may be exquisite, but you are still nothing but a wilted flower compared to the females of my homeland," he said, finally, allowing a full minute of breath. "I tire of this tedium. Greet your deities warmly."
With that, he squeezed as hard as ever for a full minute before constricting even harder, crushing her windpipe, snapping her spine, and crushing her ribs beneath the desires of his soul.
The sickening crack of bone filled the space. Ehrenon's hair unwound itself from the corpse before wiping itself on a towel. The elf calmly re-tied his hair, turned, and walked up the stairs and out into Janth's night.
