once upon a time ...

[This is an ongoing chapter a week story that began with the first Words for Wednesday for 2025 on 1 January. I'm hoping to continue it through 31 December, the last Wednesday of the year. To start from the beginning, click here to be taken back to 1 January 2025, and then look for chapters to appear weekly between Tu-W-Th]

Gnoll Witherling
Image Source YouTube

  Like so many origin stories, there are often three versions of where someone came from.  The truth, the rumors, and the gray areas between the lines.  The rumors were that gnolls evolved from a humanoid people on a distant planet and resembled something between a hyena and a man.  Carnivorous, cruel, even cannibalistic and carrion-eaters at times, they were known for their savage, warrior ways, their unnatural height, and lean muscular frame.  When they died, their bones were sometimes gathered and reanimated through rituals, adding a little truth to the rumors about them being warriors that could not be killed.  

  Over the centuries, Gnolls evolved into two sub-races:  Flinds, who were short and stout, but much stronger than their taller cousins; and half-gnolls born of one human parent and a gnoll parent.  There were even those who believed that some of the gnoll bloodlines were mixed with demonic bloodlines.

  Gnoll tribes vary depending on the environment they live in, with the largest, strongest and fiercest in the tribe becoming leaders.  They are most often the females, who are difficult to distinguish from the males.

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  Alexander had been sitting in his garden contemplating his next money-making scheme when he'd heard a noise in the trees.  Getting up to investigate, he had discovered an injured gnoll.  Repulsed by the appearance and smell of the gnoll, he nearly left it for dead.  However, when it moved, he realized that it was a pregnant female, and apart from her injuries, was also most likely in labor.

  Instantly, the cash register in his mind began to ring as he thought about what he could charge for tickets to see the freak and her child.  Fools would be more likely to pay to see a live freak, than a dead body of one that could be dismissed as being fake.  Without hesitating further, he picked her up and gently carried her to a small guest house on the property that would be out of view of his staff and servants.

  He tended to her injuries as best he could, and had been overjoyed when she delivered a single, healthy child.  A basic form of pictures and drawing between the two of them was established to communicate, and Alexander began to learn some of the gnoll language.  He learned her name was Dakra, and that she had chosen the name of Rahak for her son.   She referred to Alexander as Helaur, which he believed was because she couldn't say Alexander, but he later realized it was a word for healer because he had saved her from death.

  As she became stronger, Alexander also realized that she had developed feelings for him.  Not wanting to encourage her, he often made excuses of having chores to do in town when she tried to become intimate with him.  He would have left the continent completely if he thought she would still be there when he returned but was too worried that someone else would find her and he would lose the side-show attraction that he was banking on.

  After several months, with her child maturing at four times the rate human babies do, Dakra was healed enough to return to her tribe but was unwilling to leave Alexander.   Realizing that she expected him to leave his home and join her, Alexander made it clear that they could not have a life together in the forest because of their physical differences.  But when she began to draw him pictures of the spoils of war that she could bring him, in exchange for providing her tribe with shelter and food, Alexander's greed became stronger than his revulsion at the thought of having sex with her.

  It was Rahak's two-year birthday, yet he stood as tall and muscular as an adult male 20 years older than him.  Alexander was tired of the one-sided affair with Dakra, and the dangerous plight he now found himself in.  He had grown fond of Rahak, but trying to juggle life as a clueless human uncle to a man-boy who could rip him apart in an instant, and the sex-toy of a vicious, insatiable, warrior matriarch was becoming more than his mind could handle.  Alexander wondered if getting Rahak a dog to play with was a suitable birthday gift for gnoll, but in the end decided upon a spear he had picked up on an African safari decades before.

  With Dakra's tribe now taking up residence in and around Alexander's estate, and the gnolls bringing him treasures to sell to the highest bidder, his greed continued to grow.  Believing that the greatest gain would be in exposing the existence of the gnolls to the world, he expressed one evening to one of the chiefs under Dakra that he was frustrated that they were not bringing him enough to continue their agreement.   His hope was that they would tire of his demands and leave, but a part of him knew that ending this relationship with Dakra and the gnolls would likely mean his death unless he could convince them to bring something more valuable to him than putting the gnolls in a carnival freak show.

  When the chief indicated that there was something else that they could bring to him, the gift of a wood elf, that might be a better money-maker than a repulsive gnoll, Alexander started making plans for the kidnapping and auction of Kael before he ever laid eyes on him.

Words for Wednesday ~ read the prompts and stories here