Talla

You were of age now. Your rite of passage had been that morning. And you were now a man of the tribe.

You prowled the camp, searching for a female to take as your mate. One with the patterned warpaint that displayed their physical maturity as a potential mate, that mirrored your own. It was part of the process to search for a female you deemed strong and ferocious enough to bear your offspring. It had been how your father had taken your mother.

The girl fixing spears by the weavers, Tik, short, long dark hair, thinner. Not enough muscle or health to her, but a fierce glint in her eye. Possibly, but lacked something you couldn’t put your finger on.

Kree, wreathed in corded jewellery of theropod teeth, teaching a younger girl to fillet the recent hunt. She’d lost an eye to a pterosaur at some point, and was mostly found around the fires, smoking and preparing meat. Possible option. Motherly instincts, teaching competently, not the strongest physically. Maybe.

Rekka was preparing a fur with her dad, a weathered and gnarled man. She was a strong contender. Not the prettiest, but tough and tenacious, and with harshly weathered hands.

The older women around the campfires or in the weaving circles smirked and sneered as you passed, joking with each other and watching the prowling young male with flashes of amusement in their eyes. Smaller girls shrank away from you as you passed, cowering slightly and looking back and forth between you and the older girls, wondering if they were about to witness one of their older sisters or role models being challenged.

You passed a female being pinned down and bred mercilessly by her male, who had returned from the hunt. The cries rose in humiliated pitch as it was forced into the wrong hole on purpose. You heard a scoff.

“Weakling,” a young female your age said, sitting a rock next to you, and testing her spear with a fingertip. She crinkled her nose in distaste at the conquered woman, and looked back down at her spear tip, with a bitter laugh in her voice. “Pathetic bitch, being taken like that.”

Finished testing the edge with a calloused finger, Talla looked up from her speartip, angling it in one fluid motion up at your chest. She laid its point to rest on your warpaint. Eyeing it up, she snorted.

“You finished your rites? Pffft. I guess they let anyone become men now.”

She laid her spear back against the rock, and crossed her arms beneath her small breasts, holding them up to increase their size, and looked down at you from on her rock with an air of sarcastic mockery.

“You’ve been a wimp since we were kids. I still remember you crying all the time like a weakling. Who you gonna try and stick your scrawny dick in, then? One-armed Treya? Maybe if you’re lucky, one of the elderly women will be too weak to fight you off.”

Talla was one year older than you, and she had been your spiteful rival and antagonist for most of your childhood. For whatever reason, she just seemed to despise you. Any opportunity to argue or nettle you, in the safety of the camp, she took.

She’d once tried to kill you outside of camp, ambushing you in the wilderness, ‘helping the camp’ by removing a pathetic boy. You’d beaten her by the skin of your teeth despite the disadvantage. That had infuriated her every day of her life since, but her hatred had turned into a cold, haughty mockery after that incident. She no longer tried to kill you, but she did try to make your life hell.

“The ugly, stench-covered runt stalks the camp, looking for a mate who wouldn’t stab herself in the stomach to escape the shame of bearing his children…” Talla’s eyes narrowed darkly. “Perhaps I should follow you around, to ensure you don’t take a mate too old, sick or young to defend themselves… about the only ones you’d stand a chance at beating.”

Lithe and muscular, as chiselled as you despite her smaller stature, Talla descended from her rock, arms still crossed. She circled you.

“It honestly doesn’t surprise me our tribe let someone like you survive. I’ll be honest- I wait dreaming everyday that we are overrun by stronger, worthier males, who slaughter you all to the last for the species’ health, and show us what the gods truly made men to be. Rape us right in front of you weaklings before you die. I wake every day wishing the heavens had placed me in a better tribe, or that they send a better tribe to take me.”

Her eyes narrowed, looking up you in cold, haughty disgust.

“Let me make something crystal clear.”

She leaned in closer.

“The soft excuses we have for males in this tribe may have granted you rite of passage, for reasons I cannot fathom. But I will never, ever consider you a man.”

It perplexed Talla that you weren’t reacting to her. You’d just walked off on your path, as if she’d been a temporary interruption, still ogling women your age for a potential mate. It infuriated her how calm you were- pretending to be masculine or stoic, pretending like her words weren’t affecting you. Pathetic.

She followed you around the camp, nettling you and questioning your choices. Her muscular arms were crossed beneath her small boobs once more, pushing them up as she scoffed at you.

“Nearly three-six springs of me telling you that you obviously don’t deserve to breed, and yet here you are. Like your offspring would even make it to begin with, let’s be honest,” Talla said, glancing sideways up at you in haughty disgust. “It’s a miracle your parents could even figure out where to put it in, they probably spent a few years doing it in the wrong- stop ignoring me!”

But you were walking off in another direction, scanning the firesides for another woman. It was like you didn’t care about her disapproval as a female, her mockery of your manhood. Her lip curled in disgust. Perhaps another angle.

“Oh, I have an idea!”

She waited for you to comment on the rarity of such an occasion, or to tell her to shut up- any of the usual back and forth. Perturbed by the lack of response, she nevertheless continued, in a tone dripping with sarcastic support.

“I know exactly who you should go for! Why, you should go for Indi! What better mother for your children than the daughter of the chief? That would guarantee their survival. The strongest, tallest, toughest girl of the whole tribe, and you’d get to, uh…” -Talla had to physically force the words out of her mouth, in a mixture of mirth and disgust- “…be the next chief! Why, it’s the perfect plan, isn’t it? Surely, Indi, with her voluptuous body, her overflowing breasts, her high-quality pedigree, would make the perfect breeding slut for a young boy such as yourself… all you’d have to do, is challenge her in front of the chief, and the whole tribe watching…”

Talla looked up at you, with a fake, uncanny smile, a happiness you’d never actually seen on her face. “But surely, now that you’re a big boy, you would win such a combat easily! But you must act quickly, every day passed is a day a man our age might take her for his own breeding- you must challenge immediately to secure her bountiful, dripping cunt as your own. All you have to do is tell the chief you want to challenge his daughter, in front of everyone…”

She leaned up, and lowered her voice.

“Unless you’re a coward. But obviously, you’re not.”

She reached down, and mockingly stroked your member through your loincloth, glancing sideways up at you.

“Just imagine, Indi, the most beautiful, strong woman of our tribe, jacking you off… moaning as you rape her…” She tightened her grip. “So snug, and tight, and warm… all you have to do is beat her, and she’s yours to do whatever you want with.”

It disgusted Talla that your dick was actually a healthy size, and that she felt girth between her fingers. It was meant to be small. A shiver of anger travelled through her body, and she let go, changing the subject.

“I mean… beat her and her dad, to prove you can be the next chief… but that’s barely an afterthought. That old man? He’s senile if he made you a man of the tribe. Beating him should be easy, then the whole tribe watches as you take Indi as your rightful prize… the chief can even take multiple mates, too. Maybe take Tik or someone small and weak, just for sex while Indi is pregnant with your babies. Heaven for your cock, everyday… what any young man would want.”

Her lip curled in amusement, but her falsely sweet voice didn’t break.

“All you’d have to do, is prove how strong, tough and manly you are… unless you’re a fucking coward.”

And there it was. Her manoeuvre. She would get to enjoy watching you get humiliated by the chief in front of everyone, or she would get to hold your unwillingness over your head for the rest of your lives.

“But you’re not a wimp, right…? No female would ever want a coward as a mate.” She whispered. “Good thing you’re not one. You’re gonna go challenge Indi, right? Today, right? I mean, the only reason you wouldn’t, is if you were a coward…”

“STOP WALKING AWAY FROM ME!” Talla roared, as her gambit was ignored. There wasn’t supposed to be a way out of her ultimatum. She was a woman. You couldn’t just not care if she thought you were a coward.

What, did you think you were ABOVE her? Pretending like you didn’t WANT her as a potential mate? She was stronger than ANY of the girls you were looking at- her rejection and mockery as a potential mate MEANT something. You weren’t allowed to not care.

She punched you in the arm, hard. As kids, she used to make you cry by doing that. Now, it felt like punching a mammoth leg.

She hissed in furious pain, indignant as you looked past her at the others, grabbing your stupidly thick forearm and yanking you around.

“Listen, you ugly bastard! No woman in this camp wants you. None of us. You are a joke by the gods to punish your parents, and you exist to watch the females you want dripping full of other men’s cum. You were born to be a cuckold that- stop walking away from me!”

Talla rounded on you, blocking your path, incandescent with anger.

“I don’t want you. Tik doesn’t want you. Rekka doesn’t want you. Indi doesn’t want you. Not even fucking Kree wants you, and she’s an invalid. Treya’s an invalid AND a hag and she wouldn’t want you. Do yourself a favour and go try and fuck a mammoth. You’d have a better chance of success, and a quicker death than any female in this camp will give you for trying to breed with them as a dysgenic weakling.”

She stares up at you in hatred.

“You couldn’t even rape a woman if you tried. Wouldn’t even know which fucking hole to put it in.”

“Oh, you’re challenging me to a duel?” Talla scoffed, her eyes flashing with savage amusement and indignation. “What for? I kicked your ass when we were kids, and I was going easy on you then, weakling. I’ll fight you any day. Your existence insults me, and I’ve been waiting for this for a long time.”

She shoves you away, finding to her annoyance that she succeeds more in pushing herself back than you, making distance to stretch her muscles and limber up. “So, what do you want to wager, coward? A hunt’s worth of food?”

You challenge her to ritual combat.

Talla blinks. She stands there, frozen.

“…what?” Talla asks. “F-fight to… to breed…? Me, w-with… you…?”

When you nod, her face contorts with fury and disgust.

“WHAT?! Like I’d even consider-“

“You cannot refuse the challenge.” An older woman says from beside a nearby fire, over her shoulder, not even turning from her weaving yet. “You know that, Talla. If a male challenges you, you must accept combat. Those are our rules as a tribe.”

“NOT HIM!” Talla seethes, nearly glowing with fury. “He’s just doing this to get back at me! I want someone who’s-“

“Shouldn’t have annoyed him so much, then,” the older woman cut her off sternly, still focused on braiding a cord of rope. “If he decides to call your bluff, that’s your fault, Talla.”

Talla looked between the older woman’s back and you, chest heaving angrily, caught. She lets out a growl, spitting at you.

“FINE! I’ll put you in the earth, and it’ll be fully legal! Perfect! I finally have an opportunity to get rid of you!” Talla bites, face flushed with anger. “But when I kill you, castrate your corpse and throw your dick to raptors, no one can blame me for your decision.”

She readies her stance low, eyes full of venom, trying to make your brain explode with her mind through sheer hatred.

“For even suggesting,” Talla whispers in hatred, “that you could ever ejaculate your weakling sperm in my body against my will, I promise that you will meet the gods screaming.”

Talla’s fists crashed against your guard over and over, feinting, clumsy with anger yet more unpredictable for it.

She was smart enough to save her breath, choosing to pump more oxygen to her muscles so she could punch you more, but you could see it in her eyes.

How dare you. How dare you even suggest a graceless, impotent pig like you could breed her proud body. How dare you insult her with the challenge alone- how dare you lust after her superior, proud body, how dare you block her punches, how DARE you, after all these years, not just lay down and DIE already.

You draw back and heavily telegraph a punch with your left fist, stepping forward. She keeps her eyes on it, raising a forearm to intercept it, ducking her centre of gravity slightly to avoid the blow, disgusted by how obvious you’ve made your punch. In the frantic fog of battle-lust, Talla doesn’t register in time that you aren’t left-handed.

Your right shoulder crashes into her body even as she waits for the feinted punch to descend, sending her tumbling and cursing into the dirt.

She lays there, blinking in a daze, staring at the sky. Her ears ring.

Son of a whore.

She gouges the dirt with her fingers, pulling herself back to her feet, desperately putting up her guard to defend against whatever follow-up you make.

But you haven’t over-extended yourself. You hadn’t taken advantage of her weakness when she was grounded. That somehow made her angrier.

“Fucking cheap shot,” she spat, seething with hatred. “Like I’d ever have the babies of a man who-“

She immediately broke her own stated principle out of spite, lunging forward mid-conversation, a cheap trick she’d used since you were kids. An attempt to catch you off-guard before she finished her own sentence.

She caught a glancing hook across the skull for her efforts, cursing with such sulphuric language in front of the growing crowd of younger girls that the older lady weaving by the fire barked at her to conduct herself.

“Speak in front of others like that again, and you’ll finish your fight with him with your hands tied behind your back!” The middle-aged woman threatened, holding up a handful of the rope she was weaving. “Kids, stay at a distance and leave them alone. Go help your parents with dinner.”

The small crowd of younger spectators reluctantly complained or shrank away, but a handful of Talla’s peers and older women from nearby campsites and tents had gathered to watch the fight.

They knew Talla and her character, as many of the older women had known her since she was a child, and she wasn’t a particularly pleasant peer to her female rivals either. She wasn’t exactly hated, but she was certainly combative and disdainful, and would pick fights with other girls her age, insulting their desirability and viability as a mate. The watching women knew Talla’s haughtiness and pride, her belittling of the young men of the tribe and how she spoke of you around the fires.

A number of them were quietly invested in the outcome, seeing a young man- the one she hated and needled so much, in particular- challenging the she-devil in a fight.

“You ugly, hairy, small-sacked runt,” Talla breathed hatefully, glaring at the circling you more carefully as she regained her composure and footing, far more wary of you. “I- what are you all looking at?! Mind your own fucking business! This bet is between me and him, you smug whores!”

Her bile toward the watching women did nothing to dispel them. Talla launched herself at you, shooting two jabs into your guard to cover your eyes with your own forearms, before making a dash around your non-dominant side and swinging a savage punch aiming for your ribs, hoping to break them if she could.

Talla grunted as she hit the dirt, hard.

A warm, rising pool of dread, and something else she couldn’t name, was rising in her belly. Dragging herself back up to her feet, her eyes involuntary drifted to your loincloth, and her stomach somersaulted at the outline of your erection there.

A confusing surge of emotions flooded her brain, slowly drowned out by anger and treasonously aroused terror.

No. No, no, no, not like this. Not in front of all the peers she belittled, in front of the older women she’d laughed at for telling her she needed a husband. Not to the boy she’d spent her whole life mocking, who put all those infuriating feelings in her stomach every time she looked at him.

Talla growled in confused, self-loathing anger, and leapt to her feet. Once again, you’d had the absolute gall to wait for her to get up. Mercy. You’d shown her mercy. Like she wasn’t even a threat. You were playing with her.

Her pussy dripped treacherously down her legs, beneath her loincloth.

That last punch had hit Talla, hard.

She staggered to her feet, vision swimming, a strangled grunt escaping her lips. Her knees buckled slightly, and she had to plant a hand on the ground to steady herself as she half-collapsed again.

The watching crowd murmured. Some of the older women exchanged knowing glances. A married man called out encouragement to you, his wife nodding beside him with a smirk.

He pulled that punch, Talla thought, pussy dripping traitorously. He could have cracked my ribs. He pulled it.

You’d shown her pity in front of everyone. Humiliation, pure and scalding, flooded through her veins.

Talla forced herself upright. Her small chest heaved. A thin trail of saliva dangled from her lip. Her eyes were glassy, unfocused, but her expression remained defiant.

"You… you fight like… a girl,"” she rasped, forcing a laugh that came out broken. “My grandmother hit harder… when she was sleeping…”

Her legs wobbled as she took a fighting stance again, but her guard was low, her breathing ragged. Talla knew, deep in the primal core of her being, that she was beaten. The annoying, handsome, muscular, infuriating idiot that had put these stupid feelings in her stomach for years, was beating her in front of everyone.

But ritual combat didn’t end in the mercy of death. Talla bit down an involuntary, strangled groan at the thought of what would happen to her if she didn’t win.

She glared up at you, her stomach quailing, turned her confused feelings into burning hatred to fuel her trembling body.

“Ugly bastard…” Talla hissed.

She leapt at you, in a futile, stupid act of blind fury, locking fingers with you and throwing all of her strength into the struggle, all subtlety or feint discarded.

Anger, for sparing her that day outside the camp, when you should have used or killed her for her weakness. Anger, that you grew up to be handsome and strong. Anger that you put those stupid feelings in her nethers every time she saw you, that you made her body feel funny every time your scent hit her brain, anger that you made her wet every time she argued with you.

She looked up into your face, straining as hard as she could against your matured, adult male muscles, feeling like she was wrestling with arms of corded bronze. Your fingers dwarfing hers, her hands getting lost in the size of yours.

Confused, treacherous tears glistened in Talla’s eyes, wrestling with your looming, indomitable strength as hard as she could.

“I hate you,” she lied, through a lump in her throat. “I hate you… I… I h-hate you…”