UNDERNEATH HIS HEEL, Shea's head squished like a ripe berry, but with an oh-so-pleasing, crackling crunch.

Telor sucked in air as he straightened.

He cocked his hips.

The elf was charged; he breathed through his teeth. Underneath his sole, as he stood tall, he was treated to a few final, delicious pops.

Telor bit at his long, thin lower lip.

Carefully, the elf sat down, slipped off the sandal. Shea's body could not decide whether to stay stuck to the shoe, or cling to Telor's flesh.

Telor chuckled.

He managed to keep almost all of Shea on the insole of his shoe.

He raised the human's flattened form for inspection: Shea had died face-up with his body mostly twisted to one side.

Telor could not tell Shea apart from any other crushed human, not really—and there had been many—save for how his hues and hair distinguished him.

Well, okay: even squashed, Telor had to admit, that cute little face of Shea's did persist.

Telor's short-lived toy was smooshed, exploded, bloodied. Piled meat and bone arranged as a caricature of a human body atop wildly brush-stroked crimson. Telor was like a youngling again, studying the remains of some hapless creature he had destroyed, as his eyes roamed over Shea's delectable ruination.

It had just been so easy.

Telor lowered his shoe with the intent to replace it on his foot, when another idea struck him: he considered Shea's mangled body as it slapped against his sole as he walked in his sandals—what would happen to his plaything's messy ruin. No, as much as the idea pleased him, that did not strike the elf as quite right—not for Shea.

Telor had worn murdered pets in his sandals in this way before, and as pleasant as the sensation was, their bodies were often tossed about and lost.

The elf reached for his moccasin slippers instead, the ones he wore by the lake when Shea first came upon him as the adorable human had followed his siren song.

With a grin, Telor herded what was left of his toy with his fingertips. He brushed the remains into one of his moccasins. Telor was pleased to see that Shea's body mostly stayed together, and resumed its cartoonish pose there on the insole of his moccasin.

That was right. Shea's perfect place of rest.

Telor slid his long foot into one soft shoe and then, carefully, put on Shea's.

The cruel demigod departed his marquee enclosure.

He panted.

Beneath one foot, with every step, he smashed what was left of Shea.

After only a few strides, Telor fell to his knees and scooped his thick hard cock from his silken pants. Telor shoved his pants down under his folded legs and squatted there in the soaked grass.

Mist and errant drops fell on his bare back as he stroked himself and murmured with delight.

The air was sickly sweet and thickly wet, having had rained so powerfully just a moment before.

Telor's mind was overcome by a wild, ravenous state. With great focus he recalled all that he could of Shea's demise. Of how he rolled his foot over the little human, in totality, to death. How Shea whimpered and begged him. His sole was still so electric from the kill, and the phantasmal aftermath of those myriad, wonderful sensations from how he had crushed Shea overwhelmed him.

Shea's meek voice: "Master, please don't kill me."

That lupine wail—

The elf groaned as he came, with force.

His mana poured forth in several lengthy spurts, and splashed into the pooled rainwater beneath him. The milky drops curled in on themselves and solidified immediately as they spun into spheres, and drifted away, like strings of pearls.

Telor's body shook after; he fell forward. Uncontrollably he quaked with pleasure on his hands and knees, and could not move as he rode out the spasms that seized his form.

The rain had slowed. After the previous torrent, the unseen clouds now dusted the tall-treed forest with sporadic showers. Still the grass was waterlogged as the earth struggled to drink all that it had been given.

The breeze was cool, but the mist was warm.

The elf scooped up some of the water in a nearby pool, splashed it in his face.

Telor stood, shrugged out of his sopping wet pants.

He breathed, flexed his body.

How grand that present moment was.

In only his slippers, the lithe being picked his way through the forest. He stuck to drier patches, leapt from stone to stone. He wanted to enjoy the sensations, slight as they now were, of how Shea's body was pounded parchment-thin beneath him.

Every step that Telor took, his one foot churned Shea so that the human was relentlessly reduced: at first he was slick and slippery; then, gritty; finally, like almost nothing at all.

Telor picked a winding path that led him to some higher, less logged ground, toward the basin where he had bathed in the lake. Its pebbled shore was darkened by the storm, but had dried enough in the peeking sun that Telor's footing was sure as he strolled down toward the lake's edge to sit.

The water was restless. It would not stand still in the breeze.

At the other end of the lake were graceful birds, large and beautiful. Sleek bodies, long wings and necks. Beaked heads as thin and sharp as knives. Their feathers, like lengths of fluffy string, shook in the wind.

What a surprise it was to come across that little pocket of humanity.

Really, he never would have discovered Shea and the woman, if not for the boy's curiosity. The human woman had been wise to try and create a sheltered life for her and her son. 

And Shea-

Telor's eyes widened.

Then he threw his head back and burst out laughing.

The elf noted with delight that he had forgotten where Shea was, exactly. Telor had to remember that the thinning remains of his prey were beneath his foot, in his shoe, at that very moment.

Shea was already like something in the past. A happy memory, which Telor very much looked forward to getting off to time and time again. 

"Oh, pet," Telor drawled. "Pet, pet, pet. Did you notice? When you were away from me, you wanted to be with me. When you were with me, you wanted to be away from me. Why was that, little one?"

Telor's grin was indulgently cruel.

"Were you always that bizarre, doll," Telor asked the rippling lake.

He wiggled the toes of that foot.

"Or was that entirely because of me?"

The day no longer misted as Telor made his way back to his tent, singing as he did.

Shea was an invisible force beneath him, no longer tactile. It was hard to recall which foot he was under, even.

Yet, as the man neared his modest camp, he paused, missed a note.

Rare for him.

Telor's gaze sank toward the forest floor.

The hushed chorus of leaves high overhead tracked how long the elf stood there.

In his tent, Telor removed his slippers and rested his one foot on his knee at the ankle.

His sole was red.

Not his usual rose, but slick with Shea's blood.

True to his character, the tiny human had been split by indecision.

Shea's remains had been beaten into something more like a paste that was smeared across Telor's flesh, though some of his bones were intact in all that mess. The rest of Shea was more like a crude drawing of him, imprinted into the material of the moccasin insole. There was Shea's itty-bitty flat face; it wore a ghostly expression of shock.

With a low, happy hum, Telor massaged the viscera into the flesh of his sole. He pushed Shea's essence all over his long toes, and rubbed the offal into the sensitive skin between them.

Telor's smile faded, and his fingers slowed.

Shea, who came to him from the forest.

Lured by his song.

So innocent and curious.

What sweet, gentle eyes.

How wicked it was, hurting Shea.

Delicious.

But then why did Telor feel the way that he did, in his chest?

A void of sorts. A sudden hole.

Telor stared at the sole of the foot that had destroyed the human—remnants massaged into oblivion, now little more than a blushing contrast against his golden skin.

Telor's hot whisper washed over Shea's spectral form in whipping waves. "You know, I rarely regret. I have no doubt you would have made a fine pet. And I can't help but wonder at your life serving me, had I kept you, forbidden as it might be."

Telor's pink lips nearly brushed his sole.

"But you were just so, so sweet to break."

Slowly, the tip of Telor's tongue parted the line of his mouth, wetted flesh, and caught the quick tear that raced down his cheek.

The distant ends of his thin, wide lips curled upward.

Telor grinned with all his teeth.