The shade answered its master's call following its will and moving its body through the realms of hell at speed though it felt a chill as it came upon what appeared to be a forgotten wood on the very edges of hell. The shade knew that Hell did not have so much as an edge, but there was a limit to where a sane spirit would go, even a demon, a powerful shadow being such as itself might tread. There were unspeakable, and unknowable things beyond even the strongest of immortal minds like that of its master and its master's kin out there. And this edge was close to that madness.
And as it pulled itself from the shadow of an old oak to cross into an open vale lit by a dim red sun in this place of almost permanent twilight it felt afraid. For it heard singing, and the scent of cooking coming from the low stone and timber cottage half blended into the forest. Such a mundane sight in this place was terrifying for what creature could possibly have the power or influence to live so much like a mortal? What marked the small forest home out from the forested hills was the doors and windows. It was not unlike a witches hut here deep in the forest, and the shade wished it was just being summoned to some world by a foolish witch to curse some fool prince or princess. The scent of the food made its shadowy body shiver and long for flesh and blood that it might take up that food into its mouth. And yet there was something more as it came close. An animal sort of scent. Sharp and striking, and yet pleasant and smooth to even its senses. It made it want a body of flesh and blood for entirely different reasons then. The shade hovered slowly toward the door, as if taking its steps one at a time very deliberately, as it approached the cottage-a cottage!- here on the edge of hell and sanity.
The humming coming from inside made its mind swim and it nearly forgot why it had come. Its master pressed his will upon it reinforcing its thoughts and mind, but still the lingering needs of flesh and blood assailed the demon here so close to the home of the dangerous creature it was here to speak to. An old and terrible ancient being lay beyond this door and had the shade a true will of its own; it might have run from this place the moment its masters' will had given it clarity. The shade would always know the lingering call to flesh that it would never see answered, but it had no choice but to continue on.
It approached the old wooden door of the cottage and had it been able it would have been trembling as it raised its shadowy limb. It struck the door gently, three times, and hovered back an approximate step. The singing inside cut off.
“Oh. Excuse me I should have felt you coming. I was preoccupied. I'm coming.” Came the words of a sweet voice from inside. The voice of a young woman no less. The door latch, a seemingly simple mechanism, opened with a rattle and the heavy wooden door swung open just a crack revealing her face. Pale skin and lovely gently curving features greeted the shade there. Her dark hair hung about her face in two small strands with the rest pulled back in a loose ponytail. Her eyes were glittering golden amber rings on orbs that were as dark as midnight shadows; and the amber iris's shifted from wide goat eyes to near circular as she focused on the shade. Black horns that seemed to tear at what little light was in this twilight realm adorned her head gently curving up away from her temples to curve down and around near her ears and above her head like antlers. She wore nothing but a clean white apron. Her legs were covered in fur softer than silk or velvet or the finest magic mortal materials and ended in hoofs that gently scraped the stone floor beneath her feet as she opened the door wide after seeing the shade. It didn't need to touch the fur to know. Its mind was assaulted by the knowledge of it, and the need to confirm and validate it with flesh and body.
“A messenger shadow? For me? Which of the fallen are you from?”
The shade thought it felt sweat trickle down its back. It had no lips. No genitals or glands, but this creature made its nearly incorporeal body want. It wanted to kiss the soft curve of her neck up to her lips, and feel the small soft flesh of her tongue against its own. It wanted to caress her moderate breasts and feel the fur upon her thighs to lift her upon the counter and take her. It wanted to ravage and give its adoring attention to this creature before it and the desire nearly overwhelmed its mind. And would have if not for its master speaking through it if only it had the capability.
“Forgive me Lady Inyx.” The shade found itself saying as its own mind reeled.
The creature before it frowned deeply.
“Penelope. Please.” She corrected with narrowed brows. “I don't like the name my father gave me. It doesn't really feel like it's just my own. Penelope is much better. Now I think I recognize that voice. Is that you in there little Samiel?”
The shade heard its master chuckle, a sound to make it shiver in a whole different way to how it had before.
“Ah I should have expected as much from you. It truly has been too long. But I will keep things brief. This shade will not last much longer in your presence and I would have come myself if I were not in court. As you should be.”
Penelope raised her chin and blew a strand of hair from her face in a pout.
“I don't care what you all do with my dead mother. It's all the same to me that she's dead. If part of her becomes one of us then send her my way, but until then I will have no business with her or desire for her remains.” She replied, crossing her arms under her breasts. “Come in. And sit.” She instructed looking outside with her eyes gone wide and goat-like as she reached past the shade.
Such close contact with the being in its pure state nearly annihilated the shade and its mind barely recovered in time to find itself being brought to a chair before the solidly built wooden table. In spite of its incorporeal nature the deadly succubus before it still laid a portion of the freshly made pie she pulled from the oven before it. The shade longed to try some, to have flesh to feel the confection fill its belly and sate the desperate desire suddenly within its very being.
“Now little Sammy.” Penelope said, sitting across from the shade. “Tell me why you're here.”
The shade barely paid any attention as its master explained using its body like a puppet. It was far too busy wondering what that lovely pie might taste like.
Penelope sat up right partially through the explanation. Her dark eyes focused on it and its shadowy mind reeled with desires that didn't belong to it, that couldn't be fulfilled by it, and never would be.
“So that's it then? You're here for the same reason as they all come for me any more?” Penelope asked, her voice not unkind, but somewhat weary.
“Not at all. I've come because you are the best and wisest of us, at least that we know of. I've come to you not because it fits Regina's or my own plans, but because it is what you too deserve and because you are the best fit. That is all.”
“Rationality?” Penelope mused and leaned down against the table with a sigh. “I suppose that makes sense coming from you. But should I bother to leave this place? Is it really worth it?” She asked.
“The boy. Ivan. He was in love. Desperately.”
Penelope raised her head again slowly.
“What happened?” She asked softly.
The shade's mind was rolling with her looking and sounding so soft and vulnerable.
“The God of Light betrayed your mother, and her people. He ordered them killed in cold blood. As far as I can tell he did so because a Minor deity of that world with the unimaginative title of Oracle, told him that there was a follower of Estania that would lead to his downfall. With his faith magic stolen from him he was unable to heal his lover before she died of fever.” Samiel explained.
“A fate then?” Penelope asked.
“Yes it seems so. When Hell feasts upon the God of Light we will tell the boy where to find the fate. Before the end. I've already spread shadows from where the boy first made contact and I will confirm its existence soon. I'm sure you understand how vital it is that we collect the fate.”
Penelope nodded soberly, and took a moment to look around her little cottage.
“One condition.” She added right as the shade felt its master's sudden elation.
“What might that be?”
“The boy is mine. When it's done, and if he fails.”
“He cannot be allowed to fail. It is why we have decided on sending you.”
Penelope sat up, her eyes suddenly cold and fierce.
“You are the best of us for this task. Any other would feed on him. He is weak. He has no resistance to our kind. His soul is an open flame, even my shade could have taken him as easily as snuffing out a candle. Take him, this boy, and make him something to shake his reality to the core as he dreams and he will love you for it as long as he remains broken as he is now.”
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The dark and terrible creature's eyes seemed to glitter across the table. The shade would have gulped and wasn't exactly sure if his master hadn't done so himself.
Ivan finished the strange spoken incantation. It was made up of words he didn't recognize, but as he did anything of late he put all of his being into each of the syllables as he followed the shade's instruction. The blood circle around the body of the priestess began to glow an ominous red before it emitted waves of golden and scarlet ribbons of light. The body was taken up into the air, the clothes melted away and dispersed into nothing more than dust in the air, and the head came together with the body then. Its golden hair turned black as the flesh rejoined at the neck, the body below it changing and shifting into something thinner, paler, and more lovely. Ivan was stunned and though hardly conscious of it drained to near thoughtlessness by the mana drain the ritual had put upon him.
His head rolled near limp as he tried to stay upright. He was panting, breathing raggedly, after the long incantation and the surge of sudden effort that came with the black magic. By the time he was able to look up again his vision was filled with something he could barely comprehend.
It was a woman of sorts, but more lovely. Her scent filled his being, and the sight of her became all that he could see. Her soft fingers touched his cheeks and lifted his head as she came close and sat him upright. He followed her lead up until he was standing, his own height slightly over her own, and was drawn down into the soft black pools of her eyes. The shade was gone, but that was far from his mind. Everything was.
“Remember Ivan. Remember your hatred. Remember what you must do.” Her voice instructed him. He nodded, taken in by her dark eyes with their faint ring of amber around the edges. Her lips found his own and he was lost for a time until his mind found something to cling to.
“Ivan...!” Tanya laughed as he found himself in the fields around the village as he once had been some weeks ago. He knew this, but did not care. His mind was still filled with the static of rage and hate it had become, but for this little moment he could let himself remember. Her laugh echoed through his thoughts and through his bones and the soft feel of her hands.
Suddenly he was with her, close between the trunks of two trees close to the edge of the fields. They were supposed to be working, him training, her studying or helping with other tasks around the village, but she had lured him away. He felt her fingers on his cheeks and the beat of his heart pounding softly in his chest, and the unmistakable feel of love and happiness within it. Tanya's cheeks were red, it was hot and still summer yet, and in fact a little sweat played on her forehead, but that didn't matter. Her light brown eyes were full and sparkling. Her lips soft and inviting. The shade between the trees was cool and the scent on the wind told of the fields getting close to harvest with trace hints of the flower gardens Ivan so often tended himself.
He kissed her and felt her body come to him. Her hips leaned into him and him into her, both so very eager now for the day when they would be wed. The kiss went on and on, her laughing, her arms around his neck, her fingers finding their way through his hair.
“I love you Ivan. More than anything.” She whispered to him, happy contented laughter still in her voice, but as he pulled away from the embrace to look at her again filled with the happiness of memory she was laying on the floor before the alter again in a bed made of whatever he could find to keep her comfortable.
The sheets were stained with blood, and various fluids after she had taken a knight's blade to the belly. Her shining light filled eyes became dull and hazy. Her voice was a thin raspy whisper filled with the pain of fever and need for a sleep that she wouldn't wake from.
“I love you Ivan. More than anything.”
Ivan wanted to scream as the creature he had summoned pulled her lips away from his own, her dark eyes sparkling with deep unknown emotion. Her fingers lightly brushed his unruly hair, and her gentle touch kept him standing upright as his mind recoiled from the memory, and as the red hot hatred like molten lead being poured into his bones filled him again. The too lovely and enchanting creature before him took his hands. Her was body naked but for the fur across her legs and running up the sides of her abdomen, and guided him away in a daze. The sealed door opened and he followed after her.
A knight came, and fell away as the demon he had summoned flicked her hand his way. Shadows like tendrils and clawed tentacles of pure darkness dragged him into the shadow under an unlit torch sconce and he was gone without making a sound. Ivan looked back to the locked vault door with its runes confused and not knowing how the demon had opened it, and was surprised again as the demon led him to what appeared to be a dead end only to reach up to an unlit chandler and pull a chain he hadn't seen. Stone scraped and shifted, and the wall came away leading into a tunnel. They went inside. He followed after her and heard the stone slide back into place behind them as they traveled into the dark.
They reached a room on the far side of the tunnel walking in the dark for what felt like hours. It was like walking through his own mind. His thoughts were a constant weight of darkness on all sides threatening to come down and crush him at any moment. The demon's hand was the hot fever touch of Tanya against his fingers reminding him of their last moments over and over again. He staggered after her, unable to think. Unable to be any longer. The grief was too much. The flame of his hope had been kept lit too long in her care, his love burned too bright in his desperate search for anything, the simplest potion to aid her, and in his failure to save her. But he went on. Pulled by that hand, and the strange call that came from the demon pulling him along.
In the room a small black flame revealed the wick of a lamp and the amber yellow rims of the demon's eyes before the lamp came alight blinding him yet again. Yet when he was able to see he took the demon in for what seemed to really be the first time.
She was small, a thin and graceful shape of a young woman with breasts that would fit neatly into the palms of his hands. Her legs were covered in dark gossamer fur of blackest night and did nothing to cover the small pale and vulnerable opening between her legs. A small brush of a tail just covered the top of her rump and crack of her behind. The fur went on up her sides to dwindle as it reached in two narrow mirrored towers of soft fur toward her armpits, but upon the front and back the fur seemed to split open to show her pale and lovely muscles of her back and abdomen. He had to tear his eyes away from the sight of the small pink nipples upon her breasts, and the soft inviting curve of her neck and up to her beautiful face. Even with horns on her head and ears that came from her loose hair flicking like that of an animal her face had all of the most lovely angles and features a man could desire. Yet was not that of Tanya and missing the mark of his desires for all of her demonic charm and beauty. Her eyes were dark orbs almost in total, but for the pale amber edge of her dark iris gone wide and rectangular in the dark.
She grinned at him, her wide irises focusing down to the usual circles as she did. It sent cold chills down his spine that seemed to make him suddenly aware of his throbbing heart and the dull pain of his member as it seemed to try to break free of his drawers and belted pants of its own accord. He fought to control himself, but the creature, the demon, simply smiled at him all the more before stepping forward. He scrambled back sensing some sort of danger from her, but couldn't keep his eyes from wandering the soft curves of her body. It would be so easy for him to attack her, to take her up on the table on the other side of the room, and pin her legs open. He could...he could...he shook his head trying to clear his thoughts, and as if she had avoided the space between them was suddenly cupping his cheeks again.
“Ivan....” She said, her voice a soft song in his ears. “Calm yourself Ivan. We have yet to seal the pact between us. It's not safe for you to think of me like that yet. Especially not for such an eager virgin. You will come to me, but in time. Not here, not yet. We must first be one in another way.” Her voice was intoxicating. His heart beat slowed, his eyes suddenly filled with and followed nothing but her own. Though he thought he was larger and stronger than her, that he could have pushed her aside, her hands still guided him gently, directing him back to a chair upon which to sit. “Blood for blood Ivan. Yours for mine. Together entwined forever and in time.” She said and he couldn't help but watch as she closed her tongue between her teeth. She bit down hard enough to draw blood and came with him upon the chair, her legs opening and closing around his hips as she sat atop him. His hands found her hips for a moment before she brushed them away with a gentle hand.
Her fingers found his mouth working open his jaw as if playing with a puppet, and his tongue came to the sweet touch of flesh before being stung and filling his mouth with blood. Before he could think she was leaning into him, her wounded tongue touching his own, stinging and filling him with the desire for her. That was until he felt it. Like sparks between them. Sparks and then something more. It filled his mind with awareness, energy, and his thoughts cleared for a moment, long enough to push the succubus away.
“Good.” She whispered. “Repeat the mantra. Quickly.”
“Blood for blood.” Ivan fought to say through the desire to rip open his pants and have her. “Yours for mine. Together..-” He coughed on blood caught in his throat.
“Hurry...” The demon urged and he could feel it through her voice like a touch upon his own mind.
“Together entwined forever and in time.” He finished and the sparks started again. The demon arched her back, throwing back her head, her claws digging into the back of his head as she pulled at him and clamped her legs around him.
With them both panting he felt the effects of whatever she was sort of sliding off him. He watched as a pentagram inscribed itself like a brand just above her breasts. She drew her head down to him sitting above him and he felt the rough exterior of the horns extending from her temples touching him; threatening with their sharp points. He sat stunned, his mind somewhat clear for the first time, but stared at the lovely creature sitting in his lap.
She grinned at him playfully, tossing her head coyly and eyeing his hands on her soft fur covered hips. His eyes followed hers and he couldn't help but see her nakedness presented between them. He had to quickly look away, his mind immediately soaking what enthusiasm he might have had with memory of Tanya's somehow much sweeter body, tainted and soiled, and he remembered the care in which he had taken to care for her while she couldn't move or do so herself for his sloppy surgery and stitching work. The thought sobered him. And brought him maybe as close to centered as he might have been in a while.
“What...what are you?” Ivan asked the woman, sure already she was a succubus of some kind, but the question came out all the same. He could not get his hands to leave to fur along her thighs no matter how he tried.
“A beast kin succubus as we're usually called I suppose, but a very old and dangerous one.” She said with a little smile. Her hands found his own and guided them up the soft lines of fur to the smooth skin of back as she sat up straight, very clearly presenting herself to him. He looked away, but couldn't seem to gather enough will to resist her hands. “And you're Ivan, adopted of Estania, and last of her knights as far as you and the demon realms know. The death toll of the past few weeks has been considerable. Before I agreed to your summoning I talked to a few old friends to see what was going on here. You're in deep trouble mister. When they find those priests and knights you've killed they won't stop looking until you're found. And then they'll hang you. So that's why I dragged you off before binding you as my master.” She explained her voice coy and almost playful. She seemed on the edge of laughing, as if something was so funny, yet she didn't feel it right to laugh just yet.
“Master?” Ivan managed to ask. His eyes drifted down her body remembering for a few moments a time when Tanya had let him lift her tunic in the past year. He didn't know what had come over him, but he had knelt and kissed up Tanya's middle near to her breasts before she made him stop. As a priestess she had a duty to the goddess to fulfill her training and become a full sister before she was married even if Ivan himself was already a knight sworn in service to the same Goddess. He remembered Tanya's soft sounds then, and his own desire to have her all to himself, and bitterly, how he would never have the chance now.
“Yup.” The demon succubus answered cheerfully. Her thumbs under his jaw turned his gaze up from the soft curves of her breasts up to her eyes. “Normally when a human like you summons one of us we just enchant you and maybe a few others, but it's been decided that there's bigger plans for you. It seems you made quite an impression, but I think both of us know you're not anywhere near stable.” She said her voice was growing a little less playful and somewhere near serious as she went on. “I'm going to take care of you first.” The demon told him then, and Ivan was barraged by more memories of Tanya. He saw her face, her eyes in the demons, and couldn't look away.
“You'll take care of me, and I'll take care of you. It's that simple.” Tanya would say to him, usually with a big grin, that sometimes had in it a little of the naughty light that had filled her eyes like when she had dragged him off from training to sneak in an hour or two of kissing away from prying eyes.
The demon touched his face then bringing him back from memory. Her black clawed thumb carefully wiped away the tears that had run down his cheeks. Her expression was soft and her body held near to him.
“You're in pain. You're broken. But that's okay. All of our kind knows that pain. Whether we share it or not we all know the pain of betrayal and loss. Anger. We all know anger. But I will care for you. Bring you pain and pleasures all at once. I'll show you all the ways we can accomplish your goals and I will guide you gently as you fall from grace and into my arms Ivan. A little at a time. Step by step. Until the God of Light is dead.” She purred slowly, becoming all of his vision and senses. Slowly everything faded away. All but her and the soft feel of her warm body. The pain in his heart disappeared, and the world around him no longer mattered. He wanted to lift and take her, to give in to lust, but his body had other demands that were suddenly so pressing. He had been pushing himself ragged. Fighting to the highest extent of his ability with little to no rest or proper food had drained him.
The demon had cast some sort of magic on him, but without his goddess's blessings to protect him he could do nothing to prevent it. The walls of his mind were brought down. His eyes grew heavy. He felt her soft lips on his forehead, and the warmth of her arms and body as she brought his head to her chest and held him there gently in the chair. The scent of her filled him and took him like a drug. It made him want her more than he had the words to explain. It was an animal sort of thing, but one that could be taken care of later. For now he needed rest. The demon cooed and purred into his ear as he fell limp into her arms.