Hug Your Destiny [NSFW] - Explicit / Kink (Trans Protag)

[The_Letter_K]

Yeah? What's the Difference?
Faust Interlewd (Part 1/4)​

There were a great many things to do today. With Lyle away shopping for most of the morning, I had no need to remain available for her, should she desire my company. To be hers eternally was by far my deepest desire, but not truthfully my only one. Many of my yearnings were merely in support of that goal, of perfecting the experience. They were still worth doing, however, even if they were technically distractions.

The first generation of the slow-grown cloned phalluses were still gestating, and I had some time yet before I would see if resurrecting them was even doable. 'Undildos', I was tentatively calling them. I had already had to create a sort of organ system to sustain them as they grew, and managing its corruption levels had grown quite tiresome.

My attempts to use the plants of the "tentacle forest' as a basis had been fruitless. Research had revealed even the slightest deviancy in their corruption led to the things developing quickly into a Tentacle Mamono, useless for my purposes. Their path into Mamonodom had, in a way, been 'set' into reality.

It was sobering to realize that truth, as I could infer that if my own attempts to create something from scratch should accidentally monsterize, it would be even more difficult to avoid it the second time, and each failure would compound upon itself, as the path for the new Mamono's creation was carved into the universe.

I suspected new species of Mamono were forged, if subconsciously, by the Demon Lord herself, and that as they became solidified in her mind, her influence, the dark energy which flowed through us all and even our land itself, began to recognize the conditions under which the new creature could be created and conspired to accomplish it on her behalf.

Quite impressive, if true, but frustrating in this instance.

In any case, there was a risk that I would need to bestow some level of intelligence upon the phalluses for them to become valid targets of necromancy. There were not, to my knowledge, any undead flowers, for example. True, there exists a mushroom, the Grey Veiled Deathcap, sometimes called the Weeping Reaper, which is associated with undead Mamono, but even there, the fungus itself is as alive as any mundane fungi can be.

However, there were rumors of wild undead animals from before the current Demon Lord took power, and some human Necromancers still created them, I believed, as they were easier to control than skeletons and zombies, which are, naturally, incredibly likely to become Skeletons and Zombies at even the slightest slip of the leash.

Clearly there was a sliding scale with regards to what could be resurrected, and a human organ may be on the right side of that equation even without any fiddling, simply by virtue of being human. If not, it should be possible to keep the implanted intellect small enough to avoid Monsterization. My main concern was with the larger organ system that grew them, honestly. If their intellect networked through their connection to the larger whole…

Ugh. Vexation.

Regardless, it would be a fair while yet before efforts there bore fruit. I had time for other pursuits. My Owl Mage contact, who only signed her correspondence as `OvO', which was very silly, was due by at any moment.

Owl Mage feathers had a particular quality that made them excellent mana conduits. If I were to pursue fusing myself with my clothes, ala the Itten Momen, as I had long planned, then it would behoove me to ensure my clothes were properly prepared. Lining the interior of my cloak with dyed Owl Mage feathers would increase the mana I could channel once the cloak was part of me, true, but it would also be invaluable once my flesh was made victim to the Mummy's Curse. Full control over the individual feathers as they brushed against my skin would be an ecstasy nearly unmatched. Hundreds, if not thousands of feathers, each with their own individual hair follicles, independently flitting against me inside my cloak.

I shuddered just to imagine it. If it were not for my phylactery, which allowed me to control myself from a distance, my soul separated from my body, I would already be an incurable mess with the augmentations I'd undergone. That was something to consider. I needed to write out instructions in case the worst happened. I would be unable to control myself if my phylactery was destroyed.

...The fluffiness of the feathers was not a factor in my decisions at all.

Nor the cuteness.

It was purely utilitarian. In any case, I would need only a few more loads of feathers to complete my new cloak. It had been threaded from Arachne silk, naturally. I would eke out every advantage in designing what would ultimately become part of my body.

"Um… Faust?" Hmm. Amy. For what reason could she- "There's an owl here to see you?"

Ah.

"Splendid!" I responded, not looking up. "Please do send her in."

The tell-tale clatter of avian claws on hard flooring gave away her approach. The number of Mamono species with entirely distinct feet was quite astonishing. It was often possible to perceive the species using the sound of their footsteps alone. Even my own more human feet, when I deigned to actually walk, had a sort of distinctively dull thud to them, being that I was undead. Zombies had a tendency to shuffle, while Jianshi had more of a 'hop'. Even Wights had a predisposition for a distinctively refined saunter. It wasn't enough to separate a Lich from every type of undead, but it was really only Banshees and Vampires that were too close to a Lich to discern.

"OvO, I presume?"

I did not meet her eyes.

"OvOlynn, actually."

"Hmm."

Two minds of science. Of calm. A rarity in this city, I relished it, as I was sure she did.

"You prepared the package?"

"Indeed." A pause. "An ascension ritual?"

"Of a sort." I replied.

"Itten Momen, then?"

"Naturally."

"Clever." A hint of genuine surprise there. Not used to intellectual company either. Shame. The world is so bereft for those like us.

Still, it wouldn't do to let her think she could underestimate me without rebuke.

"Naturally."

"Mhmm."

"Let me know when you'd like my assistance as repayment." I said.

She didn't reply, her talons once more clattering on the floor, this time away from me, back towards the door.

Consummate professional.

It was only after she left that the feeling of being watched by a large predator dissipated. I'd not even felt it creep up on me. I'd purposefully avoided her gaze, but I suppose I'd still felt it instinctively as it focused in on me. The eyes of an Owl Mage were unblinking and hypnotic, quite dangerous. They regularly made idiots out of even the most scholarly, at least while they held you in their gaze. I had no desire to find myself gormless in a stranger's arms, not even one so intellectually stimulating as OvOlynn.

Hmm. A quick check of my mental calendar revealed...

Ah. Next on my agenda was a gift for Charlotte. I had not forgotten the lessons I'd learned whilst courting Lyle. Humans had good reason to fear Mamono, to fear corruption. Even Charlotte, powerful as she was, was outmatched here in the city, and her favored combat partner had been turned upon her. She would rightfully be wary of seduction, of what she might become, and it was my job, as one of the Mamono courting her, to assuage those worries.

I needed to demonstrate that we would protect her, that we would care for the urges of her companion if she would not. That we would not stand for her to come to harm, and that we would go to any lengths to provide for her. That we would provide an outlet.

To that end, I had made an appointment at a local café.

I placed the last of the feathers into the dye, left to absorb the color needed for my efforts, and gathered what little I tended to carry along. Some simple measuring instruments, a small stone focus, some writing implements and a pad of paper, and a bag of fine sand, for visual aides. These and other knick knacks joined the flurry of objects I kept in orbit around myself, for ease of use. Certainly, I could just use a bag, however I found I liked the look of this better, surrounded by my own rings of detritus, like the far-flung planets, and it meant others, strangers generally, kept some space between us.

As I left my room, I called out, "Amy?"

A small crash echoed out from her room.

"Uh, yes?" She sounded...

Ah. As she peeked her head out the door, looking bleary-eyed and her hair rather roughly tousled, I found my freshly formed suspicions confirmed.

"...What has you so disheveled?" My eyes briefly flitted to her chest. My hands shook. As a Lich, I had a great deal of control over my instincts, but… it had been some time since I satisfied that craving.

"I just… I was feeling kind of… well, there's no one here, and you were busy, so…"

I felt a tightening in my chest. Sympathy. Well. Were we not wives? Was seeing to her happiness not my duty? I had intended to simply alert her to my departure, but...

"Would you like to accompany me? I have a meeting at a nearby restaurant with a shady character. Your prowess would be welcome, should things turn sour." I did not expect a fight, and could certainly hold my own against all comers with little difficulty, however, I expected that-

Her eyes widened.

"Ah! Sure! Lemme get dressed really quick!" Her tone immediately brightened, and she hurried back out of sight. Expectation fulfilled. Such things warmed my heart. Metaphorically, at least.

I made certain to close my door as she shuffled around inside her room, and it was nearly no time at all before she came out once more, this time dressed for a walk about town. Her standard cow-pattern sweater and jean skirt pulled up over her fluffy legs. It was honestly quite convenient that most Mamono materials were enchanted to be self-cleaning.

That level of magic was generally not present in the human lands. It meant much less fussing about with multiple sets of clothing, and merely choosing a few for different uses that you felt fit you best.

"Shall we?" I asked, as she stepped towards the front door, where I had taken up a post to await her.

Instead of a reply, she swept me up in her arms, lifting me far higher than I might have stood, feet on the ground. Her muscular arms were… quite inviting, even through the sweater. A deep breath in through my nose brought the scent of her to me. A faint dairy, obviously, almost buttery, but also fresh-cut greens, and her hair smelled of Lyle, that delightfully fruity, jam-like scent. She must have had quite the night.

"Thank you," she whispered, into my ear.

I nuzzled into her neck in response. The subtle, insistent smell of her milk, the feeling of her chest against me, the sound of her breathing… it all mingled together with my growing need for her once more, driving me to a place of passion not conducive to the business at hand.

"Perhaps…" I said, slightly breathless, "perhaps when we return, we could spend yet more time together? I do not wish for you to be overcome by loneliness."

I felt her nipples harden at the implication, as a surprisingly girlish giggle bubbled up from her chest, a novel sound from such a deep-voiced woman.

"I'd like that, yeah." A teasing lilt crept in as she spoke, "But I don't want to pressure you. You come to me when you need me, there's no reason to push yourself for my sake."

I felt my cheeks flush hotly. She knew well I was addicted. Need was exactly the word to use.

"B-be that as it may. We are wives together. It is my responsibility to ensure you have the best of myself that I can provide you."

I had stopped nuzzling her, to make my point, but I felt my body shift against her. I don't believe I'd have minded if she'd insisted we'd take care of this first. In her arms, I felt safe, and so melted quickly. Without giving in to the moment myself, and so turning the tables, using my magic to pleasure her beyond her capacity for reason, there was little I could do to stop her from doing as she liked.

How dreadful~.

Regrettably, she set me down with a knowing look.

"Let's hurry back, then."

I didn't dignify that with a response.

In mere moments, we were off.

The café was only a short distance away, as most things were from our home. It was a supremely convenient location, but the town had such a sensible layout as well, which only aided in speed of travel. I could have arrived almost as quickly had I deigned to walk. I was above such things, however. Quite literally, in this case.

We touched down with the delicate kiss of a toe first brushing against a frozen floor after venturing out from bed. That is to say, with the barest impact.

Amy, however, reacted as though she had never seen the ground before, flopping out of my arms immediately, and rolling onto the floor, wheezing and huffing. Our relative sizes made it rather easy for her to do. Bridal carry was not designed for such a large bride, I fear. Nor, admittedly, for such a small carrier.

"Y-you could have warned me!"

"I suppose?" I asked. "Did you honestly believe I would walk?"

"I'm not sure what I believed!"

"You are a practiced runner, I know this is true, but even at your impressive pace we would have risked running late were we to traverse the streets, Amy, my love."

She blushed, sitting up. "J-just, a little time to prepare next time, that's all I'm asking."

"Very well, but in return you must promise that next time the screaming and flailing will be more controlled."

Her blush deepened. "I'll try, at least."

That would have to suffice.

The café, Sticky Delights, was nestled into the sort of corner location one might have most desired when considering where to place one's prospective eatery. A cross street with not inconsiderable traffic, though closer to the edge of the city than the center, or even the middle ring. There were round, metallic tables with large, oversized umbrellas overtop to block the sun and the rain for customers dining outdoors. There was some limited seating inside as well, amongst the smells of fresh pastries, decadent libations, and the eclectic decorations, but the café seemed to be bustling, even at off hours. I rather imagined indoor seating was at something of a premium.

However, if you called ahead for a reservation, and knew the right Mamono… there were even one or two rooms where your server might… more personally satisfy you, assuming you were prepared to provide the right compensation for the privilege. Such rooms were highly coveted for just that, but they were also occasionally useful for getting a private word at a neutral location in a city littered with nattering gossips.

Naturally, as the Human Founder, I knew the right Mamono.

The door opened itself ahead of me, held in my telekinetic grip, as though the building itself were inviting me in. As I entered, my eyes flitted to the counter, where I met the eye of the owner, Cornea, a Gazer, and apparently, an accomplished baker.

As one might expect of a Gazer, she had one large, commanding yellow-and-red eye central on her face, and several more at the tips of the tentacles that undulated around her body. Her hair was intensely curled, and deepest blue, while her skin had a sort of deadened, ashen greyish-white color to it, excepting where it was covered by the bizarre tar that was common to her species. I wasn't entirely certain what the compound actually was. She was wearing an apron that said 'Watched pots do boil, turns out', and she gave me a nod, several of her eyes turning to look towards a set of stairs that led up, presumably to the private room.

I felt a shudder run through me as she fluttered her eye at me and said, "Let me know if you need anythin', hun."

It used to be that I might not have found her quite so erotic, however, with her yellowed and red eyes, her sharp teeth, and all the tentacles, she reminded me rather strikingly of Lyle. Strange how swiftly I'd come to accept the new form of my beloved, internalizing its contours, even as it differed from my visions.

"I'll do just that," I replied to her, not unkindly, as I led Amy up and out of the hustle and bustle.

Inside the marked door atop the stairs, we found a small, cozy room, done in reds and dimly lit. Incense burned from several wells, and the swirls of smoke tickled pleasantly at my senses. Central to the room was a fairly large booth filling nearly the entirety of the space, a table with plush seating surrounding it on three sides. A casual inspection quickly revealed the table was fitted with a mechanism that could be lowered, and the seats on either side reclined, such that the whole affair would swiftly become a well-cushioned bed with only the barest effort.

Clever functionality, but not necessary this day.

Taking in the arrangement of the room, a debate raged in my head. Shall I sit facing the door, for the best first impression, or sit facing the empty seat, to position myself opposite our yet-to-arrive third party?

...Mmm. Of course.

What truly set a terrifying Mamono apart from a mere brutish monster was all a matter of…

Presentation.

"Amy, darling? You remember when you requested I warn you before any more magical mischief?"

"Ah… yeah?"

"I am warning you now, I intend to perpetrate shenanigans. You will need to be prepared and remain calm. It would not do to show weakness before our guest."

"...Ah." She sounded far less excited to be out and about than she had previous. I would never understand how some people could be so ungrateful when I had gone to such lengths to consider their needs.

I took the space directly across from the door, and settled in to wait.

We were snacking on pastries, rather creatively filled, when I heard the steps climbing the stairs.

I looked to Amy. "She arrives. Remember, prepare yourself."

"Shenanigans, right?" She shimmied her body a little, taking a deep breath and tensing herself, before pulling her red-tinted goggles down from underneath her bangs, where they usually remained hidden.

She closed her eyes as they slid into place, resting on her nose, clamped tightly onto her face. I watched in fascination as she opened her eyes again and her pupils immediately narrowed to pinpricks. A shudder overtook her, and a thick raspy gasp, almost a snort, ripped out of her abruptly. Her left hoof stomped once, twice, and, muscles tensed and bulging, Fran slid into place where Amy had been only moments before.

"Ready." The confidence with which she wielded her deep, bassy voice was a sight to behold. Amy herself had come a long way from the frightened woman living in a cardboard box, but Fran was almost another creature entirely, and one I'd be certain to make time for after this meeting was over.

I nodded to her, my gaze lining back up with the door just before it opened.

"Hello, Thagolynn."

The Dragon met my gaze with the casual sneer of one who believed themselves to be above all but those who proved otherwise. A dangerous attitude. One that subtly led to complacency, and ultimately, the bearer's undoing.

I smile widely, my mouth far wider than a normal human's, and filled with many more teeth.

"Welcome to my parlor."

 

[The_Letter_K]

Thagolynn merely scoffed at my greeting. It would take more to rattle her than something so simple, but it was a matter of setting a tone. One did not casually address a Dragon, every move was necessarily calculated.

"You said Charlotte would be here."

Direct.

"I said no such thing. I merely stated I would assist you in your designs to see her again." I gestured to the empty side of the booth. "Please, sit."

Thagolynn stood there a moment, meeting my gaze and glancing at Fran, who was watching her cautiously. Perhaps I should have mentioned to her who we would be meeting? I'd acted without thought, seeing her mood. I did not regret cheering her, but this situation was perhaps out of her league, in truth.

Finally, she moved, crossing the admittedly small distance between the door and table in scarcely a blink, swirling the incense as it hung in the air, the rush of oxygen from outside trailing behind her and briefly stoking the flames even higher in their cradles.

She reached across the table, taking a pastry not from the pile in the center, but from my plate.

I frowned.

Quite rude.

She slid into the booth with casual disregard, and forced the seat into a slight recline, putting one leg up onto the table with a loud *thunk*, just as the door swung closed with its own loud slam. She made no effort to cover her mouth as she chewed, loudly and obnoxiously devouring the simple treat, the frosting and the 'frosting' dripping messily down her chin.

"So," she said, lips smacking, "what are you gonna do for me, then?"

She used her large tail to snag another of the treats from the table, her gluttonous pace having already polished off the first. She leaned back, stretching, showing off her chest, and more crucially…

Closing her eyes.

The moment the room left her view, my magic flared, and Fran's eyes widened as she and I suddenly switched places.

Teleportation.

But more, to remotely teleport another was no casual matter. However, neither was I a casual woman. Why settle for merely making a good first impression or sitting across from our guest when I could have both?

Am I not Faust von Frankenstein?

Do I not deserve it all?

Thagolynn opened her eyes only an instant later, but the world had changed, and her eyes flitted back and forth between myself and Fran.

Neither of us so much as blinked. I would have to ensure Fran was rewarded for her composure later.

Thagolynn took her foot down off the table, her tail snaking out of the booth as she sat up in a much more aggressive and wary manner, her shoulders broadly splayed. Crude though she may have been, she was no fool. Such a casual display of my power was best not ignored.

She opened her mouth and I cut her off before she could speak.

"I have heard of your activities, stalking through the city, hunting for Charlotte, even, at times, violently seeking her." I said, "Mamono have been seriously injured. Before I help you, I would know… what reasoning do you put forward?"

She growled. " I don't have to justify myself to you, bitch. You're sitting there with Fran Tastic, or did you think I wouldn't recognize her?"

She turned to Fran, and Fran met her eyes with a hardened gaze, no sign of the kindness I'd always associated with her.

"You're just as bad," Thagolynn continued, "running around and beating on people like an animal, wrestling them to the ground and forcefeeding them your tits. 'I just want to be loved!' Boo-fucking-hoo. You were driven out of town for damn good reason, you're a nuisance."

Fran clenched her fist. "I AM loved, creature. Love freely given. I was wrong, doing what I did, but it was driven by that instinct that drives us all. I regret not finding better outlets, even knowing how few options I had, how far into madness the need had driven me. It's true I should face justice for that, and I may yet still. You, though? You are merely a thug, and a proud one, if Faust speaks true."

Thagolynn scoffed, rolling her eyes.

I fought back my urge to flatten her then and there. I might have done it regardless, but for Fran. I had no qualms about what I planned to do, but if I wished to do it unhindered by a woman I admittedly rather... well, that is to say, a woman I liked... then I would need to perform a bit more of this ridiculous theatre.

I cleared my throat, calling Thagolynn's attention back to me.

"Nevertheless, if you wish for my assistance, you will pay my price, regardless of your opinions on the matter, or indeed, on myself and my companion." I said, calmly. "Now… Elucidate."

She sneered at me, but her need for this hunt of hers drove her more than her pride, and she begrudgingly replied, words dragged out like a ship caught and reeled in on mere fishing line.

"I. Want. A. Rematch." She said, and I was immediately disappointed. So dreadfully predictable. Was there not even a single novel thought in her head? She leaned forward, hunching over the table, forearms flat against it, fists clenched, and she glared at me. That is, more purposefully than she had been already. "She cheated somehow. I'm the best warrior in Morningwood. I earned that title. She's nothing. Nothing except a cheat. I'll prove it."

I exhaled sharply through my nose. Mamono bled for this idiocy.

"Charlotte will not see you. She does not have time for such petty concerns." I said, and her expression immediately turned thunderous.

"So why the fuck am I here then?" She said, and rather grumpily, it should be said. "You're no use if you won't give her to me."

"Giving her to you isn't what I have in mind, no." I replied.

She stood from the table.

"That doesn't mean I cannot help you accomplish your goal, however."

She did not seem to listen, walking further towards the door.

"Whatever, bitch, I don't need this shit."

"I did not say we were done, Thagolynn. At the very least there is still the matter of what you owe me for this meeting."

"Wait." Fran stood, walking towards her, arm outstretched, but she was no match for the speed of a Dragon.

"Fuck off." Thagolynn turned the handle, and walked out the door, closing it behind her.

Fran turned to me, expression apologetic. "What a foul cretin. Apologies, fair Faust, I could not stop her."

I smiled at her. "No fault of yours, my nemesis, it is widely known Dragons are near the pinnacle of Mamonodom."

I heard her as she walked down the hallway and towards the stairs.

"But only near."

Her heavy footsteps tromped down the stairs, clearly heard even through the walls and over the hustle and bustle below, the floor shaking slightly with each impact.

And...

Just before her foot touched the floor of the café...

She found herself again in the room.

Thagolynn's eyes widened, and she looked around confused, before her gaze settled on me.

Dragons are normally quite resistant to even simple magic, and teleportation is hardly simple.

Frankly, I don't care.

"I did not say we were done, Thagolynn."

She leapt at me.

She found herself again in the room.

Her gaze whipped around wildly, then she suddenly leapt for Fran.

She found herself again in the room.

"Sit down, Thagolynn."

"What the fuck is this?" She asked, puffing herself up, doing her best to intimidate me as she moved towards the table much more slowly, aggressively.

It appeared she still did not understand the situation.

"I am helping you reunite with Charlotte. R̐͏̤ȩ̹̉j̘̍͜o̝ͯ͡î͏̠c̝͂͠e̹̾͢."

Another flex of will, and she was suddenly seated at the table once more. She tried to get up, but I again moved her feeble body forcibly through spacetime, a puppet on strings of my will. This time, I set my toy down where Fran had been, and Fran where she had been, so that now she was blocked in by one of us on either side.

"I have heard, as I mentioned to you before, of your activities, Queen Twinkle Star has as well. She is quite… distressed with you, Thagolynn." I mused idly, filing my nails with one of the myriad tools I kept in my orbit, not even bothering to glance at her. "She is quite proud of the peace she keeps in this town, she guards it jealously. Your outbursts threatened the artistic balance of it all. Accordingly, talk was had of many different options. You should be grateful that I interceded, in truth."

"Fuck you I should."

I smiled languidly.

"There are many types of artists living in Morningwood, painters, true, and seamstresses, but also... artisanal sadists, and of the latter, well, suffice to say a Dragon is a rare canvass. They would take their time. You would enjoy it in the end, of course... but the process, the journey to your new life as a masochistic art installation..."

I paused, letting that idea hang in the air for a moment, amongst the incense.

"By contrast, you will rather enjoy what I have in store for you, I expect, once given the chance... and because I am nothing if not magnanimous, you will even be allowed to spend as much time with Charlotte as any of us."

Fran looked at me, troubled. "Faust?"

I smiled, arcane energy suddenly roiling across my body in waves as I channeled my aura. The ambient magic in the area all but prostrated itself before me, and in a very real sense, for a singular moment I was every inch of empty space within the room.

Thagolynn's eyes widened as she suddenly felt my aura moving through the world around us, denser here, true, but extending far beyond the confines of these tiny walls, even as it tapered off. I imagine the sensation was a bit like going for a swim in an unfamiliar lake, entirely unaware that the 'water' in which you swam was in fact a sleeping Undine of unimaginable size, only for her to awaken, delighted to find you had unwittingly offered yourself to her.

The effects of my raw magical prowess burned away at my flesh, a pleasant, cold fire that scoured the skin from my skull in an instant, leaving a hollow, skeletal grin staring out through the purple-black flames, wings of the same bursting into existence as my magic fought to escape, to go forth and enact my will, to show all the might of Faust von Frankenstein.

It was the barest effort to restore my senses, something I had practiced intently, and only slightly more work to speak without a voice.

"I͝t̨ ͝i̛s͜ ̶a ̶p̕i̸t̴y̶ ͠y̕o҉u͠ ̡w͠i̴l͢ļ ́n̷o͡t́ ̨l͏i̶v̕e̷ ̷tó ̴s̵e͞e͝ ̸i̢t̀."

Thagolynn sprang into motion, simply ripping the table up from the floor as she fled for the door, but as she did so Fran grabbed her tail, pulling her off balance. Fran's grip didn't last, but the damage was done and Thagolynn fell to the floor, flipping around in an admirable combat roll, coming up facing us and furious.

Her face twisted, and at first I thought it was simple rage, but an instant too late I recognized it for what it was. I might have stopped her, had I been faster.

"A̦ͧ͠r̝̉̕e̵̖ͬ ̟̊̕y̾͏̦o͕̔̕u̝̅͟ ̤ͥ̀M̩̽͡A̡͈͌D̈́͏̼?̨̪ͮ" I screamed, incredulous. "F̥̄͡r̪͑͘ả҉͇nͫ́ͅ,̧̜̂ ͗҉͙g̵̻̾e͕ͥ͝t̵̜̚ ̛͎̚b͚͑̀a̟͐͘c̠̒̀k͈̈͠!̄"

To her credit, Fran obeyed instantly, or perhaps she saw as I did. She pressed herself against the back wall, looking on with evident terror.

Thagolynn's body twitched, and in the span of a second she was covered head to toe in scales where bare skin had once been. Her clothing, scant though it had been, snapped as her form bulged and twisted, talons and fangs pushing into reality as she bulked up, muscle swimming across her frame.

Desperately, I clawed at the enchantment that made up the room we were in, extradimensional space bound to the doorframe. It was imperative I take control of it immediately, regardless of the risks to spellcrafting on the fly, as well as the dangers of interfering with an unfamiliar artefact while inside it.

After all, I had very little time if I wished to make enough room for Thagolynn's true form before she crushed us all in this tiny room, pushed through to the cafe, and mangled all those dining within as well. It was already too late to work magic on her directly, with her body covered by her true Draconic scales, her resistance had risen nigh exponentially. It would take concerted effort to pierce her defenses now, and time I did not have.

For her part, Thagolynn continued to expand, her hands losing dexterity even compared to their original draconic form as they lengthened, now brushing the floor, no small achievement, as her legs had only grown as well, and her back was now pressed against the ceiling, her wings migrating up her body as I watched, curiously about the same size they had been. As she loomed over us, her mouth pressed out from her face making room for more and more teeth, as her eyes migrated to the sides of her head and a third grew in their place. Her jaw hung open, tongue grotesquely long, testing the teeth as they pushed through the gums.

She chuckled, and it sounded more like an avalanche than any normal sound.

"MISTAKE, BITCH." she thundered, almost jovially.

I fumbled at the enchantment, feeling no small amount of fear. They varied door to door as they expressed every inch of the interior space, variables keeping track of every tiny change, simulating furniture and interior space seamlessly. Even a room as tiny as this was a complexity that was nearly impossible to comprehend.

Should I fail, I would survive, my phylactery was safely tucked away with Lyle, but Amy would be crushed to death, as would Cornea, and any number of patrons. There was no guarantee there would be enough left of any one of them to raise. It was not even certain they would pass into the afterlife, with so many souls caught at once in the collapse of so complex an artefact. In truth, many artefacts, as each door in this cafe was its own little pressure trap, should I not contain Thagolynn here and now. There was no telling what other magical knicknacks might be present either.

No, it had to be now.

Her tail circled the room, her chest losing its femininity as it ballooned. I took a step back involuntarily as she took in a deep, hot breath, her body heat ratcheting up the temperature in the room as molten fire beat in her chest like blood.

A lick of that same flame danced at the back of her throat as she continued to grow, and her lungs finally filled.

Her tongue flattened down into a groove along her bottom jaw.

"Fͧ͏̟u̥̿͡c̨̲̍k̯̂͘ ̣͗͝i̸̲ͯṭ̚͜."

I gripped the enchantment with my mind and by sheer force of will I demanded reality bow to me.

Blue-white flame poured out of her maw, flooding towards us even faster than her expanding body as I twisted.

The space between us began to grow, though only where the fire raced, a sort of long ovular spheroid that's interior expanded rapidly. From outside it her flames appeared to shrink, warping into the bent space at the edge closest to her in a rainbow of color as the white light of her flames split into its component hues as it bent along the edges of the effect, the column of flame sputtering out before it reached the opposite end.

Thagolynn's eyes narrowed, her face unrecognizable, and she tried to take a swipe at me, but her arms were by now pinned in by the tiny space available, and Fran and I were not-quite cowering in the very narrow movable space.

Her tail, however, was free, and alerted me to this by slamming into me at high speed, tossing me against the wall. I lost grip on the enchantment, my concentration collapsing along with my body as I hit the floor, and the distortion of space ceased, but not before the last of her breath was spent.

I took a moment on the floor to reflect on my failure.

I felt Fran's body against me, struggling, slamming her fists and feet into Thagolynn's hide as it pressed in more and more, each swing more shallow with less room to move. It would not be even three seconds before we could not move at all.

But...

I was Faust von Frankenstein.

I did not fail because I never stopped until I succeeded.

I would not stay knocked down in the dirt where they all thought I belonged.

Î̥̀ w̷̸͖̱͚ͥ͐o̎҉҉̣͙ư͍̪͐ͧ͢l̷̻͓̫̉ͧ̈́͛̕ḋ̵͓́ͬͤ ş̴̨̖̰͔͌̈̈́͒̈́͟͞t̸ͣ͂͛ͤ̕͟͜҉̦̘̖͇͟ͅa̷̤̞͍̖͇̠ͦ͆̒n̶͕̥̣̹̳ͤ̑͗ͫd͓̙̰̯ͬ͒̍̾̕ p̾ͮ̋ͯ̋҉̷̴̳̞̬̜̕rͤ̚̕ͅǫ̴͔͑͢͝ư̭̤̱̊̃͠ḍ̵̨̼͎̎ͭ̄ͣ́ͅļ̖̲ͣȳ̶͕̂̕
.̴̰̊̂͡
I gripped the enchantment again, and as I felt the scales pressing into my skin, I pushed out.

The room grew at incredible pace, warping around us until we appeared to be the size of mice, the illusion only shattered by the fact that the door remained proportional to us even as the furniture and walls were distorted into something befitting giants.

I teleported myself and Fran back up onto the table, pieces still standing despite Thagolynn having ripped through it earlier as well as pressing her bulk against it as she grew. Mamono engineering, I suppose.

I looked to the woman beside me, breathing heavy, my aura reduced as I used my magic to its fullest, my flesh returned.

"I have the room under my control, but if she shatters my concentration again… at the very least we will never know it."

"Distract her. Got it." Fran said, nodding. "Plan?"

We both caught our breath as Thagolynn whipped around, getting her bearings and trying to find us. She'd continued to grow, and while we seemed to be mice, she was still growing, if much more slowly now, and had reached the size of a medium-sized dog.

I sighed. A cat would have been more thematically appropriate.

And smaller.

She was an incredibly long and lithe, yet muscular Dragon, her deep, dark blue hide battle scarred with discolored scales that would have regrown even tougher. My eyes were keen enough to see that as she settled into her full size the scales became serrated, and razor sharp. Her surprisingly small wings had finished their journey up her body and actually settled on her head, like large ears, and her four horns were wickedly sharp, pointing forward in line with her snout like beastly spears. She had three black eyes with no visible coloration, and her neck and tail were both equally enormously long. Her legs and forelegs, though they were still gigantic compared to us, proportionally seemed smaller than I might have expected. They lifted her off the ground to the approximate height of a medium-sized dog, when compared to the gargantuan furniture, but her thin body and long neck and tail gave the appearance of an enormous snake with reptilian deer-legs more than anything else.

She was also looking at us.

Absently, I noted her subspecies to be a type of Dragon that had once hunted large whales and other megafauna for food, constricting around them and slicing them apart with their scales. The Bladed Long-Spine. Lacking full-sized wings, they had difficulty flying, which was a welcome advantage, but they could still technically manage it via magic. Worse, while they were all but lightning underwater, they were still quite fast on the ground.

"Yes." I said, finally, "I have a plan."

"Good." Fran sounded relieved.

I admired her optimism. It was a bad plan.

I grabbed her hand and pulled, barely moving out of the way of a lance of fire, and her eyes widened as we jumped straight off the edge of the table, and hurtled toward the ground.

 

[The_Letter_K]

"I require your permission to pick you up!" I shouted.

Fran looked at me incredulously. Perhaps now was a bad time for jokes. Lyle's habit of undermining high-pressure situations with poor humor was apparently contagious. She would be delighted to learn that, but I must never tell her.

I pulled Fran to me with a flex of telekinetics. With so much of my power dug so deeply into the room's enchantment, I would largely be unable to manage any other impressive workings, but what I considered impressive was a different scale to the general use of the term.

I was also still free to manipulate that enchantment, so long as I was there. I was stuck manipulating variables like sliders, however. Something new created wholesale would be beyond me, but simply dialing the size of the room up several orders of magnitude was really only a singular change. Everything was technically the same relative to itself. The logic of what was simple and what wasn't seemed counterintuitive from the outside, but understanding how the doors functioned as runic artefacts revealed that calling up a new piece of furniture and defining it was an order of magnitude more difficult than a simple upscaling of the available space as it already was.

True, there was a repository of available objects in the warehouse bound to all the doors across town, but the majority of the enchantment was the ability for the room to assess and call those objects on the fly. Holding all those processes at once in my mind and manipulating them manually was entirely impossible. What I'd done instead was only mostly impossible.

With Fran in my arms, I took to the air, reversing our freefall. To her credit, the screaming and flailing was impressively curtailed, though her heartbeat was racing. We needed a safe place to stand, and some distance between ourselves and Thagolynn. Running wasn't an option so long as she remained this size. My presence in the room was all that was preventing a cascading failure. Nor was anything that might directly affect Thagolynn. I simply didn't have the power available to punch through her defenses.

Instead, I utilized a simple spell I'd created for myself and Lyle, only a short time ago, applied to both myself and Fran. Fran twitched as our perception of gravity suddenly inverted, our bodies now treating the ceiling as the ground.

Long Spines were, as noted, poor fliers, and trying to attack us in the air while we were upside down would only make the entire affair more confusing for her. It was unlikely her flames could reach us here either, at least not while she was on the ground.

Fran looked around at the roof as we settled onto it, her footing unsteady for a moment.

"Do not fear, darling. You are in my care." I said, my eyes focused on Thagolynn as she tested the reach of her flames. They came closer than I'd expected, but they still didn't reach.

At my words, Fran smiled, and centered herself.

"What's the plan?" she asked.

"She may look like unto a beast, but she can still hear us. It would be unwise to say much." I responded. "You will have to trust me, and I you."

Fran nodded. "She won't just fly?"

"In truth, I hope that she does. If she takes to the air, so too shall we. Outmaneuvering a Long Spine in mid-flight would be trivial." I said. "We need to force her to revert to her original size. She and I would likely survive her collapsing all of the enchanted rooms with her weighty carcass, but you and the others below might be truly irrecoverable as the magic forces swirl and fail unpredictably."

Thagolynn growled at 'weighty carcass' as she stalked the floor, neck craned up. Good. Your actions are madness. You will suffer every indignity I can lay upon you, fiend.

"There is a chance of outlasting her. She can be her Old Self for only a short time before the Demon Lord's influence reasserts, but locking ourselves in a room with a Dragon and hoping my magical reserves outlast hers is an unacceptable gamble, given the failure state."

She crept up onto the seats, and then the table, angling for a leap up to us. We'd settled down as far away from that outcome as I could put us without trapping ourselves in one of the corners, so I wasn't too concerned yet.

I turned to Fran as Thagolynn leapt through the air, crashing into a wall well short of us.

"We need to either knock her out, or… calm her down. Do you understand?" I put my hand on her chest.

Her eyes met mine. I saw the fear in them. Amy and Fran were, deep down, one and the same.

Lilith help me, she nodded.

"Just tell me what to do."

I took my cloak off, handing it to her. "I am preparing another cloak at home. Wrap your arms as best you can. Her scales are sharp. Wickedly so. You will need protection, or she will shred you as she slithers around your body. I will do what I can to support you, but I must maintain this room."

She looked confused, but ripped the cloak in two, binding her hands tightly.

A scrabbling sound caught my attention. I looked over to see deep gouges in the wall 'above' us, as Thagolynn slid back to the ground.

"Damnation. She is climbing the walls. We must hurry. She will get the hang of it before long. If nothing else, the room will eventually oblige her, make the walls easier to grip, and there is nothing I can do to stop it."

"Ready."

I looked at her. She trusted me. I was not sure I was not about to get her killed.

"Then let's begin. Stand over there." I pointed to a spot a fair distance away from me, near the center of the ceiling.

I closed my eyes. Maximum focus. I could feel the room through the enchantment, sense Thagolynn through the space she occupied. Visuals were only a distraction. Distractions could not be allowed.

Fran moved into place. I could feel her through the space she occupied. The variables shifted around her as she displaced the air in the room, slight variations in pressure brushing against every surface of the room as she moved. Frightfully complicated. It made me feel so insignificant, so miniscule.

I honed in on the sensation.

"The room is not big," I murmured. "I am small. The room is not big. I am small."

I focused. I believed it. Using my insecurity about my height as more fuel for the spell.

"The room is not big, I am small."

Fran tensed as a lance of fire shot from Thagolynn as she climbed, before falling again. She was getting closer.

"The room is not big, I am small."

I believed it.

Memories of being swept up in Amy's arms, her sweet smell, feeling safe and held and so very very small.

"And Fran is GIGANTIC."

I believed it.

The room did too.


"Holy shit."

 

[The_Letter_K]

I fell to my knees. It was a long way down. I understood then why I'd been told to stand back, as my knees narrowly missed Faust and sent a tremor through the room. I looked up to Thagolynn. She'd scrabbled her way back into a corner and was gazing at me with an unreadable draconic expression. I had to guess it was fear, or at least, confusion.

I felt a little of both so I could relate.

Being on the ceiling was weird enough, without… whatever this was. As I stood, I looked at Faust. She was bobbing up and down at a dizzying pace, floating as she channeled her magic to make this possible. I wondered if she was fast, or if I was just slow?

It felt like my mind was moving faster than my body. I felt sluggish, slow to respond. I got to my hooves, though, and stood tall.

Well, maybe tall wasn't quite the right word. I was actually a little short, gauging by my surroundings. Whatever Faust had done, it hadn't gotten me to a height I was used to. In fact, unless I missed my guess, I was only about as tall as she usually was. That made a strange sort of sense.

It did mean, though, that I couldn't reach Thagolynn from where I was. Maybe if she obligingly hopped up on the table, and I jumped a bit?

It seemed obvious that I'd have to get down on the floor if I was gonna do anything. The shock of my sudden transformation had sort of knocked me out of the 'Fran' headspace, but my goggles were still on, and as I took in the smaller but still red-tinted room, I could feel that confidence flooding back now, the aggression, as well as the desire to… well, to get carnal.

Mmmmm.

I looked to Faust. "Drop me. I'm ready."

I felt gravity reverse, but I was ready for it. I landed on the ground in a three point pose. One hoof and one knee on the ground with a hand to steady me. It felt good. I looked up to face Thagolynn head on, full of righteous anger.

I got a face full of her.

"Oh god!" I flailed a little, having fallen onto my back with the impact. I could feel small, shallow cuts open on my face. Thankfully, my goggles were sturdy, and protected my eyes. I struggled for a moment before a lucky backhand swept her off me and into a wall.

"Bitch!" My face felt hot. The cuts weren't deep, because her scales were tiny, at least compared to me, but they were many, and I just knew I was bleeding impressively.

A strange hissing sound, something like 'kesshesshesshessss' came from her direction and I realized... she was laughing at me.

Honestly? That pissed me off.

I stood up, and it felt like a titanic undertaking, like I ought to be brushing the clouds. The laughter cut out as she was abruptly reminded who exactly was the bigger woman here.

She let out a spray of fire, and I nearly panicked, but stepped to the side instead, avoiding it almost entirely, only the heat of it brushing against me. It didn't feel as hot as I expected, though I still flinched away from it. The fire was white hot, but it felt more like sticking my hand in an oven rather than an open flame. Was I tougher at this size? Did that make sense?

Ugh. No time to think about that.

She was fast, much faster than me, but the room had been small when we were all properly sized to it, and to me it was small again. There wasn't really anywhere for her to run.

She tried to squirm up my leg, but she only ended up running headlong into a kick that sent her flying back into the wall again. She rallied quickly, sending a jet of fire towards my face.

It came at me too fast to dodge and I had to block it with my arm. I let out a hiss as the flame washed over me, and I had to rip off my sweater as it caught fire, exposing more of my skin in the process. I could already feel the burns on my arm where it had hit.

I stumbled around, trying to get the fire away and also to find Thagolynn again, she'd disappeared behind the gout of flame. I managed to stamp the fire out, but then my hoof slipped on a broken piece of the table, and I fell on my ass, directly on top of her.

She let out a squeal, sounding much like the dog her size brought to mind, and I noticed she sounded a lot scarier when she was thirty times your size. She managed to shimmy out from beneath me before I could do anything about her position, though.

I rolled over onto my knees, and grabbed one of the larger, more jagged pieces of the table. I saw her climbing the wall towards Faust at frightening speed and, moving on instinct, chucked the table shard straight at her. I missed, but it impacted close enough to her that the splashback as it shattered still shook her off the wall.

I'd wanted to use it like a club, but that'd have to do. I grabbed a second, smaller piece as she hit the floor.

I was on her before she could collect herself, and I brought the second piece down on her. It shattered as well, which made me think that wasn't the winning strategy, exactly. I got down on my knees and grabbed her with both hands around the middle, lifted her, then slammed her down once more.

She let out a satisfying "oof" sound.

"Don't like that, do you?"

She didn't.

I know that because that was when she bit me.

"Ow! Fuck!"

The way her body worked, her mouth wasn't actually very big. I'd been comparing her to a dog, but she was really more like a snake on stilts, and so her head at the end of her incredibly long neck wasn't actually dog-sized. It was more that she took up a dog-sized amount of space.

She couldn't actually fit even two of my fingers in her mouth, probably. She'd gone for the hand instead.

It still hurt, either way. Her teeth cut deep.

Blood started staining the scraps of Faust's cloak, and I looked around for some kind of advantage. I caught sight of Faust out of the corner of my eye. Her aura was starting to spark. We were running low on time.

I redoubled my search, and settled on my discarded sweater, still smouldering. I lurched over to it. Lurched, because Thagolynn had started to constrict around my leg. My fur was blocking her from doing the damage she'd done to my face, but I'd have a shaved leg before long and the pressure still ached, bordering on painful, and hobbled my movements.

I grabbed the sweater, on my hands and knees, and then flipped around, taking care not to sit on my tail. She was still slithering around my leg, but she saw she had a clear shot at my head again, and she took it, leaping towards my face.

I brought the sweater up just in time.

She struggled, and even let loose some fire, but I kept her bundled up in the sweater, tying one of the arms around the bundle, and pulling it tight. The other arm I grabbed in both hands. I stood up, carefully, and swung the struggling ball like a hammer into the wall on my right. As it rebounded, I pivoted, and brought it into the wall on my left instead.

"Calm. The fuck. Down." I went back and forth a few times until the loose ball came undone.

Thagolynn lay on the floor, shuddering, and I took the moment to check on Faust. She was sparking and flickering, now. It looked like it was time to end this. I was a little nervous, though, even through the confidence and clarity my goggles provided me. There was really only one thing I could do to 'calm' Thagolynn that Faust couldn't do herself, one thing she could have been implying when she'd entrusted me with this. I had to use my tits. That... seemed like a terrible idea when the thing I was trying to breastfeed was a Dragon, with the whole teeth and flame thing, but again, time was running out, and she looked beaten down.

I had to risk it.

Luckily, wearing my goggles made me not just confident, not just aggressive, but also really, really horny. Lots of terrible ideas seem better when you're horny.

I leapt on top of her, subtlety out the window, and she let out a pitiable scream as I landed on her tail. I knew exactly how bad that hurt and I'd still done it to her on purpose. Something inside me didn't like that, but at least I knew she wasn't getting away now, and we had no time for pleasantries. I wrapped her torso in the sweater again, and she went for another bite, this time aiming for my nose.

She got my horn instead, and she shrieked, her teeth no doubt in terrible pain.

I finished wrapping her up, denying her the chance to use her claws on my belly, and grabbed her by the neck in one hand. I slipped my bra off with the other, and brought her towards my chest.

She panicked and seemed to find a whole new reserve of strength, shooting a jet of flame right at my tit.

The world went white as I lost myself to the pain. If I'd had my head together, I might have noted that she'd gotten me right where I'd been designed to be most sensitive, but all I knew was the screaming.

By the time I collected myself, she'd freed herself from my sweater again, leaving it in tatters, and she was halfway up the wall to Faust. Faust, who's aura was flickered off moreso than on, now. The room, was it… shrinking?

I thought that maybe it was.

Desperately, I shambled over to the wall and grabbed Thagolynn by the tail with my one good hand, ripping her off of it, and repeated my hammerswing from before, this time with her head as the point of impact. Once, twice, three times I swung, before her scales cut too deeply into my hand, even through the bindings and I had to let go on the back swing.

She lay breathless on the floor where she came to a stop, and this time there was no resistance as I crawled over to her, brought her to my other breast, and began to force-feed her my addictive, calming, succulent cream.

Her form began to shimmer and shrink.

I'd done it.

"Faust, Faust we did it. You can let go."

.o0o.​

"Lay her down, if you please." I was exhausted, and gladdened to see Fran follow orders without the slightest complaint. Thagolynn looked almost peaceful like this, lain out in the small available floor-space. It annoyed me that she had gotten to sample the fruits of a woman I trusted with my heart, but needs must.

"I had intended to bring her home wrapped in my cloak…" I mused. "A shame that didn't work out."

Beaten, bruised, and blissed out, Thagolynn's natural magical resistance was at an all time low, even for her humanoid form. It said something about the struggle that I still very nearly did not have what I needed to get this done.

"What are we going to do with her?" Fran asked, as she sat down on the cushy seat. She too, sounded exhausted, and there was an obvious wince now and then in her words. Her wounds were mostly not serious, but she would need healing, especially for the burn on her chest, which was… more severe. I was only a passable healer, myself. It was, after all, counter to my specialties. But... for a few burns and cuts I could likely manage, especially for one wounded for my sake. We were lucky that was all it had been. ...I would need to restore my energies first, however.

"Nothing too exciting," I replied. I reached out a hand towards Thagolynn and with an effort of will which nearly staggered me, I severed her head at the neck.

Fran screamed, backing further into the ring of seats on instinct.

I turned to her, eyebrow raised. "Relax, relax. Am I not a necromancer, my dear? Think of it as… a nap. One which, admittedly, she cannot awaken from without my assistance."

For a moment there was a wild look in her eye, before her rational mind caught up with her. Ah, survival instincts. Sort of cute, in their own way.

"Y-yeah."

A quick, simple sealing spell kept her blood from leaking out everywhere. That, however, was my limit. My self-telekinesis cut out, and I fell to my feet, arms windmilling for balance.

"Ah. It seems I am… out of juice, so to speak." By far the most irritating aspect of becoming Mamono was that my magical power was limited by my new dietary requirements. Where before, I might have drawn in power from the area around me, that was now much, much less efficient. True, I gained quite a bit of power and control as trade, but… the reliance on external factors was more than slightly inconvenient.

Looking around the room, I noticed the plate with the pastries we had ordered before was on the floor, its contents strewn about the room. Either Fran or the beast had stepped on most of them, others had been sullied by the slight pooling of blood the corpse had managed before I stalled it. I closed my eyes, pinching my nose in dismay.

"Speak to no one of this indignity," I hissed to Fran, as I grabbed a pastry off the floor, one which her hoof had only slightly smushed. Her eyes widened as I lifted the sad, broken thing from the ground.

Helplessly, she let out a snicker as I put it to my mouth and chewed the treat mechanically. I felt strength flood back into me as the 'filling', what little remained, went to work. With the energy that provided, I gathered up the still-edible bits and blobs around the room, pulling them to me telekinetically and engulfing them all.

By the time I had finished, she had devolved into open laughter. I felt the urge to join her, and though, as a Lich, I could have denied it, I did not. Shared laughter was an excellent tension-breaker. Something which we sorely needed.

"Tha-hahaha-that was sooo SCARY," she said, through the laughter.

"I-indeed. Q-q-quite hehehe, quite nerve wracking" I choked out.

"W-we could have died!" she said, still laughing.

"Haha y-yes, pfffaaahahaha!" There was no denying it.

I gathered myself after letting the moment pass. "But… but. We did not. Thanks to you. I am glad you came along."

I left out that I likely would have merely removed Thagolynn's head immediately had Fran not been present. Some things are best unsaid, and nothing I did say was untrue in any case.

I walked closer to her, stepping over that weighty carcass. A flare of magic brushed against her, scouring away the cuts and scrapes, and easing the burns. Her breast was the last thing to heal. It had been grizzly, but I did not wish to worry her unnecessarily. She would hopefully never know how bad it had been.

I crawled up onto her, fixing the table behind me as I did, pulling all the shards back together seamlessly. I kissed at her breast, the one which was freshly healed. The dispropationate cost to my mana was more than worth her comfort.

"I am sorry you came to harm. Thank you for your help."

I looked up to her, meeting her eyes. Then my eyes widened, but it was too late.

She grabbed me by the shoulders and shoved me down into the seat. A moment's work had the table pushed down, and the seats converted into a bed.

"A simple 'sorry' doesn't cut it, felonious fiend," she purred.

A thrill shot through my body. I began to struggle against her.

"An apology is all you will get, hero! You should be glad to get even that much, your righteousness disgusts me!"

"Oh?" She said, and her deep voice reverberated down her arms and into my body. "So then… you're disgusted by me? Even by things like...this?"

She pressed me down with a single hand on my collarbone. The other slipped between my legs. I thrashed and kicked wildly.

"You will never get away with this, hero! My magic will return to me, and I will strike you down!"

I lifted Thagolynn's body with my power and dragged it out of sight under the table.

She began to caress me up and down the lips of my vagina, surprisingly tenderly, for all her strength. I specifically did not repress the responses of my body to her actions, even as I continued to kick and flail.

"I do not fear you, creature. You are already beaten." She said, voice deep like the ocean. Her fingers quested deeper, the size difference between us only adding to the pleasure of it.

"Wrong! Underestimating me will lead to your downfall! I am indomitable!"

"Are you now~?" she asked, as her hand shifted to my neck. I knew what came next. I ached for it. "Let's see…"

She lifted me towards her chest, and I did everything I could to resist, at least, physically. However, my body was weak, no stronger now than it had been as a human, and Fran's was the peak of Mamono athleticism. It was hopeless. I hit and kicked, but she was inexorable.

"Please," I begged, my arms pressing against her as hard as they could, barely holding a distance between us. "I will give you whatever you desire! Everything and more, all yours to take!"

"I know you will, Faust." She said, voice thick and hoarse. She pulled somehow even harder, and my arms slid aside, my face pressing directly into her chest.

She rubbed my face into her tits, stimulating herself as I pounded on her back with my fists. Finally, the first drop of milk came loose from her tit. The smell hit my nose immediately.

I lost control of my body as it completely ignored my commands.

Yessssssssss…

My lips found her nipple and latched on as my struggles suddenly ceased, no matter what I told my body to do, no matter how I commanded it to fight. My fists no longer pounded on her back, but caressed it, ran their fingers through her hair without my permission. My legs stopped their wild kicking and spread wide for her, granting her even greater access to my pussy. She didn't waste it, driving in deeper, becoming more aggressive, and getting me all the wetter for it. I felt as my legs decided that we couldn't risk her deciding to stop, and even as I told them to fight, they locked around her instead, and my hips began to roll with the thrusts of her fingers.

Lord this is hot, I thought, before urgently getting back into character.

I fought to pull my lips away from her gorgeous chest, and instead my tongue began playing with her nipple, swirling around it, and my body even began to lightly nibble.

Bite! Bite! I screamed in my head. My body only moaned in ecstasy as more of that divine milk poured down my throat, rewarding my body for its submission. But my mind would never break!

No matter how hot it was that I could trust her not to hurt me even now.

That was when my tail decided it was time to get some pleasure of its own. It moved over to Fran's open breast, and I barely had the time to form the thought 'no!' before the cunt at the end latched onto her other breast and began an awkward milking of its own.

"Hmmm… I don't know… I can still see that resistance in your eyes, my love." Fran, beautiful Fran, sweet Fran murmured.

I begged my tail to stop, to help me escape. For a moment I thought it would listen. It let go of Fran, looping around to 'look me in the eye' shoving my face into its pussy, wetting me entirely with its juices. Still, I didn't relent, ordering it to attack, to fight, to stop her doing this.

Obligingly, it arched itself and shot out three spines. Only…

I began to cum wildly.

They'd buried themselves into me! Into my right arm! I tried to muster the energy to be upset about it, but between the poison and my addiction and my exhaustion…

I finally slipped.

"Ah wurve ooo," I burbled, drunkenly, and I nuzzled into Fran's chest as deeply as I could.

Finally happy, and so so safe.

.o0o.​

A spare tablecloth was all we required, ultimately. I floated down the stairway, a bundle of an entirely unsuspicious nature floating along behind me. Fran was just ahead, and she stopped at the base of the stairs, gazing out onto the patrons with… pride, perhaps. It was only natural, they owed her their lives, whether they knew it or not. That knowledge seemed to be enough for her, as she said nothing, merely nodding to Cornea as she went for the door.

I took a look around myself, noting some sort of Inari/Cheshire Cat cross wearing a kimono and sipping some kind of dessert-like monstrosity from a coffee cup which only barely contained it, and seated across from her was what appeared to be, of all things, an Red Oni Dark Mage. She was well muscled, and pouring over a magical text with seemingly no difficulty. They appeared to be quite familiar with each other and were enjoying a selection of pastries. I saw a gaggle of Honeybees, hovering around some honey-related goods, no doubt, a Hornet, glareing at them fiercely, as well as a few others. I took a moment to take in the lives we'd spared. Lives that my foolishness had endangered. ...I thanked Cornea for the use of her room, and left the requisite fee. I'd patched the room up before we left, so there was no loss on her part. She might never even know a fight had taken place.

I caught up to Fran as we walked through town. She pushed her goggles up, taking the walk as an opportunity to calm back down into Amy. I'd give her that time. I had much to consider myself. We had a walk ahead of us, if she really disliked flying that much, and likely plenty of time yet before Lyle, Charlotte, Beepatrice, and Blackberry returned from shopping around. The markets were sprawling, after all.

Hmmm.

Raising the dead was a bizarre process. Metaphysically, you changed somewhat as you entered the afterlife. Certainly when you entered the Chief God's Paradise. To be removed of all that was sinful… it sounded pleasant on the surface, but to live a truly sinless life was impossible for a reason.

Quite a large amount of what we might consider our 'self' was ultimately sinful. Pride was a sin, for example. Not merely the pride that led to nations falling, either. That was easy to hate. Paradise was not a place that dallied with degrees of sin. All was stripped away. The satisfaction of a job well done, that too was pride. That too, was not allowed. After all, worship was expected, and you humbly complied with all required.

There could be no satisfaction in obeying because to rebel was literally unthinkable, and all was perfect, so there was also no satisfaction to be had in a job well done. All jobs were done just as well, so to take pride in your own work would require a sense of selfishness that separated your work from that of all other worshipers. Such selfishness was also a sin.

Lust was a sin as well, and that was one often pointed to by the Church, but the 'innocent' lust shared between man and wife even in 'legitimate' marriages was a sin, for in that moment of passion you thought of your lover as the most precious thing in your life. That was not allowed, for the Chief God must be most precious, so that too was stripped away.

Rage and sorrow taken from you, not only so that you no longer felt the pains of hardship, but so that when you looked in the eyes of your lover and could not feel the earthly passion, you were incapable of mourning it.

The trauma frequently associated with bringing back the dead was often tied up in this contrast. When you died, the possibility space of your soul was shorn away until you were entirely aimless, and then you were divinely aimed by outside forces, forever. That's not to say any one soul was indistinguishable from another, there was some variation amongst even allowed behaviours, and talents remained as they were. More importantly, the soul would slowly grow again if removed from its bindings. Bringing a spirit back was sometimes horrific because the soul essentially bled when it was no longer cradled by those narrow constraints. It would heal.

But first it would bleed.

But that was merely 'Paradise', not involved in our business today. The afterlife of the corrupted, rather, one of the afterlives, the one for those not adherents to the tenets of the Fallen God, nor the Sabbath, nor any other of the myriad cults…

The afterlife of the corrupted in general was a different beast. Almost entirely the opposite, in fact. It was a place of carnal pleasures by all members essentially unceasing. With no stamina or hunger to burden them, those who found themselves there were swept up by any number of riotous orgies. With time no longer a factor, untold days could pass before one had the chance to orient oneself, and even those who'd died with only the lightest touches of corruption came out of the experience dyed deeply in the colors of lust.

To experience private moments with only those you knew personally was a rarity unless you had great personal power, enough to carve out a niche for yourself and exclude others from it. Even just staying together was a challenge when the urges of the flesh overtook you so completely in a crowd of the revelers. Over time, all achieved these things, whether by personal power or by catching the fancy of those who had it, but the people with whom you had arrived may be very different from those who you found at the end of that journey. Even if they were the same person.

Dragons in particular had a peculiar reaction to this phenomenon. So much so that a Dragon Zombie was considered a different type of monster from both Dragons and Zombies alike. Dragons are burdened with an abundance of dignity from their time as rulers of the land. Above all others, they fight against the Demon Lord's influence most strongly, such that they not only can return to their original form for a time, but they will also often die not only unwed, but entirely unbedded.

Most Mamono will partake somewhat frequently in each other and in strangers, especially strange men, both for sustenance and flights of fancy, but a Dragon only falls to their instincts as a Mamono if confronted with a man to whom they are perfectly suited. Otherwise, they generally restrain themselves, and are quite haughty about it.

Having been forced to masturbate so freely in front of all of Morningwood must have been a significant blow for Thagolynn. Dragons were known to occasionally submit to men who'd proven more powerful than they in some challenge or test, though it was shameful, and they became shameful creatures in so doing… but a woman? One singular human woman? Unthinkable.

Not that I had any sympathy for the beast, it was simply that my intellect allowed me to follow the chain of events.

In any case, now that she was dead, she was down in the Pit, with all other damned souls, and they would have drawn her in before she knew what had happened. Even now, her mind was being opened to the delights of sharing pleasure with another, like all Dragons before her.

When Dragons came back from the dead, that experience changed them. Dragon Zombies are creatures of pure Mamono instinct. A yearning for sexual pleasure and a husband, tempered by nothing and assisted by all the powers at their command. They were terrors, when unchained.

This one, however, would be chained.

How better to prove to Charlotte that we would care for her than to present her with a fearsome creature that had being hunting her, now entirely defanged and pathetic, ready and willing, desperate even, to service Samael's urges at Charlotte's merest whim, so that the two could once again interact without that barrier between them?

A truly excellent present.

I expected her to be delighted.

 

[The_Letter_K]

When I woke up, I was sorta confused about where I was, for just a second. I'd gone to sleep in Samael's room, and it was the first night I'd slept away from my own bed. The room was very spartan, mostly lacking the character they acquired after a few nights of rest within their walls, with a few exceptions. Looking around, though, I wasn't convinced too much would actually change, even as the spell grew more familiar with Samael. The Sheriff's office had had an attached bedroom much like this one, the previous sheriff having been a former soldier. I'd never used it myself, but apparently it was modeled after the standard bunks of Chaltéan military. This looked much the same, which made a lot of sense, given Samael was essentially a part of that military herself, before her fall.

I hopped down from the top bunk, and took the room in properly. There was the bunk bed, obviously. Narrow and designed to hold only one per bunk, it was tucked into the back left corner. I'd shared the top bunk with Samael anyway. I didn't take up much space when I didn't want to, and I didn't know her well enough to offer to… well, make up some different arrangements. I'd not even offered that to any of the girls yet. I wasn't sure how to broach the subject. I wasn't sure I wanted to.

The bottom bunk was one of the few places the room strayed from my memories of the sheriff's quarters. It had a much more plush mattress than the top bunk and was covered in expensive-looking but simple sheets, blankets, and pillows, all immaculately placed. The largest pillow was heart shaped. I had some guesses about why the bunk looked that way, but I doubt I'd win any prizes for guessing right.

The walls appeared to be large grey stone brick, sanded mostly smooth, and the floor was a simple smooth wood, uncarpeted. There was a writing desk and a small chair, both of wood, tucked in the opposite back corner. At the foot of the bed was a large trunk, wooden again.

There was a simple wooden stand along the wall holding an ornate set of armor I assumed was Samael's, although I'd yet to see her wear it. Blue, with gold trimming, the colors of Chalté, it was eminently practical, and it covered more skin than anything I'd seen in a long time, moreso even than anything in back in my hometown. Which… sort of explained why Samael went around naked. It was holy, angelic armor. She could probably just will it to herself from anywhere. There was no point wearing around an entire castle all the time, not if you didn't care about your chastity, anyway. A shield and spear were hung on either side. The spear appeared to match the armor flawlessly, but the shield had a few points across its face where it had… warped into something different. It was hard to determine what that was, exactly, though.

Right in the center of the room was a large, ornate table. It was tall, like you were meant to stand when using it, rather than be seated, and it had maps unrolled all across it, often clamped in place by the table itself, with little magnets. That hadn't been in the sheriff's room, so I assumed it meant something to Samael. There was only really one other place the room differed from the one I'd seen before.

There was a small alcove carved into the wall, sort of irregular looking. In that area was all manner of yarns and bolts of cloth, some craft tools that I didn't recognize, and a simple wooden puppetry theatre, designed to showcase the puppets while hiding the puppeteer. It was tucked against the wall, curtains drawn. Just the sight of it brought a small smile to my face. I used to love puppet shows.

Samael was already awake, seated on a small bench in that alcove and working quietly, presumably on a new puppet. When she noticed I was up, she tucked it away, and the brief glimpse I'd gotten of it didn't tell me much.

"Morning," I said. "How are your feathers?"

I'd preened them gently well into the night, after a little instruction. It was very relaxing.

"Better than ever," She said, with a smile. "I've owned tools that generations of Valkyries swore by that didn't clean my wings half as well."

I felt a lot of pride, hearing that. It was nice to have something I excelled at, even if it was weirdly niche.

I pooled out a little stool and sat down near the large table.

"Can… can I ask you a bit about Charlotte?" I asked.

She nodded, though her eyes got a far off look for a moment, flitting to the lower bunk then back to me.

"It's been so long since she left town, I don't remember too much about her. I want to make her as comfortable as possible, but all I really recall is that she liked to spar with Beeps every morning, she was weirdly good at finding us when we wandered off, and very firm about us staying near the other kids… and that she used to whittle a little in her free time."

I'd actually learned what little skill I had at wood carving from her, actually. Back when I wanted to pass out wooden knickknacks as a gift. She was a pretty good teacher, if I remembered right.

"What's changed since she left? How is she now? She seems… colder, but that's kind of to be expected, given how Sally and I have changed since she last saw us."

She frowned, nodding. "I can give you an idea, I guess. If I knew how to get her to chill out and cuddle a little I'd already be doing it, though, you know?"

I considered that as she stood, walking across the room to the chest at the foot of the bed. She opened it up, and reached inside, pulling out a bottled beer, and it was covered in frost. Some kind of ice box, then. She pulled the cork out as she walked back to her alcove, and set it on a small pile of them I hadn't noticed. Quite a few more than I'd have expected, given how long she'd been here.

She sat down on her stool angled towards me, and I took her in. She had four jet black wings sprouting from her hips, each covered in feathers, rather than the bat like wings of most Mamono. She was wearing prominent black lipstick, had vibrant green eyes, the blueish skin common to fallen angels like Dark Valkyries, and absolutely beautiful long white hair that went about halfway down her back. When I'd first seen her, it had been wild and sweat-ridden, but I'd cleaned it last night, and even here in this room it shined like the moon itself was caught inside it. It was lightly crimped, like she'd worn it for years in a braid that she no longer bothered with, and that added this bizarre texture to it as she moved, her hair bouncing and flowing as she slightly shifted her head this way and that.

Her eyebrows were a similar white color. In fact, even the light dusting of hair on her legs and arms were the same, and the sheer vitality of it made her seem to shimmer even in the low interior lights. She was routinely naked, and she sat with her legs wide open, not in an overt sexual display, but rather seemingly lacking an awareness of how sexual it was. …Which was why I could see that, uh… the carpet matched the drapes, so to speak.

She was probably around five foot six, with long legs not quite proportionate to her body, and a well-muscled build that did them favors in particular. She looked like she could climb a tree using just her thighs, crushing all the branches in her way in the process. Not grotesque, not like a kid might draw a muscly aunt, bulging everywhere, but solid in an undeniable way. If Charlotte was built like she hurled boulders into a lake from a mountaintop just for fun, and Amy was built like she could run and dance through the ocean, then Samael was a lumberjack that just kicked the trees over before dragging them away.

She would have been an intimidating presence, if not for the way she carried herself, which was in stark contrast to her build. She slouched and leaned and generally lazed about in a way that set you completely off guard, like she'd found all these muscles one day on the side of the road while she was off napping and avoiding chores and she thought 'eh, might as well try them on' and now she was just too lazy to take them off again.

She chuckled, and I realized I'd been staring too long.

"Sorry," I said.

"No, no, it's fine." She said, gesturing at me, beer in hand, "It's kinda cute. I can really see your mind working overtime when I watch your eyes. I've never been leered at thoughtfully before. I can see why these girls like you, if you look at them like that. What did you think?"

I blushed. "Um… well…"

Her chuckle blossomed into full-blown laughter. "You are way too easy, kid."

I blushed more. "S-so about Charlotte?"

She was grinning now, and didn't seem likely to stop any time soon. She took a quick swig from her beer to wet her lips.

"Charlotte, right." She said, "Well, you weren't wrong to say she's gotten colder. There's a lot of heartache involved in Hero work, you have to be trained to be ready to turn on anyone around you at a moment's notice, because anyone could be corrupted, and that wears on regular people. Mercs don't operate in Mamono territory for good reason, Mamono will actually kill the sort of people who enjoy slaughtering them, the ones who have the kind of mindset required to do Hero work without flinching. Mamono can smell a monster in human skin from a mile away, and those who adapt too well to the cruelty the job can require die ugly."

"That's why Heroes tend to have such short careers. The Chief God only bothers to exalt those who won't go into a murderous frenzy and get squashed, so the work tends to take an emotional toll on them. It's only rarely you get the kind of person who comes to the fight for the right reasons and can also go the distance. That resilience is the difference between a Hero and a legend. Charlotte was well on her way to the latter, before… well, you know."

I did know. Samael took a long pull from her brown bottle.

"So she seems colder, and in a way she is, but it's more that she empathizes with who you were, and plans to execute who you've become out of compassion for your past self. It's complicated, but… that's why there's so few Heroes. What that means for us, though, in practical terms, is that if we can convince her we're still ourselves, and not just some evil sex parodies, she'd be just as friendly as she ever was."

I chewed on that for a minute.

"So," I asked, "being a Hero is essentially… self-imposed emotional torment… for the sake of what you really, honestly believe is right?"

Samael's eyes softened, "Kinda, yeah." She took another drink.

"But…" I said, "Even if she probably wants to be wrong about how things work, if convincing her she is were easy it'd already have happened ages ago."

She nodded, her expression troubled. "As for more personal stuff? What she likes and dislikes, things to use to get her to open up…?"

I perked up. This was all hopefully going to be a lot lighter than… all of that had been just now.

"Well, she still whittles, that I can tell you. She actually handcrafts all of the miniatures we use to plan out our movements." She gestured to the odd, ornate table. "I think it calms her down. She picks up sticks, rocks, plants, anything she can use to make her little dolls."

She paused.

"Um, don't call them dolls. She doesn't like that. ...Oh! And bugs!" She said.

"Bugs?" I asked, confused.

"Yeah…" She sighed dreamily, "we used to go hunting for them out in the fields at night. She knows a lot about nature in general, but bugs especially. She uses them for their shells to make the armor for her troops. I used to lie there listening to her talk for hours about the little critters, and other odd things she'd find. The tiniest aspects of Creation I'd just have overlooked were fascinating to her, and I felt closer to the Chief as I learned more about the obscure part of our world through Charlotte's excited whispers…"

Her expression fell. "She won't go out with me anymore, though. Not like this. Says it's not safe. She's probably right, too. I'd never hurt her, but when I imagine us out under the moonlight, crawling around in the grass, I do start to think about… well. But she's not interested, and I taught her too well. I can't outfight her, we're too evenly matched, and I could never attack her anyway."

She shook herself out of it, taking another drink.

"You could also try making your home more defensible? It might set her at ease, a little. She never slept well unless we were somewhere well fortified. She could never turn off the part of her brain that was looking for ways she might be attacked. Getting her some combat gear, letting her modify and train with it would be good for the same reasons."

"She modifies her own gear?" I asked.

"Yeah, she's actually one of the better runesmiths in Chalté. She's a huge nerd for that stuff, but she doesn't show it. Last thing, off the top of my head? Don't ever challenge her to games of chance."

"Uh… why? I mean I wasn't planning on it, but does she cheat or something?"

Samael laughed again, "No, she's absolutely terrible at them, and a very sore loser. I caught her in an alleyway once, she'd snuck off to play an illicit game of dice. She lost money faster than anyone I've ever seen, and when she was dry, she got so mad they gave her all her money back just to calm her down. She's… not used to losing, I guess."

"Thanks," I said. "Hopefully that helps. I'd never have gotten a quarter of that out of her if I had all month, with the way she's acting."

"She's stubborn," Samael said, smiling, looking off into the distance. "I've never seen her give up even once. It's why she was such a damn effective Hero."

Her expression soured.

"It's a little more annoying on the other side of it, though. There's a such thing as being too hard to get."

There was a knock at the door, startling us both.

"Lyle," Amy said, through the door, "I'm going on my run, you coming?"

"Oh, yeah! Be right there!" I replied. I turned to Samael, "Thanks again."

She just nodded, and set her empty beer into a compartment in her desk.

"Good luck," she said, and I could tell she meant it.​

 

[The_Letter_K]

I loved Amy an awful lot, and the time I spent with her was worth dealing with hardship, but I have to admit I enjoyed our morning runs a lot more now that I didn't have any real muscles. I'd invited Charlotte along, and to my surprise she'd agreed to go, but our routine was clearly starting to wear on her, and she had my sympathies.

To be fair to her, she'd done far, far better than ever I had, before I Alped, but I'd started bringing Blackberry along to ride on, and didn't have any real reason to avoid leaning on her when I got tired, so my poor showing never really slowed Amy down.

"Amy," I said, "Can we take a break? I'm pooped."

She looked at me with a raised eyebrow, still jogging, but then she looked at Charlotte and her eyes widened.

"Oh, right! Sure, Lyle."

I gestured to the big, shady tree Blackberry and I had had our picnic under before, and we all walked over to sit down.

Charlotte elbowed me on the way over, and I turned to look. She was red in the face, breathing hard, and drenched in sweat, which was doing things to the rags and bandages she was wearing I was sure I shouldn't mention to her.

"I could have kept going," she said, irritably.

Not fooled, I guess.

"Just because you can do something, doesn't mean you should have to, you know?" I said. "This is about fun, about spending time together, not about the end of the world."

She stared at me for a moment before grunting affirmatively, and sitting down in the shade, cross-legged.

Amy and I sat down facing her, forming a loose triangle, and then Amy laid down, stretching her hooves out between Charlotte and I. Blackberry plopped herself down behind me, and her long, horse-like body, which I'd never had the courage to call her 'horso' out loud, meant that her human-like torso wound up right at Amy's feet.

She started to massage Amy's legs, which drew my attention.

"I didn't know you knew how to do massages, Blackberry," I said, leaning back into her rear haunches. Her 'horso' made a good pillow.

She smiled at me, nodding.

"It's really, really important to care for your hooves, but it's also really hard to reach, so my cousins and I always helped each other out. It's good manners!"

Her expression fell a little, as it usually did when remembering her herd.

"I probably wouldn't be allowed to help, now." She said, forlornly.

I patted her shoulder. "They don't know what they're missing, I've never seen a faster, kinder, gentler steed in all my years. They should be proud to have you. That they're not says more about them than you, heart of mine."

She wiggled a little, happily.

We all shared a moment of comfortable silence. Well, I'm not sure Charlotte was ever comfortable, but…

Amy shifted on the ground. She cleared her throat, opening her mouth several times, closing it again.

"What is it, Amy?" I asked.

She looked at me. "If… if you hadn't found me in that box-"

"I did," I said. "You're never going back, either. Not unless that's what you want, I guess."

She smiled at me, but it was a weak smile. She didn't seem as reassured by that as I'd hoped.

"You did. But… If you hadn't. If I'd still been in town, running amok as Fran when the urges and the snide whispers got to be too much…"

Charlotte looked at Amy. "Running amok?"

"People here in town didn't appreciate what Amy had to offer." I said, "She had needs that were going unfilled, and sometimes she struck out to fill them by force. A little like stealing food. She was apparently a public nuisance for a while, but that was before I met her. Now she has a home, it's not an issue anymore."

"If it were, though," Amy continued, "and I came after you… What do you think Faust would do to me?"

I remembered the conversations Faust and I had had before we'd found Amy, when we'd seen her signs, and then again, after we had found her. I didn't think it… would have gone well.

It must have shown on my face, because her expression fell.

"Sally, she… she's not always the most considerate person." I said, "Getting her to treat others well even when it's not in her best interest to do so can be a little… tricky. You're one of us now, so you don't need to be afraid, but… it might not have gone well, yeah. She's got people she already knows and likes, and then... there's everyone else. She's always been like that."

Charlotte scoffed. "Everyone always said that about her, but she was never anything but shy and quiet when I watched you two. Just dumb townsfolk. People never like powerful magic manifesting that early, makes them nervous. Folks just thought she was odd, that's all."

"No," I said, "She's had an enormous crush on you since before she knew what crushes were."

Charlotte blinked. "That's not new?"

"Not even a little. She's just finally self-assured enough to show herself to you. This is what she's always been like, more or less. Have Beeps read off the Sheriff logs if you don't believe me. Some of the things she got up to make me scratch my head."

Charlotte didn't appear to know how to process that.

I, meanwhile, was more concerned with Amy. "What brought this on?"

"I… we had an… interesting day out while you all were shopping. I saw some things in her eyes I… they scared me a little." She said.

Blackberry piped up, "Sally would never hurt you, Amy. She loves you!"

Amy blushed, and looked away. "…Yeah. It's pointless to think about what-ifs, I guess."

She looked back at Blackberry. "Thanks."

"No problem! Hey, Amy?"

"Yeah?"

"I love you too, okay? Let me know when you're scared! That's what herd are for."

Amy sat up, ending the massage, and gave Blackberry a quick hug, before settling back into the grass.

I was about to suggest we get moving again, when Charlotte spoke, surprising me.

"This city…" She said, haltingly.

I turned to look at her, so did Blackberry and Amy.

She let out a deep breath.

"It's a lot… bigger… than I expected." She finally said, completing the thought.

"Don't worry, Charlotte," Blackberry said, "We'll get you back in shape in no time!"

Charlotte scowled at her. We'd run several miles already. Laps around the park ring added up quick.

"That is not what I meant." She said, and she sounded kinda growly.

Blackberry flinched, and I glared at Charlotte from behind Blackberry's back. Amy didn't look any more impressed.

Charlotte met my eyes for a moment, before looking away. She took a deep breath, and while she didn't apologize, when she started speaking again, there was much less of an edge to it.

"I mean, it's… one of the biggest cities I've ever seen."

I nodded slowly, appeased for now. I'd convince her to apologize later. "It's so clean, too, have you noticed?" I said, gesturing around, "All these people here, but there's no smell, no garbage."

She let out an affirmative grunt. "I've seen repurposed human settlements, but I think this is the first purpose-built Mamono settlement I've seen up close. There's not much reason to venture too deep into Mamono lands, there's never anyone there to save."

She trailed off, her hands shaking, eyes closing.

I picked up where she'd left off.

"Back when I was in town," I said, "I'd never imagined anything like this. I guess I thought Mamono all lived, like… in the forest, or in caves, or in whatever human homes they could take. The idea that they'd build their own cities, let alone something like this… I guess I thought they'd be too selfish? I'm not sure why."

Charlotte opened her eyes again, but her hands were still shaking.

"Some do," she said, "live in forests and caves… the beastmen mostly, but… Seeing this, I wonder now if that was all just to stay close to people, to prey on them. Something like this springing up near a border couldn't be ignored. We… like to think of Mamono as savage and animal, sort of a living natural disaster. If you showed people… this, heroes, kings, peasants… The scale of what we're fighting against would be impossible to hide, but here, there's no reason to hide it."

"Kinda overwhelming, huh?" I asked.

Her eyes hardened. "…No. It doesn't change anything, really. When am I getting those weapons you promised?"

Dang it, I thought we were having a moment there!

"I think Faust said today." I said, "Supposedly she got someone pretty good, it's kinda nice how people just sorta… respect her. Makes a lot of things easier than they might have been."

"That thing likes her, and the monsters here all but worship it." Charlotte said.

"…Thing? You mean the Queen?" Amy asked.

Charlotte shuddered, and glanced towards the castle.

"I saw a Lilim, once, from a half-mile away. I'd never felt anything like it at the time. The sheer presence of something like that… The thing in the castle feels just the same. A Lilim can make an entire town happy to surrender just by walking down the main street, if it wants to. That thing's not there yet, but 'being in the room with it is like standing the minimum safe distance from the most dangerous creatures on the planet' isn't… it's not… that kind of power…"

She stood up. "This town is big, a lot bigger than I'd like. Knowing how close she is in that castle of hers makes me wish it were bigger."

 

[The_Letter_K]

Beeps had the hammer out on the table when we got back. She was seated in one of the single-seat chairs, leaned forward with her elbows on her knees, fingers steepled in front of her face just staring at it.

Amy and Blackberry went into the showers, and while I was tempted to follow them, it was for the wrong reasons. I didn't get dirty. I needed to sit down and have a chat with the girls about… wanting to clean them… but I hadn't yet. If I went in with them, I don't think I'd be able to wait until I'd explained, and they deserved better than that.

Charlotte also waited, but for essentially the opposite reason. We sat down around the table too, the hammer's head flashing occasionally with the blue lines of light hidden across its surface. Beeps had built a little stand for it, so that the head of it was off the table, which she must have designed herself. The hammer wasn't exactly standard. The cube looked pretty well stuck in place, but the hammer had been essentially constructed around it, almost like a metal net, and its handle stuck off the back kind of awkwardly, with a counterweight to try to balance it.

Whatever the cube was made of, it must be awfully sturdy to be worth all the trouble, and for a craftsman to use such a frankly ugly tool.

The flashing lights stopped for a significant period, and that was when Beeps began to sing.

I'd heard her sing once before, back at the cave, but this was different. For one, her song there had been very, very simple, for another, it had been in a language I understood. This was complicated, nuanced, emotional, and completely impenetrable.

Her voice was magical, and even though I couldn't understand it, I could hear the frustration in her song, the desperation, and the passion that had always been missing from her voice when we spoke, excluding the brief times recently she'd been able to express herself more clearly.

Whatever she was saying to the hammer, she really meant it.

"Beeps," I said, when she stopped for a moment, "are you okay?"

She looked at me, and said, "Affirmative," before turning back to the hammer again. Once she did, it began to flash once more, and she watched it intently.

I did too, trying to discern some meaning from it.

Which is why we were both surprised when Akubra put a miniaturized sunhat on the head of the hammer with an aire of finality.

"Much better," she said.

Charlotte, Beeps, and myself all stared at her for a moment before looking back at the hammer.

"It actually is kinda cute," I said. "In a weird way."

Beeps looked at me, then at the hat, then at Akubra.

"Humanizing," she said. She didn't make to remove the hat, so I guess it was settled.

"I… can't believe I'm offering this," Charlotte said, "but Samael could probably make a matching outfit for the… hammer… if you asked."

I looked at her. She looked vaguely disturbed, like Beeps was whenever she saw me enjoy Sally's cooking. Cooperating with our nonsense clearly didn't sit well with her.

…But it was for Beeps.

Speaking of whom, she got up almost immediately after Charlotte spoke. She sang a quick song at the hammer, and walked off to Samael's room.

Huh.

"Thanks for that," I said to Charlotte. "It's not everyday someone manages to do something she appreciates, and… I think that suggestion was a big deal to her."

Charlotte just sat there silently for a moment, after which she nodded once.

Something struck me. "You too, Akubra. I really appreciate it, that was thoughtful."

She nodded too, eyes distant as always. She was looking vaguely in Charlotte's direction.

"Mmm. Lady knight, your bandages need changing, I think. Their odor is nearly as ferocious a presence as yourself." She spoke in a sort of chiding, playful way. It might be that was as stern as she could get, honestly. I'd never heard her raise her voice. She was… serene. I involuntarily remembered the way it felt to cradle her body, both as a bath, and as an impromptu chair. I hoped she'd sit on me again.

Her hips shifted subtly but suggestively.

I tried to be mad she was probably toying with me. I failed, partly because the idea she was somehow reacting to my thoughts or urges was both unproven and horrifying, partly because I was way too into it, honestly.

Ugh. Anyway, telling Charlotte she stank was a little rude, but I was half-tempted to do it myself, honestly, so I was prepared to forgive and forget.

Charlotte seemed to agree, a single sniff souring her expression.

"True. Unfortunately, beyond that ridiculous bra armor, I don't have any other clothes."

I lurched toward Charlotte before I could stop myself, and wound up flopping down onto the table as I fought to hold myself back.

There was a pregnant silence.

"Sorry," I said, "I uh… I tripped."

Given that I'd been sitting down I don't think anyone had been convinced by that, but thankfully we moved on. Charlotte hadn't been told the specifics of my clothes and their special properties, so with any luck she had no idea what I'd almost done to her on instinct. Or… at least less of an idea.

At least I didn't splash myself.

"You can probably use a blanket or something as a robe," I ground out reluctantly.

Charlotte made a grunt acknowledging the point, and left to her room, but her eyes didn't ever entirely leave me until she closed the door.

She knows I'm clothes, I realized, horrified.

I let out a small whimper. This was a lot harder than I'd hoped it'd be.

Frustrated, I turned to Akubra.

"You did that on purpose," I accused.

She just smiled at me, lightly.

"I wonder… do we have a laundry room, Lyle? My clothes clean themselves, you see, I've never needed to look. If not, I suppose we'll need some other way to clean them…"

I started breathing heavily.

"Perhaps," she said, "Perhaps Beepatrice has an idea or two? I shall go ask."

I was shaking.

She turned and started to walk towards Samael's room.

Slowly.

Tortuously.

It felt like my body was screaming.

No.

No!

"NO!" I yelled, standing up suddenly.

Akubra turned around. "No?"

"I-I'll make sure they get c-c-clean. N-no need to bother her!" My breath hitched at random. I felt so hot.

I was dripping wet.

Akubra walked towards me, and gave me a gentle hug, stroking my back.

"Okay, Lyle. Whatever you like is fine."

It's… it's fine? It's fine if I like it?

I let out a surprised sob. Suddenly I was hugging her back, gripping her tight.

"Th-thank you." I wasn't sure why I was thanking her.

She kissed my forehead, and we both let go.

By the time Charlotte came back out of her room, covered in a few sheets creatively tied to keep her modesty, I'd collected myself and Akubra had gone.

"Where's your laundry?" Charlotte asked.

"I'll get it," I said. "You go ahead. I should check with Faust, make sure they don't need special treatment. Take your time, I'll have them clean before you're done."

She shrugged. "Alright, makes sense."

She tossed me the wraps.

I caught them and stood.

Perfectly.

Still.

Thankfully, it wasn't long before she was out of sight, into the bathroom, and I heard the doors of one of the private baths lock.

Carefully, calmly, I walked towards my room.

The smell was both rancid, in my memories, my associations, my expectations, and deeply, erotically appealing, in my present, in my arms, in my whole body please right now!

I hadn't realized that the split existed until I finally touched them, but I'd been victim to it all along.

I closed the door behind me.

Cautiously, delicately, I walked into the closet the room had provided me on its creation, the one that had once held a small, private bed.

Our new laundry room.

I locked the door behind me.

Then I let go.

 

[The_Letter_K]

It was a good thing I'd locked the door. If someone had stumbled in on me I'm not sure what they'd have thought. I think I only came out of it because I'd told Charlotte I'd be done before she'd gotten herself clean. I peeled myself down off the walls, the ceiling, and out of the corners of the room. Retracted the strands of slime which crisscrossed the room like spider webs as my central core lowered to the floor from where it'd been suspended in the middle of the room.

As I did, I lost the innumerable mouths and eyes which had coated every surface of the room, all of them draining away into my body. The mouths were fine, I guess, but I immediately missed each eye as it vanished and my sight covered less of the room. Slowly, my humanoid form rose up out of the mushy lump, unsteadily at first, limbs failing to form and glopping down into the morass. Not out of confusion, or difficulty, but from an earnest desire for more.

As I finally filled out and my clothes reestablished themselves, I looked around for the wrappings. Where had I set them down?

I hadn't, of course.

They were still inside me.

I argued with myself for what felt like forever, and finally mustered the will to let them out.

Out my…

…Vagina.

I couldn't even bring myself to be frustrated with what my subconscious had done; I was too excited by the sensations. I lightly tugged at labyrinthine strands of fabric, untangling them and slowly, sensuously sliding them out of me and pleasuring myself with them at the same time.

I felt the opposite ends of the bandages twirling around and untangling in my away-place, the strips of cloth coming out silky smooth like they'd freshly pressed. It felt a bit like swimming in heavy robes, but so much more specific and intimate. I slithered tiny hooks of ooze out of every stich as I gently, insistently led them out, fighting imaginary muscles designed to pull in and caress, to never let go.

By the time I'd fully separated them, enduring the soft, silky friction all the while, I'd orgasmed twice. I'd never had such a clear opportunity to cherish the fact that even my cum was really just more slime, easily cleaned out of the fabric on a whim.

I had to fight hard not to leave any inside the stitching.

It couldn't hurt to leave a little, though? Just to make sure they stay in good repair?

No, no. It'd be a complete violation of her space.

I took a deep breath.

Then a tingle ran straight up my spine. I promised I'd be ready when she was, I needed to hurry.

I made quick work of the distance between me and the living room. It was only a moment after I'd settled in to wait that Charlotte came out of the restroom suite, her hair still damp, once again wrapped up in the sheets.

I fought not to scowl at those sheets.

I managed, I think. "Here you go, Charlotte! All clean!"

She took them with a light hand, avoiding touching me entirely. "Thanks."

"You're welcome!" I said, brightly.

"You didn't do anything weird to them, did you?" She asked.

I did.

"I didn't," I said, "why?"

"Well, you… have a pretty strong smell. Some kind of fruit." Huh. I do? "These smell just like that. It's overpowering," she said. "I know Shoggoth can be… weird, sometimes."

"No, I had Beeps do it." I said. Then I raised my voice. "Isn't that right, Beeps?"

A dutiful "Correct." echoed from elsewhere in the house.

The perfect alibi.

She nodded, slowly. "Maybe some of your... you… just rubbed off. Can you get it out?"

I frowned. "They're clean, Charlotte."

She squared her shoulders. "Then why do they smell like you were the one running a marathon in them?"

I could feel the rest of me roiling around in the away-place. "They're. Clean."

She walked back towards the bathroom. "I'm going to make sure, then. Shouldn't be any problem with that if you're telling the truth."

That was almost true, but…

"You're only going to get them dirty again!" I said, at a reasonable volume. She didn't stop, so I followed her. "There's probably little tiny things floating in the water! Like there are everywhere else! Everywhere else except your wraps!"

She tossed them into the central pool, and I reeled back like she'd struck me.

She turned back to me. "What are you talking about? What 'things'?"

"They're… uh… They're really small." I said, suddenly aware of how mad I sounded. I tried to avoid thinking about them because it made me want to clean everything. "I... can't see them, but I can feel them. Taste them. Mostly it's like tiny pieces of things like trees and dirt and dead skin. I try to clean them up but there's so many and some of them are alive."

She looked a little sick. "And you… you cleaned these... things out of the wraps?"

"I hate them. Little crawly things. Like bugs. They're everywhere." I whispered. I didn't know what they were but I hated them anyway. "Some of the really strong cleaning stuff gets rid of them completely but they always come back. Like high tide."

"Lyle, what you're saying sounds…" she said, trailing off.

"You think I don't know that?" I hissed. "It's crazy! You're covered in them, all of you are, and I can fix it but I can't ask to do that because it's so weird! It's like I'm looking at a priest tapdancing with a Lilim! It's ludicrously unlikely to be real but I can't deny seeing it and if it is real it's just so horrifying that I have to do something."

"And," she said, "If it's not? If it's something that's… been done to you?"

I took a deep breath. "Then… then… then the wraps are still clean. But even if I knew it was false for sure it wouldn't change how it feels to me."

She grimaced, and opened her mouth to say something in response but she was cut off by two voices from the main room. It sounded like they were just coming in from outside.

"Truly, I appreciate you coming out here." Faust said. "I promise your price will be no trouble to pay, I will ensure justice is done. I will not abide larceny in my town."

The other voice replied, "Yeah, yeah. Just bring me the girl, we'll get her measured up and I'll be on my way."

"I bet that's your weaponsmith," I said, needlessly. Charlotte was more than smart enough to work that out herself, but I was desperate to change the subject.

I walked away from the pool area, as Charlotte headed to one of the private rooms to change.

"Two of my co-wives are actually former law enforcement." Faust continued, boasting about us. "They are an excellent team, and I'm sure the culprits will be brought to you before long."

I felt a nice warm feeling as she talked us up.

"Hey Faust," I said, as I left the room. Beeps was leaving Samael's room at the same time, not waiting for me to call her out, she'd have heard Faust too. "It's been a while since Beeps and I had a case but we'll do what we can, Miss…?"

The woman, a Cyclops, well known for their expert weapon-smithing skills, turned to face both Beeps and me, her eye widening.

Mine did too.

"It's you!" She shouted, furious. She flexed menacingly as she trod towards me.

Faust teleported between us, magic flaring across her body. "What is the meaning of this?" she demanded.

"These two are the thieves! They stole my hammer!" the Cyclops owner of 'Don't pass, buy!' said, all but frothing at the mouth.

There was a beat as everyone took in what had just happened.

"Ah… I… Hmmm… I told you they were effective investigators?" Faust said, in lieu of any real response. "Behold, they have brought you your thieves!"

 

[The_Letter_K]

While I loved Faust dearly, I didn't think that was going to work. To be fair, she probably didn't either. Even someone like her could be blindsided, and I guess we'd never gotten her caught up on that particular escapade. She needed time to process, and stalling was a good choice. We needed more than that, though.

"It wasn't stealing, exactly…" I said, from behind Faust's lightshow, "It was more like… liberating?"

That didn't seem to be the answer she was looking for either, judging by the strangled shriek she let out. I couldn't help but notice how odd it was to see her brow crease in anger over only a single eye.

She leapt towards Faust, slamming into a wall of force that flashed in a tiny hexagonal pattern as she impacted, before springing back and trying again. She must be pretty durable on her own, I doubted the thickly stained and densely layered leathers she was wearing were adding much to protect her from her head-on charge.

Literally head-on, at that. She had a large, thick, sharp central horn that she was trying to use to pierce Faust's defenses. The way she tossed her head as she hit looked a little silly from the other side of an indestructible wall, but I had a feeling I'd have had a harder time laughing about it if it were to fall.

"Give it back!" She yelled. I felt a little bad, watching her, if I was honest. It was clear the hammer meant a lot to her, even as it was clear she had no idea what it actually was.

Well, I couldn't blame her for that, I guess. I didn't exactly know either.

Charlotte stepped out of the bathroom door behind me, into the living room with the rest of us, and her gaze swept the room in an instant, taking in the situation. Beeps by Samael's room, towards the back corner along the right side, the side with all the bedroom doors, Faust and the Cyclops near the front entry door, Faust's wall blocking the Cyclop's access to any of our doors other than the exit, and finally she and I, standing by the entrance to the bathrooms, roughly in line with the center of the room along the left wall, the utility side of the house, and all our furniture in the center of the room, surrounding the table.

Charlotte took a defensive but tightly-coiled stance, and, keeping the Cyclops in her sightline, she quickly and purposefully put herself in a position roughly center to the room, just behind the furniture. From the look of her, I thought she might be able to reach any inch of the room in an instant.

The only acknowledgement she deemed necessary to the rest of us was a brief nod to Beeps as she settled into place, making sure to leave her a clear view of Faust and the Cyclops even around the arrangement of chairs and couches central to our living room. She was leaving Beeps a firing line.

That was when I started to think maybe this was going to go poorly.

Meanwhile, Charlotte's appearance led the Cyclops to pause in her assault briefly, taking in how many of us there were getting to be. Only briefly, though. She dove right back into another attempt almost immediately. She apparently planned to go through all of us if needbe.

I guess I'd have to be the reasonable one, then.

"…Beeps, can you bring your friend out here, please?" I asked, in as soothing a voice as I could manage. The Cyclops stopped throwing herself at Faust at my words, although almost begrudgingly so. She turned to look at me through the shimmering shield, then at Beeps.

Beeps gave me a look which said 'I can't believe we're entertaining this imbecile' as clearly as any words could have done, but she still complied, slipping back inside Samael's room for a moment before returning with the hammer, which was now sporting a slick-but-simple robe that hung nicely on the stand, and had been expertly matched to the sunhat.

"What did you do to it?" the Cyclops asked, aghast.

"Her, I think," I said. Both the woman and Faust looked at me, Faust having to look over her shoulder to do so, her brow arching. She and the Cyclops both spoke over each other, neither really caring what the other had to say.

"What the hell is that supposed to mean? You better start talking sense quick, you sticky-fingered freak." "A feminine hammer? As you like, my love, though hammers are traditionally considered quite phallic."

"Well," I said to Faust, mostly, but also the woman, "It's a little complicated for Beeps to try to explain, but it looks like it's made out of the same stuff she is. The head of the hammer, I mean. I think it's… uh… Automa-tech? I guess? She says it's a friend and I believe her. We kinda took it after Beeps knocked her out." I gestured to the Cyclops.

Faust took that information on-board quickly, but the Cyclops didn't really have any reason to listen to me, and something about the way her scowl only deepened made me doubt that she was swayed.

Faust turned to look back at Beeps and the hammer, actually putting the Cyclops behind her. Charlotte and I both tensed, but the wall held as she floated towards the hammer, although it followed her some, and the Cyclops gained ground, Amy's room, then Blackberry's then Faust's lab all slipped past the shield as it settled roughly in front of the furniture, putting me uncomfortably close to the angry violent lady. I shuffled a little, but I trusted Faust's magic, and so held my ground.

"May I?" Faust asked Beeps, who nodded, slowly. Faust levitated the whole assembly before her gaze, staring intently at the hammer, eyes glowing with ribbons of light trailing away from them and lashing out behind her, different colors every few moments.

She seemed to be gleaning something from the experience each time the color changed, but I doubted we'd find out what because, unfortunately, that was when Blackberry's door opened.

On the other side of Faust's shield.

Instantly I was on alert. Blackberry's door had shifted over time into a sort of sliding door, like you might find on a barn. It gave her plenty of room to go through without trouble, but it also opened wide.

As such, it wasn't really possible for her to 'peek out', exactly. When she opened the door, she was suddenly in full view, and the Cyclops let out a strangled cry of frustration as her 'foes' increased in number once again.

"H-hi there!" Blackberry said, a little nervously. "What's going on? And, um... w-what's your name?"

That was a good question, actually. I didn't know either, and the Cyclops didn't seem keen to answer, but... calling her "the Cyclops" was kinda getting clumsy. 'Cye' would work for now.

I could all but hear the gears turning in Cye's head as she realized that Blackberry was entirely undefended. Before I could let out a warning shout, Cye had turned to her and dropped her head into a charge, bellowing challenge and crossing most of the distance between them in an instant.

Faust's barrier dropped, and Charlotte, Beeps, Faust and I all charged forward, each trying to get there in time to stop the inevitable.

Then Blackberry panicked.

She reared up on her hind legs to a terrifying twelve feet tall, and I'd moved just close enough to see Cye's eye widen as she stumbled back. She had just enough time to really consider that she'd just charged someone who technically counted as cavalry before Blackberry's flailing front legs kicked out and knocked the already unbalanced Cye to the floor.

Faust, Beeps, and Charlotte all slowed their approach to a stop as soon as she'd started to panic, but I didn't have to worry about getting hit.

And she was my wife.

I pressed on, cautiously.

"Help, Lyle, help! She's gonna get meeee!" Blackberry screamed, as she bucked wildly, front and back legs lifting of the ground like a wild mustang. Her torso was no more controlled than her horso, and she flailed her arms around randomly, eyes clenched shut, trying to find the threat. She spun mostly in place, hopping around in a tight circle, screaming all the while.

"I'm here," I said, gesturing calm with arms she couldn't see with her eyes screwed shut. I wasn't sure she could really hear me, either. "She can't hurt you, I promise."

That was true, actually, despite my earlier worries.

Cye wasn't in a position to do much at all, in fact. She was, if anything, having a worse time than Blackberry. She got hit by a hoof almost every time two came down, and both missed less often than they both hit. She laid on the ground, stunned, as blow after blow rained down on her from above. She had enough sense to cover her face, but that didn't save her much pain.

Especially not when Blackberry tired of all the jumping around and sunk to her knees, shaking, inadvertently settling her bulk on top of the poor woman.

The moment she settled enough to hear me clearly over her screaming and flailing, I put a hand on her shoulder, which calmed her somewhat almost immediately, reducing her cries to sobs.

Actually… Fuck Cye, frankly.

That was my wife.

I walked around beside Blackberry, and hopped up into her saddle. If I smiled a little at the muffled 'oof' that produced from beneath my loyal steed, well, who could blame me? I cradled Blackberry's barrel with my legs, and wrapped my arms around her from behind, resting my chin on her shoulder.

"Hey." I said, whispering in her ear.

Her sniffles slowed, and she let out a sort of pleased noise that was still half-sob. Heavy breaths shook her body. Really heavy, they were filling her horso's lungs too, and the shakes as they passed through her were intense.

"She didn't get you," I said, softly. "You got her."

"I-I did?" She asked, voice thick with tears and phlegm.

"You did," I confirmed. "It was very brave, I'm quite proud of you."

"It was? You are?"

I pressed the side of my head against her, cheek to cheek, and nodded slowly.

"You pinned her pretty good. You're a natural warhorse. Can you stand up for me?"

She did, and I guided her over to her custom ottoman, leaning into her with my body in lieu of reins. She trotted over slowly, and I set her down gently.

"Faust, Beeps?" I asked, and the two moved towards Cye immediately. Charlotte's eyes never left the Cyclops laying there on the floor. She circled around the couches herself, on route to the same place.

"No," I said, to the two of them, "I need you over here. Keep Blackberry calm for me."

That was my wife.

They changed course reluctantly as Charlotte crept up on Cye, closing ground slowly, cautiously. When they reached us, Faust hopping into the saddle with me and Beeps hugging her daughter from the front, I dismounted.

I reached my hand out, and a torrent of mouths and eyes rushed past Charlotte almost faster than even I could see. I watched Charlotte react in slow motion, reflexes leading her to dive away at such a slow speed she seemed to float.

My tidalself swept Cye up and pressed her into the very corner of the ceiling with a grotesque parody of a hand holding her aloft in its shifting, toothy fist. My whole body bubbled and roiled as I slowly brought her down to eye-level and strode calmly towards her, drawing more and more of myself back in as I did.

Charlotte hit the floor, and life returned to normal speed.

"Our guest and I need to discuss proper manners."

 

[The_Letter_K]

"Lyle, wait!"

That sounded like… My eyes swiveled along my arm, taking in the room behind me.

Beeps had Cye in her line of fire, her arm cannons out and glowing, ready to fire. It was nice to see she had my back, not that there'd been any doubt.

Faust appeared to be writing in a notebook, glancing down at it and then back up at a furious pace, and if her flushed appearance was any indicator, she was very turned on. Lord. What a nerd.

Charlotte had backed off, seeming to have taken cover amongst the furniture.

That left…

Blackberry. She was walking towards me, her cheeks and nose still red and puffy from freshly fallen tears. Her hands were clenched into fists, and there was a fearful tremor to her entire body that made the raging fire burning in my heart burn even hotter.

Her eyes, though, were determined.

"What is- What is it, sweetheart?" I asked.

"Please," she said, "Please, let her go!"

What?

"Uh… But she, uh, she tried to hurt you?" I asked, confused.

"She did." Blackberry said, "That was mean. But… she didn't actually do it!"

"But only because you stopped her!" I said, frustrated.

"Maybe." She said. "But now I'm stopping you, Lyle." A chill ran down my spine. Or maybe… it felt like I'd been drenched? It was a wet, cold feeling, like walking a mile in a thunderstorm.

"But..."

"Just because she was mean doesn't mean we should be!" Blackberry said, volume as high as I'd heard her. "You know better than that, Lyle!"

I think…

Is she…

Mad at me?

"I… I uh," I stammered. I wasn't one hundred percent sure what was happening.

"You're sweet, and kind, and thoughtful! Not… Not sour, mean, and violent." Blackberry said. Her tone was thick with tears again, but the sound was different this time, almost harder. I think this time they were my fault. "Please let her go! She's very sorry, aren't you, Miss?"

Some of my eyes caught Cye nodding frantically, but my attention was on Blackberry.

"But… I… I'm trying to protect you? You're my wife! I don't want you in danger! She… I…"

Blackberry closed the rest of the distance between us, and knelt down, wrapping her arms around me.

"She can't hurt me anymore. And!" She leaned her head into my shoulder, whispering the rest into my ear. "I never feel any safer than when you're holding me tight, Lyle. So… If you ever wanna grab somebody up, just grab me up instead, okay?"

I nuzzled into her neck. "...Okay, sweetie. I… I'm sorry I couldn't protect you."

She just hugged me tighter.

I wrapped my arms around her, and I heard a 'thunk' noise as something hit the ground behind me.

I let the warm feeling of her arms wrapped around me lull me into a sort of trance, and I cuddled up against her.

She was okay.

She's okay.

She tried to stand back up, but I didn't let go. That's not to say I stopped her from standing, but I think she was a little surprised. I squeezed her tighter.

"Oh, Lyle…" she said, "It's okay! Don't be sad!"

I nuzzled into her neck even more.

"My husband is so cute." She whispered, breathily, and I heard the clatter of her hooves as she shuffled on them excitedly. I felt like I was blushing, but I wasn't sure. "Hey, um… Sally, Momma? I think…"

"Tend to Lyle as you will, Blackberry. Beepatrice and I will have a discussion with our… new friend. Explain things."

"Politely." I heard Beeps say. I also heard her cannon cylinders revving.

"Okay! Just um… she didn't mean it, okay?" Blackberry said again. "Please be nice."

"...You have my solemn oath, Mrs. Of the Forest."

Blackberry let out a squealing sound, and swept me up in her arms more securely. I didn't really try to fight it. Just being close to her was so important right now. She'd said my hugs made her feel safe, and I wanted her as safe as possible. There… there had to be a way I could protect her without violence. Right?

There had to be.

Blackberry's room had changed quite a bit since I'd last seen it. It had once been a sort of forest clearing with little else besides trees, a pile of straw as a bed, and a small fire pit.

Now, however… It's just, the aesthetics hadn't exactly changed, it still felt a lot like a shaded forest clearing, with bright beams of warm 'sunlight' pouring down from the ceiling, with plenty of open space, but…

Well, there was no getting around how similar it looked to our living room, aside from that. The fire pit was still here, still somewhat rustic, made with piled stone, rather than anything carved or any metalwork, but furniture that surrounded it had gone from simple logs to actual replicas of the circle of seats in our main room, down to the exact placement. The materials were different, some looked like mossy rocks while others were thickly knitted straw, but it was unmistakable. Back behind our replica living room set was a somewhat smaller tent, still large enough for Blackberry to comfortably fit inside.

And maybe bring someone else in there with her.

We passed the fire circle, and sure enough, Blackberry trotted right up to the tent. Inside, all along the fabric walls, there were surprisingly detailed drawings of all of us, as well as women I had to assume were Blackberry's cousins, aunts, and maybe even her mother as well as a man who was likely her father. They hadn't been colored in, but I was struck by the life in them regardless. Faust had said she'd learned most of what she knew from Blackberry, but I'd never really considered what that meant.

Sure, Sally had likely pursued that knowledge beyond what she'd been taught, beyond insanity, even, but Blackberry had to have provided a decent base to start with. ...This was the same girl who'd carved herself an artisan saddle, so I guess I shouldn't be surprised but… well… I guess I was underestimating her.

She was a simple girl, sure, but she was also a person, and people can only be so simple, I guess.

"These are really good," I murmured into her chest, as some of the eyes on my back swept over the decor.

"You like them?" She asked, flattered, as she laid me down onto the ground on my back. The entirety of the floor was a sort of cushiony mat, so it was actually surprisingly comfy.

"I do," I said, "I had no idea you were such an amazing artist."

She smiled down at me, kneeling on the mat, and leaning herself over me.

"I'm glad," She murmured. "I used to try to draw you all the time, but…"

Hmm?

"Well, I never got it right." She said. "You don't look at all like how I dreamed."

Her eyes widened.

"N-not that you aren't handsome, Lyle! You're even more handsome! I! I mean!"

I reached up and put my hand on her cheek. It's been a while since we've done this, but...

Ahem.

"The same is true of you, my heart," I said. "Far more beautiful than I could ever have imagined. I catch you in my gaze and find myself enchanted."

It's a good thing I've had Sally in my life for so long. I've picked up more than a bit from listening to her talk. It's too much effort usually, but…

Blackberry squealed in a very high pitch, right at the edge of my hearing. If I'd still had my old ears, the only clue would have been the slight vibration of her face as she clamped down on her joy to keep character.

"My husband, your love shines so brightly, from your heart into your body. There can be none more handsome than thee, for thy love is… uh… is resplendid in thy skin, in thy eyes, in thy smile."

Heh. She's so cute, I swear. I can't imagine life without her.

I pushed myself up a little up off the floor, bringing us nose to nose. Her face flushed, her eyes dilated. Her breathing started to get heavy.

"I love you, Blackberry."

Then I kissed her.