The darkness, seemingly blackest from the opaque windows themselves, closes in. Thick stone becomes her tomb, despite graves never being offered when they were needed.
No graves for those who make deals with the Gravemonger.
He hoards them all, makes them forbidden until the terms are made true.
Of the regrets that might exist for an undead, that the once empty tower has interesting detritus strewn around it makes the former cleanliness missed. Expensive reagents, piles of witching wares, and untrustworthy Castillo acquisitions taken out of necessity fill the stone-tiers. Every attempt before, incomplete, freezing these possessions in the state of pre-catalyzation.
Hands channel to a simple earthen bowl all the never-dying rage of a dead soul. Water within should be boiling, then shattering the vessel after rage makes steam.
The simplest witchcraft, a foolish student’s first lesson, burns with the memory of a scalding, then the scream that follows which earned a chortling, derisive laugh.
(Why?)
Water the same temperature as the witch cannot remain so, for the memory should recur from the burning water jumping onto her black meshed hands.
(Nothing can counter every curse as it reaches catalyzation!)
Increasingly haphazard and desperate experiments left incomplete predicted water as cold as the witch, despite the ever-growing denials.
(If it’s not… countering, then I…?)
Keenly, she feels the bestial judgment of a hateful metallic wolf-thing leering at her from a stone step below a window. Its strobing, moving many-white eyes beneath the taxidermy wolf face drink in her escalating failures with glee.
From the length of its own shadow that the windows paint without light shining, childhood nightmares seemingly rise!
(Can’t be them! All their evil bits dissolved!)
A giant of bleeding iron, a gangly lion on two feet, and even a wriggling dog with insect legs, they are the darkness projecting over her, warping into ever wilder forms the bigger they become. Like when she was a small child, she pulls her legs close and tight.
They are the torments without end that stood around her straw bed while she begged for sleep, then followed into her dreams!
Only when the child could harm back, stabbing them with bitter curses that spilled out ichor from their fetid forms, could those dreams finally be good.
(I can’t do anything at all!?)
The stench of fear sends it rattling in place as it struggles, eager to consume the… defenseless. Only greenish sparks erupting from its gorget sprawl out the horrible fake-wolf in agony instead.
(… Teacher… help me!)
Strength drains, for the pressure upon her spirit sinks deeper!
Intrusive thoughts are like unreal fangs, and the room spins as they throb; slowly, then quickly as her softly giving self slides down the many stone-tiered steps toward the open center. When even sacred witchcraft abandons her…?
(What…?)
Without craft, there is no vengeance!
Without vengeance, there is no hope, for…
(Do I have left?)
The forsaken ones must buy one grave with another, or there is never peace.
(Enduring for so long, only the [craft] let me…?)
“Taking a break?”
For the second time, the witch snaps upright to almost launch for the ceiling. It’s the familiarness of the tired tone that stops it. The gathering gloom recedes just a bit when a dark-haired interloper with an onyx mask is peering over the edge of the room’s central hole only feet from Still.
Black-tinted glasses rest on his once-spikey-now-wet hair, a strange addition meant to cover the eye-holes of his mask.
(Why can’t I feel you?)
To be surprised is impossible after sharing the same poison by the same maker.
Still MUST know where Adris is.
A synchronization between them started long ago in the evil mansion’s dark study that was completed just a day or so ago underground in the roots of a dead family, it demands a shackle exist between them.
(But… I haven’t been feeling anything…)
He surveils the room that he’s made his lair with a quick sweep of sight, but shares nothing of that sense across their link.
“No, done?” His red eyes, tired lids and dark skin around them, find impossible amusement with the witch’s silence to his question.
When he climbs up with bizarre palm-less gloves on his hands leaving him open to bruises from the coarse stone, the witch is cut off from sharing those uncomfortable sensations despite being so close.
“‘… You can’t make love to water.’”
An abrupt, wistful moan from him steals away even the eternal coldness within that Still suffers. He stays smiling, while the assertion drops her back to the stone floor onto her butt.
An idiotic truth inherent to it, one that stabs with the growing pressure all around that feels like jaws!
The coldness stolen comes back, turning to ice as she shakes…!
Everything is dead, dying, and will drown if this torment is the sum of what she can…!?
With the great pain, comes an even-greater surge of something from outside, then within to meet it!
The scene of an arrogant boy shifts…
“Charity? For such a bum?”
In another’s memory alone does that impression of charity exist. Or maybe his impression, too, was false when a woman far above his reach deigned to kneel down and stretch out her hand for him to kiss it from the deep hole he suffers within.
With this man, it will always be completely impossible to decide if he was honest or deceitful.
(“Charity” isn’t among my favorite virtuous maxims!)
The place where this ragged, yet singular, man first sits in her memory is an inn at the periphery of a proud mountain city. It reeks of cheap wine and human rancor at the doorstep, yet past the trashes that make way for her while bowing, there is one speck of gold to be extracted.
While the others around him wear the customary, if soiled, chiton and peplos over light undergarments suitable for enjoying the mountain’s chill air, this outsider owning an entire large table for himself wears a ragged purple chlamys without any suitable station to his name. The chiton and peplos are the common garments, flowing over-dressings that are suitably humble. “A goddess disguised as us, showing me favor?” No charity is needed for a man who can afford purple dye, even if his chlamys is well-traveled. There’s bound to be many coins sewn somewhere in his clothes if he could afford both this revered cloak and its coloring. “Ahhh, ‘hubris’ they’ll cry, ‘hubris’! Those gods shall hate me more now!” That the gods would hate more a man who puts on pretenses of humility is lost on him, because there’s no pretense in his tone. More so, comparing her to a god is the highest hubris, but welcome.
He’s confident in his lean; gravity carries him instead of weighing down. As he accepts the cup of diluted wine she offers to one so low, rubbing back his long black hair that somehow seems clean despite having no chance to bathe since entering the city, his motions innocuously allow his oiled, exposed sword to glint in the firelight.
(My favorite maxim is “know thine opportunity”!)
Long, slender, and sharp, the blade of a duelist fits the padded jacket, thick breeches, and flexible high-shin boots beneath his chlamys, a cloak that only a soldier should wear.
Lowly in social graces, but gallant with hidden machismo.
Meek of tone, but obtrusive enough to destroy the “usual day” with only his outrageous accent.
Seemingly pious by the brass jewelries adorning him, the commoners’ tokens of faith they’re formed into… but one does not worship ALL of Minos’ deities without a rebellious spirit.
This deceptive lethality draws forth the only beauty from the marketplace he strode through without a care who could… “complete” him with her own inestimable presence.
“… Do you want to…?” His honest surprise and hesitation despite so many lewd implications comes with a hand directing her attention toward his waist. “Handle it?”
(Oh, my, my?)
Tacitly, he yanks on the simple leather loop that holds the sword at his side; however, the sheer audacity of such a pauper asking that of a landed woman, and smiling innocently the whole time, is what excites her.
“Blades don’t seem interesting.” Her first refusal, a test, gains a broader smile.
“The blade itself isn’t the true fun: it’s how it dances in your hand when you’re in control of it.”
All despite the fiercely disagreeing stares of her father’s many guards with their own shorter, curved blades brandished already, his blade inches out of the loop from his draw.
“THAT feeling makes it worth risking ‘hubris’, tempting the gods to watch you play!”
She will hear his fulfilling voice quite often from here on while enjoying that… ‘feeling’ he speaks of after accepting the hilt he offers. How he boldly risks death to let her enjoy the first time that she’s waved a blade to test its weight is the sweetest appetizer.
Or… perhaps he would win if he were to steal back his blade and turn it on her guards? That mystery alone compels her to imagine so many exciting possibilities, such as being kidnapped by him and…!?
(It’s not about what I want, though.)
The chase is on from this very moment.
But, she doesn’t do the running.
(This game is about what you have always needed, and will no longer live without.)
Not the most handsome man she’s ever met, it’s the kindness to his rugged smile, despite his eyes not holding such innocence within, that proves he’s going to be worth the lure!
She joins him at that seedy place for longer than the minute necessary to learn his name and his business, then dismiss him from her city as her duty compels.
(How nice that I’m not sure just what to try first…?
Maybe… I’ll ‘take up dueling’~?)
“I was fatally unclever.”
The pressure all around releases. Nostalgia and glory fades, a memory from too long ago a balm for all the pain that vanishes with the gloom once surrounding her. What’s left is only a need, and the man who brought that need is still talking.
(Why… did I suddenly remember… him? I miss my city!)
“I’ve always been clever. That’s my…? About love at least, I thought my ‘plate’…” Like at all times that this one says strange words, the flood of explanatory images rips her out of her ennui.
Within oneself is a grand vessel for what constitutes the soul: full of planets and stars that all orbit a central one…
Darkness, too, encompasses this universe, and fires out to feed it from the two poles of the black star!
(But never this… vivid…!)
“… for romance was wide and deep. Full, too, by now. That I could never say a single wrong thing. Even luck will make my words right.” Adris claps the stone with his palm, then sighs. “But, then…?” His longing glance is sheepish, then happy. “You tried to teach me?”
(I’ve tried to teach you so — many — things.)
Ennui strikes after the rush of pleasure and happiness, for this one is talking again, which is only trouble.
“It’s a thimble instead, not a plate, right? One I keep dumping out with too little care. The contents, not being as important as… filling it. With clever words, despite them meaning almost nothing.”
The memory that overwhelmed still lingers; taints itself with the image of the boy climbing off the hanging rope and out of the ho—
(What… is —THAT—?)
When he sweeps his leg over the hole’s edge, it has hateful fluid characters down the exposing length. They draw eyes toward his butt as he struggles to stand. Almost bared for the pleasure of all, it’s tempting to slap that firm bottom before he plops down beside her.
“Finally, another woman with rare good taste.” He reaches around her back, crushing her signs of contempt against his pulling in while grinning. “Yeah, there’s no romance in only me enjoying myself.” Because Still is caught between trying to pull away and also closer to him, this shameless bastard picks up on something unwanted and flaunts a boy’s body with a sweep of his hand. “A feast for me should be a table for you, too.”
(Gods, he’s hubris disguised as a man. Strike him dead now, ancient ones, please, end him!)
Her right hand rubs down his chest, enjoying the subtle changes in texture and softness between the static blue, skin-tight suit that is far lewder than her own body mesh, and where it parts to bare his tanned, flat belly for her palm to press against.
“It’s… more appealing than I’d anticipated.”
Never an outfit that Still would’ve thought to make, its debauchery which usually women are subjected to seems so refreshingly wholesome when a man’s body is hardly protected by it! That he’s barefoot is doubly satisfying, for such a man kept as a treasure shouldn’t be able to easily escape.
(Kill him only after he’s served me for forty days while wearing this! Just a thong down there!? The moment he’s aroused, I get to watch it rising, knowing I’ve broken him!?)
The idea of having this deceiver on knees while serving her causes the most unnatural shiver of pleasure to run through a witch who has never once been surprised by a male’s body. He could be her servant eternally, so long as he chooses a new style of near-nakedness each day for her to toy with?
(Who am I, again!? Certainly not this guy!)
She yanks her hand away when the terror all around her that was briefly forgotten makes Adris’ appeal seem insane; but, even his lethargic speed to take it back sees her surrender so easily to the closeness of a man as he closes his fingers around hers.
“I missed you at the lake.”
(Me…? A ploy, surely.)
That admission makes the next shiver through her painful, both for the location spoken and the bizarre melancholy that has his facial features curling with disappointment.
As if all of today, while he was seemingly gallivanting around wearing this prostitute’s wear, it was only her that could complete it…?
(I can’t feel emotions from him! Why!? And… what happened, to you… and with everyone?)
Kol’s warning, that damn dog!
Unspecific, but accurate!
(What changed between last night and today!? Who got to you, you damn playboy!?)
Inability strikes her hand gestures from even starting. No matter what insult or provocation she wants to use, the fact that she cannot stop feeling horrible relief with his arrival has everything tumbling around in her mind.
“Too busy with this?” Again he looks around, taking in the sum of the day’s miserable failures.
Still jolts with anger, a seething contempt renewing for him…!
“Solving all our problems, as always, despite me promising that we’d do more?”
(Please stop…)
When he sounds apologetic, the contempt craters into her stomach. A shaking… dissatisfaction spreads, a truly unique pain that makes her want to hide in a dark hole somewhere instead of being in his embrace…!?
“There’s far too much confusion surrounding us, isn’t there? Fellows so… foreign, so fractious, so… fey, if I use Ave’s word?”
(Don’t! Call them ‘daggers’, the damn forest…!)
“I’m finding it hard to comprehend them, but they sure are novel!”
Speaking obviously of the evil elves and also using their rhyming, the nerve of this singsong simp for them has Still ready to throw a fist as her first “sign” even if he’s still cradling that hand!
“No matter how strange these two days have been so far, don’t you think that you also deserve…?” Luring her with his hungry voice, he cannot possibly imagine how much she deserves…!
(ESCAPE!? YES! GET ME THE FUCK OUT OF HE—!)
“Fun?”
(Fun?)
The single word obliterates the design that was sewing together Still’s frayed thoughts. She tilts her head, letting the already dark room hide her mask that has a frozen smile painted on it.
“A break, that’s what you deserve. Happiness outside of feeding… our revenge. Come on, Still.” Adris shifts without care to butt his shoulder against hers, then sighs when she doesn’t move.
“Won’t you try to enjoy life a bit?”
(… Me? Life? Enjoy?)
The words make no sense, especially coming from a man whose sole reason for waking up every day has seemed to be to make Still and the rest of the women he wants fall ever further for him.
“Come out of this tower. Let’s… enjoy ourselves without fretting about every shadow that isn’t our own.”
(Oh, he’s insane, too.)
After the dog asks for help, the would-be-king wants to “play”. {Did something you eat damage your brain?}
“Haha, maybe? Or, maybe… my mentality was too self-limiting before experiencing this realm.” The completely sane question doesn’t even faze him, and allowing himself to diminish even a bit in someone else’s opinion is contrary to his entire existence.
“I sought comprehension of the universe, but sabotaged every true effort?” Curling his free hand with seeming sadness, Still wants to cry when it sounds genuine. It’s all so… fearsome that he hasn’t pulled out a joke yet.
(Why is his breathing so heavy since he got up here? Maybe, he drew too close to the source of his existence, the fool!?)
It’s the only explanation for how Adris cozies up to her that he went too far into the “dark” he wields, and especially how without apprehension Still feels with his arm around her like they’re actually friends!
His true thoughts cannot be kind.
Her? And him!?
Revenge? That’s expected, since it’s the real “living” they share.
Romance? When it’s interesting, and useful.
Sex? That…?
(… He’s so… warm.)
The image of swinging her leg over him, breaking him over the stone step he leans against and rubbing her hands through his messy hair before gripping his useful lower-half through his thong…!
(Sex is more…?)
The impulse is controlled, as any proud woman must never show lurid weakness by letting a man believe he’s needed outright.
(Preferable these days since I know what tames you, but…?)
Or did know.
The possibility, the sheer chance, that his preferences might have mutated makes her lean against him with evil curiosity. So many contradictory thoughts restrain her better judgment!
“You and me, out showing off how great we are? Want to be seen with me? The adulation so far is thrilling.”
{Before, after, or while that evil creature beyond this village tears us to pieces?}
“… Hah, that thing’s demise will be our dessert later.” Still’s logic brings an instant change in his rough facial features: Adris’ usual stoic smile is gone, replaced by a child’s derisive sneer!
“When Ave is finished skinning and deboning it, it’ll be the end of the green-fumed parasite that presumes to own this great tree.”
(Whoooaaaa, he’s fallen off the wall and cracked.)
{Ave?} The hated sign for that girl, a swishing, curling finger, earns a new arrogant smile.
“These eves’ future ruler.”
{Ave?}
“It challenged Ave to a game, you see, stupidly choosing Ave’s forte.”
{AVE?}
“Having played that game once already, I can tell you how… insufferably good Ave is at it when combining her luck and passion.”
(If you say that “game”, I will gut you mys—!)
“Iâ! A game which only Ave knows the full possibilities for, since if these elves don’t really play, how could a beast know…?”
{That’s not a game! It’s a chaotic ritual of shifting reality!}
“Which is also a game.”
{For fey existences to enjoy! Ones that will ‘drop in’ and disappear you when you lose! By the rules they toy with in order to screw with you!}
“Hoh? That explains the gathering of them…?” A fact that should terrify has this idiotic charlatan rubbing his chin thoughtfully. “It’s fine, it’s fine. Ave will win against anyone that challenges her here, even these ‘fey’ that act like aura wraiths would.”
Visions of possessed creatures, far stripped of their animal traits, burst into Still’s mind!
They are all ever more horrible and nightmarish, yet a smiling man who carries a spear points it at them without fear even when terrific currents of rainbow power crash upon him!
(Teacher, help me.)
If Still cannot dissuade him, those images will repeat with this idiot’s festering guts being devoured by “fairies”!
{Don’t believe it’s benign or indifferent enough to play games. That creature’s EVIL WILL was what pressed down on the village, not its true body!}
“An aura manifestation? Then, it was traversing remotely via at least one of its senses to unleash its Techniques…?”
So many images flash into her mind that the witch slumps against him!
(Aaaagghhh!? Stop knowing more than me, and stop sharing it!)
{That was clearly sorcery, since it used no magical formula when Neesiette perceived it! It’s powerful enough to project anywhere within its demesne! The branches didn’t move a bit, but the whole world visibly folded around us. Any [owner] grand enough for that isn’t a beast that that bumbling wannabe can hunt!}
“Bumbling? Maybe before, but…!” Adris laughs lightly, then his features turn sinister with a grin so nakedly hungry. The darkness under his eyes curves with his eyebrows lifting!
“Our precious elf is… the sort of jackpot that you only bet on once in a lifetime~.”
Even if he wears a half-mask, every part of his face that can betray his true thoughts openly speaks. Avarice, absolute and terrible, glows upon him while he vigorously rubs his two hands on Still. She cringes from the hands at her thigh and side that rub without erotic fixation, as if they only want Still to feel the same way!?
{… Adris, whatever we can gain here, couldn’t we risk less out there?}
“There?”
{In the Castillo! You know, the world tree isn’t a proper part of that bitch’s territory. It should belong to the elves and their own Modus! We gain practically nothing by wiping them out~!}
(Everything is becoming super weird. When things hunt me, we leave.)
Seriously pondering it with the stare of a rock-faced golem, some pain flits through Adris before he shakes his head.
“We came for Ave, not for ourselves. It’s her choice.”
{But out there we can find something for her, too, probably even a wind spirit to… play with in [Memories Eternal], you know? All it takes is one handsome man to…?}
“No.” Adris’ gaze turns icy, though he doesn’t focus it on Still. Only staring at the black wall of the tower, he hisses something concerning.
“For Ave’s sake… everything here will obey her will as she grows into her perfect self, or be burnt down to nothing.”
(SINCE FUCKING WHEN HAVE YOU EVER REALLY CARED ABOUT AVE!?)
More gestures seem useless, for Adris’ usually humble face seems unusually handsome while firm in his insane commitment. Openly showing pride upon it, that feeling directs toward someone completely unworthy of it.
(… One last chance.)
{You know, it’s actually my fault~!}
Her saying that causes his eyes to go huge like plates.
(Mmmm, this is the right “suggestion” for a guy who needs to be right and for me to be wrong.)
{I should’ve said for us to go back and restock, gear up more after the diversion where we… used so much?}
“Fault?” Adris blinks, then softly grins. “You have no fault for any of that mess.”
(Huh?)
“If anyone went beyond their best, it was you!” Closing his eyes and smiling like he truly cares, Adris lightly punches Still’s side. “Without your witchcraft, none of us would’ve made it out unscathed. You’re the real hero of that nightmare.”
(I hate you so much!)
Still feels her whole self sinking like it wants to drain down the tower’s hole. Staring at it instead of Adris, she can no longer even raise an argument after being praised.
There is no room for the truth with this conman, nor with the rest of the party.
In such a dangerous place full of nothing but creatures that consider Still to be anathema, she must hide without fail that the craft isn’t…!?
(I… I know we’re partners, Adris!)
“You should’ve witnessed what I did today, then you’d understand why…? Ave, Kol, and Neesiette, about them, then about myself, I learned that I have never truly tried to …”
Adris leans on her while beginning some monologue, ignoring the stone-stiff witch.
(Thick as thieves, 50/50 all the way! I… agreed after you drank that… ‘poison’ I gave you. That’s a witch’s ‘trust and care’, to always believe what she’s been shown about…?)
Within a very hidden place, while the idiotic man who believes in snakes as elves rhapsodizes endlessly about them and possibilities, a witch responds by cradling a very special folio card that she’s saved despite him and herself getting inexplicably, and uncomfortably, closer.
(I trust you… explicitly, Adris, as our contract states…
BUT…!)
[Lord of Predation].
That was the form of the nightmare that this bizarre otherworldly chimera settled into after revealing himself to have never been human at all. When he transformed into a demi-human rampager that chased after a screaming bunny bitch, he gave his only weakness to Still.
For Adris’ sake, because he believes it about himself, Still has also chosen to believe that he’s human. Also for his sake… she has kept the means to correct any mistakes he makes.
(One’s like… not doing what I subtly tell you to do for my— our own good.)
Even if witchcraft fails externally to catalyze, direct control of a dark mystery should…
“These elves are so very… concerning to me, Still…”
(I agree! WHOLEHEARTEDLY! And I’ll tell you later, I promise, that [Elves] are…)
By the endless power of the night beyond this one,
A witch who has grasped knowledge of the end of the world itself, its edges and permeable border through to horror,
Demands upon this folio which is this man’s true self…!
(Those knife-eared psychopaths are a [force majeure] in any contract!)
A common clause in all contracts of worth, when godlike catastrophes beyond either party strike, the contract’s terms are annulled for the duration and time!
Still’s monstrous self curls around the man that should favor her far more, enjoying his heart rapidly beating ever more quickly when he smiles at her touches!
(By my will, by the mystery of you that I’ve claimed, dark thing of the abyss…)
All of Zennia’s darkness obeys the will of the one who understands it, and this man’s eyes flash open with shock when he might also hear the ravenous whispers creeping through the porous ashen stone—!
([FLEE THIS EVIL FOREST WITH ALL YOUR MIGHT!])
His hands squeeze firmly around Still’s hips, yanking on them when a comically springy noise reverberates inside the tower chamber!
She almost flies off the stone step too. Catching himself from his leap has his legs shaking from the effort.
“Uh?” One stupid noise he makes, staring up into Still’s face while awkwardly bridging with his hips raised up. That one word is all he can utter before his feet launch themselves again.
He flips completely around as he flies again! This time, he drags his grip down to Still’s feet to yank them both spinning, crashing off toward the hole.
“STOP, you bastards!” Instead of screaming his rage at the true culprit, Adris howls that at the white-furred boots that are suddenly tied on his feet.
Again they kick out his legs with a bounce when contacting the floor. Adris leaps almost down the hole, held up by the witch he has a death grip on.
“You dare disobey your owner!?” He aims his legs against the inner wall of the tower’s neck, bouncing off of it and up into the air with Still in tow!
(Who is whose owner!?)
When they slam upon the stone steps, Adris lets go of her legs to rip the boots off. “Go be crazy somewhere else!” The ruby eyes of the boots shine so maddeningly when he tosses them down the tower center. They land on the ground upright, hop to join one another, and then hop at breakneck speed out of sight.
Adris is panting harder while staring, barely holding himself up with his hands.
(I… screwed up? He’s not the [Lord of Predation]!?)
Adris gawks there with his mouth opening and closing, then turns to stare at Still who lays beside him.
“They appear out of nowhere constantly, I accept that, but…?” Confused, embarrassed, and furious all at once, his emotions are shockingly naked. “What… the fuck was THAT?”
(THINKTHINKTHINKTHINKTHINKTHINKTHINKKKKKKKKKK!)
A reason.
A rationalization!
A USEFUL DEFLECTION FOR BETRAYAL AGAINST THIS MAN WHO DOESN’T FORGIVE—!
{ELVES!}
“… Elves?”
Still’s fast hand sign keeps repeating that word; then, she calms and pulls one leg up with her arm to try and appear passively seductive.
{Elves! They’re functionally children in maturity, and have a spirit alike! But, they’re devils in green and no child is as cruel with their tricks!}
“Hoh? I thought only Ave knew about elves? A witch has prior experience…?”
(Don’t presume to understand me, male!)
Adris mercifully nods at Still when she goes rigid and doesn’t answer; then, he scoots closer to the witch that is lying outright. “These elves do like misdirection, we lived through that. Somehow they… manipulated my boots? Ha… hahaha! I like it! A good try at practical jokes.” Suddenly laughing, Adris’ good mood makes Still more confused. “You know… I recall that I have at least one elf who needs an amazing ‘joke’ played on them in return.” Such an evil smile. So unhumored it truly is. This slash that spreads across a monster’s false face…
{For whose sake?} Still gets up on her knees, waving her hand at him. {Ave’s!?}
“Hmm? Of course. Why shouldn’t we punish someone who tries to hurt her?”
(Why should — ANYONE — help that faker!?)
{Anyone with a good reason deserves the opportunity, even if it’ll always fail!}
“What a contradictory opinion, coming from you.”
Adris manages to stand, his weakness a strange affectation. He stumbles when sitting next to his unrolled sleeping mat.
(What happened…?)
One caring voice abruptly shifts into violence!
(… How dare you call me—!?)
{Contradictory?} Still’s mask has the same congenial smile… or it should. And her movements remain concise, easygoing, but…?
“What is this? Do you not even realize it?” Adris reaches around to find his fur blanket, but fails to find it right next to him for some reason. “Ave has no greater champion than you, Still.”
(Ex—cu—se—meeeeee?)
{Champion!?} Still’s fingers twitch, cross over, bumbling through the two-part-gesture word! {That damned Heir of Rouvenor and her indescribably bad good luck in being that is WHY we’re stuck in this forest to begin with!
Champion???}
With indignation, she makes that word linger.
{I’d sooner this whole TREE burn to the ground than linger even one [Turn] longer here! That air-headed girl can bottle up a fart if she wants to play with the wind! Ave is the source of almost as many PROFESSIONAL problems as she is PERSONAL for me!}
(Everything I do, I do to not get baked unalive again by that roaming undead’s bane!)
“What a terrible lie.” Adris yawns at her after saying that, blinking tiredly as he slides against the stone step.
Still’s hands shake impotently, unable to form a word.
(Lie?)
“You’re essentially her witch-mother. Ave is the… only person I’ve ever seen you help, or even share anything about yourself to, without getting some tangible reward out of it.” Shrugging at Still when she immediately shakes her fist to then sign {TANGIBLE PAIN!}, Adris laughs anew. “So, I wasn’t the only one missing the truth! Good. Even when it harms you, you can’t help but love her, can you?”
Clearly,
{I… LOATHE that girl!}
Still forever settles the issue by throwing out her hand with an obscene gesture not fit for any woman to use afterward!
“Yeah, okay.” Adris tilts his head, an innocence that doesn’t at all fit this man in a boy’s body when he grins. “Prove it.” Putting his hand to his heart, Adris offers a clear-cut way for Still to easily win.
“Swear you hate her. As a witch.”
(Done, and DONE, man-child!)
([… No… there’s…])
Thoughts diverge for the first time in a while, with a wimpier slut’s intrusion failing to stop a full-fledged witch from establishing the truth.
With her hands planted to her hips as she kneels, Still lifts one up with flair to make the signs denying him.
{By my craft, which at its core reveals festering truths, I swear by it that I, without reservation nor inhibition nor variance,
absolutely,
resolutely
DE-SPISE, that mewling idiot Avena—
Iiiiiiiiguugggghghhghhdhdhlkaa—————!?}
A heartbeat, intense for a creature that has none, starts to go arrhythmic!
The thread so long pulled taut shakes… threatens to snap!
(It hurts…? IT… HURTS!
HURTS!HURTS!HURTSHURTSOWOWOWOWWOOWWWWWWHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!?)
Everything spins!
Everything within unravels!
It scrapes, and snaps, and to pieces it’s shattering…!
It hurts!
It’s so painful, worse than the first time dying!
Every bad pain and feeling and memory shoots through at once, like ten thousand burning needles as the
ROT WITHIN
CONTAINED
UNLEASHES…!
(HELPHELPHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEELP!?)
“What you meant to sign was ‘absolutely, resolutely, adore’…?”
At the barest sensation beyond the pain, as everything that was ever made from the craft tries to fall to pieces, her fingers are forced to move!
“You totally love Avenalliah Aurmaris, as a witch and her friend?”
(NONONONONNONOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO, I HA—!
GYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!?)
The second try to feel that word fires up the inferno to mind-breaking pain. There is nothing but suffering. It is worse even than the sun, or the snake that feels like it.
There is infinite pain the nearer you come to the [craft] breaking!
Teacher, oh Teacher…!
“Aaaah, there, you made ‘love’.”
The instant she holds that sign, her missing heart stops beating like a hummingbird being devoured!
“Yeah, you alone liked Ave before even Kol really did. Always going out of your way to help her, risking pain. Giving her advice on pointless things that only the living care about… drink this.”
She twists, turns through the receding pain!
Refusing to be seen! Even though the witchcraft that was breaking still crumbles once damaged. All its festering emotions rage!
The mask cannot move! Even if the pain grows, becomes eternal, nobody can…!
“… I guessed correctly.”
{gUeSsEd!?!?!?} After she manages to swallow some bizarre potion he hands her, one that tasted of only the impossibility of existence and was so many flavors, this pained hand sign seeks to castigate him.
“It worked for Kol and her aura blockage. With witchcraft and aura and darkness being so similar…”
The sharp breaking things within coat over, and the pain that was stopping becomes a warm feeling of potency returning.
From the floor where she writhes like the lowest beetle under detritus, something wraps around her to carefully pull her up and onto itself.
“I’m… glad I’m smarter than I probably actually should be.” Something as warm as the sun, but much kinder, accepts her around itself. “I remembered what you told me: if anyone was truly evil, being around Ave would make them want to hurt her. They’d also be destroyed. So…!” That warmth which the witch just now realizes was missing from her thoughts is a blessing that quietens the pain.
“In the end, she’s divine proof that you’re over half a good person at least, Cyrene~.”
(Reject this! I reject… I… have never, ever liked th—!)
([I… I’ve always found it hard to ignore those less fortunate girls who cannot live up to my example.])
A soothing voice cuts through the witch’s hate. Reproachful of itself, another life, another’s morals interfere with the witch’s.
Because the duelist was always shining, the witch also…
(Witchcraft cannot defeat the good of heart, even if… they’re… retarded!)
([Hahaha. She is rather needing to be bullied for this, isn’t she? Then, I’ll stop being so forgiving.])
Two voices split, while another notes how the witchcraft that was splintering coalesces back together or is rendered inert.
“You’re so… comfortable and… cold, Partner… and it’s so… hot…”
That’s the last idiocy her partner speaks, despite having so much left to discuss. When the [red sight of the living world] returns, a third voice festers as coldly as the rot within herself.
(<How fuckin’ DARE YA!?>)
Weak fingers rub over the neck of the horndog that has completely passed out with a woman on top of him. Two puncture wounds have mostly healed. Made by magical “needles”, the man’s symptoms and “dedication” have nothing to do with romance!
(<Sinkin’ yer teeth into what’s — MINE — is the same as …>)
([… telling me that I no longer need to protect you, you little …?])
A witch’s returning strength forces the unwrapped glob of anti-venom that suddenly appears in her hand under the man’s tongue.
When it begins to absorb, his overly pale pallor lessens and his breathing becomes less strained.
(… THIEF CAT!?)
Over his exhausted, near-corpse she “slumbers”. Wrapping her arms around him, preparing for love/war, Still plots.
No matter who arrives, they will surely perish if intruding.
(The way he behaved was so strange, even if it’s that venom.)
After a number of [Shorts], most of the “spell” over the man breaks.
(So… unpretentious.)
He slumbers peacefully enough for her to pull away from his delicious heat.
(Outside, huh?)
Into the savage realm to face possibly the same demented forest children that once haunted her during the day. When she escaped her “home” to avoid the night’s fears, Teacher’s monsters became more preferable soon after.
(… I’ll manipulate even that stupid…)
Slapping her mask when she realizes she can’t even speak ill in her own mind about Ave, and not because of any pact, but simply because Still isn’t even sure what malice Ave has intended or caused…?
(This self-aggrandizing fool is hardly worth fighting over. But, I’ll need Ave to understand how better everyone will feel doing things my way.)
Still jolts for the third time when something stamps up from the rope and into the tower room!
She switches view from the weakly burning Adris to a fiery comet of devastation that can only be…!?
(O-Ohhhh…OHHH!?)
So swiftly does beauty charge!
Into Still’s defenseless territory, before even a dirk or sword should be thought of, this glittering reddish-white comet intrudes!
With extra-fluffy, layered cropped hair held by ruby barrette, and a neck so fine even with scales revealed by a low-cut bodice…!?
“…” The furry, gorgeous nymph of fire stares so hard straight into the witch with a handsome smile full of challenge, her intensity infectious, making the witch want to yelp with happiness!
(Eyeliner for brave eyes! Tanned skin with the right color blush…!? You’re perfect!)
Knees that can’t go weak just give way, and Still collapses onto her butt from the glowing femininity before her.
That collapse just steers this dragon-fire wearing girl’s bosom closer. That hers tries to free itself from her constricting tear-drop dress, and her bare thighs show when moving through its high-cut front, makes Still tingle in an unpleasant way. Leaves patterned like flames threaten to combust, and even the dancing tail behind this incarnated dream glitters with opals at the end of it leaving the white tip shining sunlight strong!
“… Umu.”
After that grunt, and a minute of watching and sniffing, the beauty cups her furred hand behind the witch’s head to brace it and tilt it back. Then, invades beneath the brim to send the intimacy level soaring!
“Want… Kol.” The truth is moaned, not allowing the witch to escape it!
“… Good work? Do, also, lyiikyuh-aaaaaAAAAAHHH!?” This astonishing flower of fire makes the cutest cry!
The reason?
Black-mesh-covered hands help this darling girl defy gravity with aid!
(Springy!? Huhuhuhu!)
([IDIOCY IS CONTAGIOUS!?])
“Aaah!? Nahhhhhh!?” The kobold débutante makes such cute, confused noises when what’s grabbing her generous tits and causing them to bounce opposite each other starts bobbing happily. “GUUH!?” Kol’s mouth opens wide, then pinches too so that her cheeks pull in, the queasy mortification unsettling as the silence ensues.
(… Why?)
The witch asks herself this question, for she’s unable to speak too while still squeezing the heavenly pillows of this loathsome beast. Not the softest ever, but they’re so springy…!
“Hhhngh!?” Paradise is lost when Kol hops down a step. “… Nnnn… Kol… also myiight, Boss do…?” Turning her face, staring side-eyed at the witch with eyes full of… “Umu, Boss asleep, normal. Later, tryii. Help… ‘thanks’, Kol… must.”
Pity, that’s what’s in her eyes.
“Less ‘Echo’, Puddle be later. Much ‘please’.”
(DON’T LOOK AT ME!?!?)
Then, the walking dog that acts like it stepped in its own shit jumps back down the center hole, without explaining anything about the gorgeous red dress, makeup, or who did her hair so lovely that…!?
(<You’re a disgrace to yourself and all those you’ve cursed.>)
([But, that hair? Wouldn’t I look better with that style~? Maybe from now on, you should never, ever show up again. Kol might forget about this and spill who did her hair?)]
The witch… named Still lays back down beside the idiot who unleashed the idiot responsible for all of this.
(So I don’t have the craft? Big deal. I’m much more than that. Sophisticated.)
Hugging her knees to her breasts, the witch tries very hard to disappear into Adris’ shadow as another thought line slowly asserting control ponders how to answer this attack.
(It’s time to pin a snake and tutor it in the art of “war”.)