Chapter 9: Chapter Eight: Night Wind’s Iron Savor

(Kairliina)

The esteemed listener is reminded that the Analogue Ruins podcast does not contain content warnings. Please stop listening immediately, and look to your own mental health if at any point you feel discomforted. No story is worth sacrificing your wellbeing.

Let's take a breather today, shall we, my doves? It's been so much--perhaps only for me? Still. Let's mind the pace. Merging paths make for hazy days ahead. Let's give the old-new faces--old news to themselves, new to each other--time to settle in and know one another.

Episode Eight: Night Wind's Iron Savor

(Pause for transition)

(Moonsilver)

The pattern's beyond denial: I go out, I run into something I can't deal with, I'm beaten into the dirt. My encounter with Cam and, let's face it, my own desire to believe I'd be unstoppable as soon as I crossed to the other side... I've tried to throw myself into this, learning as I go, and maybe I could even manage that if I knew a place where I could learn at my own level.

There are too many power-players who've been at this for years, decades, or even longer. Beings who've had so much time to make every little system work in their favor, who know every region of the supernatural realms branching away from Earth, beings who know exactly what realms to stick to if they want to be predators rather than prey.

Okay. So let's talk to people. Hannah's been in the City for about two years. She probably knows some. But she's keeping her distance. My dolls are dolls. Wonderful emotional support. Pretty light on lore. I'll try talking to Tandra first. She's been in Metronome House since the 1800s, so she has to be a wellspring of knowledge even if her powers are so-so.

Tandra's door is a vision of gothic monstrosities holding swooning maidens in their claws, carved from white wood with black inlays on one side and black wood with white inlays on the other. The knocker, wrought iron in the shape of many entwined skeletons, booms like a thunderstroke each time I raise it and let it fall.

(Tandra)

"Ooh! Good God above, who's there?"

(Moonsilver)

"Hey, Tandra? It's Moonsilver!"

A pause. Shuffling. The cloth-witch, her fabric-fold head exposed from her shawls, pops the door open. Ragged lace and moth-eaten draperies contorte and writhe in ways suggestive of everything except mouth, nose, and eyes.

(Tandra)

"Ahh, Moonie! How are youuuuuu?"

(Moonsilver)

Point: I hate this pet name so much. Counterpoint: Tandra's very cute when she says it.

Fuck. I guess I'm Moonie now.

"I'm well. I won't keep you long if you're busy, just wanted to know if you knew safe places in the City or the surrounding planes for me to practice my powers, get a feel for what I can do, maybe develop some new ones without facing somebody who'll pulp me?"

(Tandra)

"Oh! I'm afraid I know precious little. From what I've heard, it's all quite chaotic. Pretty much down to trial and error. Erm... sorry if this is an inappropriate question... you're a demon, yes? Can you not just, you know, create a new body to resurrect yourself?"

(Moonsilver)

"Now that you mention it? Yeah. I'm pretty sure I can. But, Tandra."

(Intense)

"There is a ripping fear in my belly telling me that dying is still going to hurt, and just because I'll back doesn't mean I'll be the same again. I'd like to, you know, keep the things I experience, and not leave pieces of my being scattered across the cosmos."

(Tandra)

"Oh. Fair point. Sorry. Well, um... I'm afraid I'm out of other suggestions. I've spent my entire time here enjoying the progression of Earthly culture. So much reading, I mean... do you know how hard it was to smuggle so much as a penny dreadful into my father's estate, let alone smut? And now there are porn films and porn games--and computers, computers are such fun!--and fanfiction. Oh, isn't fanfiction delightful?"

(Moonsilver)

"It's, er... I've never really clicked with it, to be honest. Did you want me to come in, or?"

(Tandra)

"Oh, no, absolutely not, I was actually this close to my third orgasm of the day when you knocked on my door!"

(Moonsilver)

"Oh. Oh, fuck, I'm sorry."

Where is this deep sorrow coming from? Why am I starting to cry... oh. Right.

So apparently, lust is so intrinsic to my being that I feel remorse if I prevent an orgasm.

"Is there anything I can do? Would you like me to help you get off?"

(Tandra)

"Oh! No, no, that won't be necessary, but I appreciate the sentiment, and, er..."

(Moonsilver)

A silken glove full of old lace drifts up, administering three pats on the pink hair between my horns.

(Tandra)

"Good succubus."

(Moonsilver)

"Aaahn!~"

(Beat)

Warmth settling. So floaty and soft, as I sway from side to side... if anybody wanted to do anything at all to me, I'd just go right along with it without a second thought... oh, wow, there's love-nectar trickling all over the insides of my thigh. I can hear it drip-drip-dripping into the carpet, the dolls'll have to suck it out with a straw--

Tandra's door closes, just loudly enough to startle me back to my senses.

"Oh! Right, yeah, I... I'll go try talking to the new girls then."

An elf from Faerie itself, and... Arisa. Who insists very strongly that she's a necromancer. I'm sure in a technical sense, that's true.

Jamie's door is a mass of spongy off-yellow speckled with black. Mold gathers at the frame's edges, and the unmistakable stenches of death and decay pour together from the crack at the bottom. Maybe it's Tandra's influence, but these words come to me unbidden: a perverse and inevitable marriage, fertile with poison offspring.

There's no knocker for this one. My only choice is to raise a fist of talons and knock on the mushroom-door itself. Each impact shakes loose clouds of spores, green like spring and yellow-brown like mustard gas... forsaken sirens of the Abyss! I recognize the tingling of auras melting into my mind, the words bubbling out of the devouring froth. These aren't my thoughts--though I admit, I relate--these are Jamie's!

Should I feel guilty about absorbing these? I mean, she's imprinting them on her environment, but... hm. Then again, I already had her pegged for a depressive personality.

(Jamie)

"Come in! Door's unlocked... I mean, should be now that I say so..."

(Moonsilver)

True to a tongue's command, a latch shifts. It squelches rather than clicking. Ugh. You'd think a succubus would appreciate fleshy doors, but what can I say? This feels like the wrong kind of body horror. It's all decompositional and pathetic... oh. Oh, this is dangerous for me. In drinking the memories and emotions Jamie's imprinted on her surroundings, I'm drinking her self-image. Her self-image tells me to hound her, degrade her, destroy her.

It seems even monsters can sink so low as wanting to punish the traumatized for their trauma. Pain and its cycles make idiots of us all.

Okay. Take a moment... I am an envelope of unmaking, I am entropy itself. Cocoon myself in oblivion. Let nothing through to touch me, save sensory data empty of sentiments.

There. A mantle of glittering pink streamers spreads from my head, horns, and wings, unraveling the auras so completely that I feel nothing. Hopefully now I can decide how to feel about whatever comes next, and keep Jamie's self-loathing from twisting me against her.

Mushroom-handles turning under my hand still make my skin crawl--a sensation that becomes literal the moment it occurs to me to take it literally. Dark blue squiggles squirm back up my forearms, revealing black bones dripping mercurial blood.

I step over the threshold, and see Faerie for the very first time. Jamie's corner of the fae realms is a big, broad hill with a cavern mouth straight ahead, overhung by roots and fronds from the trees covering its slopes. Glints in the deep mark the latticed window of the door. I guess she's taking "Underhill" and its inspirations pretty seriously.

The fae herself stands on black rock strands in the middle of murky waters tinted pink, red, and swirls of black by the fluids seeping from the fungal sprawl on all sides. Hyphae jut from the moist soil. Enormous worms squirm. Jamie just stands side-on to me and stares into the distance. Her twin-iris eyes, each wolf-pupil focused and sober, fix on the place where dark blue clouds condense, and finally turn jet black right where they should pass over the horizon.

(Jamie)

"That's where she is. The Morrigan. My goddess." (Sigh) "A traitor, as it turns out. Did you know the Tuatha dé Danann weren't gods, at the first? I didn't either, 'til she told me as much. Humans tend to forget how much history went awhirling by ere the birth of Christ. Arisa's been tellin' me about some book she read before death took her and spat her out the other side. 'The Dawn of Everything,' I think 'twas the name. How, apparently, humans were formin' cultures and societies tens of thousands of years ago."

(Moonsilver)

When she turns, it seems more like her eyes pull her head than it does that her head turns to carry her eyes. This creature, with her mouth full of thorns and brambles shaped like fangs, with her pink face and amber hands and stained-glass claws, a blood-red gown like a fungle cap made graceful, hair of autumn leaves and black roots... I know she's in a bleak place. But for myself, cocooned in nothingness, I'm just so happy to meet her. To be here at last.

I was made for meetings like this. Experiencing life, in all its beautiful despair. This is where a succubus belongs.

(Jamie)

"I'm older than any living human, that's true. About thirteen hundred years, give or take a few decades. But humanity itself is so much older than I, than the whole of Faerie. We've only been around about four thousand years, last I heard, though seems humans were already telling stories about us by the time we became real. That's the balance of it, yes? A fae's longevity is in herself. A human's longevity is outside her, in her species, in their legacies.

And I must confess, little demon... I dearly wish I could trade my longevity for theirs."

(Moonsilver)

"Wishing for a grizzled king-in-exile who feels fair but looks foul? Or are you more partial to shieldmaidens?"

(Jamie)

"Ah, a woman speaking after m'own heart. I'd want Aragorn for the sage advice and steady friendship, and Eowyn for the kissing."

(Moonsilver)

"You know... you say a human's longevity is in their species. But at the going rate, I think we're both likely to outlive humanity. Won't that mean Tolkien's legacy is in us?"

(Jamie)

"Perhaps so. They ought to be better to their monsters, then. One day we'll be all that's left of 'em."

(Moonsilver)

"Already too late for that, I think... your goddess, then. The Morrigan. I'm a little bit familiar. Tried worshiping her as a little girl, but it just didn't feel right."

I snap my wings wide open, spread my arms, and surge my fires until they grow so bright that I become a shadow within them: horns and wings and lashing tail.

"Can't imagine why. I look like such a faithful girl, don't I?"

(Jamie)

"Ah, demons and your every-meaning-at-once way of speaking. I'd wondered if that was culture or instinct."

(Moonsilver)

"I'm a sample size of one, so try not to draw too many conclusions from just me. I sure don't. Did you want to change the subject?"

(Jamie)

"What, away from my trauma? Away from the poetic irony of worshiping the Morrigan, thinking of her as a pure protector and the bringer of a kindly death, only to learn at the last that she's a betrayer, now betrayed in her turn? What else would we talk about, the color of the sky? There's nothing else in me to speak of, and... well, after a certain point that did start to become my fault."

(Moonsilver)

"Say what you need, then."

(Jamie)

"Thank you. I, well... there's little else to say. My wife Shaenogh was the only one I ever loved, my sole friend and companion. We were happy together for a long time, until, well... she got restless. Not unhappy, just restless. Insisted we go on adventures. We found some swords. Decided to play around at them. 'Twas the 1900s by Earth reckoning. We'd just recently heard about some Austrian noblewoman who supposedly fought a duel topless, though I think the duel happened long before we heard? Anyway, we... we found some swords, and we thought, what's the harm? We're fae, we can take a hit!"

"Shaenogh nicked me a few times. Got my blood up enough that when I saw an opening, I decided to stab her in the heart. And... and then her flesh started to rot around it, and I looked close at the nicks in the blade, and I realized the sword was only silver on the surface. Its core was iron."

(Moonsilver)

No wind comes to cleanse the stillness in the hinterlands of Faerie, to blow away the gathering reek of decomposing dreams, or make the leaves on the hilltop trees dance, one more time, glinting like green skin in a summer sun.

(Jamie)

"Twas only decades later I learned I could make iron rust, even if at great cost to myself. In the moment, I... I just didn't think of it. How pathetic is that? All my power is that of decay, and even at the deepest fathom of desperation, I never thought whether it might work on iron. I didn't even try."

(Moonsilver)

"I'm sorry."

(Jamie)

"Yes. I suppose that's all you can say, isn't it?"

(Moonsilver)

She turns her eyes back to the dark clouds on the distant horizon.

(Jamie)

"If this seems like the end of a journey you never got to go on, well... it is. I'd met a human girl I thought to share it with. All my pain is tied up in faeness, y'know? I need to step outside what I am in order to heal. I s'pose that sounds mad as hatters playing cannoneer."

(Moonsilver)

"Maybe so. Still, I understand it perfectly."

(Jamie)

"I'm glad. If you didn't, well, I've no will in me to explain any further. The girl was too good for me. I couldn't bear to stay beside her. I think, if she'd not suggested herself that we part ways, I'd have suggested just the same. Arisa is the sort of creature I deserve for a companion."

(Moonsilver)

My emotions get away from me. I should restrain myself. I'm letting sparks catch purely because of what I want to believe is true of Arisa. Still, they catch.

"Do you know Arisa well enough to know what sort of creature she is? Even if you do deserve it, does she deserve to be used as a tool of your self-harm?"

(Jamie)

"I'm not using her to--" (Sigh) "Right. I suppose I am, at that. Very well. I'll contemplate that, miss Moonsilver. As to the Morrigan, here's the end of that sorry tale: she killed the other Tuatha so she could feed off human belief in them, swell herself up to be a full-blown goddess. But it was the pantheon of all Earth that helped her do it. Now she's rotting to death because her supply’s been cut off. The other gods fucked off and left her behind. Earth's grown too messy and rife with disbelief, and they only ever wanted humans for a source of power. Now they're making a second Earth, with all their faithful favorites."

(Moonsilver)

Jamie waves her hands, raising patches of algae and mold onto the surface of the stagnant waters. Her wolf-eyes stare, empty of emotion, at the dying vermin that boil to the surface.

(Jamie)

“Arisa's told me a great deal about the idea of a prison, how Earth's mundanity is actually supernatural, but now the mundanity's turning supernatural again or it's falling apart, and whichever of those it is... ugh... that one... the more she talks, the less I feel like I understand."

(Moonsilver)

"Yeah, I have some idea about why that might be."

(Jamie)

"Mhm. All of that is to say... these are the sort of things I've been bottling up for over a century. I kept thinking someone else would ask. Surely, I thought, there must be one creature in the whole of Faerie who cared enough to come speak, even if... even if I am a decay priestess of the traitor Morrigan, and a slayer of my own kin. I, er... I lost it after Shaenogh died, you see. I took that iron sword and I went on a killing spree."

(Moonsilver)

"Oh."

(Jamie)

"Yep. Not much words can do to mend a past like mine, is there? Now I'm looking back on a century and thinking... oh, you fool girl, you could've been someone utterly different if you'd just started walking."

(Moonsilver)

"You're still here. Sounds to me like you're walking now."

(Jamie)

"Maybe. Doesn't feel like it, though."

(Beat)

"I'd like to be alone now, please. This helped. I'd like to speak again. But it's past time I tidied up the house. Saved what I can." (Deep breath) "Gave the rest to decay."

(Moonsilver)

"Of course. I'm glad I could help. See you around, Jamie."

She gives no answer, and I'm back to wandering the halls of Metronome House.

Arisa's door is an ornate tablet of obsidian emblazoned with unknown symbols, glowing purple, gold, and silver, surrounding a central engraving that depicts the warped tiers of an immense fortress city. The etched towers and walls are a twisted nightmare interpretation of gothic architecture, causeways and chasms overlapping each other impossibly in the middle of alleyways, and... and the imagery's changing, morphing as I stare at it.

The city's growing, growing, growing down, up, out, towards me, I am falling in--

My fist hammers the door. Vibrations and the sharp kiss of my own pink fire stagger me back to reality.

One thing's already changed: Arisa's grandiose talk of making sure the apocalypse happens no longer sounds grandiose. If anything, it sounds... it sounds terrifyingly banal for a creature like she is.

(Arisa)

"Enter if you wish, demon dear!~"

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(Moonsilver)

The door splits in half, and I force my eyes straight ahead into the yawning gap between its swinging sides. I am not going to look at how the umbral city's shapes change.

Arisa kneels with her back to me in front of a titanic gateway filled with shadow. It yawns, wide open. Even the bright violet glares of superheated gas pouring from slits in the floor, vents and nozzles pouring eldritch heat from somewhere deep below, can make no mark on the darkness in that aperture.

They do, however, illuminate every detail of the lurid bas-reliefs lining the walls as I approach: demons rending gods and pinning down goddesses who they breed, ex-goddesses who sprout horns and drool with manic lust at the perverse delight of their desecration. Legions of undead march forth, crushing terror-frozen soldiers underfoot.

But more than any of that, it's the imagery in the background of each relief that unsettles me: a sequence of three stars, one four-point like a depiction of the North Star polaris, one immense and wreathed in fire, one dark with a bright corona. Hazy lines imply the silhouettes of bizarre, stark constructs, of strange vessels soaring.

Without knowing what any of these symbols mean, I know that I am in the presence of a brazen display of power. And that... that excites me. So I approach with slow, almost reverent steps. Almost reverent, for I have an odd conviction that I am better off preventing my admiration from becoming worship.

(Arisa)

"Dear Moonsilver. Speak and be heard: how may this corpse-maven make herself of use to you today?

(Moonsilver)

"Would you mind, um... would you stop calling me 'dear?' It's weird on so many levels. You're reminding me of my mother."

(Arisa)

"Ah. Now, that is undesirable. As you ask, so shall I act."

(Moonsilver)

"Right. Uh... may I ask why you're talking like that?"

(Arisa)

"I enjoy it."

(Moonsilver)

"It makes it kind of hard to take you seriously."

(Arisa)

"And?"

(Moonsilver)

"Well, I..."

Though her back remains turned, I see the laughter dancing as terrible light in violet eyes. Bizarre trick of perspective, sure, but still in line with the oddities I've seen around the City. It's too simple to explain the unease squirming under my skin. Irrational emotions... let's see if a direct question can solve this.

"Arisa, what are you?"

(Arisa)

(Laughing) "Myself."

(Moonsilver)

"Okay, come on, that's a cheap answer."

(Arisa)

"Do you suppose I owe you any answer, be it cheap or keen? It's less tawdry than you presume. How many beings can truly say they are their own essence?"

(Moonsilver)

"Can I ever hope that you'll explain yourself? Is that an answer you're willing to give?"

(Arisa)

"Hmmm... yes. Sometimes I may. In the past, I decided that I'd explained myself enough. But when I can I stir deeper feelings by speech than I can by silence... yes. At those times, I'll explain myself."

(Moonsilver)

"Huh. Moments like this, huh?"

The necromancer nods.

(Moonsilver)

"You... this feels... you're like me, aren't you? Abyssal."

The necromancer merely glances over her shoulder, smirks, and returns to her pose. But in that little glance I see an unexpected splash of color.

"Hey, wait! Is your skin purple now?"

(Arisa)

"Yes. I took note of your own color palette upon our meeting, and it... I... bah. This isn't going to work the way I hoped. I thought I'd just finished sorting out my identity before my death, but now it's all discordant and awhirl again, so..."

(Moonsilver)

She rises, igniting, skin and silks washing away in torrents of violet fire. From the black core of the blaze, shapes extend: six horns, and a lashing tail, and great black wings. When the fire condenses once more, it sinks into glowing purple patterns on her forearms, hips, and neck, like mazework tattoos. Her skin glints, faintly metallic, as obsidian black as her hair. Her bust, hips, and thighs have only grown more generous.

(Aekarii)

"A reintroduction, sister. I am Aekarii Cinder.... which is something like the same name twice, but... (Clearing throat) Like yourself, I am a daughter of the Abyss. A succubus. Arisa is my veil-name, as I am given to understand Amaranth is yours."

(Moonsilver)

Lightning ripples over Aekarii's massed needle-fangs, exposed in a rueful grin.

(Aekarii)

"I, er... I think you already suspected, but after I admitted outright to shapeshifting myself with the form of a succubus as direct inspiration, and you correctly observed our kindred nature... it felt silly in the wrong way to keep pretending I'm just a human's ghost."

(Moonsilver)

"I do understand, though. It's the big reveal, right? Getting to experience the unveiling of your true form all over again? For what it's worth, sister, I'm more than happy to play along if you still want to pull that trick on everyone else."

(Aekarii)

"You would do that for me?"

(Moonsilver)

"Of course! It's harmless, it's fun, and, well... you're the first succubus I've met who I don't have uncomfortable history with..."

My thoughts catch up to my words just a little too late.

"... right? You and I have a clean slate right?"

(Aekarii)

"I know what you've done. To judge you for it lies outside my being. I love all my sisters... but I especially love you when you're scum."

(Moonsilver)

"Oh... that... thank you, I..."

Only with the fall of silver tears do I know how much I needed to hear that.

(Aekarii)

"Of course, sweet sister--if I may call you so? Would you like a hug?"

(Moonsilver)

"Y-you can call me that, it... it feels nice now that I know why you're saying it. No hugs for me, thanks."

(Aekarii)

"Of course. I'll return my eyes to the abyssal gate while we speak, if that's alright with you?"

(Moonsilver)

"Of course. May I ask you about the other newcomer? Jamie?"

(Aekarii)

"Sure! I'm happy to babble to my kindred, it's creatures other than fellow demons who must play my games to win the prize. Jamie... Jamie ties me up in knots. I adore the poignance of her past, but to languish so long in memories that only pain her... but then... no. No, I don't actually think that's the case."

(Moonsilver)

Her artful fingers drift to her chin, the thinker reborn in shadow-flesh and paranormal fire. Ah! That's what's weird about her body language. It's all skirting the line of archetypal, but she keeps switching which archetype she pulls from.

(Aekarii)

"Facades, I'm so prone to focusing on facades. Eminently practical in most cases. Trying to pick away at the mask achieves only strife. You must respond to what you're shown. You must respect the wish of the mask-wearer to set the terms of your meeting... but I always forget that's how I started out, and I come to act as though the mask is reality..."

(Moonsilver)

What a strange creature. To invert the whole context of our meeting, she inverts herself, and pulls me with her. To hear her talking to herself, watch her pushing ideas around like puzzle-pieces... it's cute.

"You're cute when you get lost in thought."

Aekarii goes still. Her next breath is loud, stuttering, quaky in the silent chamber before the yawning umbra.

(Aekarii)

(Audibly in tears) "Y-you think I'm cute? I mean... I know I... but still..."

(Moonsilver)

"You don't have to try so hard around me, okay? Like I said, I believe it. Powerful demon girl, eldritch secrets, could rule the world if you wanted. So please stop worrying about proving points, and do what you actually want, okay?"

(Aekarii)

"I... scorn and sin, you're ten years younger than I, I should be the one advising you..."

(Moonsilver)

"First, I accept that you have some sort of seeress gift and that means you know eerily specific information about me. I'd rather not know what you know unless I bring it up, okay?

(Aekarii)

"Yes, of course. As you ask, and... all that."

(Moonsilver)

"Thank you. As for the rest, we're both grown adults. If I choose to support you, you're not using me just because you're a bit older. Keep practicing at being evil, okay? I think you need it."

(Aekarii)

"Thank you, I, um... thank you. As to your question... I think Jamie's far too hard on herself. She fears she's stuck in the past, and that's true, in a sense, but only because she has yet to find her future. She falls into cycles of mourning and isolation because Shaenogh was the last time she had a deep bond with another. The memory of that bond, stale and regressive as it may have grown, is still better than unbroken loneliness. She tries to reach out, it's obvious every time she meets someone new, but when all of Faerie brands her as a monster for mistakes she made a hundred years ago... can you blame her for losing faith, for giving up before new friendships can form from her efforts?

(Moonsilver)

"And what do you make of that? The other fae casting her out?'

(Aekarii)

"She's one of their own. I don't care what she's done, you don't fucking abandon your own!"

(Moonsilver)

Violet inferno flares on my sister's fist. She smashes a cracked crater into the stonework beside her.

(Aekarii)

(Clearing throat) "Sorry."

(Moonsilver)

"For expressing your emotions in your own space? God, Aekarii, what kind of horrible friends are you used to having?"

(Aekarii)

"The kind I'd rather leave in the past."

(Moonsilver)

"Fair enough. And hey. For what it's worth, I think it's pretty cool of you to get up in arms on Jamie's behalf."

(Aekarii)

"I like her. I look out for the creatures I like. It's about affection, not morals."

(Moonsilver)

"Yeah. And I think that's pretty cool."

(Aekarii)

"Ha... so do I. Thank you, Moonsilver. This has been enriching, and... and also healing."

(Moonsilver)

"My pleasure."

(Aekarii)

"Now, if I may make a suggestion?"

(Moonsilver)

"Fuck, yes, please! I'm starving for anyone who knows what the fuck is going on or what I should do. I thought there would be an established community of succubi I could look to for guidance, but every sister I've met is just as much of a loner as I am."

(Aekarii)

“That's been my experience, also. I fear, as far as community, we'll have to create our own. One step at a time though, hm? Take a break from all this galloping after others, and look to yourself. Let go of your planning and analysis for a little while. Have you taken any time yet to just wander Metronome House?"

(Moonsilver)

"Can't. I need to train. I got my ass kicked too hard to do otherwise."

Black fabric rustles with the demon-seer's rising spin. Her hooves clack loud like thunder on the abyssal shrine's black stones as she strides closer, and violet lightning ripples in a wake of fog-waves left by her right hand's slash of dismissal.

(Aekarii)

"No, absolutely not! We are burning that nonsense idea in its bud! You just achieved your true form. Venture forth to those liminal halls, and scamper around, and use this place to explore yourself. See how otherworldly it all feels, how every scene you enter changes just from having a succubus in it. Maybe some beings find power in self-denial and rigid discipline. But you're a succubus. Joy, impulse, and self-indulgence are your strength! So you get out there, and you frolic, and you enjoy your horns, damn it."

(Moonsilver)

"I will. I promise. And, um... you're right. Thank you. I think I knew that, about joy and indulgence, but... sometimes I still need to hear another tell me what I already know."

(Aekarii)

(Softly) "Yeah. Me, too."

(Moonsilver)

Feeling strangely full and happy, I wave my goodbyes and step out into the halls. Despite all Aekarii's words, my gaze drifts towards the signs promising a gymnasium. I'll be if I want it to, it'll have a training room where I can throw my power around without hurting anything. I'd like to take a minute to think about Carrie's powers, to figure out...

Stimulation to my senses interrupts whatever it was I was thinking. Metronome House has that odd not-quite-staleness I know from decent hotels. It feels clean yet full of history. It makes my tail frisk. Cool air, a little dry but pleasantly so, like the air of a stately old tomb, kisses my blue skin. Amber lights tint my rose-pink scales.

Aekarii's right. I've made this mistake before. It's the same mistake that set me on a collision course with Carrie in the first place. I was so fixated on overcoming my mother's ideas of magic that I never developed any of my own. I only learned to define myself through the things I was tearing down. Yet that first night, when I wielded my power for the first time against Cam, I was focused purely on myself, on my own instincts.

Where is Cam, anyway? He was scum, and in retrospect, I kind of liked that. If anything, I want to thank him for pushing me in just the right way to bring my power out! I have an instinct that succubi can feed on other demons just as well as we can on mortals...

Right now practice sounds exhausting, and desperate, and sad. I'll do wonderful things and feel nothing, because as impressive as they are for me, they look tiny compared to what Carrie can do.

I want... I want to find a nice central kind of area, with a fountain and balconies and other beings of the City going for strolls. I want to mingle just by being there. Just a monster vibing among monsters. The simple idea of it makes me so happy. Okay then--let's go explore!

(End)

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