House of Moonlight and Shadows ((LitShark & littlewaif))

[LitShark]

Dawn​

The sun was just beginning to peek an orange eye up over the horizon as Mr. Dawn approached the Sun & Stars Inn. It felt like ages since he'd last visited this place, this realm, the only place he ever truly felt at ease. In truth, it had been months at least in Dawn's realm it had. Here, however, time was relative and to the occupants of the Sun & Stars he'd been their only one day ago, just after dawn.

With the warm yellow glow of the the sun on his back, Mr. Dawn raised his arm to rap lightly with the guilded, copper, sun shaped door knocker upon the hollow sounding, red painted wood of the door.

The hinges creaked as the red door swung inward, and Girlthing greeted him from chest height with that infectious, guileless, uncomplicated smile that only the truly young of body and spirit can possess. Mr. Dawn sought to return the smile, but his sky blue eyes were streaked with the hazy clouds of experience. So bright with her expressiveness, Girlthing was looking more and more lovely each time Dawn saw her. She'd hit her growth spirt several dawns ago and was still in the process of filling out the firm, femenine curves that she'd inherited as her mother Ladylove's legacy.

"Well, good morning Girlthing." Mr. Dawn smiled, leaning forward to lightly kiss Girlthing's cheek as he moved past her into the foyier. "Is Mommy awake yet."

Girlthing nodded her head happily, sending the silken, curling locks of her hair dancing mirthfully for just a moment before settling back into place.

"We're having breakfast." Girlthing smiled, her aura vibrating at a blissfully pleased and yet uncertain radiance- the feelings of one beginning to feel things that she doesn't entirely understand. "Pancakes and fresh fruit. Would you like some, Mr. Dawn?"

Girlthing was more of a quandry every day. She barely looked her eighteen years and always behaved like a child in everything except recieving clients for her mother. In that, Girlthing felt completely at ease and ushered Mr. Dawn to his favorite lush, yellow, chez lounge.

"I'll take the first few that got burned." Dawn whispered conspiratorially to Girlthing, feeling her flush with nervous pleasure as her teeth sought out her bottom lip. "Go tell her I'm here?"

Ladylove already knew that he was there, Dawn could sense this. Furthermore, he imagined that his arrivals must seem terribly predictable from this place. He arrived at sunrise, every sunrise, as surely as the sun was to rise. Dawn felt all of this because he was an empath. He felt everything more deeply than most, on levels that few could even concieve of, much less tangibly feel. It was his talent and ability for feeling that allowed him into this timeless place, this hanging perfect moment. It was how he knew that this place was worth the returning to again and again, at all costs.

 

[littlewaif]

Girlthing was a beautiful young creature who lived with her mother, Ladylove, in the middle of nowhere. They shared a sprawling one-story manor that sat alone, its back turned to the lip of a sheer rock face that dropped into an icy ocean, and facing an endless expanse of paradoxically baked red earth. A single, meandering dirt path wended aloofly along in front of it, seeming not to take notice, save three times each day, when the demesne received visitors, and three more, when they departed. Though it was not marked to outwardly advertise it, many inhabitants of the realm knew the place as the Sun & Stars Inn.

Though the manor was vast, and had once been full of life, Girlthing did not remember those days. For as long as she could summon memory of, the only inhabitants had been her mother and herself, and her two feline companions: Francis, a handsome and loyal black cat with flashing golden eyes, and Gregory, a wily and sleepy and old cat in the pattern of a tuxedo with white shirtfront and gloves. The two cats were Girlthing's only friends, for she had never left the manor, had abided it always, by ensorcelled obligation to her mother, whose every whim she served.

And likewise, Ladylove never left her chamber, for she was bound to the bedpost by a length of chain as fine as a thread and made of moonlight, which was generous enough that it permitted her to every corner of the room, but not beyond it. Ladylove's boudoir was the largest room at the end of the longest hall in the manor, and it was to this room that Girlthing led Ladylove's gentleman visitors, when it was their turn, though she was not permitted to enter lest bidden by her mother, or if it was an hour at which Ladylove expected some delicious refection.


The boudoir smelled of fat, redolent bay roses and clove cigarettes rolled with powdered poppy tears. The bed was luscious and tucked with silks. Girlthing redressed the bed with clean bedclothes once each day, usually when Mr. Dawn waited for Ladylove in the parlor while she made up her face, although the innocent Girlthing had no concept of what transpired in the bed that soiled it so that it needed to be made with such frequency. And the boudoir was the only room in the whole manor with a mirror, though truth told, to look in one anothers' faces was close enough for the two women.


Though Ladylove looked no older than thirty and no younger than infinity, while Girlthing barely looked her eighteen years, the two women were easily mistaken for one another, unless you looked closely. They had the same pink lips, heart-shaped face and moon-pale skin, though it was true that Ladylove did not have the gentle bitten blush to her cheek as Girlthing. They had the same long cinnamon colored hair that fell to their slender waists, though Ladylove's was as smooth as a sheet of silk and Girlthing's tumbled in loose curls.


And there was another difference, too. While in her opium haze, Ladylove did occasionally rage, she never cried. And contrariwise, Girlthing cried every day. She used to cry because she had never met her father, but then one day, farther gone than usual, and raging like a tempest, Ladylove spat at the girl to cease her sniffling, that she HAD indeed met her father... which meant just one thing. She belonged either to Mr. Midnight, Mr. Dusk, or Mr. Dawn. Now, she cried because she didn't know which.


And then there was the wait, sometimes ten minutes, sometimes two hours, wherein she was alone with the man while her mother prepared herself to entertain him, and she was pained and enticed as she looked into his face and wondered. If she could have only any one thing, it would be certain knowledge of her progeny. And if she couldn't have that, she would have liked her freedom. But for all she knew, that was a hopeless endeavor as well.


However, it was not. Though Girlthing did not know it, and Ladylove would never tell, there was one way to break the spell that bound her to her mother. Girlthing must bear a daughter of her own.

Of course, she didn't have the sparest inclination of what she must do, except in that magical and mysterious realm of natural instinct... a part of her that seemed more than ever to come alive around Mr. Dawn the empath. He always seemed to have a way of coaxing the withdrawn, sheltered girl out of her shell.


His talent as an empath made him very intuitive indeed, very insightful and perceptive, and every second he spent in the presence of the young girl he was more and more certain that something about her was changing, ripening.


She stepped soundlessly back into the room, so light of foot and unobtrusive in her comings and goings it was easy to see that she had been a girl of service her entire life. She cradled the warm porcelain dish laid with fragrant, airy pancakes piled with cubed pear and glossy blackberries, drenched in warm syrup. The bubbly edges of the pancakes were seared to a barely imperfect brown, and Mr. Dawn knew without having to ask that these were indeed her discards, that the young girl's desperation to please would never have allowed her to serve them to him had he not specifically asked, and still forbade her serving them without a tinge of pink in the apples of her cheeks.


"I hope they're okay, Mr. Dawn."


Hinges creaked and at the end of the longest hallway, the door swung open, chased by swirling motes of light. The onset of day itself seemed to spit the dusky shape of Mr. Dawn's rival suitor from the chamber of his lady. Girlthing's attention, which had previously been utterly focused on Mr. Dawn, was split, and as Mr. Dusk reached the end of the hall, Girlthing had already fetched his hat and cape, and held them out to him with her eyes downcast like an animated coat tree.

At that moment, the elegant, if lazy tones of Ladylove in one of her good moods floated down the hall, "Girlthing, bring Mommy her breakfast, please, and come change the sheets."

 

[LitShark]

Dawn smiled with his mouth only at Girlthing as she returned from the kitchen bearing the most beautiful plate of pancakes and candied fruit that he'd ever laid eyes on. He thanked her earnestly, bowing his head briefly so that the coarse strands of stringy blond hair tumbled lightly over his face. As he took the plate, his fingertips grazed lightly over the back of Girlthing's hand. Only in this realm could something so firm be so soft, uncomplicated in its perfection. That was Girlthing's skin.

After his first bite of fluffy, warm bread and lovingly drizzled fruit syrup, Dawn looked up, blue eyes alight with pleasure and admiration. Before he could compliment the dish, however, angry, groaning hinges stalled his tongue. The pleasant, comfortable ambiance of the room fled as the bedroom door creaked open and a dark tension flooded in around the girl and the empath, like a flood of muddy dam water, waist deep.

Dusk rolled his shoulders and cracked loud bones in his neck as he strode casually into the receiving room. He'd made the most of the extra time afforded him in the absence of Midnight's late night visits. He spared only a slight smirk for Dawn, the pretty boy sometimes rival for Ladylove's attentions before taking his hat and coat from Girlthing's dutifully outstretched arms.

"The rest?" Dusk asked expectantly as he shrugged into his coat, sending Girlthing off to try and drag the massive pack that he carried back to him- it was massive and bulging with goods, made from a million different types of fabrics, each brilliantly dyed and appearing to be lighter than air despite the load they held inside. Bells and cymbals chimed and sang as Girlthing lugged the heavy pack to him. "That's My good girl."

Dusk knelt down, allowing Girlthing to strap the pack onto his shoulders. Once it was in place, he turned back slowly. He smiled once in efficient and satisfied gratitude before leaning forward and gently pressing his lips to Girlthings in a light kiss.

The moment their lips touched, Girlthing's eyes would be subvertet, transported to a high hill in Dusk's native realm, surrounded by lush vegetation and brilliant colored flowers. Butterflies in variable shades of neon fluttering around her as a gentle tropical mist would fall everywhere but where she stood, while tropical, rare birds flocked from high treetops to light on her shoulders and arms, each kissing at her face with smooth beaks.

Dusk left unseen by the girl after that, making his way out without ceremony or subtext, slamming shut the front door on his way out, abruptly shattering Girlthing's illusion. Dawn was glad that he took his feelings with them.

"Better go help Mommy." Dawn smiled at Girlthing, who felt disappointed at having the illusion abandon her. "I'll clean my own dish."

After only a few bites, Dawn had lost his appetite. Dusk always felt brutal to Dawn, a terrifying hate monster who needed to possess everything within his sphere at all times. But maybe he was jealous a bit too. While Dawn sometimes wondered about Girlthing's lineage, Dusk always behaved as though it was certain and that he was a father and all of Ladylove's visitors were intruding in his home.

Dawn took a few more bites, just to be polite, protecting Girlthing's feelings, before scraping the plate into a waste bin and running the syrup smeared plate under the faucet. He sighed to himself over the sink. Maybe he was just intruding.

After the plate was clean, he left it in the sink. Knowing Girlthing's meticulous nature, she'd likely want to wash the plate again herself, just to be sure it was done right. Dawn strode in long, impatient strides back down the long hallway, lightly tossling Girlthing's hair as she dashed the other way, barefoot and almost hidden behind a mound of bunched and piled bedclothes.

Dawn paused in the doorway that led to Ladylove's Boudoir, leaning one arm against the doorframe. Dusk had left his signature all through the room, even with the sheets removed. It felt like raw, primal passion; frustrated, violent longing and unadulterated bliss without misgivings. To Dawn it felt like walking into a furnace.

"Good morning, My Ladylove." Dawn said, trying not to flinch away from the sight of her. He hoped the feelings of Dusk would evaporate soon.

 

[littlewaif]

Hills rolled on through eternity, so green they were almost blue, ebbing through the hazy breath of the earth itself. Mr. Dusk had an aura of the exotic that bathed over the girl at his slightest touch, most especially those fleeting kisses, that transported her away from the vacant, used waste where she had always lived. But the fog of fantasy evaporated, seemed to be sucked like smoke through the cracks of the front door and flee after the departing man.

"Better go help Mommy... I'll clean my own dish."

She was momentarily torn between doing as she was asked and wanting fretfully to scrub the plate herself, but it was only momentarily. She left, pink and biting her lip, to go make the bed.

It had been an awkward moment, Dawn watching as Dusk swept out of the house. Usually it went the other way around. Mr. Dawn would take his bow as the last golden kisses of sun danced across the horizon, the dust of Mr. Dusk's approaching footsteps rising in the first hush of darkness.

Usually when the hinges at the end of the hall sounded, it was Mr. Midnight taking his leave. So where was he?

***

Three nights ago, when Mr. Dusk was still being entertained down the long hall, it came the hour when Mr. Midnight was expected, and then it came the hour after. Fretting, Girlthing went to the door and peered anxiously into the obfuscating night. Another hour went, Mr. Dusk taking advantage of every extra minute he was granted past his usual time, and still no Mr. Midnight.

Shaking, fretting, and fearing, Girlthing went to a cabinet in the kitchen and took down a silver tray laid with several items. There was a sleek, stoppered glass decanter half full with a liquid shock of green, a small ceramic pot with a tiny pair of tongs laid across its lid, a silver lighter, two small glasses, and a broad silver spoon. The bowl of the spoon was cut lacily, intricately, with the shape of moons and planets and shooting stars.

She always had breakfast waiting for Mr. Dawn when he arrived, and why shouldn't she? He was Mr. Dawn, arriving famished and diminished from his travels with the break of day. But Mr. Midnight was a different creature entirely. When he arrived at the doorstep, it was in inky blackness, and it was usually more than a hot meal he sought to take the edge off.

She balanced the spoon over the top of one of the little glasses and opened the pot. Using the tongs, she chose a perfect little sugar cube and rested it on a shooting star. She tipped the decanter and poured a dose of the absinthe over the sugar, then ignited the cube into a withering lump wrapped in blue flame. She dumped the burning sugar into the glass and stirred, liquid swirling through the magical shapes in the spoon. She practiced the ritual lovingly, beaconingly, as if having a drink on the table awaiting him would magically, bodily summon Mr. Midnight, his toes dragging along the road as he was whisked by his shirtfront to the doorstep by the force of her will alone. It didn't.

***

Ladylove, sitting at her vanity when Mr. Dawn arrived in her doorframe, lifted her eyes to the scroll-framed mirror and met his gaze in it with an effortless, content smile. She seemed entirely unruffled by Mr. Midnight's absence, but Mr. Dawn knew better than anyone why. Her eyes flitted away again, into her own reflection's gaze as she took a long, slow drag off a fat, hand-rolled cigarette and opened her mouth, not to blow the smoke out, but to let it meander lazily past her lust-swollen lips. As the smoke engulfed her, her eyes squinted slightly and then shut. She was more worried than she let on, but the opium kept it manageably at bay.

Her eyes flashed open again and she seemed more centered, present. She gently snuffed the cigarette, swirled around in her chair and rose to her feet, and then onto her toes, winding her arms sensuously around his neck, melting kisses against his warm throat. It wasn't for many moments that they realized they were standing in the doorway, entwined, and Girlthing was waiting patiently with downcast eyes and a stack of fresh, folded silks, to get into the room and make the bed.

 

[LitShark]

Dawn smiled and turned his head away lightly from Ladylove's affection, neatly wrapping his arm around the small of her back and allowing her to pepper his neck in adoring love. Her love was like armor, it was soft fire, it eliminated all memory or sensation of Dusk and filled the room with the unflinching yellow light of morning.

Though Ladylove swooned at the scent of cloves and poppies in Dawn's clothing, the gentleman himself noticed the hesitant approach behind them from the hall. He lightly swung Ladylove's body from one arm to the other, guiding her into an effortless pirouette, yielding the doorway to Girlthing, catching her eyes for just a flash of a moment on her way past with the golden, orange and vibrant red silks on which Dawn would lay with his Ladylove.

"I want to possess you fully." He whispered to her, imparting sensations of satisfaction to her through simple contact, her lips addicted to his skin. "Say you'll be mine. Forever and always."

Dawn could feel Girlthing growing curious, looking over in between practiced box-corners. He seized her eyes, using the link between mother and daughter to impart for Girlthing, Ladylove's sensation as his hand trailed up her thigh, slowly gathering the silk of her evening attire.

"I've got what you need, My Ladyloves."

 

[littlewaif]

As Ladylove swooned against his warm, solid form, she felt something inside her, a nagging tug, a string wound about her consciousness grow taut. It was the wondrous link of body and soul that spellbound her to her daughter. But at the end of the leash he was tugging was a dark shadow, a mixture ofprotective maternal instinct and fiendish jealousy. Ladylove could feel a twitch in her being when Mr. Dawn caught Girlthing’s gaze. She could feel a sting to her core when Girlthing returned it.

Mr. Dawn’s hand slid against her thigh, up and up. The dark shadow within her was coaxed ever more into the light of his affections… "I've got what you need, My Ladyloves…" and set aflame by the simple sough of the “s” at the end of his sentence.

“Thing,” she spat, her delicate, gorgeous aspect turning ferocious at the slightest curl of her full lip which bared perfect teeth. The sharpness of her own voice seemed to startle her, and so she took a moment, breathed a breath, and continued, more softly. Her voice was rage strained through courtesy like crushed berries through cheesecloth. The words she chose which should have evoked affection were wrought with mockery.

“You are taking far too long with your chores this morning, mommy thinks.”

Girlthing looked up at her astonished, hands still smoothing over sheets, mouth barely agape.

“You are putting your cute, little nose into business that doesn’t concern you, aren’t you? I think you need a little improvement with your focus, sweetling. While mommy is entertaining, be an angel and practice your concentration. Mr. Dawn and I will have our lunch today served with paper napkins, and on the back of eaaach napkin, it will read “I will be diligent and efficient. I will not inconvenience the guests of this house with my presence for aaaany longer than is necessary.”

And with that, all of the malice evaporated from Ladylove’s tone, and she was blinding in her beauty as a very real smile took her face, “Can you do that for mommy? Let’s make a game of it and see how many times you can write it if you focus extra hard, little one. Now, shoo shoo.”

Girlthing dipped into an artful little curtsy and fled wordlessly from the room.

Once she was gone, Ladylove shook her head softly as if amused by the antics of some small, adorable but stupid animal, not ever mentioning Mr. Dawn’s transgression with that forbidden S. She graciously ignored the implication of his pluralization. The tops of her luscious breasts heaved in a dreamy sigh as she tugged him back to the mostly-made bed and as she fell onto it her dressing robe opened and her enormous, round tits bounced bare: perfect cushions of pale, unblemished flesh, pillowy soft, the nipples round and the deepest, most shameless shade of coral. That color alone, set lewdly on such an alabaster canvas, could haunt a man’s waking dreams for years.

She seemed not to notice her robe had opened, or seemed not to care. Her hand delicately resting in his, she pulled him softly into the bed with her. And so it went, that before he made each trip down this hall, and saw again his Ladylove, he was greeted by the delicious perfection of Girlthing’s youth and innocence, which made the memory of Ladylove wither and fade… But in Ladylove’s living presence, all affection for her daughter seemed a flitting firefly eclipsed and swallowed by a hungry and brilliant star.

As Mr. Dawn drew closer, Ladylove murmured so softly these words, an invitation into a shared dream, “Do you remember… the first time you came… to the House of Moonlight and Shadow?”

 

[LitShark]

Dawn let a corner of his mouth curl upward as Ladylove arched her body languidly against his and sent Girlthing sprinting from the room with tasks to perform. He deftly slid his coat from his shoulders, unbuttoning the dusty cloth around his torso with the hand which was not intertwined with Ladylove's. He followed her toward the bed, never truly considering any other option, as though swept downriver by a powerful current that slid him over a silken waterfall.

The two of them were alone as though there were no other place than the interior of that lavishly adorned boudoir, no other people than the two of them had ever been born or lived or died. There was no past with the smooth silk of fresh sheets, still warm from the rays of new dawn. There was no future beyond the silk of Ladylove's skin, hewn of fibers so fine and closely woven that there was no guessing at the threadcount. Utterly frictionless skin that couldn't hope to contain the light cloth of her robe as it spilled open.

"How could I forget, my one and only true Ladylove? That was the dawning of my life, the day of my death." Dawn muttered, his voice hushed as he tucked his face gently into the hollow of Ladylove's neck, letting his words glide over her skin as the robe had. "I'd been walking for a day and two nights, in the hottest and coldest desert I've ever even heard of. By day it hurt my lungs just to breathe, as though the air itself were smoldering in the sky. By night it grew so cold that the sweat on my skin would freeze solid and I had to dump ice from my sleeves and pant legs. It was just as the longest, coldest night of all was coming to an end, with the wind blowing frozen chips of sand into my face, right as the sun peeked over the horizon that I first saw the shadow of your door."

As though the mere memory of that morning had injured him, Dawn's lips sought the graceful curve of Ladylove's throat, his hand resting lightly against the side of her face as his lips' attention moved lower. Teeth gently dragging over her skin.

"This was long ago, of course. Some time before you became bound to this room, if things had been then as they are now, I might well have died just feet from your door. You fed me, let me drink cool water from your fingertips, brought me back to life. Then you showed me what it was to truly live, for I'd never known until just then."

Dawn's hand trailed down now, even his palm, rough and dry from reigning horses couldn't stay still on the soft, inviting skin of Ladylove. It moved down her throat, index finger following along the pulse in her neck, lower still to where her flesh was bounteous, cradling and lightly squeezing the flesh of her chest.

"Every morning since, I've come back through the same door. From the cusp of death, you revived me to be the envy of all who encounter me. I feel their envy, their curiosity, the fair skinned desert child who ought to be dead twelve times over. They all wonder how I've grown so mighty, doing little more than that which all of them are afraid to do... feeling, of course. It was you who taught me to feel so deeply."

At the last word, "deeply" Dawn lunged toward her, his lips encountering hers and pressing together with all the urgency of a drowning man but none of the flailing. With one hand on her chest and the other at the small of her back, he cradled her close and kissed her deeply.

 

[littlewaif]

Girlthing was seated at the little round table in the kitchen, a loaf of rich black bread baking slowly in the oven at her back sheer paper napkins heaped before her, an inkpot and pen waiting in the center of the table, Francis and Gregory winding through her ankles with velvet feline affection.

Not so long ago, even a few cycles of the moon, perhaps, her task would have been so much simpler. But she was blossoming in ways she did not yet understand, in unearthly, enchanting ways, supernatural ways. Layers on layers of sharpened sensations, burgeoning perceptions, and awakening awarenesses slew and reincarnated every mundane preconception she had of the world, but she did not know why she felt so different, nor how very magical she was destined to be.

When Mr. Dawn set foot upon the floorboards of the House of Moonlight and Shadows, his empathic energy gave an edge to the innate connection between mother and daughter, and with her own maturing mind, it begun to coax the most peculiar, unnamable feelings from her, body and soul, when she was alone and Ladylove was with him, secluded in the room at the end of the hall.

She touched an inked pen to the paper, but it blotted inelegantly as her small hand trembled, a wisp of distraction brushing through her being like a wind through a field of long grass. She heaved a sigh, picked up her pen, and looped a few words in pretty penmanship, "I will be diligent..." the irony of it made her stop to collect herself and before she could, heat licked up through her body and laid a mantle of blush across her little cheeks. Her pen touched to paper again, quivering barely, and she mouthed the words as she kept writing, "I will be diligent and efficient..."

Francis and Gregory had leapt onto the table. Gregory had curled into a ball and was sleeping, Francis, the black one, was watching her, head cocked, as she fought a curious internal battle with herself. To anyone watching, even a cat, the scene unfolding in the kitchen would have been an amusing one to watch.

"I will not," she continued to dictate to herself, "in... con... venience..." the last word came in hiccups, her own sweet eyes widened in confusion as an unfamiliar wetness suffused her underwear... "the guests of this house," she whispered now, her letters all but illegible. Her face contorted delicately, a twinge of something like discomfort, and then her jaw dropped and her eyes rolled softly. She dropped back into the chair like a ragdoll and moaned, leaving a long gash of ink diagonally across the page, fingers clenching around the pen like a lifeline as a rhythmic phantom rocked her body in the cradle of the wooden chair for long, long minutes, transfixing the girl.

She fought against the torrent of inexplicable pleasure to right herself, though the hint of wetness between her thighs had now embrocated them slick to the knee. She was fighting this demon for the first time in her life, and she was losing. She was struggling with the quill as if it was possessed, or she was, as she dipped it in the inkpot again and kissed the point to the page. She galvanized her force of will as the pleasure stealing her body ebbed for just long enough for her to manage a few more words. It was like trying to take a breath before the tide lapped over your head again. "For any longer than..." read like frantic scratches on the page.

The thrill and revelry of the new sensations rose up around her like a swollen wave and drug her under. She moaned and thrashed, gripped the edge of the table, shivering, gasped for air again and again and again, gnashed her teeth, teetered on the brink of consciousness, came, peed herself, and collapsed face-first onto the little table with a tiny little noise, feeling half-alive like a poor soul washed onto the shore, spat up from the deep.

Gregory had awakened, regarding her with something like shocked suspicion, and Francis took a few steps toward her, trodding through the well of ink and onto the paper napkin with one of his paws, leaving pawprints and spatters as he tried to shake it off, and nudged his head against her face, mewing worriedly when she didn't stir.

A moment later, the scent of bread-about-to-burn hit her and she jumped up. Her fingers and forearms were smudged with ink, along with a stamping of the word "inconvenience" where her face had struck the paper's surface. She lifted her sodden skirts where they were dry and used them to pull the loaf hurriedly from the oven just before she heard her mother's voice arise, sing-songing, from down the hall.

Recovered from her own orgasm, Ladylove was calling for lunch, and never before had it driven such terror into Girlthing's heart.

She picked up a knife with one shaking hand, and steadied the steaming bread with the other, burning her hand as she sawed off a number of thick, uneven slices from the loaf, still too hot to be cut properly. She hurriedly laid the slices on a platter she had arranged earlier with crumbly cheese and cold, smoked ham, marbled slightly with fat and cut thin, slivered crimson tomatoes, salt, and nuts.

She folded the dooming napkin into quarters so that her scrawling was hidden- not even one sentence completed- and tucked it alongside the platter. Looking down at the tray, she couldn't help but bursting into tears... so it was that when Ladylove called for her again, Girlthing appeared in the doorway of her bedroom dishevelled, ink-smeared, burned, tear-stained, smelling of girl cum and piss.

 

[LitShark]

Dawn was up from the bed, shrugging easily into his shirt once more. He raised one arm to button the cuff, and was just in the midst of repeating this process on the twin of the first cuff when he felt her approaching. It was nothing unusual for Dawn, to feel the approach of his Ladylove’s daughter at this time of day, less so when she’d been beckoned by her mother, but this time he approach felt different—heavier, for lack of a more apt term. He knew that something was amiss by her very footfalls before she reached the door, as though weighted down by unaccustomed shame and guilt.

When the double-doors crept open, Dawn could smell it—moreover, he could feel the smell and the feelings which had caused it. The shame, the confusion, the fear and even the haunting pinprick of pleasure which penetrated each of the previous. He’d done Girlthing wrong without meaning, his sin of neglect imprisoning her in a hell of shame. When Ladylove had taken him inside of her, all other thoughts completely abandoned the weary traveler (as they so often did), leaving poor Girlthing to suffer through her punishment while also enduring a pleasure beyond her years.

“Poor thing.” Dawn remarked casually, finishing the task of buttoning his other cuff as though unaffected. “Come now, darling girl. Let’s find you a bath.”

Dawn moved from the dresser where the tiger’s-eye pipe still issued thin columns of pale smoke into the air, kneeling in front of Girlthing, using his thumb to scrub the first half of “inconvenience” off of the girl’s cheek, placing all the soothing reassurance his abilities enabled him into that brief touch of her face. Though, he wasn’t sure that “convenience” preceded by another black smudge on her face was a marked improvement, he hoped his reassurance had relieved some of Girlthing’s shame.

Knowing, as Dawn did, that Ladylove would likely have a less empathetic understanding of the situation, he sought no council from her on the matter. The look he cast back over his shoulder was one of determined certitude. It was a look that dared her to speak out against her, that proclaimed his protection over her and would not be challenged. At least for as long as he remained within the house.

The tray off food and the ink blotted napkins were set aside with little care or consideration as Dawn wrapped his arm around Girlthing’s shoulders, leading her through the bedroom into Ladylove’s private bath. The water was lukewarm at best and slightly less than clear from its previous occupants that day, a cruel mockery perhaps to she who had almost certainly brought and heated the bathwater in the first place, but it would have to do for now.

Dawn kicked shut the door behind him, being less than gentle with the slam. He blamed Ladylove for her role in Girlthing’s disgrace, in spite of the fact that it was his interference which had bombarded her. It was an odd time to think of one of his rivals, but Dawn couldn’t help but to wish for the abilities of Mister Midnight at that moment. A talented alchemist such as him could replace the tepid, soiled water with hot, clean water with no more effort than snapping his fingers… But Dawn had no such skills.

“Don’t be afraid. It’s alright now.” Dawn smiled reassuringly to Girlthing, stroking her hair gently. “Let’s get these dirty clothes off you, I’m sure Mommy will have something else for you to wear.”

Dawn felt awkward, uncertain of how to feel, even which feelings he was feeling were his own. The girl before him was as likely to be his daughter as she was to be anyone else’s, yet he could still see the signs of certain beauty she had inherited from her mother maturing into guileless femininity. Girlthing couldn’t see herself, not the way that she ought to have. Not the way Dawn could see her. He could see the best parts of himself in her, the best parts of Ladylove too, without any trace of their mutual malfunction. She was unblemished innocence made flesh.

Dawn convinced himself that it was his empathy feeling her arousal and not his own…

 

[littlewaif]

Ladylove was consumed with a sweltering fury. The sound of the slamming bathroom door rang in distorted reverberations through her body, through her spirit. The heat of her blood boiled her cheeks, scalded muscle and bone. Such was her ferocity that Mr. Dawn would have felt it from within like hands of flame clawing for his very soul.

She mastered the hot ferocity of her anger. She let it strengthen her resolve rather than weaken her control. For a long time, Ladylove had known what must be done. As Girlthing was maturing into a young woman, the essence of Ladylove's magnetic power, her wealth of leveraged lifeforce, her sorcery over heart and soul, was leaking like grains of sand from one bulb of an hourglass into the other, transforming her daughter by the day.

Ladylove had to take another victim. She had done it before. More than once. It hadn't been easy, and hadn't enjoyed it. Two men who would never touch her again, who would never kiss her. Two loves whose memories were claws in her curtains. But it had made her stronger, more powerful. Perhaps this time it would be her beloved Dawn.

She didn't follow them into the bathroom. If she was going to capture the man's soul, she couldn't lose his heart. She went and put a hand to the bathroom door and in the gentlest voice cooed, "Poor little girlthing, you've made a mess of yourself, child... Such a mess."

He could all but see inside her, so she knew she must dress her intentions in sincerity and sweetness, so that even he would not recognize them. She saw the paper napkin tucked admidst the arrangement of morsels and plucked it out. She unfolded it, and to exorcize the fire in her heart, she folded the page again and again and lit the corner of it, using the burning paper to hit her pipe again and again. The opium was a salve to her inflamed pride. It was numbing, euphoric, sedative, bliss. She stood, wrapped loosely in her gauzy dressing gown and hit the pipe until her eyes lost their focus.

She laid across her bed, sensing but not feeling, the vast emptiness that she teetered on the edge of. A doomed, loveless existence. The only sound from the adjoining washroom was water drumming on porcelain. For the first time in a long time, Ladylove called out with a long, trilling purr for Francis or Gregory to come and curl around her with their feline grace, but they did not come. Unseen, in distant rooms, they heard her call and what remained of their souls prickled, their hackles raised, and they hissed. Too tired to feel, Ladylove fell into a deep, drugged sleep.

 

[LitShark]

((The following is a collaboration between LitShark & littlewaif. Enjoy.))

Dawn could feel Ladylove's anger through the door, ignorant of the looming threat which her anger carried with it. His pale blue eyes locked on Girlthing, timid and confused as she was, he handled her gently, as one handling a wounded bird. He reached for the buttons on her soiled dress. "Don't be so nervous. I'm not going to hurt you."

Her mother asleep in the next room, Girlthing felt more herself, as if suddenly her inner space had cleared, and lightened, there was more room and stillness, she could again think with her normal brightness and clarity. She took into deep consideration the countenance of the man before her. As her stare lengthened, tears welled into her eyes and when she closed her eyes, they welled over and fell down her cheeks at the same time. She felt as if she had broken years’ worth of diligently good, deliberately made impressions of dutiful obedience, grace, and warmth, in one fell swoop.

"I'm so sorry for my behavior this morning. I hope you'll forgive me, Mr. Dawn." She brushed her cheeks and met his eyes unwaveringly.

Dawn smiled and looked sympathetic, reaching up to wipe away one of her tears that clung to her cheek, smudging away the last of the word which left its reminder on her cheek.

"There's no need to apologize. You've done nothing wrong. You're becoming a woman. You should rejoice in such a change." Dawn felt mixed feelings as he read Girlthing's expressions with his heart, seeing her feel so deeply and so quickly reassured him that he might in fact be her father, discouraging a great many other feelings he felt toward her as the first button fell free of its hole and more of her smooth skin came into view. "You are exactly as you should be, my darling child. Not a sigh less."

His words tumbled in her mind like rough stones that would need many, many more turns before their true and brilliant colors would be revealed beneath their vague, dusty shells.

‘My darling child.’

In that little bathroom, for a moment in her turbulent world, she felt safe from her mother's wrath and the ominous clouds of fate that seemed to be roiling at her heels. She could not explain the sureness of her hands, the same unshakeable grace she had mastered when refilling a visitor's teacup, as she finished the buttons for Mr. Dawn and the simple, delicate shift fell away from her body.

The pale scapes of her flesh were pale as flour, soft as velvet, trim and delicate as one could imagine. Her slender legs tapered into almost womanly hips. Her breasts appearing weightless and round, touched with ethereally pale pink tips, her stomach so smooth and flat she looked almost dollish where her thighs tucked together and made a little triangle of curiously smooth femininity, only the barest suggestion of a cleft visible between.

Dawn's breath caught in his throat for a moment and he felt his heart begin to race. He quickly averted his eyes once the realization that he was staring hit him. He busied himself, hanging the discarded shift over the copper towel rack, tossing a clean, white towel over his shoulder before turning back to the naked girl before him. He helped her into the tub of water, taking a moment to unbutton and roll his cuffs higher on his arms. He takes a large, unevenly shaped sea sponge and submerges it, squeezing it free of air and allowing it to drink itself full of tepid, soapy water.

She stepped into the bath, pink creeping through her as she wondered if he noticed her scent. Her female scent. It was a sharp, fresh smell, not quite sweet, perhaps more like the pale nuanced acid of an unripe peach. She too was made to enchant. Her deferential nature, her training to serve others, and then tend to herself, cried for her to politely dismiss him from the room. She didn't need help bathing herself. Like most things, she had been doing it for herself since she was physically able. But two other voices struggled for an audience in her mind... she had never felt a man's large warm hands help wash her, as perhaps a father would, and there were so many chances she never got to be that little girl. The other voice, the newer voice, still trembling from first orgasm, whispered that she'd never had a chance to be a woman, either. She didn't know all that might entail, and yet. She couldn't make herself tell him to go, instead, she sank into the water, watchful, unreadable, save a barely bitten lip.

As the sponge came up full and dripping, Dawn was grateful that kneeling allowed him to hide his swollen member from view. It must have been inappropriate for him to feel this way, doing things that perhaps he should have been doing for longer, or perhaps should never do. Yet, as the sponge pressed against Girlthing's shoulder, excreting its bounty of warm water over her soft skin, Dawn felt his fingertips drag after the rough sponge across Girlthing's skin. His right hand, jealous of its twin, found an excuse to touch her, palm flat against her shoulder and collarbone, keeping her upright as the sponge moved lower to the small of her back.

The scent of her still hung in the air, but Dawn struggled not to extrapolate a flavor from it.

Girlthing drank deeply of this moment. The light in the room was sensitive, airy. No matter that the water was used and quite cool, it felt ethereal, it must have been magical. This moment, frozen in time and sheltered from the world all around was unlike any other hour of the young woman's life because she was not just an opening act, entertaining her mother's visitors in the hall while they awaited the main event. His eyes and hands and the enlivening focus of his attention was centered on her. But as soon as she articulated this in her own mind, she knew it was trouble. Her gaze tore away from the water wavering peacefully around her legs and looked into Mr. Dawn's eyes, saying softly with a sad matter-of-factness "She's going to be angry."
Dawn gazed back into Girlthing's eyes, moving the sponge down the delicate curve of her spine. His fingertips trailed after, gentle and hesitant, yet eager.

"It's not anger she feels, but jealousy. The two emotions are easy to confuse for some." Dawn said gently, dipping the sponge and bringing it up to Girlthing's shoulder. "She envies your youth, but moreover your freedom. You are free to come and go as you please, while she is bound. She envies you above all else."

Girlthing's expression twitched and her gaze fixed on the gentle fluctuations in the water, reflecting the paleness of her flesh. She wanted to say, ‘no, I couldn't leave; I couldn't leave without damning her.’ But she knew immediately that it wasn't true. Ridiculous though it may seem, she had always considered herself as bound to this place and this life as her mother. The men of this house would still come, would still go, they would care for Ladylove. She was the center of each of their worlds. They would see no harm come to her.

It had taken an outsider's perspective to show Girlthing that her destiny lay beyond these walls. Though it would take much more courage than she could presently muster to recognize it, this would be a moment she would look back on and know had changed her, propelled her on the journey she would undertake. Something had changed and she felt free. She was a woman now and she could leave.

She could go.

Girlthing was blushing now, perhaps at the scandal of her own thoughts. They seemed to burn and freeze as she tried to mentally juggle them. They hid and cowered from her insight, would not let themselves quite be known, but she felt them there, new and exciting. A smile broke across her face and seemed to ignite her beauty in his eyes.

Dawn's smile changed as their eyes met again, from one of timid complacency to a smile of genuine affection and heartfelt appreciation.

She was beautiful, even more so than her mother, whose beauty seemed to keep all worlds spinning in their orbits. Ladylove's beauty was constant for as long as Dawn had known her, but Girlthing's was still awakening, still dawning, still cresting the horizon with the promise of more to be revealed.

As the sponge came to rest on her opposite shoulder, Dawn found himself reaching across her body and without realizing what he was doing, his lips pressed softly against hers. The sponge rose up to her neck, gently pulling her into the kiss as he felt himself rush with adrenaline and earnest excitement.

It wasn't an appropriate kiss, not one of mere kindness but of romantic intentions.

Goose prickles dotted her flesh from shoulder to ankle, droplets from the sponge bath clinging to her velvet skin. She was mesmerized, helpless in that kiss, his from the moment lips touched, awake and alive in her new one-ness, the liberating separation from her mother's fate, her unwitting acceptance of hers and hers alone. This man whom she had sat next to, spoken with, fed and cleaned behind, whom she had watched close and wondered over, had loved from afar, but never made it known, was pressing his lips to hers.

She had never been kissed this way, and yet her tongue knew, soft and warm and wet, to seek his, her little hands knew to slide up his neck, cradle his jaw, and slide back until fingertips slid through the hair at the nape of his neck. Her chest rose, full of warmth and love and wholeness. And somewhere deep inside of her, or perhaps, inside of Mr. Dawn's empathic soul, the question arose again, was she his daughter? The answer did not matter nearly as much as this kiss.

From his nose, a soft sigh escaped Dawn, the last ounce of fight left in him, the last breath remaining to oppose this mutual adoration and tenderness, the wondering, the waiting, the self-loathing all fled on the air of that halting sigh and the sponge fell into the water with a flop, accompanied by all pretense of paternal bathing.

The touch of her tiny and impossibly soft tongue against his own awakened a rage of passion inside him, or perhaps inherited from her. It didn't really matter which.

With his clothes still on, he climbed over the rim of the tub and knelt in the water, still locked in passionate kisses and a frantic embrace. He was surprised to find the long tepid water hot around his legs once the two of them occupied the bath together.

The heat in the water built around their thighs as Girlthing rose up on her knees to meet his kisses. Bubbles shivered on the bottom of the tub and then began to leap and break the surface in a flurry, the water hot enough to simmer, but never seeming to burn. Girlthing was breathless in Dawn's arms as the kiss went on. Her delicate little arms wrapped around his shoulders and begged him to never let the kiss end.

Her typical demure, fragile politeness was- oh, just gone. Her lips were dragging, there were moans in her throat, her little pale nipples were screamingly sensitive and standing up like pebbles.

In the frantic passion of their heated embrace, Dawn clumsily threw his now soaked shirt open, sending buttons flying off into the simmering water. It took a few wild swings of his arm to escape the wet fabric and deposit it onto the tile floor of the bathroom. His hands leapt to Girlthing's body, caressing and feeling her soft skin, palm moving down to her firm, young ass.

It was at this, yes this most inopportune of moments, that the shadows from the high, circular stained glass window sent its long, crescent shaped shadow across the floor. The surest and most unavoidable sign that Dusk was approaching. Dawn became harshly aware of it at once, his eyes darting up to the skylight above them, made of triangular pieces of clear glass.

The sky had darkened to purple, and the first stars were beginning to peek their way through.

“Dear Sanctity! Has it grown so late already?” Dawn cried out, suddenly standing, soaked to the skin. “I should not be here at Dusk’s approach, he’ll try to possess my mind. Forgive me, dear child.”

The soaking shirt made a slapping noise as he slung it over his back, trying in vain to wring some of the water back into the tub as he wrestled one arm through the wet sleeve.

With one arm through his shirt only, leaving huge puddles and drops of water in a path through the bedroom, past the sleeping Ladylove, into the foyer and to the front door. Upon throwing open the heavy, carved door Dawn’s worst fears were instantly realized. He stumbled backward at the last moment onto the hardwood floor.

The house itself had seemed to do an about face, turning itself around so that the first step outside of the only exit tipped off the edge of the massive cliff which usually guarded the rear of the house. Dawn had barely managed to avoid diving right through the door in his haste. He watched now, in wide eyed horror as the droplets of water from his slacks careened through the air for what seemed an eternity before joining the crashing white foam of the waves, exploding against the jagged rocks, hundreds of feet below.

“I know I’m late!” Dawn shouted down at the roaring tide. “It was a mistake on my part. Allow me to leave, and I shall keep stricter time on the morrow.”

“Why are you all wet?” Dusk’s heavily accented voice hissed from behind, from inside the house, walking into the foyer from the bedroom. “Have thou forgotten how to bathe thyself properly?”

“No, I-“ Dawn had never had much skill in lying (knowing too well how it felt to be lied to), but sheer necessity forced him to think quickly and lie with a straight face. “I slipped while washing my face. It’s why I was so late in leaving.”

“The Girlthing, where is she? My daughter! Where is a father’s welcome? If thou has laid a finger upon my child, or harmed or corrupted her in any degree, no amount of pleading will spare thy life.”

From the moment that Dusk said the word ‘daughter,’ the crashing waves below suddenly became billowing columns of rolling flame. Each time a wave of fire broke against the cliff face, it sent up a fresh shower of sparks and glowing orange embers. Dusk himself seemed to glow, smoke rising up from inside the folds of his exquisite silks, his face and eyes glowing orange as if his blood itself were on fire, making his skin translucent, his skull baring its teeth through clenched lips.

“Good Lord, she might be my child as easily as she could be yours, I would never-“

”Liar!”

When Dusk opened his mouth to proclaim his accusation, a plume of yellow flame escaped, sending a spray of sparks out before him, scorching the floor and hissing where they landed in Dawn’s puddle.

Dawn was forced to scamper back to his feet to escape being burned by the fire that Dusk continued to belch forth. Dusk backed him up, back to the door overlooking the massive sea of flame at the end of the long drop off of the first step.

“For the love of the Lord! Let me go! Please, do me no harm!” Dawn cried out, suddenly made pathetic by the greater power of Dusk.

”There is no Lord but God. No love but His love. Thou are soft. A man should be more rigid, more formidable. Thou does not deserve any of the gifts that have been afforded thee, and now comes thy grim recompense. No one shall miss thee.” Dusk barked, spitting fire down around dawn’s feet until the heat of the flames dried his pant legs and began to smolder them.

As Dawn’s heels tipped back over the edge of the doorframe Dusk gave him a shove with smoldering palms, pushing him out of the house, off the edge of the cliff into free-fall. He careened downward, screaming as he went, down, down, into the pit of fire and erupting embers.

Dawn landed with a thud, back upon the dirt road. The horrors of his certain and painful death, gone as swiftly and unexpectedly as they had come on. From just inside the door, Dusk smirked, his gold tooth flashing in the last, red light of sunset. No longer smoldering or spitting fire.

“Remember who has spared thee, cur. There lies thy way.” With that Dusk slammed the door, hard enough and with enough force to make every inch and corner of the house resound with the sudden slam, loud enough to wake Ladylove from her drugged slumber. Claiming the house for his own until morning.

 

[littlewaif]

Girlthing was torn from the fantasy of closeness as Dawn fled the washroom in his soaked shirt, leaving her bare and breathless, frothing, roiling water dying instantly around her creamy thighs, collapsing with a sigh, colder than ever.

So much was amiss with the world. Time itself seemed out of balance. There was still a tray of uneaten food in Ladylove's bedroom, her pipe was out, and the linens were sullied with whispers of Dawn's scent, still.

Girlthing knew that Dusk had arrived. She heard a faint jingling and what sounded like the roar of flame. She feared for Dawn. She pulled her dress on quickly without drying and the fabric clung to her body where she was yet damp. An aura of oppressive terror weighed heavily around her and through the skylight windows above the sky twisted, the clouds writhed anxiously, ominously.

Girlthing checked her face in the mirror, anxious there would hide some secret hint, some flaw, some tell, that she was not the girl who had bid Dusk farewell this morning, that she had somehow intrinsically changed, that a transformation was at work within. She searched for a clue in her face that would tell Mr. Dusk she'd been kissed, she'd been loved, she'd opened her eyes to her own burgeoning womanliness, that she'd glimpsed a destiny beyond, that the wick of her very own magic was lit.

Would he see it? With a glance over her shoulder at her still-sleeping mother, she fled into the hall, heart pounding, and saw Dusk silhouetted, door slamming with a force that seemed supernatural, that rattled her bones. The edges of the doorway seethed with a lining of neon orange, Dusk himself pouring an aura of black heat.

********

The House of Moonlight and Shadow was in fact a page torn from the book of reality, folded and folded again, so that time and space behaved a little differently than the other realms betwixt which it nestled. Whereas a week or a month, a year or ten, may pass for one man or the other when they were away, whenever they slipped back into the splintered reality of Moonlight and Shadow, a luminous mother and delicate daughter sat eagerly awaiting, unaged, expecting them, as if only a few hours had gone by when in reality, a man could have seen worlds in that window between visits.

The House of Moonlight and Shadow was like a vortex of magical power, central to the Mistress of the Manor, Ladylove herself. Her suitors drank of her magic to replenish their own. She drank of their love. It was a mutualistic relationship. Without it, she'd have withered, she would have been nothing, she would have died. But with it, her power and magnetism, her brilliant light, grew and grew. It was only after the birth of Girlthing that Ladylove slowly began to diminish. Those days gone by were framed in gilded reminiscence by every visitor of the house, glorious and golden.

It only seemed natural that when Ladylove's beauty seemed too much for one vessel, she grew with child, and her easy grace spilled over into the girl. No one knew whose the child was, least of all the Ladylove, but neither could anyone help but adore her. Though she looked a perfect miniature of her mother, there seemed times when in a glance or a laugh or gesture, she could have easily belonged to any of her mother's three suitors, and as she grew, she perhaps possessed a sparkle of each of their unique sorceries, unbeknownst to her.

********

And so when Dusk's eyes lit on her, the wakened illusionist in her cloaked her in a façade of dainty put-togetherness, clothed her in fresh garments and smoothed her hair into place, and hid the dishevelment of almost-sex. The empath in her could sense the rage and madness coursing through him, could feel his heated blood and quickened pulse. The alchemist in her offered him a drink...

 

[LitShark]

With the last trace of dawn smothered under the seeping purple dusk, lit in patchy clusters by vibrant stars and vivid constellations, only then did Dusk turn back into the House. As he turned, the light in the room grew low, no candles had yet been lit. Enough light still filtered in for him to see down the long hallway, see Ladylove still sprawled across dirty sheets in drugged unconsciousness.

This was Dawn’s doing.

The dirty sheets undone by Dawn. The smeared puddles over the polished, lacquered rosewood floors smeared in Dawn. Leftover tray of Dawn’s food. This rival had ransacked his cherished vacation home. It was one thing, for this interloper to stick his filthy, sun kissed cock into Ladylove. It was in her nature to know a variety of men from far flung regions and customs. But for Dusk’s daughter to be around that drug dealing sycophant, such a thing was unacceptable. Girlthing was already neglecting her duties as resident Angel in the Household, this too was the work of this Daylight Interloper. Even if she did look the same vision of loveliness that she always did.

Dusk needed to regain control of his daughter’s upbringing. He asked for a whiskey neat when she offered him a drink, turning back toward the boudoir to begin the process of waking up his beloved mistress. He set the heavy bag from his back onto one of the ornate, purple and indigo chaise lounges set about the foyer to make his way unhindered. When he loomed over his Ladylove, Dusk clapped his hands loudly in front of his face.

“Wake up, junkie! Rise and shine! Do you see how your daughter and your daybreak lover have ravaged our home? See how I come home to this? You have slept too long and slipped too deep into your depraved crutch.” Dawn barked down at his slumbering muse. “This is unacceptable, perhaps I take the ‘Thing with me, never come back here so you and your dealer can slip away into nothingness forever!”

At this, Dusk turned his back to bed and woman, his pointed slippers absorbing some of the now aggressively cold water pooled through the hallway. He swore in some unknowable dialect and shook his foot, casting a glowing orb into the air, to illuminate the puddles so that he could avoid stepping in any others.

“Thing! Bring me my drink here, dry up this mess that your mother’s trick has left behind him, so like a slug leaving trails behind as he slinks away.” Dawn insisted, taking his glass from the young girl’s hands, bringing it to his lips.

Taking a slow, deliberate drink from the glass, Dawn spat, as if in final resolution of his absolute authority. The tiny drops of spittle and liquor, each ignited in the air, glowing in brilliant orange for a moment, sending up a tiny plume of flame as each individual spark darted to various parts of the room, each igniting one of the many candles around the house, coaxing their wicks to life and leaving a glowing orange trail through the air, that hovered for half a moment in their wake before being engulfed by the glow of hundreds of candles.

“Daughter, bring your face close here to mine.” Said Dawn, kneeling down, his anger seeming to have subsided. “If you were to have to leave, if this house were falling down around you- if all this was about you, what would you first wish to take with you? Not some frivolous pet or a brush, no. What you absolutely cannot live without from here, what would it be?”

 

[littlewaif]

Girlthing heard Dusk's tremoring, righteous scolding ring down the hallway as she opened the liquor cabinet in the kitchen. The most prominent and well-used fixture of the cabinet was Mr. Midnight's silver tray of absinthe and its artifacts, but there were other potions here too, most of them gifts from Midnight, some of them spoils of Dusk's roamings.

Girlthing pulled down a bottle of whiskey and poured two fingers of the glossy golden liquid into a cut crystal tumbler. Then, without her trademark hesitation, without a careful weighing of what Dusk might think, or her mother might say, she took down the other tumbler, the one her mother would have drunk from, and poured about twice her original pour in it. As she put the bottle back on the shelf, the absinthe kit caught her gaze again, and she lifted the little, ceremonial celestial spoon off the sugar pot. Idly, without a conscious rationalization, led in her actions by only her budding alchemical intuiton, she put the spoon into the double-pour of whiskey and stirred it. A taste of licorice and a trace of Mr. Midnight floated off the delicate utensil.

Then, just as decisively, she put it to her small pink mouth, tipped back her head and swallowed it in successive gulps, one, two, three, feeling the searing amber wash her throat and settle warmly in her belly. She'd need something to fortify her newly found will. She wasn't used to being compelled by anything other than the pleasure and comfort of others, much less acting upon it. She looked down and noticed the spoon was still in her hand. Again, without a plan or an exact... intention, she put the spoon in the pocket of her dress. She carried the single pour steadily down the hall to her mother's room.

She watched as he breathed illumination into every corner of the room, and then...

“Daughter,”

She equally loved and hated when he used that word for her. It didn't seem fair of him to be so certain, it seemed cruel, it crushed her heart in a way that was tragic and still unspeakably delicious.

“Bring your face close here to mine,” and she did, dropping onto her knees as he knelt, too. She met his gaze, loving him more when the anger was gone from his eyes, as it was now. But her usually rapt attention was tugged away from his gaze and out of the window across the room.

The sky had darkened from lavender to plum, but usually by now, true darkness began to stain over the washes of watercolor sunset, until it was black, and... the sky, it... well, it wasn't any darker at all. It had faded into a more uniform blue, like course denim that had once been quite dark, but that had been laundered too many times, an indeterminate, grayish sort of blue, a color without conviction, and... the horizon still seemed aglow with a sun that was juuuust beyond it, but that must be an illusion, because the sun should have been well gone. The rustle of wildlife, the trill of birds at day's last light, and the last swirl of warm daytime winds seemed almost played on loop, until they were... haunting, like carnival music, an endless repeat, never cresting, never dying down, just restlessly going on and on.

Night wasn't coming. Something was broken, and it was only getting worse. The last three nights had seemed shorter, askew, but now... the clockwork of this tiny little microcosm were like gears grinding, about to break. She felt it in her very being. She could barely focus on Dusk's words over the dischordant roar that only she seemed to hear.

“If you were to have to leave, if this house were falling down around you- if all this was about you, what would you first wish to take with you? Not some frivolous pet or a brush, no. What you absolutely cannot live without from here, what would it be?”

Girlthing snapped to, still seeming a little distracted, her mind obviously elsewhere. She looked about her, her first thought to be offended at the dismissal of Francis and Gregory as “frivolous pets,” for to her, they had always seemed much more. She thought briefly of suggesting the little moonlight-magic chain that kept her mother confined to her room. After all, if she were to flee, shouldn't her mother have the liberty to as well? But, no. She didn't know where she would go, but she knew it best that Mother not follow... God knows what she would do, if... when... Girlthing left. She couldn't risk finding out. She inventoried the Inn in her mind's eye, briefly, but... she was happy to leave every single thing, here, each in its place, where it belonged... All she knew was that she no longer belonged, and couldn't stay.

Looking around the room one last time, as if the answer to his question would be lying on a table or hung from the wall, she caught a gleam from the vanity's edge and stood to walk to it. Her body between Dusk and the vanity, he couldn't quite see what she picked up off its surface. It was a cufflink, one of Dawn's, that he had forgotten as he buttoned his cuffs after lying with Ladylove... interrupted by Girlthing bringing in lunch. A white gold whirl, a silhouette of the sun, rays of sunlight enameled in a subtle, opaline white on the metallic background. She put it in her pocket, too.

She looked up into the mirror of the vanity and saw the reflection of her mother, sleepily drawing herself into a sitting position in her decadent bedsheets, only just remembering her mother was there at all. She didn't let it stop her. Turning back to Dusk, she finally opened her mouth to speak. Her breath floated a hint of peated smoke and cinnamon from the deep draw of whiskey when she spoke. Something was different about her bell-like soft little voice. It wasn't as soft, or as little. It was no less beautiful. “It is all falling down around us, Dusk... and I do... have to leave... But there's nothing here I can't live without. Nothing from this house that I'll take...” She looked up at her mother, smiling a little sadly, with genuine love and affection for her. Ladylove didn't look angry, she looked confused, frozen. “Everything in this house belongs to Mama. But... I do want something, before I go...” She felt the first small suggestion of shyness since she'd slammed her drink, and she willfully, sharply pushed it away, with conviction, and finished the sentence. “A kiss.”

The pause after it was heavily pregnant. She half expected he'd slap her across the face if he didn't kiss her. She didn't know what had made her say it. To balance things? Maybe. Because she knew she was leaving? Certainly. Something else occurred to her, and in her mad braveness, she didn't even let the thought finish passing silently through her mind before committing it to word and action. Her fingers slid up Dusk's chest and caught the copper chain tucked into his waistcoat, fishing out the beautiful, tiny compass at its end. She wanted it to rest in her pocket with the spoon and the cufflink and jingle like music when she walked the dusty path away from here. “And this. I'd like this.”

 

[LitShark]

Midnight​

Lightning cracked the swirling air around them, suddenly casting the scene into dramatic relief with silver light—the bearded captain, high in the main mast with rain sheeting off of his face and beard, the frantic crew scrambling around the deck below as they fought through the downpour and winds, sailing directly into the storm cloud that cast out the bolt. It was all there, frozen for a single, silver moment like it were being cast into a coin. The ship’s Captain, known in other worlds as Midnight tied off the moonraker sail on the centermost mast of his three-mast Barque style skyship.

Once the moonraker was secured, helping them maintain distance ahead of their pursuers who were pressing hard not to lose them in the storm clouds, the Captain leapt from the mast, hurling himself into the starboard helium bladder that wrapped around the outer deck and kept the massive ship aloft. Long planks, each strung through a long, crescent-shaped canvass, the length of the ship, swept forward, each plank rising and falling in succession, making a wave which provided upward thrust for the vessel. The Captain bounded off of the bladder toward the helm, using a free-dangling rope to swing himself tidily over the heads of his deckhands, behind the wheel, taking over for the haggard crewman who was clearly using all of his strength to keep the wheel straight. The Captain spread his stance and took hold of the wheel.

“Go help men on the middle topsail! We’ve got to maintain speed!” the Captain shouted over the squall, glancing over his shoulder at their pursuers, lightning splashing the scene once more in silver light.

The griffins recoiled at the latest bolt, screeching in protest at being reigned into the storm cap, but their riders spurred them onward, tossing lightweight axes ahead of them, trying in vain to reach the hull of Beloved, the Captain’s airship.

“Ascend! Go now! Take us higher! We’ve got to break through this storm system before it fries our mast. Give it your all!” the Captain shouted into a brass cone that was mounted near the wheel, carrying his voice down to the midship rowers deck below the main deck.

Below the main deck, a crew of less muscular, more agile looking sailors utilized the series of long, wooden poles to work the lateral sails on the starboard and port sides of the vessel. Each of the oarsmen was sweating, in spite of the cold and rain on the main deck, working in unison, doing a kind of wave in unison, standing and sitting down at the direction of Lyons, the midship deck boss. Lyons dressed in light blue, loose fitting clothing with a white cloth tied around his forehead—a style which most of his crew had adopted of their own volition, to maintain unity among them and set them apart from the upper deck crew.

“You heard him, men! Give it all you got for another hour, then we’ll be clear!” Lyons shouted to his crew, racing from one end of the ship to the other, signaling the wave to begin again at the fore and move to the aft of the ship.

If any of Lyons’ men were bitter about having to flee from Imperial Chargers for the sake of the Captain, none let it show in his attitude or efforts as they continued to loft the ship higher. The crew of the Beloved had been all hands on for the better part of three days without respite, it was no small task to escape the arm of the Civic Empire, but in their wake, the griffins were getting increasingly remote and after one of the chargers was struck by a bolt that followed his metallic axe back to his arm the pursuers were peeling off as they lost sight of Beloved in the dark cloud.

Before any of the rest of the massive barge emerged from the thick, pool of grey, swirling vapor, the flag of the tallest mast broke though the upper limits of the dense cloud, creating a long, V-shaped wake behind it, opening a valley in the bright orange surface of the cloud, reflecting the colors of the setting sun. The flag depicted a crescent moon, bound to the mast with a silver thread on an indigo canvass. Soon the other masts crested the cloud and the wakes of these interruptions created overlapping wakes, making the surface of the cloud look like orange and red argyle until the outstretched sails emerged from within the cloud, casting tufts of vapor off in wide curls.

By the time the hull emerged from the storm cloud, the sky had faded and the cloud was now reflecting pinks and purples as a raucous cheer rose from the deck. The Captain saluted his men, passing along the word to each of his crew chiefs to tie off and let the men hit their racks, everyone, to a man, exhausted from the prolonged pursuit.

The Captain, however, remained at his post, even as his men cleared the various deck levels, letting the ship level off and coast the surface of the clouds. He retrieved a small facemask, also among the tools laid ready about his post, allowing him to breathe oxygen rich air which was at a premium at this height. He pulled a golden pocket-watch from inside his coat, checking the time with an obvious remorse in his eye. He would miss his appointment with Ladylove again. Who could say for sure if she even waited for him anymore… Most of all he missed his darling Girlthing. The time apart from her pained him even more than the cold, exhaustion or his ruined reputation.

It would take a great deal of effort and time before he could cross that plane again, he thought with a lonesome sigh…

 

[littlewaif]

((This post is a collaborative effort.))

Girlthing pulled Dawn gently into a kiss. The kiss was neither deep, nor long, but it was no peck either. It could have been written off as no more than a thank you for the token, and yet it clearly was more.* When Girlthing broke the simple, only barely damp press of lips, she looked deeply into Dusk's dark eyes and then unabashedly turned to meet her mother's. She didn't say anything, only looked long, as if studying her reflection in a mirror.

She walked to the door, paused with a palm against the door frame, and met Dusk's eyes one more time. "Take care of Mama. Someone has to." And then she was gone.*

When Dawn arrived each mothing, it was trodding along the path in front of the house, from the east, silhouetted by the first golden light of a new day behind him. Likewise, at day's end, Dusk strolled the path from the West, crowned with a shimmering crimson setting sun at his back. But when Midnight approached, it was from the edge of the cliff. He would scale it with the crashing tides licking at his heels, dredged from depths unknown.

When Girlthing stepped outside of the door of the Inn, warm winds blew around her but elicited a shiver still. The sun had barely set but the moon not yet risen. The compass was still held in her small palm. She released the clasp and it sprung open. It did not point north, but in the direction she already knew she must go, where her heart was tugging her, to the edge of the cliff, from whence Mr. Midnight came, and whence he had disappeared again.*

Her inner illusionist had barely to try... As she raised her arms into the air on either side a swirl of dust motes glittering like twilight swirled up and seemed to consume her. She dusted the fingertips of both hands together in the air, a gesture like sprinkling salt, a summoning accompanied by a feline, "Tt, tt, frrrrrrrnnn. Frowwwwww." She had gone invisible, but Francis and Gregory seemed to have no trouble at all following behind as she tread, unseeable to human eyes, to the cliff's edge.

If Ladylove and Girlthing were the two bulbs of an hourglass, and each speck of sand was a crumb of light and love and magic and power, then some clump had just dissolved, and a rush of those luminous little grains had spilled from one into the other. Ladylove felt palpably diminished, weak, tired.*

She was pale as a ghost. She collapsed back into her bed and clawed the silken sheets around her, suddenly cold. What had she been thinking? She couldn't kill Dawn, no. For every iota of magic he replenished for himself by basking in her very presence, she took an equal measure of his very life-force. The time her suitors spent in their own realms depleted their stores of magic, perhaps, but replenished their vital force. It was a necessary thing that they each go on their way at the end of their visits with the gorgeous and dangerous love of their lives, for if any of the men were to stay in the House of Moonlight and Shadow for too long, they would surely wither and die, surrendering the stuff of their very soul to Inn's thirsty mistress.*

She needed the sunlight he brought to her life. She needed his golden adoration, the warmth of his kisses, just as she needed Dusk's sultry essence and every one of his smoldering soul-deep gazes. She needed the darker gifts of Mr. Midnight's mortal soul as well, those complicated, inky, peeks into the abyss... but if she had to be without them, now or always... she certainly couldn't make a sacrifice of either of her other two enchanted callers.

If she wanted to again be herself, her true self in all of her glory, she must lay another sacrifice upon the altar. Her daughter, the thing, the girl she had herself borne. Ladylove brought her hand up to her throat and touched the collar of moonlight, the leash that bound her here to this place. One of the last souvenirs that remained from her darling Mr. Midnight.*

When she found her voice, it was hoarse, something between a hiss and a growl. She was clutching the sheets, looking not altogether less than beautiful, only beautiful in the ruined sort of way she did after Dusk had had his way with her extra... vigorously.*

“Dusk...” she wheezed, aching with physical exertion just to say his name... “What... are you DOING? You...” she trembled in utter frustration and tears slipped down her cheeks, her tremendous, gorgeous tits heaved and bounced in a silent sob... She restrained herself from calling him a moron, a fool, an imbecile, an asshole “You... precious man... pursue her. Saaaave her from her naive stupidity, her certain doom, save her and bring her back to her mother before I worry myself SICK. Bring her back to me. What are you looking at? Gooooo! Nowwwww!”

"But.." Dusk searched for the words, only inciting more anger and frustration from Ladylove, who almost never allowed herself to be so outspoken or so frantic, the women of his life were suddenly other than he knew them, but he was out of practice at refusing the will of his Ladylove, "I--of course, my darling."

It took a matter of minutes for Dusk to put himself back together, so accustomed to the sweet Girlthing unburdening him as soon as he crossed the threshold of the bordello, he was clumsy in getting back underneath his bag and when he saw the last lock of Girlthing's long hair, curling on the breeze like a wave goodbye before vanishing over the cliff.

When Dusk looked over the edge his mind boggled at the notion of climbing downward with his heavy pack, instead he focused on making the climb seem more daunting for GIrlthing, stretching the cliff below her and trying to fright her back up to his arms.

Girlthing hesitated at the lip of the rock face and then stepped precariously, shakily, atop the first evident foothold available after the cliff's drop off. She gasped as she felt a chilly gust sweep through her sheer, delicate skirts and dropped dangerously, bravely a few steps down, her bare toes seeking purchase on the scathingly rough surface of stone.*

Francis and Gregory stood above her, yowling in alarm as she descended, but once it seemed they accepted her level of reckless descent, they delicately, begrudgingly matched her level of abandon, and followed, gingerly stepping on the widest ledges afforded them. When she was at the bottom of the jagged, forbidding rock face, she again consulted Dawn's compass. It pointed her directly into the spitting black edge of the sea.*

Girlthing looked back at her two apprehensive kitty boys. If they had been humans, they would have shrugged. Girlthing stood, newly woman, and unbuttoned her sheer, layered pink frocks as the bubbling ocean writhed up against her thighs. She reached into the pocket of her dresses before sea overtook cloth and retrieved the cufflink and spoon that had rested against her thigh. She regarded the artifacts, and unwilling to lose them to the rising tide, laid them on her soft pink tongue, the handle of the spoon poking out between her soft lipsas she secured them in the soft prison of her mouth.

She looked back at the compass, which only bid her deeper in the obsidian lapping of hungry waves. She glanced apologetically at the two cats and dove... The cats swam, counter to instinct, into the water, into her arms, and she swam, counter to instinct, possibly even to her death, into a vortex of frothing, irridescent water. A whirlpool, a channel, a chasm into The Deep.*

In one arm she cradled Gregory, the suspcious tuxedo. In the other arm, she clutched Gregory, who, with long claws, grasped her back, a true, black, witch's cat. In tandem, the three swirled, down and down. Down and down and down, then up and up, first through water, then through sand, into an alien desertscape of dusty rose.

The Great Chasm seemed to pitch a cloud of dampness around the travelers as it seemed to expel them tumbling onto the wide surface of the plains. The wind howled across the wide open space, whistling harmonically as the wind was interrupted only gently by countless, small but tidy round holes dug unto the flat, lifeless surface. As the winds passed over the holes they made a sweet sound, like a flute or other harmonic wind instrument which earned them the name, popular among mapmakers The Singing Plains.

As Gregory tumbled forward, his eyes were met by another pair of eyes that opened and blinked themselves into shape, at the same time as Gregory was blinking to regain his sight. Once his eyes focused on the eyes ahead of him it was almost like looking in a mirror, two almond shaped pools of gold with vertical lines down the middles--not a true mirror, more like an artist's interpretation, a passing imitation of his eyes.

Gregory recoiled from the creature, apparently perched on hind legs, with what were now forepaws resting in the dirt. The eyes matched closer, though still oversized by double as they gained clarity. The creature's coat was now silken, and though it didn't come close to matching Gregory's organized pattern, it was in fact black and white. It was mostly black, with a white belly and paws, its face and body patterned like it had been standing too close to a white can of spraypaint that exploded.

Soon Francis was confronted by another creature from a different hole, this creature already looking unmistakably feline, if not for its lack of a mouth or nose. It's silken fur was the color of television static.

Francis howled and bared its teeth, an action that was first mimicked by the cat in front of Gregory, then dutifully by the static cat closest to the source. There was a tearing sound as the creature tore itself a mouth from the smooth surface of its face, leaving its lips dangling and jagged.

Soon a chorus of howls rang out and feline eyes peered out at the three obvious intruders from several dozen holes around them. Black and white faces slowly beginning to emerge afterward.

 

[LitShark]

((Collaborated Works))

In moments the ground around Girlthing and her traveling companions was practically flooded with increasingly lifelike facsimiles of housecats. Some were just a sleight too long, others were distinctively squat and short, but all of them resembled Gregory and Francis. It was unclear who first purred, but with so many silken bodies writhing against each other, the low sound and vibration moved outward in a wave until the entire mass of furry bodies was purring and vibrating around Girlthing’s feet until she was stalled and halted from taking another step. Once she stopped, more and more sets of paws perched on her toes and feet, weighing her down.

The next wave of imitation cats slid along the silky backs of the first generation, growing longer and even sleeker. Their black and white patterns more refined, even continuing from one creature to the other, creating ornate designs in black and white as they flooded the area around Girlthing’s ankles. The long creatures started wrapping around Girlthing’s calves, their soft pelts allowing them frictionless motion across her smooth skin, bundling together and piling on top of one another to wrap around her thighs and begin wrapping around below her skirt.

The purring and vibrating continued as more and more of the creatures, now more closely resembling ferrets or even furry snakes, wrapped around and around Girlthing’s legs, like warm, vibrating, silken stockings that prevented her from moving. The coil of creatures grew higher still, pushing up Girlthing’s skirt around her waist as it moved and writhed around her body, sliding between her legs and brushing over her panties again and again. The vibrating grew more and more intense as the creatures sensed Girlthing’s reaction to the sensations.

High octane houndstooth, sped up chevrons, psychedelic checkerboards, distorted pinstripes, swirling paisleys, hallucinogenic toiles, mind blowing brocades and out-of-this-world ginghams... Girlthing didn't know how to process the chimeric, slippery silken patterning of Mymcats' kaleidoscopic velvet fur rushing betwixt her creamy porcelain white thighs. Feline velvet began to streak wet as it drew between her swollen girlish lips. Girlthing threw her head back and polka dotted plaid pleasure wetly painted her awareness. She was having the second orgasm of her life to a black and white light show of impossible non-Euclidean daydream cats. Writhing furry bodies began to nudge against her innocent crevice, equal parts curious and malicious.

Round and round Girlthing’s slender waist the mimic creatures wound, beginning to imitate her rather than the cats as layers of bodies undressed her to her naval. The long bodies felt like arms without bones as they hugged her tighter and tighter, curling smooth, pale tendrils upward to chart the swell of her breasts, the waves of her ribcage. No longer a coil of ropes, the creatures now felt like webs of warm flesh, feeling out her overall shape, feeling out her texture.

Out behind where Girlthing’s profile had been stopped in stride, the creatures were casting long, translucent threads out behind her, somehow signaling their fellows critical information as a shadow version of Girlthing began to form from the writhing mass of bodies in her wake. The other Girlthing was naked and dripping, still learning the complexities of her shape, mimicking the swell and compress of her ribcage with her breathing.

 

[littlewaif]

((collaborative))

As more and more information was gathered about Girlthing, her anatomy, her texture and so forth, more and more of the creatures around her legs scampered over to join the writhing mass of pink skin and leaking fluids. One settling into a gap in ThingGirl's thigh, another trying to mimick her hair, another to her face, refining her features and forming a more refined mouth framed in rosy lips, until Girlthing was able to move slightly.

Girlthing was embarrassed at the sight of the other her, the... ThingGirl.

The input it was spawned from was her at her lewdest and most vulnerable, in the throes of orgasm, so while she was a fair reflection of Girlthing, ThingGirl was pinker, flushed hotly in her cheeks. ThingGirl breathed harder, almost panting, her lips moistened, her eyes half lidded, her perky little breasts heaving with every breath. ThingGirl's exposed sex was more swollen, pinker, poutier, and so much wetter, slickening her thighs to the knee. And worst, ThingGirl was moaning, uncontrollably, interrupted only by breathy lustful gasps, trembling wimpers and the occasional purring meow. She was Girlthing's climax, incarnate, with one major exception. She had a long, silky-furred prehensile tail, ringed black and white, like a lemur's.

Girlthing blinked in horror at her superlative counterpart, and ThingGirl's lashes answered with an exaggerated flutter. Girlthing took one cautious step forward and ThingGirl took two. When Girlthing stepped toward the amalgam, ThingGirl stepped toward her as well, embracing her with arms of unequal lengths. ThingGirl's hips were writhing and grinding against Girlthing's hip as the moaning grew louder, more lewd. Now, ThingGirl was flowing over Girlthing's shoulders, threatening to envelop her more and more as the arms squeezed her ribcage, making breathing more difficult.

Girlthing's heart was beating out of her chest. She was equal parts terrified, horrified, and disgusted, but underlying all of that was the true essence that this composite mirror beast seemed to be drawing upon. Deep within her, shimmering hot and dark, there was a lustful curiosity that kept her from pulling away, even as the ThingGirl threatened to consume her. She was gasping in ragged breaths, pulling hard to get enough oxygen. ThingGirl's long, long tail wound around them both at the middle and cinched in hard, with more strength that Girlthing could believe, like a boa constrictor. The moaning rang in her ears like some haunting ritual chant. Girlthing's mind was going fuzzy, colors draining, dimming, dark... The other her closed her mouth against hers and Girlthing could feel the moans transfer their vibrations into her own chest as tongues met, soft and wet and pink. ThingGirl kissed Girlthing hard until she lost consciousness and went limp in her smothering embrace.

 

[LitShark]

From the air it looked like a swirling boil against the dusky, brick red of the vast plains below. Yollvir reached forward, pressing down the Pegasus’ mane against the wind to have a better look—it appeared that the mymcats were swarming, but over what? No other animals were able to survive out here and fear of the Rift kept most sensible citizens far from this side of the plains. Even Yollvir hadn’t wanted this shit detail, patrolling the very edge of existence for Yevon knows what, but he was still being punished for his last patrol when he’d launched a bola at a hornets nest and gotten the two he was patrolling with stung. That slight indiscretion had made him outcast among the Sentinels and so it was his task to take on the only single unit patrol that left from Capital City, the three-day outskirts check.

“Bo-bo,” Yollvir muttered to his mount, gently tugging on the gold and silk reigns as he sat back in the saddle, urging the Pegasus to bank and descend, “good girl.”

As his steed, named Glory, banked lower over the mymcat swarm he saw the fleshy mound where the mymcats had latched onto a person, a young girl from the look of it—even from three-hundred feet overhead he could tell that she was beautiful. Unfortunately, she was well and truly caught up in the swarm and they’d almost made a complete copy of her. It looked like they were already constricting around her, she looked like she was losing consciousness. There was no time to bank again, so Yollvir swung his legs free from the stirrups and dropped free, falling the fifteen or so feet to the ground and landing with a resounding thud.

The impact of his landing broke the backs of a couple of mymcats who were slow to retreat, in death they reverted to their true shapes, like little dusky, brick red hedgehogs with pelts of clear bristles rather than spikes. A sweep of Yollvir’s muscular leg sent more of the small creatures squealing as they flew into the air. He swung his gold-handled war-hammer at the now, nearly fully autonomous ThingGirl, casting a hail of mymcats from her middle as the hammer landed.

The pink, moaning flesh-monster hissed at Yollvir, loosening its grip on its prey as it writhed and transformed, swinging an oversized crab’s claw back at Yollvir, a faint memory of a prior shape.

“Let her go, you vermin!” Yollvir shouted, kicking more of the mymcats off his shins while he battled with the oversized claw stabbing at him, “let her go now!”

With a mighty heave, Yollvir forced his hammer through the clench of the claw and back to ThingGirl’s shoulder, scattering her arm. With a mighty warcry and every fiber of muscle in his massive frame, Yollvir swung his hammer through the middle of ThingGirl’s asymmetrical face, smashing all the way to the ground. As the dead mymcats landed from Yollvir’s two most powerful moves, the rest all scattered back into their holes, as if they all kept track of how many were killed and all agreed on the moment the odds turned against them.

In seconds, only the dead were left behind and the petite, but unconscious girl that Yollvir cradled in his arms, keeping her from falling into the dirt once the mymcats released her. Francis and Gregory were also left, braying triumphantly from close by Yollvir’s ankles.

“You must be her protectors. Come on then, we’ve got to get her back to the Capital. She may be hurt.” Yollvir cradled Girlthing in his arms, climbing back onto Glory’s back, “come on, don’t be scaredy cats.”

Yollvir managed to coax the two cats up onto horseback, but not without a slight disagreement between cat’s claws and horse hide. Once all were secure, Glory flapped her wide, mighty, white wings and took to the air.

 

[littlewaif]

Girlthing awoke midair with wind whipping her face, starting joltingly and drawing in a sharp gasp of air as if she were surfacing from underwater, gabbing almost drowned. Her eyes flew frantically around, expecting to still be engulfed by the funhouse mirror version of herself, but was just as frightened to find herself slung in the arms of an unfamiliar man, parting clouds on the back of a winged horse.

He looked down at her when she came to dramatically, and as soon as she locked eyes with him, her empathic sensibilities told her she was safe. It didn't hurt that Francis seemed to trust him as well. The fearless one of the two cats, he had climbed onto the man's shoulder and was perched boldly there as if it were his throne. Gathering her wits about her, Girlthing managed, "W-what were those horrible things?"

"Good, you're awake," Yollvir smiled, helping to bring Girlthing up to a sitting position from where he'd been carrying her across his arms. "Those were Mymcats, the red plains are lousy with them, but it's rare for them to swarm like that, usually they seek out prey that's wounded or small... You must have something about you that they liked." Yollvir looked down from the reigns, flashing a smile at the girl whose head was now resting on his chest.

"My name is Yollvir, I'm a Sentinel. I'm taking you to the Capital city, so that a physician can look you over. What should I call you? And how did you end up so far out against the edge of nowhere?"

"Yollvir," she mouthed, trying the word... "I'm Girlthing... What do you mean, the edge of nowhere? It can't be if there's somewhere just beyond it..."

At the thought of having a physician look her over she instinctively glanced down at herself and shyly pulled the injured scraps of her delicate frock to cover her more modestly.

Suddenly a thought leapt up and bit her and she did a panicked patdown of her front, her small hand slipping into her dress pocket to check that her charms still rested there. After assuring herself they were safe, she took the compass out and released the latch, letting it spring open. The needle was wavering like a weather vane in high winds, a sort of alarmed dance, the arrow pointing not ahead, but almost directly behind them, warning her that she was going the wrong way.

"Oh!" she* fretted aloud, "Yollvir! No." She held her compass out so he could see, forgetting momentarily to hold her dress as carefully. "Look, we're going the wrong direction." She said it with utter conviction and looked up at him with earnest, guileless eyes that were naturally compelling even though it seemed plain that she wasn't intending to manipulate him at all.

"All roads lead to the Capital, Miss. There's nothing back the way you came. Believe me. You must have seen The Chasm, as far out as you were. Beyond that, there's nothing." Yollvir looked at her compass, slightly confused, "that must be some kind of decorative piece. We're heading North."

With that, Glory tipped a wing and they emerged from a cloudbank coming into view of the Capital City, studded with golden domes and white, marble towers. It towered over its surroundings seemingly cut into a towering peak that had been there before. Mounted birds, griffins and various other flying creatures poured in and out from every direction.

Girlthing's mouth gaped at the austere majesty of the intimidating press of buildings reaching into the clouds like an overgrown forest with trees racing to grow tallest into the gleaming brilliance of the sun. Her eyes were wide, flickering from distraction to distraction, the architecture and beautiful people conspiring in quite the sensory overload.

An enormous but graceful silver dragon wound like a delicate wisp of smoke from one of the more ornate buildings, seeming not to even propel itself, but be floated effortlessly by the wind along its way. She couldn't see who rode upon its back for the canopied litter that balanced along its back at the base of its wide skull.

The compass in her palm was clattering like a set of teeth set on edge by the cold, but awestruck, she let her hand close around it, shutting it, and slid it back into her pocket. As the Pegasus knelt nobly to allow them an easy dismount, Girlthing took Yollvir's hand when he offered it and stepped off of Glory.

"I won't have need of your physician, Sir, but... Thank you so dearly for your trouble, and the service you've done for me. But I've lost enough time, three days already... You said that from here, I could get anywhere I needed to go. Perhaps you can tell me if there's someone who would be able to take me."

"Why certainly," Yollvir smiled, leading Girlthing by her hand into the offices of The Authority, "we just need to get you registered really quick, that way you can come and go as you please."

When they passed into the building, an unexpected sight greeted Girlthing as the face of Midnight was there, staring back at her. Unfortunately for her, it was only a poster, and even less fortunaste still were the words above his picture: Dead or Alive.

A man dressed similar to Yollvir (i.e. almost nothing above the waist beyond utilitarian leather straps and brass baubles) smiled down at Girlthing over the counter. "Well hello, little Miss. Where did you come from?"

Girlthing, again feeling barely herself as she spoke and acted almost outside of her own volition, or perhaps within it for the first time in her life... Without consciously directing it, her illusion magic wrapped her in fine white velvet where moments ago, her simple dress was but sand scoured scrap.

She drew herself up as regally as she could manage and cleared her throat to summon something like conviction into her voice, where it held in her chest for a moment like a frightened bird. She soothed it, then let it soar unwavering from her lips, sounding to her own ears almost like her mother. It wasn't a bad thing. Ladylove was a powerful woman, who was unparalleled in getting from men what it was she needed.

"I am the Girlthing, and I come to the Capitol from the ancient House of Moonlight and Shadow." She lifted her chin, not giving any pause as a look of unfamiliarity and confusion seemed to trouble the man's features for a moment. "I have been sent here to meet with your representatives and gather whatever knowledge the Authority has come to on the whereabouts of this man, so that we may coordinate our efforts..."

Her gaze followed* her own delicate gesture to the face of Mr. Midnight where it stared back at her from the poster. She looked back at the man behind the counter, and her empathic sensibilities picked up on a resistance so strong, so conditioned, that she wasn't sure if she would be able to overcome it. But Mr. Midnight* looked on from the wall, and feeling his eyes upon her as if he were present in the flesh, she pushed on, wanting to do him proud.

She let herself laugh an easy laugh, a sound like tumbling windchimes. "Oh, but of course..." She took the white gold sun from her velvety pocket and fastened it to the chest of her lux gown, as if it were some obvious badge vouching for her unquestionable authority. "Now... With whom will I need to meet?"

Yollvir's mouth fell open as Girlthing used her considerable power for illusion magic to change her clothes quite miraculously. There was a great deal of what to others may have seemed magical, but to Yollvir these things were all commonplace, but illusion magic was foreign, dangerous, not of this world.

The man at the counter, however, didn't notice the magical transformation, or if he did, it stunned him less than the name of a House that he, a records clerk, was unfamiliar with. "If you're looking for that Pirate outlaw, you should talk to Chief Inspector Alluro. He's in the veterinary wing, having his griffin looked to. They were injured in the pursuit." The clerk pointed a direction and behind its cover, the compass adjusted. "You'd better be careful," Yollvir muttered under his breath as they left the counter, "magic like that can get you in trouble here."

Girlthing strode away from the counter with Yollvir until they had turned a corner, standing alobe in a vast empty corridor. "If it stands to get me in trouble," she said, acting much braver than she felt, bluffing, "then you know just how dangerous it can be. I like you, Yollvir. Speak on my behalf, appeal to this Alluro. Persuade him to let you escort me on my mission. Say whatever you have to, but I think I know the way. I only need someone to take me."

 

[LitShark]

Yollvir swallowed hard as his guest spoke sharply to him in what could only be interpreted as a threat. In his role as a Sentinel he’d seen first-hand the damage that magic could do, even in the face of the great Capital forces. Seen it from the man this Girlthing was hunting—though none had seen so close as Alluro and Squaw, his faithful mount. For the first time, Yollvir was questioning his wisdom in bringing the tiny passenger into the city, perhaps she was not so much the victim as she had first seemed… perhaps she herself was a threat.

As the two rounded the corner into the open-air stables, Alluro and Squaw were conspicuous by their matching injuries, the griffin’s right wing and chest and the rider’s right thigh and hip all bore the same spider-web scarring that came from being struck by lightning. The Lead Imperial Charger, Alluro was gently laying down gauze over his griffin’s wound, though it seemed obvious that his own bandages were more overdue for changing than his mount’s.

“Lead Imperial Charger Alluro, Sentinel Yollvir of the Southern sector reporting in, sir. I’ve been charged with presenting to you and your flawless discretion the Young Mistress Girlthing of the House of Moonlight and Shadow. She was found dangerously near to The Chasm and claims to have come from beyond it. She says that she wishes to coordinate with our search for the fugitive known as The Midnight Captain.”

“I’ve never heard of this House, I have no interest in bringing tourists into this fight with me—you can see what that man did to me and my companion.”

“Sir, she does not desire to accompany the official investigation, only asks that you allow me to accompany her, as she claims to know the whereabouts of—“

“If she has any information about the fugitive, she’d better reveal what she knows right this instant. She may be a child, but I am not,” Alluro rose to his full height, trying hard not to wince as he put weight on his injured leg, “Captain Midnight is much too dangerous for the likes of you, much less this… this… thing! She’s obviously some sort of conspirator, perhaps Moonlight and Shadow are her Pirate vessels, in any case, she belongs in irons. Backup!”

When Alluro called for backup several others rushed from other parts of the stable and beyond to form an intimidating ring around the offending couple, several others bore their own cobweb lightning burns and Yollvir got that same sick feeling in his stomach like when his projectile struck the hornets’ nest.

*-*-*

“Land-Ho!” Lyons shouted gleefully from his perch on the narrow disc of wood that comprised Beloved’s crow’s nest.

The crew had been anxious after passing through the great lightning storm, as they found themselves becalmed between systems for some time—the fear of pursuers catching them ever present in their minds. The Midship crew had worked themselves beyond exhaustion, keeping the heavy, floating vessel moving by sheer effort with the flank sails. Now, finally they were approaching the great floating islands of the Northern Fracture Field, the last land masses between the earth and the heavens. The air was impossibly thin at this height, but the promise of landfall breathed new life into the crew—a second wind.

As Beloved drew closer to the bizarre, floating landmasses, rail-thin natives of the Flotilla stepped onto the edge of the foremost clumps of unturned earth. The islands were all connected together by a network of braided, winding root and vine systems that worked their way all the way back to solid ground. The natives were covered from head to toe in ash-grey tattoos, intricately interwoven around their emaciated frames.

The pirates rose the white flag as the starboard helium bladder made contact with the shore of the closest island. Though the natives were wary of outsiders, they had learned to coexist with the pirates who were always desperate for trade and so often had access to luxuries that were neigh on unobtainable this high up.

The Vanguard disembarked to assist the natives in staking down the cargo net that kept the bladder hugged against the side of the airship.

“It is good to see you again, He-Who-Has-Captured-The-Moon,” a wizened old man, draped in a cloak that bore owl feathers around the collar remarked to Midnight as he disembarked, “fortunate you are to have caught us in fair weather.”

“More fortunate than that by half, He-Who-Knows-Most,” Midnight smirked, gently grasping the old man’s shoulders over his cloak, “it has been too long.”

“Not long enough by half,” the old man quipped, “I trust you’re here to trade.”

“Indeed, you are suited to your title, Knows-Most. I seek to rest my men and restock our supplies. We brought a great boon of salt and tobacco for trade.”

“To what end, notorious ally?”

At this Midnight hesitated, he knew his intentions—knew them clearer than the horizon through the lens of his glass, his purpose that kept him warm though the cold, kept him driving on in the face of terrible odds against him. This desire was so near to his heart that it never left his thoughts for a moment, but to speak it aloud somehow felt foolhardy. To actually verbalize his intentions would surely sound like madness to this wise old chief. Instead, Midnight dissembled, answering the surface of the question but not the substance.

“I’m going back to protect my family.”