A Candle in Another Light
((This is told from the perspective of Helna, a succubus who is part of what Athaeda refers to as her “Unusual Little Family”)) Helna watched as the figure of the gentleman, if you could still call him that after what she’d heard, departed into the shadows of Duskwood. Her hooves, heavy as they were, made little sound against the soft darkened grass. The shimmer of fel magic dissipated and she was no longer cloaked in invisibility, unconcerned with remaining hidden now that the male had left.
“Sweetling?.. Little Aeda-bell...?” She mustered her sweetest tone which lingered low and heady; she was still a succubus. She frowned-disgusted at a puddle of recent sick by the door and waved a hand at the sharply dressed imp as he went about trying to clean it. Dropping to a half kneel and careful not to dirty herself; she spoke to her fellow fiend, flat-questioning and stern. “She is still inside? And whole?”
Gelkin, the imp in question, looked extremely displeased with his task and was made all the more-so by the interruption which would only slow him down.
“Yes, yes. The miss is fine. Very sad. Yes, very sad. But fine.” He retorted quick and sharp in his small and shrill voice. He made to re-busy himself with the cleaning, nodding curtly in a dismissal of the larger demoness.
That answer was satisfying enough for Helna that she felt confident walking into the shack. Its cozy fabric-lined walls, the smell of roses and sage, the cramped-closeness of everything inside the tiny one-room home made it feel more as a nest than a house. The elven woman was there. She was only a girl in the eyes of the towering demoness and a foolish girl at that, nearly a thousand years she’d spent defending this family. She’d watched, waited, and fought on their behalf. She’d obeyed commands from those lesser than her and it ripped through her with a bitterness she couldn’t express from within her old-summoned binds. She wore too many bells, Helna considered, as she often did. It made her all the more difficult to guard when she sounded like a wind-chime wandering among the trees. Quickly, as was her way in most things, she disregarded her own distaste for the girl’s decisions and set about her set task: The sworn and bound defense of this little damned thing. The girl sat in a pile of pillows, strewn across the floor, that had been tucked neatly into her basket-bed when Helna had left. What a weak and wretched thing she appeared to be; she’d wrapped herself in her blanket and lay curled on her side clinging tightly to a pillow as if the object had some comfort to offer her. Helna could only sigh, rolling her eyes with full knowledge that the girl would not look up and witness such scorn. “Athaeda-bell…” Helna spoke to the meek and whimpering creature who was her charge. Her voice was as kind as she could make it, in consequence, one who was listening might mistake it for a lover’s address. “You’ve made a mess, sweetling. Tell me, what happened?” It wasn’t a question that needed asking but Athaeda didn’t know that and Helna had been commanded to keep certain secrets. “Did the male upset you? Shall I go hunting for him?” She quite liked that thought as she spoke it. It had, after all, been so very long since that other poor boy had experienced her remorseless touch. She licked her lips at the thought and was unable to withhold her darkly-low chuckle as the elf gave her a look of concerned displeasure.
“Don’t, Helna. Please… Not now.” Athaeda answered rather than addressing the query, tucking herself further into her own arms.
The succubus refrained from rolling her eyes but the wave of lusting-fire that rippled through her core forced itself out in a huffed breath. “Athaeda… I’ve told you. I’ve told you every time you’ve brought a male home that they cannot be trusted. I’ve told you and your mother tried to tell you. Sweetling; foolish girl… When will you listen?” Her kind words remained but there was a razored warning-edge in them now.
“What did you tell him? Something to kill his desire for you, certainly?” Helna had precious few chances to exercise her spite and did so with little reservation. “Did you inform him that you’ve been tainted? That you are no sweet maid but a ruined thing? Is that what repulsed him so? Made himself sick at the thought of you? I must say I’m impressed. I did not think you so skilled in the art revulsion, my little Aeda-bell!” She let the venom roll gleefully from her tongue, growing in enthusiasm as she prodded at the little elf in her suffering.
Athaeda turned her gaze toward the succubus but kept her lying position in the space that had so recently been occupied by two rather than one.
“Helna, must you always?..” The elf’s void-touched eyes looked little more than weary though tears clung, unshed, to her water-lines. “It wasn’t me that made him sick… and it’s cruel of you to say so.”
Helna raised a naturally sculpted eyebrow at Athaeda and her red-painted pout twisted itself into a knowing-vicious smirk. Her tone shifted as well, lifting from it’s lover’s tenderness to one of mockery. “Well, I can hope, can’t I? That at least one of them will have some sense before I have to remove them? You surely won’t. Pleading-lonesome thing that you are, little sweetling. Do you think he saw it? The weakness in you? The reason I had to whisk you away, lest the lynx catch you and do all the worse for your attack on him?” There was blood in the water now, Helna knew. She’d struck a nerve and the elf would be in ruin for the rest of the night if she left it there.
It saddened her that she couldn’t do exactly that, bound to her charge as she was, she took a breath and softened. Old magic kept her from being anything more than simply mean for meanness sake but if she was honest she did not despise the girl so. Rather, she found her slight nature and tender bearing bothersome to her own task and wished to see it dispelled. It was her thinking the best way to go about that was to break her of it, it would have to work eventually.
Helna lowered herself down onto the dirt-packed floor and sat across from the teary eyed elf. Upward she brought her arms, gesturing for the girl to draw near. “You know I only say these things for fear of you. You are my responsibility, Aeda-bell. So, I ask again, must I hunt him? I could bring you whatever of him you wished to keep. Perhaps one of his eyes? You seemed very fond of them. Or.. Something else?” She tried very hard to refrain from laughing, it was a dark bit of humor and she enjoyed it thoroughly at Athaeda’s expense.
“That isn’t funny…” Athaeda shook her head and while she did sit up and begin piling pillows back into their rightful place, she did not go to the monstrous feminine creature who was family to her. She kept the old blanket over her shoulders and stared at the succubus.
Helna felt slightly proud of her for that. There had been a time when the woman would’ve come to her. Would have laid against her as surely as she laid against her own mother. She made no motion to comfort her then, she was growing. It was slow, painfully so for the demoness, but it was happening. Perhaps this one would hurt her in the right ways. The ways the first had not. It was an interesting musing in the mind of the succubus. Perhaps this pair would be more entertaining to watch. Still, if pressed, she would do her duty. She always had. They all had.
“Will you rest tonight, sweetling?” She spoke calmly. “Or shall I have Gelkin light the incense and begin brewing your restful blend?”
Athaeda shook her head and her response was only a whisper. “I do not know that I will sleep. I do not know that I would welcome the dreams. No, I’ll be on my own tonight. You do as you will.”
“Very well. Goodnight, Athaeda. If sleep finds you, may it be a better lover than your newly scorned friend.” She rose up onto her hooves and left the shack without hesitating for anything more.