Six Little Eggs

It was back at the seat of pride. The day wasn't much different from the other days in Barathrum Regnum. The heat still radiated off of the dry, dusty, dark stones of the ground. The sky was still an acrid blackness. The world about was still waterless with a hint of hopelessness and decay.

But something had changed, or so a spotty-haired demon thought as she lay on her back against the stone floor of the crumbling courthouse. Something hopeful and optimistic lay dormant on her belly. Six little lives in six little mottled shells... the seeds of new beings that would outlive their source. There was something primal and old in the thought of life continuing on in such a fashion, or maybe she simply had dormant maternal instincts that were triggered by the little stone-colored spheres.

For some reason, she wanted to take them to Terra. They could hatch out there and grow up in a less chaotic neighborhood before being free to return to their place of origin. Maybe she'd even tell them that they were adopted. Would they be sentient? The mother was at least partially humanoid. What would they eat? Probably meat. She could teach them to hunt meat like her clan taught her.

It was hard not to be excited the more she thought about it.

"They're beautiful, aren't they, Jack?"

[ EXP: 262 ]

The female demon's eyes left the eggs, though she didn't shift much except her head, lest the precious things in the safety of her abdomen fall off onto the harsh ground of the former place of judgement. The relationship felt rather complex, honestly, and in her usual slow manner, she pondered the question, white brows furrowed together, for a full several moments. Perhaps she should have felt him beneath her because he was male, but humanoid males were nothing like hyena males. Hyena males were shy, coquettish things, constantly giggling nervously and leaping away from the bite or glare of an irate and dominant female. They always left their home clan and sought out strangers to fall in with, never really achieving a position of prominence and perpetually servile, often ranking below even the cubs. The males of most other types of creatures she'd seen, however, were dominant. Since she'd fallen into decidedly un-hyenalike societies, she simply adjusted her mental ranking scheme accordingly.

"Technically you're still above me," she said casually. "Even though you're not a female."

Another odd thought passed, and her eyes went back to the eggs. "I guess I don't think gender is that important. It's kind of a fluid thing, don't you think? Like, I can change my own..." As she lay there, her body began to morph again in the odd way that it did when she changed into a hyena, but it was a bit different in that she remained humanoid. The new form she took still remained larger than her old one, however. Her clothes morphed into light, silver attire. Her hair darkened and lengthened until it fell in a long ponytail that was held together by an ornate metal clasp and wound along the floor. Her skin, meanwhile, lightened in color until it was as pale as Jack's complexion, and her shoulders broadened out as her chest flattened. At the end of it all, she had morphed into a completely different person, a he.

"...and I can change yours." The man now laying there grumbled out a syllable in his smooth baritone, and an influence would flow over to Jack with an abrupt speed. If he didn't move, then it would forcibly change his gender, though he wouldn't become a completely different person the way Iskra ostensibly had. "So I don't really acknowledge male or female much. You're still my teacher, unless you can't teach me anything else."

[ EXP: 484 || +1 TEXP (2nd post) ]

Iskra was singularly surprised by the sudden touch of the other's lips. Rather, it wasn't normal for someone to be so comfortable in the "dysphoric" state... at least comfortable enough to kiss her in male form. Her cackle reminded him of a witch or other such devilish figure out of the tales of the human's youth, but then again, that fit him so very well. It seemed that no matter what form she saw fit to shift him into, that attitude of his remained.

His eye didn't twitch, though she thought it might from the sudden feeling arising from the depths of his... pants.

The kiss seemed too short, or rather, he was just getting into the somewhat rough touch and the fiery lips when she pulled away, licking her lips rather carnivorously.

The man's brows furrowed. He was more or less held in place by the burden of the eggs still against his belly. "Quite the little vixen you make, huh?" he commented, tilting his head to the side. Somehow the eggs had fallen to the back of his mind.

For now, he would stay in male form. He simply chanted and closed his eyes for the moment.

Tendrils of frost worked their way across his body. They came around his entire frame, leaving him covered in little crystals of ice, and the eggs as well. The ice itself wasn't necessarily cold, simply solid like glass. They'd keep the eggs safe through a lot of things, and for the moment it covered and reinforced Iskra's skin and clothes like a light armor.

With the eggs thus taken care of, he stood to his full height, a curious look in his face, though that curiosity was somewhat ominous in its implications. "Why do you seduce me in that form?"

Indeed, most of the people he'd changed in such a manner were outright frightened or otherwise distressed. She was laughing.

[ EXP: 368 ]

Actions: Used Shield of Keuakepo [Mastered]

Nothing was more suspicious than this woman's insistence on satisfying her curiosity. She knew Jack to be a considerably dangerous person, and she knew that he likely wouldn't have appreciated the trick of swapping their genders, but somehow Iskren, as he'd become for the moment, managed to rationalize it with an unaccustomed speed. Yes, curiosity. He believed her. It made sense. Perfect sense.

Perhaps it was because the demon was more in touch with his animal side that his thoughts gave way so quickly, degenerating from words to mere images and wants and intentions, the breakdown catalyzed by the seductive mannerisms of the demoness before him... that glint in her eye... the way she seemed to be taunting him into something he knew held a considerable risk of suddenly becoming an unpleasant experience.

Or perhaps he was conforming to the role of the shy, coquettish male in his own mind, now faced with a sufficiently assertive woman. Indeed, the bit of defensive frost magic manifested only out of an excitement arising jointly from both fear and arousal, a sign of submission and caution, though the gradual, all-consuming onset of lust drove him forward despite everything else his mind was telling him. His arms seemed to remove his clothes of their own accord. They pulled down his waistband. A still, small voice cried trap... trap....

What's the worst that could happen? Besides, she was warm. Warm was good. Like the sun. Laying out in the sun was nice. Like laying on top of her... or even--

He smiled almost deliriously and bit down on the top of the suit, tearing it easily with a backwards jerk of his head. Despite the change in form, he kept the same strength, and provided nothing stopped him, he'd make short work of the rest of her outfit, as he'd gone past the point of responding to her with words.

[ EXP: 377 ]

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For a minute, Iskra's guard was down, basking in the afterglow and the softness of the form beneath him. Perhaps the frost he'd first summoned to deter potential attacks might have been more effective had he been more vigilant.

Now Iskra was no stranger to the feeling of the cold, but this sensation that came over him was a wicked thing. His eyes opened in a flash, but it was too late to get away from it.

But this didn't prevent the wild demon from thoroughly freaking out. He had no idea what was happening other than it was an unknown. All of the fear came flooding back at once, and with a shout of surprise to find that the pride demon had become ethereal and seemed to be invading his pores, he rolled backwards, his form suddenly flashing back to his usual one of the spotty haired woman.

And without further thought, she simply began to run. She didn't really know why she was running or what she was running from, but the adrenaline had taken hold and she'd made it almost out of the building before she collapsed. There wasn't any evidence that she wasn't dying, so she fought whatever it was out of instinct. Yet as strong as her will was, it wasn't strong enough to stop it.

So she curled up and screamed there on the ground, but even that faded away. Slowly, her resistances gave out and she laid on the ground like a limp puppet.

[ EXP: 278 || +1 TEXP (1st post) ]

There was mental silence in the wake of Jack's question.

In their conjoined mind, she prepared to speak...

"You finally ate that helldwelling nälkjas?"

Cackling.

"My babies! Don't just leave them there! They'll freeze in the--"

"No, I don't think that's what happened."

"Why can't I die?"

"You shouldn't have trusted a pärak, Iskra. Didn't you learn better?"

"Whatever. Hanging out with humans... Päikese nägu!"

"Will it be over?"

"We could all see this coming, but we can't change the past."

"She didn't eat him? How is he here, then?"

"WHO CARES? GET MY EGGS!"

"Can someone shut her up?"

"Are they coming again? Please don't let them come again. Mother..."

"Mother?"

Iskra had a bit of trouble answering her friend. This had to be the single most surreal experience in her relatively brief existence, and her ponderous mind, the part of her that made her dislike absorbing more than a single idea at a time, found itself swamped. Often when she slept, she saw inside her own soul. Every spirit-bearing thing she'd ever consumed resided there. Every little mouse. Every snake. Every clan member. Every clumsy would-be carnivore. Every lost human. During her waking hours, she never heard them. They simply lived life through her consciousness, spectators until the night when they formed their own opinions and sometimes came to converse with her.

But now her own consciousness had been suppressed and all the voices spoke at once and before the owner of the body could get a word in, echoing about the empty and eldritch darkness, evicted from her own body.

Of course, she recognized the voices. Every one of them was an incident in her mind, a memory, and they spoke out of the confusion she shared.

But one voice wasn't familiar. There was another besides Jack's, and when she got her bearings she found that extremely uncomfortable.

What had all of that been about? She'd never seen a door like that or heard screams like those. Not here.

Maybe the door and the screams were things that lived in Jack's spirit?

The voices started again, and she shouted them down. They remained quiet. She wasn't sure why.

"It feels..." she began airily, looking around oblivion before it became the familiar stone and mortar of the Seat and she felt herself sensing things with her own senses, though they were directed by another. "...sad."

The simple spirit had no way of knowing how permanent or temporary this situation was, and the thought of him keeping her body saddened her to the point of numbness. This was betrayal.

[ EXP: 528 || +1 TEXP (1st post) ]

If Iskra had a form, she might have backed up slowly.

Whoever it was in all that darkness scared her, and she wasn't sure how they'd gotten in front of that door or in front of that darkness or who it was with the yellow eyes, though the color was familiar.

The screams told her it couldn't be good, and the blackness...

She remembered that blackness.

Not herself, but from a story of a darkness beyond death.

"Are we dead?"

She asked the question aloud before realizing that Jack had asked her something first.

"I am sad because..." Once again, she had an impulse to do something that required a body to do. Was this what it felt like for everyone tied up in her soul? "I was a fool. I knew I was nothing to you but a tool, yet I tried to make you into family. Hah. A pärak. A hell-spirit. As a family member. As a mate. I may as well make grass into food or the sky into a river. I may as well make a tree speak like a man."

She laughed, but the sound was hollow, a stuttering emission from a broken heart. "I too badly wanted a sign of hope... a sign to light this world in darker days. And now I guess my soul will perish because of it." Her disembodied voice dropped lower with the weight of the possibility of death and her aspirations dying with her. "At least make me one offspring with this body if you intend to send me out of it."

[ EXP: 277 || +1 TEXP (2nd thread) ]

The feeling of numbness, of being a consciousness simply floating in a body with no control over it, dissolved, and Iskra found herself both surprised and relieved. Tired mentally from the fright she'd suffered, she simply sat and panted as she heard Jack speak words that felt comforting and the yellow-eyed spirit whispering with his insistent presence in the background.

This was an odd thing. So he did value her. Moreover he made her something not unlike a promise of their mutual loyalty and bond.

He wasn't there for her to hug or otherwise physically show affection to. The best she could do was give herself a hug before she spoke.

"I won't always be your tool, and I won't always be under you, but I will be a friend for you until I can't be anymore. I am... honored that you feel the same."

His words had been half buried under a sort of reluctance, but she could see something behind them that validated her trust.

"Maybe I should have trusted you more to begin with. Those others that you killed were pärak." The woman smiled, though it was a weary grin with her eyes half closed. "No sense of loyalty. You must have eaten one. I can hear him in the dark and see him by a door."

Despite her comfort at the pride demon's sudden benevolence, the other voice still unsettled her for reasons she couldn't decide. Yet, she felt she could relax. The ones she'd eaten had no control over anything, so this other in Jack's spirit must be the same, she rationalized. The yellow-eyed thing couldn't hurt her.

[ EXP: 315 || +1 TEXP (2nd thread) ]

Iskra had vomited things before, including spells, but it took her a bit off guard to vomit Jack, of all things.

She shook her head and wiped her mouth, her eyes blue again and looking up at the man from her spot on the floor. For a moment, she only looked, but then she smiled, a laugh of relief after an emotional affair.

By the reciprocal promise. Iskra assumed that he meant until death, and in this case, her innocence allowed her to take the more benevolent meaning of the words. Being a clanless creature, she lived in perpetual fear of death before she had offspring to consume her and thus allow her consciousness to persist.

A dread, but for now she was safe.

And she felt distinctly safe, despite her location, standing to her feet and limitlessly blissful at her persistently alive state.

Until she found herself suddenly kissed.

It was a strange gesture for one not used to such human expressions, but it was nice. His mouth was so warm and--

Hmmm... the thought occurred to her that though she'd inflicted her manhood on women, she'd never really had any such shenanigans inflicted on her in return.

The kiss broke. She decided she wasn't curious, not for awhile.

Instead, she yawned at the laughing demon, tiredly making her way back towards the other room.

"And I won't allow my flame to be. Ever. Good-night."

The clutch of ice-preserved eggs rested on the ground still. The hyena spirit laid down, snuggled the eggs close, curled up, and began to nap.

[ EXP: 311 ]