Ink You / Us Ch. 06

Sarah opened her eyes and knew she wasn't awake.

She stood on what seemed to be an endless plain of shallow, ankle-depth water. There was simply nothing to the horizons around her.

Like most people, when finding they are in a dream, she tried to change it. She thought about being served steak and mashed potatoes by a young men's swim team. She imagined she would say something like, "come on in, boys. The water's fine." She was thinking hard of some sort of all-you-can-eat buffet with the most amazing foods, and an all-they-can-eat-you-out arrangement.

Nothing happened, and Sarah was struck by how lucid she felt. Something seemed bright in her peripheral vision, and she looked down at her hands, and saw that her skin was laced with gold. She turned her hands this way and that as she looked up her arms and at her torso and her legs. She realized it wasn't random. The gold shined like veins in rock all along the areas that she had sustained an injury and scarred over. Both hands had thin hairline gold seams back and forth across her palms, and a particularly wide band of gold across the inside of her fingers where she had once caught an axe coming for her head.

Her expression turned somber as she looked up the outside of her left arm. In regular intervals, like a prisoner marking the days, were short, horizontal razor thin gold lines from her shoulder down to her forearm.

There were lines across her shins, as well as irregular jagged gold incisions on her calves and thighs, and her torso had one or two particularly deep gouges along her ribs and through her left breast. She looked down at the water, and it was very still despite her movements. It was like a mirror below her. She got down onto her knees and looked at herself, all the while the water's reflective surface barely rippled. Her face had them too, the deepest band of gold beneath her hair on the left side - another axe blow that had concussed her and nearly killed her.

She met her own gaze in the water. Her body and her face had both been weathered and beaten, but it always healed. She wasn't a young woman anymore, and she wore her life's journey on her body; scars, yes, but also stretch marks along her hips and breasts - which hung lower than before, and wrinkles on the outside of her eyes when she smiled. It was still a powerful body though. She had changed it by her own will as well, with hard work and hard demands. Her muscles and sinews cut a very distinctive silhouette.

Sarah felt a presence and looked up at a woman she didn't recognize. She seemed familiar, but Sarah couldn't place why. She was young, barely a woman at all, with perky boobs that probably came in yesterday. Her skin was smooth, healthy, but without any sun damage. Her blonde hair shimmered, silky and thick with no split ends. Pretty in a way, but the nose was crooked at the bridge, and her lips were a bit thin. Her shoulders were too broad and her hips too narrow to be considered a real beauty.

"Hello, Sarah," she said, and her voice had that grating uncertainty of a teenage girl not used to speaking and actually being heard. "It's good to meet you. Yes, this is a dream, but it's the easiest way for someone like me to talk to you."

"Someone like you?" Sarah noted. "And who are you?"

"I am Chastia the Unloved. I'm a Goddess," she said, pointing at herself with a thumb and a smile.

"Ha, if you're a Goddess, why do you look like that?" Sarah asked.

The Goddess smiled sadly and shook her head, "oh, Sarah. I think this is a beautiful body."

Her face fell as Sarah took a step back, looking the figure over. Sarah observed her stance, her eyes, and thought about the voice. It became clear to her why she had such a negative reaction to seeing the woman. She shut her eyes, nodding to herself as she worked up to it. "You look exactly like me."

"Young and pure before the world hurt you and marked you. Before the world proved uncaring and cold. Before the spark of hope in your eyes were dulled," Chastia said. "When you were innocent and flawless."

Sarah would not consider herself a particularly vain woman considering how much the world forced vanity onto women as a survival skill, but looking at herself, so young and hopeful, and knowing what awaited her filled her heart with a longing. And anger. She looked herself in the eye, and had to marvel at how much a life lived had changed her. Sarah raised a shaking hand to her younger face, and the skin felt smooth and vibrant. Her own hands felt dessicated and rough in comparison. Sarah stared into her own younger eyes, which were the same shape and the same color, but seemed so utterly alien.

Chastia smiled with Sarah's face, and it looked incredibly genuine and happy. It was a smile that Sarah had forgotten how to do.

"I have much to ask of you," Chastia said. "And I want to work up to it, because it's not easy and not without cost. However, you must realize now that Jay is a threat to us all."

"He's..." Sarah began.

"I won't deny that he's naive. And gentle. And very silly," her younger self began to pace around her, arms behind her back. "And he just nearly killed you. Nearly broke you. And I don't just mean your, um, womanhood."

The way Chastia moved, acted, and spoke like Sarah's younger self was uncanny. The awkwardness with matters of sex seemed very accurate as well. Sarah felt an odd dripping sensation between her legs, and saw liquid gold splash into the water below from her vagina. It sunk into the water and settled on the bottom, the only thing to mar and pollute this pristine shallow lake.

"Succubi charm and enslave people with promises of sexual pleasure," Chastia went on. "And you're tougher than that. You're strong enough to resist that. You're just lucky your body was strong enough to withstand it too."

Sarah spread her lower lips and tried to peer up herself with the mirror surface.

"Yes," she said. "He stretched you, and hurt you there," Chastia had almost finished a complete revolution around her. "And while your body has been able to endure so far, there are worse fates within your destiny."

"How so?" Sarah looked up at Chastia, who had placed a hand on her chest between her breasts.

Suddenly, the woman's hand shove itself into Sarah's chest and sliced into her sternum as if it were a razor sharp edge. Sarah screamed out, paralyzed by the pain as Chastia used both hands and pried open her chest with wet popping sounds as her ribs dislocated and then torn. She sank to her knees as the Goddess reached into it and pulled out her beating heart.

With a pursing of her lips and a slight frown, Chastia showed it to her. "Look."

Red leaked out the corner of Sarah's lips as she gritted her bloody teeth. She forced herself to focus on the heart and saw that it too was touched with gold. Right down the middle was a giant seam of gold that bisected her heart. Smaller, but sizable cracks formed a web around the rest of it.

"Your heart has been broken before," Chastia said. "But you have never loved an incubus before. Being charmed and enslaved, like his kind have done for millennia is one thing, but to love one freely and completely as he loves you? I'm afraid that would have... consequences. It would upset the balance and have results beyond what you can imagine. There is more to say, but it looks like you're out of time."

Her younger self smiled and waved at her. "Until next time, Sarah."

She collapsed to one side, submerging half her face in the water, gasping for a breath that wouldn't come, as her vision filled with dark clouds of crimson.

And it was with a heavy heart that splashed down in front of her, throwing up a spray of water. As blackness took her, the gold breaks and cracks were the last thing to fade.

* * *

Sarah opened her eyes. She didn't know where she was, but she didn't panic. She was waking up from being absolutely helpless, so she reasoned that if anything bad was going to happen, it already occurred.

Trees drifted by her vision, and as she sat in her seat, staring through glass. She wasn't alone in the cabin, as across from her was Jay, sleeping with his arms crossed, slouched low in his seat. She checked herself and saw no golden scars. She was clothed, but her armor and sword were missing, probably checked into the baggage.

She stood up and walked over in front of him. While asleep, he looked even more innocent and blameless. She reached towards his head and lightly ran her fingers through his black hair and touched the two horns there. They were little more than two conical protrusions out of his skull.

As helpless as she was before him last she could remember, he was extremely vulnerable to her the rest of the time. Not just because he was physical weak and untrained in combat, but because he simply let his guard down around her. She could do anything to him. Snap his neck, cave in his skull, or anything really. Non-combatants were like brittle twigs in the hands of someone like Sarah.

She sighed and looked to the door. Sarah expected to feel weak or woozy, but instead, she felt absolutely rested. Like waking up on a lazy Sunday after sleeping in the exact correct amount of time, without interrupted sleep cycles. She was annoyed to find that she actually felt almost cheerful. She had expected to not feel pleasant, and her expectations had been upended.

She looked up and down the narrow aisle between cabins and saw the sign for food and drinks. Sarah noticed she didn't feel sore or anything. She felt different somehow. Changed. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that goddesses apparently visited her in dreams.

The dining cart was empty. She wondered what time it was, but she saw Lily seated at a table, a pot of tea and a cup in front of her. Knowing Lily, they were stone cold and had been ignored for hours. Lily looked different as well, or maybe it had simply been a while since she had last been back to normal.

She was dressed in her usual dapper fashion with pinstripe pants and a grey vest over her dress shirt. There was a carefully loose blue tie around her neck, the top button of her shirt unbuttoned as well. Lily was bent over some paper, writing quickly.

"Looks like you're no longer a bimbo," Sarah said, sitting down opposite her friend.

"And it appears that you didn't get our souls dominated by a demon," Lily replied without looking up.

"You're the one saying I was being overly dramatic and that we were fine."

"Only because of the apparent spaciousness and durability of your internal anatomy," Lily said dryly. The pen stopped moving as she considered this. "And, admittedly, the strength of your will."

"That sounds like a compliment," Sarah picked up Lily's cup and took a sip. It was cold with a bit of lemon, but at least it was tea.

"Only the foolish deny obvious evidence, even if it seems to coincidentally flatter," Lily said, the pen moving smoothly again.

Lily put the pen down, and sat back in her side of the booth. Sarah saw a strange look in Lily's eyes as the mage detective stared at her, thinking something over. Uncertainty? Fear? She went on, "to continue in that spirit. I think that if it were me in your shoes, trying to withstand what he was doing to you... well. I would not have fared as well as you."

"This does seem very unlike you," Sarah said. "You never pass up a chance to tell people how indispensable you are."

"Well, in this case, it was you," Lily said in a tone that dared Sarah to make a big deal out of this.

She trailed off, looking troubled.

"I did have the thought that I couldn't just run," Sarah said. "Because you'd be at his mercy. But, mostly, I felt like I had to contain him."

"Seemed like a tight fit," Lily said.

"Ha ha. Contain him like stop him," she said. "And not only that, but I couldn't just let go. I mean, yes, I wasn't in any condition to function afterward, but..."

"You reversed his transformation," Lily said. "I assume you saw that before you passed out."

"I think so," Sarah said.

"We need to devise a plan," the mage said.

"A plan?"

"Yes, a course of action to follow," Lily said. "We both narrowly avoided a bad end. So, now what?"

"I told him I'd take him to Odys," Sarah said. "I don't break my word."

"Are there other reasons? Perhaps not breaking your word is sufficient, but I just want to know everything on the scales."

Sarah remained silent.

"For me personally, there is potential gain in career aspirations. No one has ever written a biological review of a succubi. I could be the first to have actual first hand data, quantitative and observational. Additionally, there is the pursuit of knowledge for knowledge's sake. I often indulge in such, and while ultimately a vanity, I consider these pursuits worthwhile."

"Sure," Sarah said.

"I will also admit that it is... " Lily sought the words. "Fun. It's not surprising that intercourse with an incubus is pleasurable. Even for those of us who do not usually partake of such pleasures."

"I figure the brain drain he does is what you're really after," Sarah said.

Lily shrugged. "Yes. Better than alcohol, opium, weed, or heroin. And... many others I have tried. It's almost as good as a good mystery, or an intense magical duel."

"Oh? Almost?" Sarah looked back over her shoulder, hoping for food service of some kind.

"First and foremost, I am potentially the greatest mage this generation has ever known," Lily said. "Bimbo's a place I like to visit. But not live."

"Sure," Sarah said.

"I seem to be doing most of the heavy lifting in this conversation," Lily said, capping her pen and laying it down. "Why are we going to Odys?"

"Because I told him so," Sarah began. Seeing Lily about to respond, she continued. "And because he said he wanted to meet his father."

"A... human?" Lily asked, eyebrows raising. "Intriguing. That's..."

The pen came out again as she began to write.

"There's the money too," Sarah said. "And I know it would be easy to just... ditch him somewhere and keep the money. But I don't want to. It'd be like kicking a big puppy."

"A puppy that can potentially enslave your immortal soul, but go on."

Sarah looked down at her hands on the table. She turned one palm up and looked at the lines and creases there. "The sex is good. And I don't like being told what to do even if it's the smart thing." Sarah clenched her fist.

"Sure sure," Lily said, "and may I advance another not insignificant reason?"

"What?"

Lily steepled her fingers in front of her face and stared at Sarah, like she was a tricky crossword puzzle.

"What?" Sarah repeated.

"Do you feel different?"

"I..." Sarah considered this. "I do."

"Me too, and I know how I feel different too," she said.

"Oh? Do tell."

"I want to bias your answer as little as possible," Lily said. "Try to tell me."

"I feel..." Sarah shut her eyes and took a deep breath. "I don't know. I just..."

What was it? She wasn't even sore, which was one of the first things she noticed after a deep dicking from the incubus. She felt more clear-headed, but that didn't seem very concrete. She felt just better, but that also didn't seem particularly convincing of anything.

"It's nothing I can really prove," Sarah said, raising one of her hands. She clenched it and unclenched it. "But I feel... just stronger physically, I think."

"That's probably it," Lily said. "I feel even smarter than I did before. I was already a brilliant woman, but now, it is obvious to me that my brain's processing power and potential is even higher than it was. It is not a large change, but it's noticeable."

"Huh," Sarah stared into the distance.

"The deal is Faustian in nature," Lily said. "Fuck the devil and gain power, risking your soul in the process. But, if you're able to hold onto your soul, it's all power and no price."

"You're suggesting that might be a big if," Sarah observed.

"No, not at all," Lily said. "I certainly feel like I am now even more capable of being drained of my intelligence and coming back from it. Just as I'm sure you're feeling even more capable of being utterly destroyed by cock and surviving. That... massive incubus cock that stretches you out further than you thought possible, and it all feels so pleasurable. That drain when you come, when you know it's coming..."

Lily's eyes unfocused as she stared forward, unseeing. "... when you know that you're going to lose everything you've built your life around, and it's about to gush right out between your legs."

The knuckles on her hand that gripped her pen whitened, and she licked her lips. Her mouth suddenly dry.

Sarah's eyes widened at this. "Um, Lily?"

"What!" she snapped.

Clarity returned to her eyes as she looked down. "I'm sorry, Sarah. I didn't mean to... I just... okay. Lets just be careful."

Lily forced a brave "everything's okay" smile on her lips.

The door on the end of the car opened and Jay walked in, yawning hugely. "Oh hey, guys! I'm starving!"

Just for a second, Sarah saw fear on Lily's eyes as she bit her lip and visibly pulled herself back together. And then the calm, analytical, and perpetually bored expression returned to the detective mage's face.

"Ah, good morning, Jay," Lily said.

Sarah glanced up and nodded at him.

"I had the weirdest dream last night," Jay said. "Last thing I remember, Sarah, you came into my room and said something about... umm. I... I actually don't remember."

"What was the dream about?" Sarah asked.

"Oh, I was..." Jay tilted his head to one side. "I don't remember that either. I think there was... Umm, a talking cat? Sorry, it's gone. What's this?"

This was in reference to the drawing that Lily had casually sketched out on the paper. "Just a diagram referring to magical energy transference. It's the research I've been wanting to do. Wish I had a grimoire on me."

"Why's that?" He asked.

"A research grimoire would allow me to magically lock it, so that no one could access my research unless I let them," Lily said.

Jay thought about this. "I think I might have something that could be useful to you."

"Yes?"

He left for their cabin and came back, holding a pen and a small bottle of what looked to be ink.

"It's ink," he said.

"I can see that," Lily replied.

"Me too," Sarah added. "And I'm not even the world's greatest mage detective."

"I mean, it's a special ink," he said. "It has some of my blood in it. This particular ink can only be read by people that have... umm, that I've been... "

"That you've had sex with?" Sarah asked.

"Um, yes. So, that means you would both be able to read it. But we can probably assume Sarah won't steal your research."

"I saw something like that before," Sarah said. "When Bryce tracked you down, she showed me a poster with your face on it. And just because I could see it, she said that meant I had met you."

"Oh," Jay said. "That's another type of spell, They probably found... like my hair or my clothes or something. But yes, you can make it so only people who fulfill a condition can see the ink. Like... only if they've, um, made love, or spoken to them. There's even more specialized situations like, only if they've lied to you, or stolen from you. It's how our justicars do their work. You take the accused's blood, and if you can read the ink, then you know that they did one of those things."

"Fascinating," Lily said, taking the bottle.

"Looks like your research will be safe then," Sarah said. "As long as Jay doesn't fuck the country."

"Hey!" Jay reddened at this. "It's not like I... I mean... I..."

A man in a waiter uniform came into the car and saw them. With a heavy sigh, he started to walk over to them.

"Let me see that," Sarah said, taking the pen.

"Can I help you ladies?" he said. He coughed when he saw Jay from the front and added in, "and gentleman?"