Born on a Black Day, Born Under a Bad Sign

[Yekaterina Aleratt]

----- Born on a Black Day, Born Under a Bad Sign -----
Continued from: Malleus Maleficarum (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?26854-Malleus-Maleficarum-(Semi-Solo))


The blackness that enveloped Yekaterina like a shroud, though comforting for a time, had become oppressive in its totality. It was not like the emptiness of sleep where the dreamer was blissfully unaware of the world, nor like the immediate lapse in time of unconsciousness; she was awake and aware, only there was nothing to be aware of except for herself as she floated in the abyss. She was uncertain how much -- if any -- time had passed there, or where she was being carried by the woman who had saved her life. At first there had been nothing at all in this place between worlds except her thoughts, not even her form, but she had realized that if she concentrated on her body, it seemed to be willed into existence. As she walked through the boundless space for want of something –anything!—to do, she spent a few moments testing the limits of this newfound ability, but quickly found that she could not make any other objects appear besides herself. When she exhausted that possibility, Yekaterina focused again on herself. She tried imagining herself as she was at twenty, on the day she had been accepted into the seminary, and was met with some degree of success. Unfortunately, while she was somehow conscious of the fact that she was indeed her twenty year-old self again, the completely unscarred arm she held up in front of her face to inspect her work appeared ethereal, and she could see the blackness stretching through it. She wondered what would happen if she imagined herself at ten, or as an infant, but quickly shoved those thoughts aside; it seemed as though the solidity of her form was tied to her ability to remember it in detail at any given point in her life, and she shuddered to think of what could happen. Her mind might revert to that of a child if she did, or worse, she could simply cease to exist from a lack of memory.

“Are you done playing with yourself yet?” If there had been a floor here, Yekaterina might have fallen to it in shock as a voice called out from the aether. She did not turn – not exactly, anyway; everywhere was the same in this place – but she suddenly found herself facing another occupant of the emptiness. The thing in front of her was not any species Katya recognized, nor one she had ever heard of. It looked vaguely human, but only in the general shape of its form; after that, the differences only piled on. For starters the thing was bafflingly androgynous; it had soft features and lips that she might have found attractively lush if not for the cruel smirk on them, and it had wide-set, womanly hips, but there was no swell of breasts under its leather tunic. Its skin appeared to reflect a light that did not exist here, as though it were covered in a coat of scales rather than flesh, and it had a long, thin tail that coiled and lashed behind it. Yekaterina noted with interest that atop its head, extending from a long sweep of coal-colored hair, were two, tightly spiraled horns like those of a ram. Most disconcerting of all, however, were its eyes; as it closed the distance, Katya could see that its sockets were filled with two, shining black orbs that perfectly matched their surroundings: empty, devoid of light. It moved with the grace of a cat, swaying its hips seductively with each step, and looked at her with the gaze of a predator playing with its food.

The creature sketched a quick, mocking bow as it reached her before once again meeting her gaze. “A pleasure to finally meet you in the flesh, Yekaterina. So to speak, anyway.” It chuckled at its own wit, a sound as oddly inhuman as the rest of its appearance, but Katya was distracted by something else entirely; as it spoke, those pouty lips had not shifted once from their sardonic twist. The being flicked its serpentine tail in agitation and put a delicate, clawed hand on its hip as it glowered at her, but when it spoke again its mouth moved. “You humans, always so fixated on how things should be!” It clutched its free hand to its chest in mock innocence and looked up into the void over them with a longsuffering expression. “‘Oh, please, save me! But don’t do anything distasteful when you do! And by no means should anyone be hurt, that would be the worst possible thing! While you’re at it, could you try to look, think and act like me too if it wouldn’t be too much to ask?’” It snorted, a soft sound which nevertheless seemed to carry on to eternity in the emptiness, and shook its head. “What am I to do? Your kind always ask for so much and give so little in return.”

Suddenly the realization of who she must be speaking to struck Yekaterina like a shot to the head. The voice was different in this place, easier to understand for sure, but it still carried that sound of multiple beings speaking at once. “Is-Istaraesh?”

“You remembered my name!” It cooed, batting its black eyes at her before shifting back to the scornful sneer it had worn before. “With as much as you’ve been ignoring my lifesaving advice, I had assumed that you’d forgotten I even existed.” The fiend examined its claws as though checking for imperfections, though Yekaterina was certain that no such thing was there; there was no reason for dirt to exist in this place, so it simply wouldn’t. “Still, I suppose you’re here now, and that’s what matters.”

Suddenly, as though a damn broke within her soul, Yekaterina felt the crushing weight of everything that had happened over the past few years. Istaraesh had always only been a voice in her head, an abstract concept to be feared. It had been the beast in the night, watching her from just beyond the edges of the firelight; dangerous, but kept somewhat at bay. With the being standing in front of her, something she could picture and interact with directly, all of the memories came rushing in like a flood. Every lost friend, every theft, every murder; all of it pressed down on her with the unstoppable force of a wave, and all of it started with the demon. Yekaterina curled up in a ball, her arms squeezing her legs tight against her torso as she rocked in place and bawled. “Wh-wh-why did you do this to me? I never wanted this! This is not how it was supposed to be!”

“Oh, go cry to someone who cares! We gave you everything!” Istaraesh hissed at her, completely unmoved by her tears. “We saved your life – more than once! We gave you power beyond the mortal ken! You would be in Haida without me, or some bandit’s plaything until you died! You asked us for help, not the other way around! And in return we asked for one. Simple. Thing. Only one!” The demon held up a single, clawed finger to drive home the point. “You owe us your life – literally. That husk you occupy is mine, and I will not have you tearing through Salvar drawing attention to yourself like a fool with a deathwish!” It looked at her hungrily, eyes roving over her body. “I want to walk the world again, Yekaterina, and you’re going to help me whether you want to or not.”

She looked up at Istaraesh from the “ground,” and sniffled piteously. “I… I only wanted to help people, I didn’t mean for anyone to die! A-and now I’ve left the Sway, and the old gods, they—“

“Old gods… there are no old gods! Don’t you get it yet you stupid fleshling? WE are the old gods!” The demon screamed at her, and for the first time Yekaterina could see the sharp fangs and long, thin tongue that filled its maw. She flinched and took back her earlier appraisal; the thing did not look human in the slightest.

Yekaterina blinked away her tears, and cocked her head as she look at Istaraesh with confusion evident on her features. “What do you mean? I talked with one of them, I met her! Sh-She saved me in the… in the forest.” She hadn’t dreamed that – she hadn’t! – else why would she be here? Why did she remember the terror of being hunted in the dark, or her sorrow at seeing Claus? No, it couldn’t have been a dream. Could it?

Istaraesh threw back its head and laughed, a sadistic howl composed of screaming and weeping voices. “Oh, this is rich. You still don’t understand, do you?” A claw slid lightly down the line of her chin before sharply jerking her head up to meet the beast’s eyes. It smiled down at her, but the expression never touched those midnight eyes. “You’ll see, little Katya. You’ll see.” With that last parting shot, the demon turned on its heel and walked away, hips swaying and lithe tail whipping and twisting until she could see it no more.

She was alone again, in the crushing dark, and it felt more oppressive than it ever had before. The tears came quickly and flowed freely as she wept bitterly in her isolation.

[Yekaterina Aleratt]

Meanwhile, in Ostford…

”What are demons?” This fundamental question has stymied theologians and Church demonologists alike for centuries. Various schools of thoughts have sprung up and warred over the concept throughout the years, but none have managed to gain the upper hand with a final, complete picture of the modern fiend. Of these differing approaches, we will focus on three main explanations.

The first branch, the Traditionalists, follow a more literal interpretation of the Scriptures – Holy be Their Words – than their fellow scholars. Citing the Passages IV - VII in the Third Canticle of the Ethereal Texts, they point out that demons “posses the souls of the unwary and those ensnared in sin,” that they “control them, and whisper dark deeds in their thrall’s ear to spit in the face of the Sway.” A militant and pragmatic perspective, the Traditionalists advocate for the immediate extermination of any found to be in the company of witches and diabolists, proclaiming, “kill them all, the Sway will judge.” By far the largest school, the Traditionalists form the core of most modern demonologist circles and have many adherents in the Order of the All Seeing Eye. It is a safe tenet to subscribe to, being closely related to the Scripture – HbTW –, but it lacks the unorthodox creativity of their fellows.

Perhaps the most interesting and dangerous school, one which is beyond the scope of this document’s discussion were the Symbiologists, who pointed out that demons are most often found after a promise or “contract” had been made. This lead them to propose, as their name implies, that the relationship between demon and possessed was actually mutually beneficial, symbiotic. This raised alarming questions, however, among the clergy and lay scholars alike: were demons simply misunderstood spirits of the world? Were they truly evil if they were symbiotic rather than parasitic as originally conceived? Could a theologian “speak” with a demon in his or her own mind peacefully to learn more about them? What would happen if a demon gained the upper hand over the host? Fortunately or unfortunately, depending upon the readers beliefs on their theories, the Symbiologists were frowned upon in their own time, and after only a brief half century of dominance, they fell into obscurity. For more information and doctrinal apologies against the school, the author humbly recommends Igor Relikov’s seminal work, “Against the Heresy of the Shared Being.”

Last to be discussed in this volume, and hardly worth mentioning in the author’s opinion, is the Abstractionist branch, which claims that demons as they are commonly imagined do not exist at all, but rather are the byproduct of mental illness or of sociopathy. Tyral Thorvald, the supposed original positor of their theory wrote, “Who among us has not seen the murderer, the sick, or the gibbering lunatic? Surely these things are simply part of the human condition, however awful they are to contemplate.” Any decently well read or traveled individual, however, knows this to be patently false and the proposal was appropriately dismissed out of hand by more learned scholars. Still, it lingers in more liberal, safe regions of our Kingdom where true maleficars have not been seen in decades, and demons are merely bogeymen to scare children into behaving.

One thing is for certain, regardless of what may or may not be true about the infernal beasts; demons and the human hosts they occupy are powerful, dangerous, and will stop at nothing to protect themselves from the righteous fury of the Church. Holy Sophya’s – blessed be she in the light of the Sway – words ring as true today as they did when she assembled the first Empowered Priests: “Suffer not a witch to live; no man is more foul, more corrupted than the one who has wallowed in filth and consorted with fiends. He is an abomination before the Sway, and of the greatest danger to his fellow man.” Therefore, honorable reader, make of yourself a hammer against the witches, and oppose them in all their vile deeds.

In the next chapter I will discuss the “mundane” practices of witchcraft, the rituals and…


At the sound of a quick rap on her chamber door, Erika looked up from Mother Ilyena’s Treatise on the Nature and Methods of the Infernal. It was and old tome, written several hundred years ago and covering information older still, but it still contained valuable insights into both demons and their human thralls. She had been pleased to find a copy, neglected though it was, in a dusty back corner of the church archive along with several other works from the period. It behooved members of the Order to be well read on such things; one never knew when a random bit of knowledge passed down from the veterans of the past would prove lifesaving. Besides, the reading was a welcome distraction right now. She marked her place in the book with a thin leather strap, and carefully set the musty essays down on her desk. “Come,” she called. Erika knew who it was, but she kept her emotions in check; now was not a time to be caught up in the blind rage she so desperately wanted to indulge.

The woman who entered the room with wide eyes and a nauseated twist to her lips was one of Erika’s favored soldiers in the Hunt; she was decisive, eager, and possessed a quick mind and an even faster sword arm. Most importantly of all, she obeyed orders without question. Or, Erika thought with a frown, had until just recently. It was a shame her first infraction had to be so grossly incompetent. She bowed deeply to Erika, the tightly spiraled, short-cut cap of black curls like the coat of a newly sheared sheep bobbing slightly at the motion. The veteran Hunter frowned. She was not some vain noble to demand obeisance; a simple salute would have done fine. Perhaps the woman believed it would relieve her of her shame if she were properly remorseful. Erika glowered at the top of her head. It would not.

As the Hunter straightened, Erika motioned to the ladder-backed seat across from her. The Hunter muttered her thanks and sat down slowly, her dark brown eyes never leaving Erika’s blue. “Lieutenant Tatyana, I’ve read your report on the situation involving the witch Yekaterina.” If there had been any shred of doubt left in her mind about that girl’s guilt, the detailed communiqué had thoroughly disabused her of them. A coven in the forest? One lead by a True Possession? To think, she had her in her hands only to slip away at the last minute due to an overeager subordinate. It galled her all the more that the Lieutenant in front of her had an otherwise spotless record. The veteran forced her hand to unclench and rested her palm against the cool, wood surface of the desk. To have failed so spectacularly at a juncture like this...! The case with the girl in Ostford had become one of personal interest, and as much as it infuriated her that she had been allowed to walk away relatively unscathed, Erika reigned in the emotion. She reminded herself that she herself had seen and even spoken to Yekaterina long before anyone else in her command. The failure here was hers to bear as well, though that did little to alleviate her black mood. “It is less than ideal that she escaped, but ours is a calling which occasionally meets such setbacks. We will carry on.” ”Less than ideal.” A most glaring understatement.

Erika continued, “zeal, child, is a trait to be lauded in our Order, and you certainly have that in spades. Hubris, however, is not.” The woman across from her flinched as though slapped despite Erika’s calm tone. “I understand why you did what you did – believe me, I do – but you can not allow your hatred for the apostates to edge into wanton sadism. Beyond the fact that such methods are abhorrent to the Sway, -- who charged us with being merciful as well as delivering justice -- they are far, far too dangerous and crafty; when you let your emotions run free like that, you make mistakes, and even a small mistake may prove fatal.” Another flinch made Erika want to sigh in frustration; repentance was one thing, cringing like a beaten cur was another entirely.

“Of course, Seeker Erika. I’ve failed the Order, and I will speak to the Confessor about an appropriate penance.” The dark skin of Tatyana’s face blanched as she said the words, but she maintained a determined set to her mouth; the penance would be painful and humiliating, to be sure, but it was the only way to remove the black mark against her. The two sat in silence for a moment, before the junior member asked, “Will we give chase, madam Seeker?”

“No, Lieutenant.” Erika shook her head and looked down at the other reports on her desk. The work never seemed to end. “We have no idea where her fellow apostates have dragged her off to, and our mission her in Ostford still stands. I am afraid, for now, that we must leave the question of Yekaterina behind.” She glanced up in time to see the coffee skinned Hunter frown and open her mouth to argue, but Erika immediately cut her off. She slapped her desk hard, reveling in the stinging pain that shot through her palm. “Do not forget yourself, Lieutenant! The entire reason we must let the witch walk for now – only for now! – is due to your sheer stupidity in not putting a bolt in her heart when you had the chance!” She breathed heavily through her nose, and began the mental exercises her mentor had taught her to regain her composure. “I will be speaking with the Confessor to ensure that your punishment is suitable to the infraction, but it will not be overly harsh; all of us could have done better here.” She emphasized the “all” slightly, letting the woman know that she included herself in that failure. “You are dismissed, Lieutenant. Please find Alfred for me though, as you leave. I need to speak with him about some of these other reports.”

Lieutenant Tatyana stood up from her chair and gave a crisp salute. “By your order, madam Seeker; to hear is to obey.” Erika nodded and gestured to the door, but smiled at the girl’s back as she left; it was good to see that she had regained at least a bit of her spine. As the door clicked shut behind the junior Hunter, Erika sighed, leaned back in her chair and stared up at the unfamiliar ceiling. Every ceiling was unfamiliar to a woman whose life was the road, but for some reason it seemed particularly obvious today. As much as she wanted to go home, to see her family and lose herself in the pretense of a normal life once more, there was work yet to be done. There was always more work.

[Yekaterina Aleratt]

Part 1

“Would you like to see something, little Katya?” Yekaterina looked up to see Istaraesh’s horned head inches from her own, and jerked back with a gasp. The fiend giggled – giggled! – a sound like hundreds of bumblebees buzzing at the same time. It was floating five feet in the air, as though lazily lying on an invisible surface, its arms fold beneath its chin as it watched her with those disconcerting black eyes. Istaraesh rolled onto its back and looked at her upside-down as waves of its rich, black hair hung in the empty space beneath it. “I want to show you something and I think you’re bored enough to humor me.” Flipping down to land gracefully on its feet, it stared at her with hooded eyes. “Besides, I think you’ll find it very, very interesting.”

Yekaterina looked at the fiend, trying to gauge its intent, but she doubted she would be able to determine anything that Istaraesh wanted to keep secret; the thing had made an existence of misleading mortals to the hells, and more often than not the victims went freely, blissfully unaware of their damnation. She nodded once, slowly. “Alright, Istaresh… show me.” Suddenly the void lurched and Yekaterina found herself standing on a marble floor beneath a vast dome worked with silver moons and various gems to represent planets and stars. Katya realized that if she could clearly make out emeralds, rubies and sapphires from where she was, meters below, the gems must have been the size of her fist or larger. A staggeringly large, golden sunburst, several feet across the central disc alone, glimmered at the apex of the dome. Focusing again on the ground level, Yekaterina was awed by the sheer size of the room, to say nothing of what lay beyond the numerous passageways that led from the central chamber. The space was enormous, easily a hundred paces across from wall to columned wall, but she could see no joints where slabs of stone had been set together to make the floor. A single rock that large would have been impossible for humans to move, let alone maneuver into a workspace, even with the assistance of magic. As she peered at her surroundings, she found her mind wandering to the “how” rather than the “where” or “what.” How had the demon done that? She had only been able to change herself, but she had never considered jumping from the prison itself. Were there other worlds that she could see, beyond both the abyss and this place? Could she herself warp between them?

Istaraesh was standing next to her, and smiled condescendingly as it watched her wide-eyed wonder. “The first time your kind spoke to mine was through dreams. We heard the hopes and wishes and fears in them, and Awakened ourselves to them.” The demon extended its arm in front of her, palm facing up. A farmer toiling in the fields hovered over the Demon’s clawed hand before the image changed. Suddenly he was a king atop a throne, decked in resplendent finery. Another shift, and he was a mighty warrior, swinging a blazing sword into his enemies. The image warped again and he was with – Yekaterina looked away in embarrassment, her cheeks flushed. That was certainly many men’s dreams, but not something she had wanted to see! Especially not in such graphic detail as the demon could provide. Istaraesh laughed as it closed its hand on the lovers, and the image disappeared. “Your people are so capricious! Maybe it is because of how little time you have on the world, but whatever the reason your deepest desires seem to alter from one minute to the next.” The fiend lowered its arm and cocked its head at Katya. “At first we did not know what it was we had encountered; for us, time is meaningless, and our plans are laid out meticulously. You humans seemed to jump almost faster than we could focus, but we learned how powerful dreams could be. We learned, and we set in motion new plans.” Istaraesh looked around the dome with a tight-lipped smile, stopping to stare down each of the principal passages. “We have other channels now, but the Dream was the first.”

“What is this place?” Yekaterina had a feeling she already knew what the demon was going to say, but she was still curious to see if her hunch proved correct.

Istaresh spun itself in a circle, gesturing at the room with opened clawed hands. “This, little Katya, is my Hall of Dreams. Or, well,” it corrected itself with a dismissive wave of a hand, “your interpretation of the Hall, anyway. I have to pull things from your mind so that you can actually perceive the space.” The demon looked about the space and gave a quick nod. “Not too shabby for what I have to work with.”

Yekaterina ignored the barb and instead tried to peer down one of the many halls leading from the domed room. There was perfect lighting throughout the entire structure, though she could see no lamps or windows to let it in. She accepted that without another thought – after all this was a magical world between worlds willed into existence by an ancient, malevolent force – but she was surprised that the passageway seemed to stretch far beyond her sight. “How far do these go?” She asked Istaraesh as she pointed.

It smiled at her, and replied, “You could walk every minute of every day for the rest of your life and not reach the end of a single one. But don’t take my word for it, let’s go; there’s still more I want you to see.”

As they set off down the hallway, a strange pair if ever there were one, Yekaterina noticed that the walls of the passage were full with row upon row of nooks carved into the stone, and in each nook were individual spaces for.. something, though she wasn’t quite sure what. She paused to inspect one of the objects resting on a lush pillow inside one of the crevices, and realized it was a perfectly round orb that almost appeared to be made of water. The sphere was the color of an old bruise, with hues of sickly yellow and purple dancing across the shimmering surface. Its curves glistened, not as though catching the light of the Hall, but as though something deep within was casting a faint glow. Something about it beckoned her, pulled her attention back to it every time she found herself thinking about moving on down the row. She realized that she wanted to hold the thing, to caress it and look into that swirling darkness.

Her hand reached out to touch the orb when suddenly a clawed hand shot out from beyond her vision and snatched her wrist. Jerked back to reality – or, at least, awareness of the present – Yekaterina looked up at Istaraesh feeling as though she had just woken from a deep sleep. The demon gave her one of those sadistic grins and tut-tutted at her. “I wouldn’t touch that if I were you, Yekaterina. You wouldn’t like what would happen. At all.” Katya blinked, the last vestiges of the dull haze that had clouded her mind blowing away, and she looked at the sphere again. Now it appeared positively malignant, and the pull on her became cruelly insistent. Tearing her eyes away from it, she looked up and down the row, where similar orbs, each a slightly different shade or brightness stretched on as far as she could see. If this was the Hall of Dreams… Istaraesh giggled again. “Right, right! Yes, they are nightmares and final moments from the people I’ve walked through. Though only the most exquisite ones find their way here.” The fiend swished its tail and flashed those razor fangs at her. “Like I said, you would not want to fall into one.” Yekaterina shuddered at the thought. The last minutes of a possessed man or woman could be peaceful, she supposed, but more than likely they were horrific deaths at the hands of the Church or an angry mob. And the nightmares… sometimes the dark recesses of the human mind could weave things far worse than anything found in the waking world, things she could only begin to imagine. No, she most certainly did not want to experience those.

“Good. I’m glad you’ve finally decided to heed one of my warnings.” Katya turned her attention back to the demon who was lovingly stroking the dark sphere while staring at her with those black eyes. “But this isn’t what I wanted to show you. Here, let me take us somewhere more to your liking.” There was no sensation of lurching or movement, and the halls did not rush past; one moment she was standing in next to the wall of nightmares and the next she was in front of an identical wall, this one filled with spheres that shared their darker twins’ liquid appearance, but cast in shining gold and whites. Even more so than the nightmares, these ones beckoned her with a siren song that seemed attuned to her heartstrings perfectly. Yekaterina clamped her hand firmly at her side, however; there would be no surprises here again if she could help it. Istaraesh had taken to the air once more, rolling and tumbling like an acrobat. Without looking at her, it called, “Go ahead, these ones are safe; they are yours, after all.” Katya stared at the demon with wide eyes and gaping mouth. Hers?! After the initial shock, she realized that she should not have been surprised; Istaraesh had told her that it took nightmares from the others, why not dreams from her? Still, the thought of the monster rooting through her mind and stealing her dreams away to keep them locked here forever was… disturbing, to say the least.

“You can visit any of them you like while we wait to Awaken to the True world.” Istaraesh landed on the ground and gently waved its hand, and the spheres shifted slightly, though Yekaterina would be hard pressed to say how. “I have dreams of power, dreams of home, dreams of wealth…” With each new category it swiped its hand again and the orbs shifted subtly. “Dreams of lust,” it hissed the last word and paused to give her a look that lit up her face. She had held out a faint hope that those at least would not be plucked from her head, but it seems the being had no qualms about offending her modesty. Still, it might not be so bad to be able to relive those moments every now and again when she was lonely. Istaraesh held up a hand though before she could touch any of the golden spheres. “But, first I want to make a deal with you.” There’s always a catch.

Yekaterina pulled her hand back as though burnt and gave the demon a level look. “What kind of deal, Istaraesh?”

It stared at her with an expression of feigned hurt. “It isn’t anything big, and I don’t ask anything onerous of you. All I want is to see what you see.”

The request seemed innocuous enough, but then again, it was coming from a demon. Yekaterina pondered it at length, wondering what could be so interesting about her dreams to Istaraesh, especially since it already had them here for its own amusement. Maybe it just wanted to see her, fully awake and aware inside the experience; dreams had a funny way of passing for reality to the sleeper, but that would be different if the person knew they were dreaming. Could she change the dream at will once inside? To have complete power over the world, however fleeting… That would be something. Unfortunately, if the fiend was going to be watching, that ruled out one category for certain. “I agree; we have a deal, Istaraesh. I want a peaceful dream. One… one with Astrid, if you have it.” The wall shifted – again – and this time only one sphere sat on a lush, velvet pillow before her. She reached out a hand and touched the orb with her fingertips and immediately felt exhausted. The last thing Yekaterina saw before the world fell away was the fiend’s gleeful smile and black eyes over top the incandescent orb.

[Yekaterina Aleratt]

Part 2

Yekaterina blinked her eyes against the sudden brightness around her. The Hall of Dreams was gone, Istaraesh was gone, and thank the gods Old and New, the eternal void was gone. She could hear larks chirping overhead and the chattering of a squirrel nearby. Above her a canopy of rich emerald green swayed softly in the breeze, scattering patches of light about her. Beneath her arm she could feel the cool grass tickling at her sun-kissed skin, and next to her was the person she loved most in the entire world. Yekaterina’s head was atop Astrid’s thigh, and she could feel the slow, steady pulse thudding beneath her ear like a lullaby. The Hunter smelled of leather and the beeswax she treated her bowstrings with, and she was gently stroking Katya’s hair with a calloused hand. They were resting under a venerable oak, the swells of its gnarled roots pressing not unpleasantly into her back as would only work out in a dream. She sighed deeply, relishing the warmth and smell of the other woman, and nuzzled her face into Astrid’s leg. “This is a dream?” She muttered softly. Yekaterina knew it was, but secretly she hoped that somehow, maybe, this was the real world.

Astrid laughed, a happy sound warm as the summer sun that streamed through the rustling leaves overhead. She ceased her petting and brushed an errant strand of hair from Katya’s brow as she looked down at her with a soft smile. “A dream? I mean, I know I am a dream come true, but last I checked I was still flesh and blood.” She poked her thigh next to Katya’s brow, and chuckled again. “Yup, still mortal.” Her grin turned mischievous as she leaned back against the tree and quirked an eyebrow. “Why, were you dreaming about me? Was it good?” Yekaterina laughed and smiled at Astrid as the blood rushed to her cheeks. That was the girl she remembered. No, not a girl anymore. The Astrid of her dreams was painfully beautiful; she still looked the same as Yekaterina remembered, more or less, but everything about her was somehow… more. Better. Her blue-grey eyes, so large and innocent, seemed to shine with their own light, and her brown hair looked so soft that it was all Katya could do not to reach up and run her fingers through the strands. She was perfect. Perfect enough to draw tears to Yekaterina’s eyes.

Astrid’s concerned face hovered over hers, backlit with a halo of golden sunlight as she gently resumed her stroking of Katya’s hair and made soothing noises. “Hey now, hey now… no tears. It’s OK; everything’s fine. Was it a nightmare then? Whatever it was, it’s gone, right? You’re here now.” Yekaterina looked away from the impossibly wonderful woman, shame gnawing at her core. How could she tell her that this wasn’t real, that she wasn’t real? How could she possibly deserve this? She was a wretch, an apostate, a witch; she was the worst thing to ever happen to the girl, and for Katya to even dare to dream about her like this was profane. I should have asked for a different dream; something simpler, somethi— “Hey.” A single finger caught her chin and turned her back to Astrid, and suddenly, Yekaterina felt something warm and silky press against her lips. The tresses of the Hunter’s hair slipped lightly over her skin, and Katya shivered at their touch. The erstwhile witch blinked up as Astrid smiled again and ran her thumb over Katya’s cheek, brushing away the drops that had pooled there. “No tears.” She kissed her again, and this time Yekaterina pressed back into the inviting warmth. Over and over their lips met in brief, tender moments, and each time Astrid told her not to be sad. They kept that up for what seemed like hours of bliss before Yekaterina rolled over and pulled herself into Astrid’s lap, resting her head in the crook of the other woman’s shoulder.

Off in the distance, leaning lazily on a fencepost, a lone figure was watching to two lovers take their ease. Something about it was off in every possible way that it could be; her eyes seemed to shift away from it against her will, but even so she could see that it cast no shadow on the grass, and its form wavered ever-so slightly in the air as though she were looking at it through the rippling surface of a pond. The Yekaterina-of-the-Dream could not quite put her finger on what was wrong with it, but the Katya of reality knew that it was because Istaraesh had never truly been in the dream. It was an interloper here, though she could hardly gainsay it after their deal. Another contract with the fiend, however brief. It made her shudder in spite of the day’s warmth. “What are you looking at?” Astrid asked as she leaned forward to study the enclosure, pressing her chest into Katya’s shoulder. “Did one of the goats get out or something?” Istaraesh was still there and gave a quick wave to Yekaterina, but the Hunter could not see the demon; it existed here only as a reminder to Katya that this was not real, a jab at her fleeting happiness. A pinprick, perhaps, when compared to some of the other horrors it had visited upon her, but no less painful for its scale.

Astrid shifted beneath her and gently set Yekaterina down against the trunk of the oak before she stood and offered her a hand. Yekaterina caught the Hunter’s grasp and was pulled up into the woman’s arms, only inches from her face. The light in her eyes was brighter than ever, and all thoughts of Istaraesh fled from Yekaterina’s mind as she stared into those luminous pools. This close, the blue and gray seemed to separate into distinct patterns each as striking as the other. This close, they were all that existed in the world. Gods but a woman could drown happily there… The Hunter leaned in even closer until their foreheads touched, and Katya could feel Astrid’s warm breath brush against her cheek. “I don’t know what’s gotten into you, but I told you: no tears.” She stepped away, bowed in a single, gracefully fluid motion, and smiled wryly up at Yekaterina from her bent position. “Would you like to dance with me, Katya? Because right now I can’t think of anything I’d like to do more.” She held out her hand again, palm up. “You always smile when we’re dancing, and I want to see you smile.” Yekaterina did smile, and she took the proffered hand and began to dance with Astrid.

As the two waltzed as one over the field, the breeze flitting through their hair, Yekaterina remembered the dream. She had had it years ago, during a summer when she still lived in Loshad. The town had been celebrating its yearly solstice festival, and as they always did on the last night, there was a dance held on the village green. She had been too shy at the time to say anything to Astrid, who had spent the evening at her side, mocking the various lovestruck couples, but she had desperately wanted the younger woman to ask her to dance, to twirl her around across the grass and make her forget the rest of the world. That night, she got her wish as she slept, though Katya had long since forgotten in the constant torment and fear of the war years and her time on the run. The Hunter and the witch danced in each other’s arms far longer than real life would have allowed, but this was a dream, and legs did not tire here. A strange gratitude for the demon flowed through Yekaterina as she held Astrid close; cruel though it was, it knew her in ways that no one else ever would, and it had found the perfect dream.

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Sleep clung to her like a millstone, threatening to drag her back beneath the dark wave of unconsciousness, but she fought the siren song with which it called to her; as much as Yekaterina longed to return to that idyllic pasture, to Astrid, she needed to know where she was, how much time had passed, and, most importantly, if she was safe in the very real world around her. She rolled on her side and became aware that wherever it was that the creature in the forest had brought her, it had placed her on a pallet and thrown a blanket over her comatose body. When Yekaterina tried to open her eyes, however, she found them held down by a thick band of cloth. Bandages? Why are bandages over my eyes? Fear shot through her like a bolt of lightning. Had she been injured during the fight, or while she was being transported here? She did not remember any of the Hunters hurting her, and she did not think that she had poked an eye on a stick as the hounds were chasing her, but perhaps she had ignored the pain in her terror.

Yekaterina lifted the bandage with trembling hands, only to find herself still adrift in the darkness. Her fingers scrabbled across her face, nails digging into the soft flesh of her cheeks as she twisted and tore the fabric from her head, but even with it gone the emptiness persisted. Beneath her shaking fingertips she could feel something wet and tacky on her face. Let it be paint! If there are any gods at all let it be only paint! Somewhere off to her left she could hear the soft popping of wood burning nearby, and she could smell the slightly acrid scent of pine smoke. There should be ample light even if the fire was down to coals, but there was no bed, no fire, not even hands clasping torn bandages in front of her; there was only the engulfing void. Her breath caught in her throat as she wheezed in panic and shuffled awkwardly backwards across the bedding until her hands touched damp earth. She could feel her eyes darting too and fro, searching desperately for something, anything, to see, but there was nothing, not even a dim flicker of light or blurry shapes; awake and alive to the world for what felt like the first time in eons, she was nevertheless blind to it. In the back of Yekaterina’s mind, in that place that was not Istaraesh, she could almost hear a contented purring. The emotions bleeding through the bond from the demon were a mix of schadenfreude and… and awakening. It was then that Katya knew. “I want to walk the world again… All I want is to see what you see.” Knew, and began to scream.

“It took my eyes! Holy martyrs have mercy, it took my eyes!”

[Yekaterina Aleratt]

(Undergoing Rewrite)

[Yekaterina Aleratt]

(Undergoing Rewrite)