Harmless

[Skie and Avery]

{closed}{Disclaimer: Contains strong sexual themes and violence. Not reccomended for those seeking PG 13 reading material. =) }

Skie stood in her hotel room, staring at the ticket down in her hand. She didn't know how many times she'd taken it out of her pack, replaced it, and rethought the whole thing. Her brother's happiness meant the world to her, but something called her in Raiaera. The open window blew a cool breeze in from the harbor, smelling of salt, fish, and freedom. The gulls called back and forth and she could almost feel the rocking of the current under her feet. She'd taken the trip across the ocean before, and her excitement then was being drudged up again with every breath she took of the sea air.

On the bed, beside her bag, lay a sword and a small dagger. Both were simple, made of steel, and her gaze fell on them lovingly. She had no doubt that her father's steel would take her through thick and thin, but there was something she'd been worried about lately. She wasn't sure if it had come from everything she'd been through in Raiaera or something more deeply seeded than that. Either way, she was laying down the steel today and raising her own fists.

Another breeze infiltrated the aged lace curtains that kept a meager barrier between Skie's nude form and the outside world. She replaced the ticket again and turned back to the small mirror that hung over the dresser. A roll of cotton lay, partially unrolled. She picked it up and carefully began to wind it around her chest, binding it tight, but spreading it out more and more to ensure a streamlined flatness. She's searched earlier through the basket of clothes that had been hastily left by earlier occupants of the motel, and opted for a loose white tunic. Her denim pants were exchanged for the canvas pants that sailors wore. Pulling her hair back and winding a cord around it at the nape of her neck, she felt she could get away with letting it alone, but there was the matter of her face. After she looked at her reflection for a few more moments, she closed her eyes, pursed her lips, and cast the spell. When her eyes opened, she was staring at a hardened sea dog whose face was littered with wrinkles and scars. Gray streaks brushed her hair from her temples back, and her hair had a coarser quality than normal. A wicked grin spread across her features and she moved again to the window, watching as the innkeeper fed the hogs in the back. When the woman had returned into the kitchens, Skie scaled down the gutter that hung just outside her window, letting her feet hit ground and began the journey into the innermost aisles of the city.

As the smells of the sea began to receed, a different salty taste filled the air. The prizefights were bloody today.

[The Cinderella Man]

Radasanth was a cruel place when the winter came knocking. Granted, the Corone capitol wasn’t exactly a heavenly oasis during other seasons either – especially in the Slums District - but it was when people started to wake to the whiteness of the frost instead of the sunbeams of the rising sun that Radasanth could be seen on its worse. Innkeepers would mark up the prices of their rooms, tavern owners would mark up the prices of their beverages, even whores marked up the prices of their services. Winter was undoubtedly the marking-up season. And such tendencies always broke over the back of those that hung from the lower links of the hierarchal food chain. The measly wages you could get for working at the docks or in the mines or in pretty much every other branch of economy were decreased even further, reflecting the seasonal decrease in business activity. In short, by the time the first snow had fallen, the less fortunate had even less money to pay for something they already couldn’t afford.

Victor Callahan was one of these unfortunates. The winter wasn’t knocking on the figurative doors yet, but it was definitely climbing over that last hill and getting ready for the final stretch before lulling the entire realm with a while lullaby. This approach made it clear that it was the time for preparation, time for accumulation of anything that could be accumulated, from body fat to shiny round pieces of gold. Since the vagabonding prizefighter had neither in abundance, he decided to return to Radasanth and scour the local boxing arenas for some extra work. There had to be something for him in the metropolis.

But the winter was coming and it brought bitterness and grimness in its wake. Whichever arena he visited, he found closed doors, and whichever battle organizer he contacted gave him nothing but a rather discourteous rejection. Small wonder given his current bout score. When you started to lose more then you won, people got tired of watching you get pound senseless, and more importantly, they got tired of paying you for such performances. And before long, you were in quicksand, and the more you struggled and tried, the farther you sunk until you were in trouble all the way up to your nose. Like Victor was right now. His pockets were turned out, his rations were evanescing, and the winter was coming, peeking around the corner just enough to make his every breath visible. But the situation wasn’t hopeless; there was another option, the last one, and like all last options, it was risky.

Street-fighting.

Street-fighting was a whole lot like pushing your hand in a hollow of a tree and praying that nothing bit you too hard. The fact of a matter was that, when it came to street-fighting, you were blundering into the unknown. Your next opponent could be a greenhorn street urchin that couldn’t throw a decent punch. And it could also be a devil incarnate that tore down walls and shat bricks. Fights ranged from bare-knuckled ones to those that were done with padded gloves or brass knuckles or even some bludgeon weapons. And most importantly, there was no ref, no bell, no ropes and no rules. The fight ended when one of the battlers couldn’t get up anymore. It wasn’t rare that the reason for this inability wasn’t fatigue, but another, much more dire cause. Death. And while Victor certainly didn’t have a classy life – hell, he didn’t have a decent life – it was still something that he was rather fancy of. However, the winter was coming and it couldn’t be weathered with empty pockets.

That was why, on this sunless of days, Padre walked through the glum streets of the Corone capitol and towards the venue of his street bout. It was to take place in the Slums, the only district where such an event would go unheeded by the local law enforcement, even though there would certainly be more then just the homeless spectating the fight. Street-fighting was more often then not something big money was bet on, something that a fair share of aristocrats liked to watch because of its uncouthness, its rawness. The more blood and bruises and swellings, the better. Frankly, it disgusted Victor to the point where he wanted to punch each and every one of them, but they were paying customers and he was there to bleed for them.

The locale was a backyard of what might’ve been a rather lofty manor once, several dozens of people already present, warming themselves on a modest fire. All of them looked like hobos, clad in raggedy hooded coats, but the boxer doubted that there was a poor man’s outfit beneath the first layer of their garb. Victor walked into the unremarkable courtyard tranquilly, his duffel bag slung over his shoulder, his black leather coat buttoned up and pulled around his bulky figure tightly. Not finding his opponent amongst those present, he propped his back against the wall of the ransacked manor and waited.

[Skie and Avery]

The path that led around the broken mansion was well worn with footprints and trails of blood from those who hadn't fared well. While she could feel the illusion clinging to her skin like a frosty fog, she noticed that she seemed to be shorter than most of the men present. She was tall by a woman's standards, but her build was nothing but slight when lumped into the sea of testosterone that was Radasanthian's finest brutes. It was obvious, by the time she'd gotten around to the back of the house, that she was not the only one who had noticed. A rough shove came from the side and she stumbled to the side, repressing the urge to snap her wing from the tunic at the man.

"Look at this old man!" a voice rang out from her left. "He's got the body of a child, amazing!" Laughter burst and she was shoved again. "How do you do it, old one? Or are you really a girl underneath it all?" Skie's blood ran cold and she turned to face the attacker, her face set in a grim smirk, her arms crossing over her chest. She stood tall, an uncomfortable task considering the boney wing she pulled tight against her back.

"I do it with hard work!" she said, lowering her voice, though not as much as she would have liked. "Not like you lazy asses! You lookin' fer a fight!?" her words brought more laughter, but this time the man clapped his hand on her left shoulder, grinning around to the others.

"Don't get mad at us, elder. We like you." He pointed across the yard. "See that guy over there?" Skie looked through the sea of bodies, her eyes catching the form of a man who reclined against a wall, his arms crossed over his chest.

"The one against the wall?" she asked, forgetting herself for a moment and lowering her voice in the middle of the first word. The man looked at her strangely, then nodded, looking back at the man in the leather coat.

"Yeah, that's him. He's been wandering around here for a while, can't find a fight. Now, he's a big guy and I was just telling Earle here that size don't always mean nothing. You look like you got good arms on you Grampa, so we think you should go over and punch 'em."

"Just....punch 'em?" Skie asked, incredulous. "No ceremony at all. Just... punch away?" Rauctious laughter swelled from around her and once the man had cleared the tears from his eye, he nodded.

"You ain't in the Citadel now, old man. This is how us young men fight." He shoved her forward and as Skie began picking her way through the crowd, the man turned to another. "Hey, go up and tell the hoods to watch the little old man. A fight's about to break out and tell them to put down money on the big guy. Alot of money, you hear. This is a sure thing."

Skie finally broke through the masses and approached her target. He looked bored, almost depressed, as he looked over the fights going on, winners running around, and those that lost being carried away. She could tell by the look on his face that fighting wasn't something that was new to him, and she was wondering if maybe she could still veer the other way in time, but she felt the eyes of her goaders at her back. To run away would be folly now, and after all, this is what she had come for. The Citadel was too held back for her, none of her opponents willing to give all. This was what she needed, or what she kept telling herself that she needed.

As she came up beside the boxer, she glanced back to see the men grinning and nodding, cheering her on. With an almost audible sigh, she balled up her fist and swung it towards the man's side, going for the ribs.

[The Cinderella Man]

Victor liked to think of himself as a professional pugilist, a man who by vocation bludgeoned other people to a pulp, but despite violence being a crucial aspect of his life, he found the backyard locale disquieting. The place already looked like a battlefield; the freezing mud was plowed by a vast number of feet, sprayed with blood and teeth and even torn clothing. Fighters were nothing like the proverbial gladiators that fought in spacious arenas. No, here they were no more then beasts caught in a dogfight, exchanging punches until one plopped into the muck and remained there, much to the pleasure of the crowd. It was a gruesome scene, and somehow the circumstances forced him to be a part of it.

Even thought the backyard was caught in quite a tumult due to the bouts that were already well underway, Victor didn’t fail to acknowledge the newcomer that caused additional commotion. The old geezer had the sun-burnt look of a seasoned buccaneer, his face callous and wrinkled, his hair losing its natural color rapidly. His spindly figure managed to evoke more then a handful of mocking words, but Padre knew better then to judge a fist-fighter by the looks. Age and musculature were an important factor, but not the crucial one. That was a lesson he learned fairly early in his boxing career, when Arslan, his trainer back in the Scara’s Zrinden, silenced his cockiness by setting him up with a weedy greenhorn that looked as if he was fresh out of a prison camp. In less then three rounds Victor Callahan was swallowing his own blood, realizing that scrawny fighters had a tendency to be as tough as nails and as sinewy as tree roots. That was why, while all the others scorned the aged bastard, Vic remained observant.

However, despite his vigilance, the right hook aimed at his side came as a surprise. Seeing the weathered man approach made Victor assume that he at least intended to introduce himself, but only the fist spoke, colliding with the boxer’s ribs. But instead of a detonation of pain that usually followed a bare-knuckled punch, the attack turned out to be nothing but a minor hindrance that barely got through the thick leather of his coat.

“Assume. Makes as an ass out of you and me.”

There was truth in this sarcastic proverb that his sister Yavannha – who was growing up to be quite an acrimonious bitch back in Scara Brae – liked to utter on appropriate occasions. He assumed that the scraggy man was coming to introduce himself. He assumed that he punched like a mule instead like a girl. Both of these speculations turned out to be false. He was better off not assuming anything today.

“That’s one hell of a greeting, old man,” Victor said, half in jest, veering sideways and pushing the man away with a shove of his left hand. This set up a safe perimeter between himself and his adversary, enabling him enough time to unbutton his coat and toss it over a rotting picket fence that barely withheld its own weight. The chill grasped him like a giant fist almost immediately, but he knew full well that the atmosphere would heat up rather soon. Rolling up the sleeves of his threadbare dark-green shirt, he concluded the preparations for the bout. By that time, a modest crowd gathered around the two, forming half a circle and trapping them between their cloaked bodies and the shabby fence.

“Since you’re so keen on dispensing with the niceties, we might as well let our fists do the talking,” the muscular prizefighter added, taking up a firm posture and balling up his fists in a defensive position. He took a sidestep to the right, then another, tentatively circling around his foe and preparing his attack. He started with the basics; a three-punch combo, two of which were fired in rapid succession at the man’s mug before his right went low, fully powered and aimed for the gut. Regardless of whether the punches connected or not, the reaction of the veteran sailor was bound to reveal Vic his true pugilistic prowess.

[Skie and Avery]

“Well,” she said, shrugging her shoulders in response to his remarks, refusing to drop her tone for one word. He pushed off from the wall, and prepared himself to dance with her. She put her fists up as he did, trying to follow his steps, marveling at how different this was from the Citadel. The cries of other fights rose around her; both the joyous whooping victories and the strangled, gurgling defeats, half drowned in their own blood. The slam of fists against flesh was hardly ever heard in a world where chivalrous and sinister opponents met eye to eye, both with steel and both with the knowledge that any injury that came could be healed with a potent prayer from a warrior monk. In the Citadel, Death was nothing. In this slaughterhouse, she was looking at him.

When Victor let his first two punches fly, she narrowly avoided them with ducks of her head, twisting her body to the left to avoid the first, she had to go down fast to miss the other. The loose strands of her ponytail flew upwards, and she felt the ripple that let her know that his fist had slapped them away with his blow. She was worried that he might recognize that the texture was not the same as it seemed to be, but perhaps that was just her own worry. If he was truly a warrior (stars help her if he was!) then all his focus would be on annihilating her. Her intent had been to pop back up and get him between the eyes with one of her bony knuckles, but it would seem that kismet had other plans. As she rose, her eyes met his for a split second, revelling in the warm color that conveyed such coldness, and then his fist met her side.

Skie tried to breath as she was pushed backwards, into the line of people, and then shoved back into the mud pit again amidst whoops and laughter. Her lungs, however, had gone on strike, and as she wheezed like a true elder in the icy morning, she stumbled back. Tears stung at her eyes, blurring the dancing figure before her and as she blinked to clear them, she was vaguely aware of the furious scowl that graced her face. The one black wing she had secured tightly under the tunic tried to flare out, but luckily didn’t rip the cloth, sending an unnatural ripple down her backline. As this place rejected the niceties of the Citadel, so now was she. Rushing forward, she ducked left and brought her fist up to the right, counting on him to block the blow. While her fist aimed high, a second after it began to chart it’s course for his nose, she jumped into him, bringing up her knee to the place where no man wants to take a blow.

If there had ever been a moment where she could have backed down, it was long gone.

[The Cinderella Man]

“What the hell?! It can’t be that easy.”

Victor’s initial conclusion was that the old fart was dallying, taking a few punches to toy with the bookkeepers before miraculously turning the tables, but the more he observed the man, the less certain he was in his estimation. His foe was visibly shaken by a relatively harmless body punch, staggering and sucking the air in shallow, desperate breaths. The horrid grimace that the old geezer put on tried to maintain some degree of composure, but weakness was seeping through the cracks, revealing the fact that this bout was finished before it even started. The size of a dog in a fight maybe wasn’t nearly as important as the size of the fight in a dog, but this old seadog was running low on both the fight and the size.

The handful of spectators whose bodies played the role of ropes of the makeshift ring seemed to lavish in this fact. They snickered and laughed, mocking the feeble man that bit more then he should and now had trouble chewing. Their hands grasped the spindly veteran only because it gave them the chance to shove him back into the mini-arena. There was malice painted on their face, clarifying that they liked nothing better then to kick the man that was already down. This was enough to elicit a hint of pity in Victor, who decided against putting an end to this fight with a quick follow up. He had an opening – the callous-faced man was on the ropes and a punch away from eating the dirt – but the prizefighter held his mitts back, waiting for his adversary to steady himself. Unlike the jeering bastards, he liked fair fights. Besides, they probably wouldn’t pay him a whole lot if he knocked the man’s lights out in ten seconds.

Unsurprisingly, this attack of benevolence was soon proven to be quite inappropriate. The jolted codger stabilized himself soon enough, retrieving the determined facial expression before taking advantage of Victor’s reprieve. He sailed to the boxer’s right, launching a rather clumsy pair of punches, but by that time, Vic’s dukes were up, amortizing both blows as if they were made of stone. There were plenty of options for Padre in this instance, when his opponent was so near – a headbutt, an elbow to the ribs, a devastating uppercut – all equally damaging. But none of them got a chance to be used.

The biggest problem of pugilists was the fact that they were trained to box and nothing else. Legs were there to keep them upright, to keep them moving about, not to kick at their opponents. So, when placed in an environment where there were no rules, they tended to forget about the fact that there would be no ref to punish a low blow. They fell into the routine, focusing on their mitts and the ways to make them crash against their opponent’s face, and they usually got kicked in the nuts. Victor was no different then the majority of boxers.

No pain was as specific as the one that occurred when a man’s manhood got bludgeoned. It wasn’t sharp, it wasn’t dull, it wasn’t even throbbing. It was simply pain that made you feel like your testicles were shoved up your crotch and they decided to climb into your stomach. You didn’t shout, you didn’t scream, you just made a funny face and hoped the ache would evanesce soon enough. That was what Victor did. The old man’s knee brushed against his thigh and connected with his crotch, making the significantly larger man to stumble forward, grabbing his opponent in a desperate clinch. Vic’s hand searched for... something, some way to expel the pain through dealing some damage in retribution. His left grabbed a fistful of the old man’s tunic, finding something coherent beneath it and giving it a yank. Meanwhile, his right was trying to find the ribs, inaccurate due to the concentration that got chased away by the pain in his crotch.

“You goddamn bastard...” Victor managed to squeeze through his clenched teeth, his nostrils flaring as they exhaled as rapidly as if they channeled out the impeding pain. The benevolence that stopped him from decking his foe moments ago was gone, making way for the fury that insisted on decimating the aged man.

[Skie and Avery]

For one moment, she thought that she had this in the bag. Her punches were brushed away as if they were mere flies, a buzzing annoyance. She had figured that they would, but as she stared up into his calculating face, she knew that her knee was her last chance. She might be able to come out of this thing in one piece if he were hobbling around. There had been one time, involving a makeshift catapult and a strangely shaped rock, that had seen the same sort of blow to her brother. He had passed out, and while it was too much to hope that Victor would as well, she could at least even the ground with him hobbling around.

As her knee rushed past his legs and met the softer flesh that lay beyond, a shadow of hope appeared. His face contorted, his eyes blinked, and it looked as though he might fall to the ground. Instead, he came towards her. Skie started to back away, but found herself in a strange violent hug. Rough hands scraped at her back, though she was more worried about the other fist that seemed to try and hit her in the same spot she'd taken a blow before. She moved a hand to grab that one, to keep it from her ribs, when suddenly white spots exploded across her vision.

A hand was grabbing hard at her folded wing, crushing it in it's grasp. It was only fair; this pain rushing through the most sensitive part of her body was only payback for the blow she'd just sent him. Her stomach was replaced with ice, her curse came out as a choke, and as her legs gave out from under her, the tunic was ripped in his iron grip, the wing snapping under his fingers to try and get out of his grasp.

She cried out, twisting, but that brought only more pain to her wing. From the moment his fingers had dung into the leathery flesh, her illusions had been fading away. Coarse salt and pepper hair flowed once again as black silk, a wrinkled dark face melted into the smooth unlined visage that was Skie dan Sabriel. The whiskered sailor that had once glared up at the prizefighter was replaced with a young woman, in her early twenties, tears coming quick to her indigo eyes. Her fists buried themselves in the mud of the ground, teeth gritting through the pain. Another shock of white fire shuddered through her wing, and she stood slowly.

"Bastard," she spit at him, throwing his curse back at him as she brought her fists up again.

[The Cinderella Man]

“What kind of devilry is this?!” Victor thought, observing the metamorphosis that definitely added a wicked twist to what started off as a simple backyard fistfight. A second ago he was clinging to a weatherworn codger, hoping to survive the devastating blow to his manhood, and the next his foe was balled up at his feet, screaming in pain as if he got stabbed in the gut. And that wasn’t even the weirdest part. The detail that was even more mind-boggling was that in the process of crumbling to the frozen mud, the old fart became a woman. A woman with wings. To Victor Callahan, whose encounters with magics and illusions were as scarce as honest men in Corone Government, this was shocking enough to make him drop his guard completely. His eyes weren’t wide open, but the disarray on his frowned face was as clear as a summer day.

And he definitely wasn’t the only one taken aback by the way events unfolded. The transfiguration stuffed a cork into the mouths of the spectators, causing eerily silence to spread in the proximity of the mini-arena they formed around the fighting pair. Everybody saw it happen, and yet disbelief that was printed over their faces made it clear that they weren’t entirely certain what they saw. One of them, a stocky man with a leather hat and hands full of paper slips, got a good idea what was occurring.

“A witch! A fucking witch! Hit her before she gets up!” he goaded Victor in an almost panicky voice. It didn’t take long for the rest to follow the example in the mindless manner the crowd always did, their perverse pleasure only enhanced by the fact that it was now a woman that would get her face wrecked. They cheered him on, bringing back the tumult and incorporating every possible derogative word for a woman in their cheering. They hoped to psyche the prizefighter up, to evoke the fury that would give them a gory show. Little did they know that they were doing exactly the opposite.

“No,” Victor stated, his words perhaps too silent to be heard with all the commotion. That’s why his actions managed to get the message through to their frenzied minds. The boxer abandoned his fighting posture completely, disregarding the woman and the expectant onlookers. Instead of giving them what they coveted, the muscular pugilist picked up his coat and started donning it.

“Wait. Wait, wait, wait! What the hell are you doing?! Finish her?!” the bookie screamed in disbelief, gesturing towards the black-haired woman that now stood where a gray geezer used to be. “That’s what you’re paid for, you bastard! Now do your...”

“I ain’t fighting no goddamn woman!” Padre harangued, forcefully stuffing his arms into the sleeves and lifting the leather collar. Victor Callahan could shovel a lot of shit. He was the kind of a person that would bend and bend and bend without breaking, the kind of a person that liked to finish what he started, regardless of how unpleasant it was. But Victor Callahan also had lines that he never crossed, and one of those lines was fighting women. He was never a chivalrous fellow, never the fairytale hero type that would rise to defend the helpless and spread his benevolence over them like a cloak, but it would be a cold day in hell before he would raise his hand against a woman. Not even if they were winged witches that willingly entered unsanctioned bouts. No money was worth walking over that particular scruple.

“Coward!” somebody shouted from behind the first line of faces, a man courageous enough when having others to cover him. The rest picked up the insult pretty damn quick, throwing their own versions at the ethical prizefighter. But Victor didn’t care. He could shovel a lot of shit and this was one of those situations. Instead of trying to prove something to a bunch of pitiful morons, he pushed past them and picked up his duffel bag. Maybe the winter was coming and he was dead broke, but that wasn’t enough to turn him into a woman-hitting hillbilly.

[Skie and Avery]

When her wing was unhanded, discarded by the boxer, her mind cleared enough to think. Taking in the scene around her, a sense of dread began to work it's way through her body, still shaking with the pain of before. She cursed her race's sensitive wings, the fact that she had but one and had never mastered the art of flying with magic rather than wings as her brother did. If she had paid as much attention as Avery had, now she could be rid of this situation quickly. From the crowd, a half-eaten apple struck her in the shoulder and she turned her face from the agressor, shakily standing up.

In her youth, she'd stayed far from the demon city in Concordia. The advisors who meant to shape her into a proper royal figure had bored her, and many of the men she saw were ones she recognized. In her escape of her mother's side of genetics, she'd found solace in learning the art of War from the Citadel. She'd seen the monk's healing hands hovering over more than a few of those who were shouting angry curses at her now.

"Damn you," she sneered at Victor, taking a step forward to stop him. She had come for a fight, win or lose. She had come for pain, for a lesson in battle with less polite opponents than she was used to. She had gotten a good taste, but it wasn't enough. If she couldn't life through this, she had no business going to Raiaera. As the man merely took his things and left, a wall of bodies closed around her.

"Whore," several men shouted in unison, a spattering of the mud flung in her direction. She turned away, but all she found was another leering face, who shoved her back. Hands were hitting and shoving, a few more perverted ones grabbed fruitlessly at her chest and backside. Skie hissed, baring the tiny, catlike fangs of her people that were usually unseen. Instead of giving her some salvation from the aggressors, it only served to goad them into more laughter and violence.

When she was a child, her mother had insisted on fully covering the children beyond just the cloaks that they were allowed to wear inside the Moontae gates. Skie had once asked her why and Natamrael told her that it was because humans were cruel. Living in Radasanth when she got older, she'd dismissed her mother's paranoia as just that. She'd never been treated badly here, but now she could feel the panic that her mother had when she had gone out. It was the panic that all Moontae felt when around large crowds of humans. A sinner could easily turn to paladin, and she was witnessing it before her eyes.

With the crowd around her too thick to rush through, she stood still, her lone wing flaring, her dark eyes flashing with the light of falling stars. She was the daughter of a demon queen and a famous hero, she thought, and she was certainly not going to take this. When she opened her mouth to demand for the crowd to part, a hand covered it from behind, muffling her enraged screams.

"Witches won't be tolerated!" yelled a man to a chourus of cheering. Skie bit down on his hand, grinning when he howled and withdrew it. Two bodies collided with hers, forcing her down, holding her in place. Two hands grabbed her legs, and a heavy boot collided with her already tender side. Someone else stood over her, sneering.

"Glittering wing," the man snickered, staring down at her. "I know what you are. Let her up." A few of the hands receeded, allowing Skie enough room to crouch before the newcomer, holding her side. "You're one of the devils that live in the forest." he continued. "I've heard stories. Honest men walking too far into Concordia, following trails of red flowers, only to be taken by your people. Rutted," he spat the last word at her, "to death. Is that how you came to play today? To find yourself a good man to corrupt?"

"You know nothing of our people." Skie said angrily, slowly standing. She was pleased to find that she was actually taller than the man who stood speaking slander.

"I know that you've got a choice," he said with mock sweetness, leaning forward onto his toes to gain an extra half inch. "If your people aren't masters in the bedroom matters, you could show just how terrible you are with these men, or you could just let us take care of demons and witches our way."

The crowd's cry was now frenzied, terrible and debauched as someone grabbed her long black hair, ignoring her scream as she was taken into the crowd of waiting hands and fists.

[The Cinderella Man]

The fact that the woman damned him for withdrawing from the bout instead of thanking him lured a smirk on Victor’s face, but it failed to surprise the man. This seemed to be one of those situations where you were damned if you did something, damned if you didn’t, damned regardless of the role you played. If you walked out, you were craven; if you didn’t, you were an unscrupulous beast. And while he wasn’t an avid fan of either option, a cowardly reflection in the mirror was one that Vic could bear to see.

He understood the woman’s reaction though. Man or woman, witch or sorcerer, whoever willingly engaged others in fistfights knew what they came for. And they knew when they were getting cheated out of what they were due. Whether this winged enchantress came here because of some masochistic desire for pain or she simply wanted to prove herself to somebody as an able pugilist, Vic couldn’t say for certain. All he knew was that she was looking for a fight and he wasn’t about to give her one. There was an ample supply of bastards and roughnecks currently in the yard and most of them wouldn’t think once, let alone twice before punching a woman in the face.

How true that prediction really was became clear faster then it took Victor to leave the premises. By the time the obviously too-soft boxer shouldered his pack, the circle around the woman shrunk drastically. The agitation of the spectators seemed to be reaching the point where everybody had the courage to say something, even act, inspired by the support of the others. Every insult was like a dry piece of firewood thrown into the heating furnace, every aggressive action worthy of a pat on the back. That was how the mind of the mass usually worked; it only took one rotten apple to corrupt the rest. And suddenly everybody was ready to rain fire and brimstone just because the momentum was too strong and nobody opposed it. Why would they when it was so much easier to just go with the flow?

The current flow was about to make the unsatisfied audience trample over one of the protagonists. There was flare in the woman, there was little doubt about that, but for every hand she swatted away, two more appeared to shove her, manhandle her, strike her. One of them even offered a flimsy justification for his violence, claiming that the woman was a succubus of sorts. It would’ve been funny what excuses people found to be assholes if the situation wasn’t so dreadful.

“You should leave,” a voice in his head advised him. It was his own, of course, touched with just enough acrimony to sound unfamiliar. “She brought this onto herself. It’s not your battle to fight...” On and on the voice gave him good, viable excuses to turn a blind eye to what was happening and just leave. He didn’t know any of these people and chances were, given the size of Radasanth, that he would never run into them again. All he had to do was walk out and leave this memory to sink into oblivion. It sounded so easy.

It wasn’t.

If he was capable of doing that, then he should’ve been capable of continuing with the battle, smacking the woman around like the mob was doing now. But he didn’t do that. There was something inside of him, something that was almost a living entity, and it came to life every time something wrong was happening. It grabbed a hold of his entrails and churned them until he felt like he was about to throw up. His self-preservation always fought it, the side of him that preferred to take no risks and play it safe. Sometimes it won. This time it didn’t.

A sound of a manmade thunder brought silence to the yard. Most of those present flinched, the loud crash making their current action take the backseat for determining the source and reason for this disturbance. They had little trouble finding it. Victor Callahan stood alone, his revolver still billowing smoke after expelling the bullet towards the sky. By the time they noticed him though, they were all staring at the mouth of the gun that was now pointed at them.

“Let her go.”

For several seconds, the standstill remained, everybody as tense as if they were standing at the edge of a knife. It was the fat bookie that spoke first. “You can’t get us all with your little shooter. You better run along and leave this witch...”

Victor’s thumb pulled the hammer back calmly, announcing another boom. This time the bullet sent the hat flying off of the man’s head. Victor, who actually aimed above the man’s head, seemed a bit surprised with the outcome, but by the time everybody recovered from the usual cringing reaction after a shot, he adopted a self-assured face. “True, I can’t shoot you all. But I can get good marks for the effort. Now stand back and let her through.”

[Skie and Avery]

As the men stared in disbelief at the man who they had thought was long gone by now, Skie saw her chance. In the big city of Radasanth, she'd learned an important lesson early on. Take every open door, and look as scary as possible. Holding true to this philosophy, she stood, letting the Moontae claws that lay just under her fingernails slide out. It was painful to use these, but not nearly as much as it would be for the man who stood now in front of her. She flung her hands out, digging the claws in his upper shoulders and ripping them downwards, ripping through his shirt and skin. He screamed and crouched down, offering his now bleeding back as a step.

As Skie used him to propel herself upwards, the crowd parted, their eyes wide at both the threat of this unleashed monster and the gun that waited at the other end of the yard. When Skie's feet finally hit the mud, there was no one in front of her, and she half ran, half slid her way to Victor's side. She began to slow as she approaced the boxer, but a voice near the back yelled out for her to stop. Looking over her shoulder, she saw the visage of a man coming down from the stairs that led up to the viewing areas. He had a thick hood on, but she could still see his mouth opened in a command to her.

"Get back here! Both of you! Ten grand's riding on this fight, do you hear? Get back here!"

Urged on by the fact that ten thousand gold was far more than most of them would make in their entire lives, the crowd surged forward. Skie pumped her legs again, flying by Victor Callahan, reaching out to grab his tunic as she did. Now was not the time to stand and wave around a pistol. Now was a time for running.

"Let's go!" she yelled at her would-be saviour in a strangled voice. "Take the alleys, head for the red light district. Trust me, there's plenty of places to hide there." she yelled at him as she made a sharp turn down a narrow alley. These little sideways spiderwebbed through the city, and Skie knew them the way she knew the cracks in the leather of her own unwanted wing. Kicking off the unfamiliar boots as she ran, she only hoped that Victor could keep up. She knew the one thing that really separated the two of them.

As much as the human side of her would want to, the Moontae side wouldn't let her turn back.

[The Cinderella Man]

For a moment there Victor was ready to believe the words of that one person that spoke of succubae. The woman his conscience deemed worthy of saving not only had wings, but also claws and bestial demeanor to boot. She took a man down almost effortlessly, her animalistic nails digging into his flesh like those of a wildcat on a prowl, subduing her victim with sheer fierceness. On his knees, the man was in perfect position to be used as a stepping stone for the woman that leapt from the man’s back and over the grabby mob. Was it a move of an untamed witch that had too much wilderness coursing through her veins or just the desperate survival instinct taking control? A bit of both, the boxer reckoned.

Either way, there was no time for deliberation. No sooner then the woman got out of the fray with her aerial antics, a price was put on their heads. Ten thousand gold pieces, that was how much this backyard fight was worth. To this crowd it was like holding out a deed for a gold mine. The mysterious stranger that spoke of the sum was probably a battle organizer, some ex small-time crook that thought he was the latest hotshot in this underbelly part of Radasanth just because he greased the right palms and got to play in the big leagues. That kind always threw money away as if it was candy. Seeing this as an opportunity to get into his good graces – and ventilate some of the agitation caused by the stopped bout – the band of ruffians that until a moment ago played a mere role of spectators made a move to apprehend the uncanny pair. And the peculiar woman was right; it was time to hightail.

Victor followed her not so much because he trusted her, but because he knew she was right. The infamous red light district was their safest bet. It was urbane wilderness there, with a constellation of narrow streets, shady corners and folk with questionable integrity. A person could get lost there in more ways then just one. What better place to hide a pair of escapees chased down by an angry mob?

He sprinted after the best he could, but after she discarded her boots, the boxer had a hard time keeping up with her. He was a pugilist, and a rather muscular one at that; long sprints and legerity weren’t exactly the traits required for his line of work. Moving around the ring and firing jabs and hooks was a whole new ballgame compared to long runs. However, the pitter-patter of feet and the shower of bawled curses that snapped at his heels were incentive enough to make him try harder. So he ran and ran and ran, swerving around the corners, breathing like a steamroller, keeping his eyes focused on the raven-haired woman in front and his ears on the monster that was chasing him. Once they veered around a mortuary and sunk into the darkness of a street barely wide enough for three people to walk abreast, they seemed to have lost their pursuers. And just in time, it seemed; Victor felt ready to breathe out a lung.

“Wait, stop! I need a breather,” he managed to say in between heaves for air. His back leant against a wall made of unhewn stone, his arms pressing against his knees as he hunched forwards. There was an ache just below his ribs, the kind that he always got when he strained himself without preparation. “Maybe... Maybe we should split up. It’ll be harder for them to track us down that way.”

It was a plausible course of action, but unfortunately for the pair, it came too late. Victor’s breath wasn’t even near normal when the now familiar faces swung around the far corner of the streets. “Ah, come on. Give me a break.” The hoodlums seemed to have an intention to do just that, and in more then just one place on his body. To make sure that they would get a chance to do so, a small number of them emerged on the other end of the street as well, effectively trapping the pair in the damp alley. It seemed that this mindless mob wasn’t as mindless as expected.

“We need to move,” he stated the obvious, looking around for a backdoor to one of the houses, a sewage drain, anything that could be used as an alternative route. That was when he noticed the stacked crates next to a one-storey building. Both the wooden boxes and the house seemed well under the tooth of decay, but even in its ruinous state, it was a better option then duking it out with the mass.

“Quick, we go up,” he said, climbing one of the crates and joining his hands in front of him to provide a foothold for the woman’s ascent.

[Skie and Avery]

Reluctantly, she slowed to a stop when Victor requested a breather. Skie was breathing heavy, but there was no way that they had outrun the pack of bloodthirsty hunters. For a moment she looked at the boxer in disgust. How did he expect to survive in this world if he couldn't get a move on? She began to make her way back as he suggested they split up. Her frown turned to a sneer.

"You wouldn't last five minutes without me." she said quietly. She nearly did turn and go her own way, but then their company caught up to them. "Perfect," she muttered as Victor began to climb the crates. A real gentleman, she observed, as he waited to help her up.

Placing her foot on his hands, she easily scaled up the wall, clawing her way to the top. Turning, she reached down, her hand held out to the fighter who had through some strange circumstances had become a companion on this strange day.

"Take my hand," she commanded, "and kick the crates out from under you as you do. I'll help you get up here from there." Anxiety spiraled down her spine, and as she braced herself to help up Victor, she stifled the voice in the back of her head that was yelling at her to just turn and run. Beneath her sprawled body, the roof of the building began to creak ominously.

"Hurry!"

[The Cinderella Man]

Although acrobatics and long-distance running were something that Victor avoided like the plague, climbing onto the roof turned out to be rather easy. It was finally a chance for his upper-body mass to stop being a dead weight and make itself useful for a change. Combined with the help of his auspicious companion, the prizefighter was able to do exactly what she said; take her hand, climb up rather gracelessly and knock down some crates below. The last part was more spontaneous then really intended though. His legs pumped up, the crate below provided just enough support before slipping sideways and landing on the most zealous pursuer that was trying to latch onto the boxer’s foot. And while this stunt failed to provide a final solution to their plight, it did grant them a moment worth of respite. And it lasted exactly that much; a moment.

“Well, that was close. We certainly pissed off the wrong...” and that’s as far as Victor’s rather redundant observation went. What so rudely interrupted him was a growing crackling sound that culminated with a crash that pulled out the foothold from beneath both the muscular boxer and his queer companion. The pair plummeted through the tiled roof, landing with a puff of dust and a heap of roofing material. There was somebody screaming, but Victor’s head – which connected with one of the supporting beams on the way down – was feeling like a ripe melon, so he couldn’t quite distinguish who was the screamer. Once the dust settled though and his vision began to sharpen, he was able to see that it wasn’t his companion who shrieked in terror. Instead, a very indecent middle-aged woman was sitting in a bubbly tub, covering her voluptuous bosom with one hand and using the other to throw nearby bathroom apparel at the pair.

“We’re terribly sorry to intrude like this, ma’am,” Victor did his best to explain in between coughs, shielding himself from the oncoming bar of soap and helping the raven-haired woman up to her feet. “We’ll, uh... We’ll pay for the damages.”

Another loud crash resounded through the rather cramped room. This time it was the door that opened with a sound slam, introducing a man with an oversized hammer and a pair of frowning eyes that could slam nails into a brick wall. “Millie! What’s going on here?! What are you two.... WHAT THE HELL HAVE YOU DONE TO MY ROOF?!?!” the man that looked like a blacksmith bawled. His beefy arms pulled the hammer back, making it clear that it was the weapon that would talk next should the answer turn out to be unsatisfying. Victor deliberated for a moment between drawing his gun and trying to come up with a plausible explanation. Luckily for him, it turned out he needed neither.

The shabby roof above collapsed once again, bringing down another batch of rubble, a cloud of dust and a pair of greedy pursuers on top of the furious man. The naked lady in the tub screamed again, damn near piercing Victor’s eardrums, but by then the prizefighter took the hand of his companion and made a run towards the door. He paused only for a moment before stepping over the three bodies and the broken tiles, kicking one of the men in the face and stepping on another’s chest. And then they were running again, veering around the corner, down the stairs, through the hallway, into the forge that seemed to burn at a million degrees, past the displayed metalwork and the beardless prentice that stared at them, wide-eyed and confused. Ultimately, they found themselves bursting through the heavyset doors and into the gray exterior of the street.

From within and behind the smithy’s workshops, commotion was building up once again like the sound of an oncoming avalanche. “We’re never going to lose them this way,” Victor said, his eyes scanning the street for something other then another street through which they would sprint. Running seemed pointless, and more importantly, it was dreadfully toilsome. Instead they needed a place to hide until the heat drops.

[Skie and Avery]

As the roof came in, Skie tried to catch hold of the edge with no success. She twisted in the air, coming to a stop against a hard tiled floor. For a moment the world was nothing but white light, as she tried to find her breath again. When her sensed finally did return, she wished they hadn’t. A high, keening screech filled the air, echoing in the small room. Warm suds were flying everywhere, and as the door exploded open, Skie jumped up, in the path of a projectile of soap. The bar hit her in the side of the head, bouncing away, but before Skie could reprimand the distraught soprano, her hand was once again captive in the gunman’s. She was pulled from the building as their pursuers fell into the apartment, bursting from the doors. They passed the forge, and fell into a small street. Victor was right; they wouldn’t be free from their persecutors for long. Luckily, Skie had a plan.

The rumble of cart wheels rolling over cobbles was growing ever louder, and after a moment a horse appeared from around a bend in the road. Long before the beast made its entrance, however, came the smell. The horse was a sturdy bay, specked with grey spots, and well muscled from years of work on the farm. It was harnessed, and pulled a small cart. An elderly man held the reigns, but it was apparent that the horse needed little leading. In the bed of the cart, a pile rose up like an ominous tower. Like a huge, unformed brick, shards of hay stalks were held together by a fragrant paste of manure. While the substance alone was enough to cause a churning nausea, this particular sample was none too fresh, the sun having baked it. The top of the pile was crusted in the crumbling mess, but as the commotion from the building grew nearer, it was easy to see the lesser of two evils.

Victor still held her hand, and before the man could protest, Skie pulled him forward and slung him onto the back of the low cart. In one smooth motion, she’d jumped forward as well, landing in his lap and facing him. Her arms moved around his neck, holding him close as she let her wing sling around and cover his back. The leathery appendage sunk into the mire against the pugilist’s back, and she held back the urge to gag as she began to whisper into his ear.

“Try to hold your breath, I can’t control my hormone output very well when I cast and for the love of everything you’ve ever held dear, don’t move!” she rasped as she closed her eyes, pulling him closer. Another twinge of regret that she’d never paid the dues of her kind and strengthened her knack for this moved through her, but she used the regret as energy to push into the spell. She was tired, it was true, but her patience was rewarded. As her muscles tensed, sweat beading along her brow, the air around them shimmered, the aphrodesiatic pheromones pouring off her as the Moontae magic took hold.

As the gamblers finally surged out the door, most of them bruised and bleeding, they looked around in confusion. The street was empty, except for a cart full of manure, turning from the residential side street onto the main road beyond the next building. One began to follow, but stopped. There hadn’t been anyone in the cart, except for the geriatric driver. While he thought the pile did look a little strange, no one would be that desperate, would they? Instead, the men as one looked the other way, where the street was riddled with dead end alleys and switchbacks. There were plenty of places to hide, but this mob was good at flushing out those places. Forgetting the cart as one, the beast of a mob continued onward, in the opposite direction.

When they were safely down the streets, heading for the towering hoppers of the co-op, Skie relaxed and let the illusion fall. She pulled her wing back from behind Victor, but couldn’t find the strength to remove herself from where she straddled his lap. Instead, she laid her head on his shoulder, watching the buildings as they passed slowly until she recognized one of the side streets.

“We’re getting close to the docks, and the room I’ve rented. We can get a hot shower there, and please allow me to buy you a hot meal. You didn’t have to turn back, you know.”

[The Cinderella Man]

When Victor was flung into the cartload of manure and his companion jumped on top of him, things went from hectic to almost pleasurable and then to just plain crazy. It was the wing that freaked the boxer out first. This appendage seemed to come out of nowhere, stretching like something out of a nightmare from behind the woman that mounted him and enveloping the two. It brought back words in his mind, the accusing ones that one of the pugilists said back in that muddy courtyard when he called the woman a succubus. While Victor wasn’t exactly a scholar knowledgeable in the lore of mythical creatures and beasts – the weirdest thing he every witnessed was a half-elf, half-dwarf bard who had the constitution of the former and the beard of the latter – he was pretty certain that wings came with the package if you were a succubus. Wings and the whole soul sucking deal too if he remembered correctly.

And then came the smell, cutting through his thoughts like a cleaver. The fetor of the manure was horrible, beckoning the contents of Victor’s stomach to come out and play, but it would’ve been bearable (if only just) if it weren’t for the polar opposite that seemed to emanate from the winged female that lay on top of him. Her sweet aroma was tantalizing, carrying the scent of her skin and the finest perfume and multiplying it tenfold, creeping into his system with promises of things that would never happen. It would’ve been an extremely pleasurable sensation – probably something akin to being locked away in a very scandalous dream – if it weren’t for the dung that was all around them. The offensive reek got mixed with the odd perfume that suddenly permeated around the woman, creating a tangy-bitter-sweet combination that made his eyes water and his food climb almost all the way up his throat. By will alone he prevented it from sputtering all over the woman.

However, whatever wizardry she conjured, it seemed to be working. Their pursuers gathered in front of the blacksmith’s shop, casting their agitated glares in all directions like arrows, but none of them seemed to pierce this spell that was cast over the pair. Not even when one of them approached to examine the cart were they discovered. It was like looking through one of those special glasses that Victor once saw in a fancy glass shop, where you could see everything from one side but only your reflection from the other.

Victor managed to stay pretty calm considering the fact that he was embracing a succubus and his body wanted to both have sex with her just as urgently as it wanted to vomit. He even allowed himself a breather once they were safe and the creepy overgrown batwing disappeared just as strangely as it came to existence. But when the woman started talking about hot showers and meals, the reality slapped him back to his senses. Succubi, dragons, chimeras, unicorns, they were something that heroes wrestled in their tales, something that adventurers fought or slain or whatever the hell they did. And Victor was neither an adventurer nor a hero. One of the reasons why he succeeded in keeping himself alive for so long was because he didn’t meddle into all that weird stuff that were the bread and butter of the folk that liked to dare great things.

“Whoa, whoa, hold on!” he spoke, untangling himself from her embrace. He pushed her off of himself with as much gentleness as his alarmed mind allowed, slipping away from her on the manure slope. He reeked worse then a homeless person, they both did, but at least he had the luxury to take his shit-stained coat off. The cart kept rolling; the old fart that was driving was either too deaf to hear the commotion or smart enough to know that ignorance was not only bliss sometimes, but also the best course of action.

“Now, I appreciate you getting us safe, but those men back there were right... Right? You are a... You know, a succubus? I mean, last time I checked, women didn’t have wings.” He wasn’t necessarily angry, despite the sarcastic, halfhearted smirk and the frowned visage. It was rather the disquietude manifesting itself, this fear of the unknown that got a tad closer then he liked for unknown things to come. However, while a large part of him wanted to leave instantly, his curiosity and his amicability were strong enough to keep him sitting on the pile of dung long enough to give the strange woman a chance to explain.

[Skie and Avery]

Just as she’d begun to relax, again the tension came. Skie sat up straighter, her lips thinning as she pressed them together to unsuccessfully suppress her frown. Her eyes were filled suddenly with both defiance and pain. Her eyes, normally the dark indigo of darkening night skies, began to fade in their luster. The starlight that seemed to sparkle in them faded until they’d dulled down to lackluster cobalt. It was less manure and more bitterness that crept up on her, causing the bad taste in her mouth. No matter what happened, no matter how she tried, there was always her bloodline over her head. As a young Moontae, they were taught to stay in the Fold of the city, because the outside world was cruel and unforgiving to The Beauty. Now she was seeing just how true that was.

“I see your point.” she said, her voice cold and clipped. Her lips barely moved, another illusion cast, smaller than the one that had given them a cloak from their pursuers. Her black wing was enveloped, taking from sight, though the air rang with a leathery snap as she flattened it against her back. It still throbbed in pain from where he had gripped it earlier, and with the illusion cast, she leaned back so that she was not leaning so close to him. She needed space to think before she spoke. She planned on explaining the men’s words, but she would not look as if she were pleading with him. Her pride and upbringing demanded that she would not bow a head to him.

“They were correct, in a way. A succubus is a demon who uses sex to their advantage, correct?” she said wearily, her displeasure leaking from her words. “My mother was from a tribe of demons who excel in illusions. Biologically speaking, this tribe happens to be able to control the output of a scent that acts as an aphrodisiac. Philosophically speaking, the tribe believes that sex should be cherished as the ultimate act of love, and that all beings should be loved. So, yes, we’re succubae, incubi, whatever you want to call us.” She wet her lips and allowed a brow to rise as she continued, hoping he’d continue to listen after the admission of ‘guilt’. “At the same time, if I were a monster, I’d have already raped and killed you by now, don’t you think?”

The rain and the cold of the day had gotten through the adrenaline, and she pulled her arms from around his neck, crossing them in front of her stomach as the chill came and she began to shake slightly with the cold. A tinge of blue touched her lips and she looked away, leaning in. The hurt of his question, no matter how deserving or innocent it had been, hung over her like a cloud.

At that moment, she felt as frail as she undoubtedly looked.

[The Cinderella Man]

Yes, she was a succubus, but no, the conclusion to which his mind jumped like a hyperactive terrier wasn’t on the money. It seemed that the description Victor had in his head was either faulty or it was correct and his partner in crime and feces-sitting was the best damn liar he met in a while. And he met quite a few; Radasanth was the place that was the living proof that liars prospered and that honesty wasn’t the best policy. Apparently, succubae did possess the legendary power to twirl men around their little fingers, but there was nothing vicious in their intentions. According to the girl’s words, they were pacifistic demons, all for love and peace and goodwill to people of Althanas and not for the whole soul-stealing shtick. It seemed like a fishy argument to Victor, just as her last question did.

“Maybe you’re not a monster,” the boxer’s inner voice spoke the thoughts that weren’t refine enough to be uttered yet. Not without some additional deliberation at least. “Then again, maybe you’re all that and a bag of nuts, a wolf in sheep’s skin waiting for the right moment to do me in.”

Both extremes had enough proof to make a case in his mind. In his experience, if something stuck out of the ordinary like a sore thumb, it was usually something that came around to kick you in both the proverbial nuts and the real ones. Add a rather strange explanation that opposed the first impression to that divergence, and chances were you were playing with fire with no gloves on. Besides, women always got him in trouble. Sometimes they were redheads, sometimes they were blondes, sometimes they were whores, sometimes they were goddamn angels. And they all left him either bruised, broke or heartbroken. Sometimes the combination of the three.

On the flip side, however, Victor had to admit that he could sense no deception in the girl. Granted, he would never win a women-reading contest, but there was an air of authenticity around the words she had spoken, the intangible kind that peeked its head in every word, every glance. Not only that, but there was a wounded expression on her face, as if his words were razors that cut her from the inside out. She looked part angry, part hurt and part disappointed; Vic’s conclusion was obviously the prejudice she fought many times before. This preconception demeaned her, made her look distant and almost pensive, as if his accusing words just brought a wall between them and she was weakened on the other side. For Victor whose credo was to never hurt women – physically or otherwise – this was the punch in the gut that brought up more bitter bile then any old fist ever could. It made him feel as if he just slapped her.

Struggling between the stringent advice his experience dictated and the guilt that demanded the goody-goody part of him to apologize, the prizefighter’s strict side acceded. As per usual. His sister Yavannha was probably right; he was way too soft nowadays.

“Well, that wouldn’t be such a bad way to go, I reckon,” he jested with a smirk and a raised eyebrow. It was supposed to break the ice crust that seemed to freeze the very air between them. When he continued, his tone was soft and almost apologetic, his hand scratching the back of his head and finding a glob of shit amidst the hair threads. “But no, I don’t think you’re a monster. I just... Well, I don’t see a succubus every day, you know? In fact, I’m rather certain you’re the first one I met. And with all the stories that go around, I just assumed...”

“Assume. Makes an ass out of you and me.” Again his sister’s proverb fitted like a glove.

He was never at terms with apologies. He always had a hard time making the meaningful one pass over his tongue. However, what he didn’t have problems with was yielding to the fact that he was probably wrong and that she was probably right and that he was probably an ass. So instead of wrangling with soft-spoken words, Victor decided to bury the hatchet with acts instead.

“Well, now that that’s out of the picture, let’s get out of this dung ride,” he said, slipping down from the cart and offering her a helping hand. Once they were both down and the pungent stench of the manure rolled away, leaving only a portion emanating from their clothes, Vic took off his leather coat, shaking off as much of the fecal matter as possible. “If that shower offer is still open, I’d like to take it. As long as you don’t rape me and steal my soul. I’m Victor, by the way.”

The matter was probably still too fresh for him to make jokes about it, but Victor couldn’t help himself. Focusing on the comical aspect of something was like drinking while eating for him; it made the hard stuff easier to swallow.

[Skie and Avery]

As she watched the man wrestle with is own logic and instinct, she wondered what would happen if she just slipped off the wagon and left him to his own devices. As often as she’d had to explain away her wing in the city, in the end she was better at ostracizing herself than any old myth was. It was easier that way, to not really be a part of anything greater. She wouldn’t have to fend off questions, accusations or propositions. If she kept away from the main masses, she wouldn’t have to see firsthand why a huge tribe of demons would stay hidden in a forest, terrified of the humanity that ebbed and flowed across the planet around them. The Moontae laws that restricted time allowed away from the Hidden City had been put into place for a reason. What humanity could not find, it could not crush.

Coming down from the cart’s back, again she found this man assisting her. For all his superstition, he was being far kinder than she needed or preferred. It was unnerving. Their ordeal had imparted on her a feel of fraternity, as if they were comrades in something only they would understand. In the last months, Skie had been feeling a rift forming between her and her own twin, something foreign and cold consuming the perfect harmony they’d once shared. She was hungry for this feeling of belonging, but wasn’t sure if it was even there, except in her own lonely mind. As the prizefighter’s hand was extended, she took it. His knuckles were scarred, marked with the physical notice of his bouts in the past. Her hand was released as soon as her feet hit the cobbles, but she could still feel that scored flesh under her fingertips. She wondered if it bothered him that he was hurt with the blows he inflicted, if the payment of pain for the damage he did was something that flittered on his mind often. She supposed that something like that dulled over time as the scar tissue built up, but at the same time she thought that just maybe he might be someone who could understand a curse like the dan Sabriel’s.

“Well, Victor,” she said, letting a smile brighten her features, despite the small wounds he’d given her. “My name is Skie, and I won’t do any of the above without your express permission.” With the tension slowly dissolving with the absence of the pugilist’s need to “kill the beast!”, she felt she could return his humor. With a keen look, she turned, taking in the buildings around them. After a moment, her mouth formed an ‘o’ of surprise and she turned back to the man with a smile. “And I do think you’re psychic! We’re not far at all from the rooms where I’m staying.”

She took his hand gently, pulling him between a couple of buildings. Here, the streets were less kept, the stone beneath their feet crumbled and cracked. The rains that had been covering the sky with a dreary veil of clouds had left behind puddles in the broken places of the alleys. Skie began to walk faster, her boots splashing mercilessly in the smaller puddles. After winding through a few corners and side streets, they emerged on the far side of the docks. Amongst the warehouses, their giant doors gaping open as boxes were rolled in, there sat the little row of hotels. She recognized the low walls of the back entrance, where the pigs and chickens were kept, and the old hound that guarded them from the sailors’ thieving hands slept.

“The woman who runs this place is very nice, but very nosy. I had to sneak out this morning, but I don’t think we can get back to my room the same way. We’re just going to have to move fast.” She looked over her shoulder at him, winking for a moment. “Now, I know you’re not used to girls asking for it fast, but just humor me.” As they approached the house, Skie stopped at the back door, looking through the small, glazed window. She didn’t see any movement inside, sure that now was the time of day that the portly woman normally went to the churn in the basement and washed the linens. As quietly as she could, Skie opened the door and led the two inside. The door closed behind them, Skie removed her boots, motioned for Victor to do the same, and began to move to the side stairway that sat just inside the door. The stairs were sturdy, only creaking a little bit as the lithe demoness moved up them. She was aware that the smell of them alone could attract the attention of anyone, and should another patron complain about her, it could end up badly. The name of Skie’s game was to attract as little attention as possible, lest anything impede her journey.

They made it up to the homely, spartanly furnished room without incident, and when Skie closed the door behind them, she let out a sigh of relief and a little laugh. She felt like a teenager, sneaking in and out, avoiding curfew and parental knowledge of her trespasses. She rolled her eyes at the thought and then pointed to a small door that led off to the side. “You got most of the muck, so you can go ahead and shower first. When I was looking for a proper outfit this morning for an old sailor, I grabbed a couple of extra clothes…” she muttered, walking over to the bed where her things were laid out. She sifted through the bag, pulling out a simple black tunic and pair of denim trousers. She handed them to Victor, and began to pack her sword and dagger into her bag, setting everything aside on the floor. Somehow, she felt it was nearly a sick thing for him to look upon her father’s weapons. He had, after all, been afraid of having his soul taken from him. While a Moontae couldn’t do it, her father had given her a gift that could make all of Victor’s suspicions come true. Once the bag had been pushed under the bed, she opened the window and pulled the ripped, dirty shirt from her torso. The offending article was hung outside the window, where the breeze took the smell away from the room, and allowed her a bit of fresh air.

She turned now to the mirror that had helped her this morning to bind her breasts. The cotton was still holding, so she wasn’t afraid of indecency in front of Victor. Instead, she released her hold on the illusion that kept her wing from sight, marveling at how tired she felt now that the adrenaline had come down. At her ribs to one side, just under the bandages, the skin was blossoming a lurid purple, and along the main edge of her wing, the scaled flesh had a bright sheen of bruising barely seen through the sparkling black. As she twisted before the mirror, taking in the small scratches and bruises that hadn’t been inflicted by Victor, she sighed. Even if the prizefighter walked out of her life right now, it would be a long time before she’d be forgetting today.

The marks on her body ensured that much at least.

[The Cinderella Man]

Holding hands and scurrying through the streets and avoiding inquisitive eyes, it all seemed a bit too juvenile to Victor. As far as he knew, they weren’t in their early teens, she wasn’t his crush, her father wasn’t after them and they weren’t sneaking behind some barn to fool around. But the boxer played along. Partially, it was because Skie was quite nice for a succubus. If she secretly planned to murder him and bury him beneath the henhouse, she was being pretty damn genteel in her preparation for the kill. Mostly, however, Victor played along because even when he was a teenager, he didn’t get a chance to run around with his crush, fleeing from her father and trying to steal a kiss. Being a recluse had a bad habit of robbing people of these typical adolescent memories. So the prizefighter played his role, even though the situation at hand didn’t quite correspond to the silly comparison in his head.

Though Victor never resided in this specific inn at the dockside, he knew the type quite well. They were all pretty much the same; with their weatherworn stairs that squealed and moaned when you stepped on them; with specific smells of cheap soap and yesterday’s meal; with banisters smoothed not by wax but rather by decades of usage; with windows that cast a good view at nothing noteworthy; with quirky individuals that micromanaged these little catering realms. Such places were all home for him nowadays, all and none of them.

Skie’s room fit the profile quite well – like most inn rooms, it was a place of necessity, where you came for sleep but little else. Simplicity dominated the scene, but even in such an environment a touch of a female hand was noticeable. It was in the little things, details that didn’t quite catch your eye, but rather offered themselves almost timidly. Like the faint scent of something other then the starch in the sheets or the dust on the wardrobes, something that wasn’t quite perfume, but wasn’t far from it either. Or the evident neatness that was more then just the work of some handmaiden that came every morning to fix the bed. Victor recognized these signs; after living the second half of his life with three women in the household, such recognition came almost naturally.

Once they were inside the room and safe from the alleged nosy proprietor, Skie turned into a polite hostess, offering Victor to take a shower first. And though the boxer firmly believed that women should always come first – in most things at least – there was nothing he wanted more then to get rid of the offensive stench that invaded his nostrils incessantly. So he accepted both her offer and the clothes she provided wordlessly, withdrawing to the bathroom.

When he tried to lock the door – or at least close them in an attempt to gain some privacy – he found that there was no knob, and that the little mechanism that was supposed to keep it shut was dangling loosely on a single screw. Fiddling around with it didn’t help; the scar in the doorframe made it clear that somebody (probably a rather rowdy customer) broke through the locked door. However, fiddling around with the hook which had nothing to hook on allowed him to catch a glimpse of Skie in the room beyond. The raven-haired succubus made her wing visible again, but despite being as large and as weird as it was when he first beheld it, it wasn’t the leathery appendage that caught Victor’s attention. It was rather the scar tissue around the base of the wing and the red-brown splotch on the fabric that constricted her bosom that could only be blood. And, of course, the unmistakable lack of the other wing. There was probably a story behind it all, some tale of loss and anguish, but when his eyes noticed hers in the reflection, Victor decided it was none of his concern.

Closing the door as much as he could – which still left them ajar because they didn’t seem to fit the frame very well – the boxer turned his focus on the much needed personal upkeep. The bathroom was small and rudimentary, with an open shower in one corner and a sink with some cabinets in the other. It smelled fresh and clean, everything that Victor wasn’t at the time, so it didn’t take an additional invitation for him to discard the fertilized clothes and cloak himself in hot water. It felt almost like slipping into a cozy bed. After the frosty morning and the miry courtyard and the wild chase through the streets, he felt both the tension and the fatigue rinse out of him together with the filth. He tried no to think of anything, just let go to this relieving sensation, but Skie crept into his head all the same. He kept remembering that wing. It looked like something on a bird whose one wing already got torn off by a predator.

He shook his head, sighed and repeated: It was none of his concern.

Getting dry wasn’t a problem; there was a stack of rather rough white towels in one of the beige cabinets. Getting clothed, however, turned out to be a different story. The clothes that Skie gave him looked rather fine, with only one fatal flaw; they were meant for her and not him. This meant that the pants felt so tight around his thighs that he felt like they were going to burst by the seams. Not to mention that he couldn’t button them up. The tunic was a bit better; it was more loose, but it was too short, making him look like a hooker from the Slums. And with his clothes smelling like a barn, this left him in quite a pickle. So he made do with what he had and improvised. Unfortunately, it wasn’t much.

“Uhm... These clothes you gave me. They’re a bit too small,” Victor said as he stepped out of the bathroom some fifteen minutes after he went in, holding the clothes she gave him in one hand and his revolver in the other, together with the leather shoulder holster. The only things that covered his body were a towel draped over his broad shoulders and his navy green boxers that had been spared of both the dung and the stench by his denim pants. Considering that the window was open and that the autumn was drawing to a close outside, it meant that he felt both indecent and cold. Not to mention embarrassed. It usually took more then one date to get him undressed.

“I washed my clothes in the sink. I hope you don’t mind that I wait for them to dry. I’m not too fond of running through the streets in my shorts,” he added, handing the pants and the tunic back to her with an uncertain smirk. He was never any good in these ticklish situations, especially when pretty women were involved.

[Skie and Avery]

After the initial inspection of her injuries was over, Skie turned from the mirror and knelt on the hardwood floor by the bed. She swept the bed skirt aside, reaching for her pack and pulled it back just enough to shove it open. She pulled her clothes, clean and folded, from the depths and placed them on the bed in front of her just as Victor emerged from the bathroom. Having been raised in a society that considered clothing a sacrilege, the sight of the boxer in his boxers didn’t bother her. She could, however, appreciate the view. He had a rugged sort of handsomeness. Women might not swoon at his feet, but at the sight of his fighter’s form displayed before her, she found herself unable to answer at first. She swallowed, then smiled, nodding.

“Not that you’d get too far in this part of town.” she joked as she took the faulty clothes from him and replaced them in her pack. “Showing that much skin is just asking to be planked and boarded so close to the docks.” Her voice was cheerful and a little teasing, though she refused to meet his eyes as she brushed past him with a grin dancing on her face. In the bathroom, she set down her clothes, and tried to close the door, finding the same problems that he had. When no solution could be found, she shrugged. There was nothing she could do at the time to fix the door, and she didn’t think that Victor was the kind to peek.

She slipped out of the oversized pants easily, and found that once she had unwrapped a couple of lengths of the cotton, the rest unraveled easily. It fell in long loops around her feet, and she kicked it to the side, stepping towards the open shower. The tiles, grimy with both age and their previous use, were still wet and she stepped gingerly on them as she turned the water on. A small sigh of relief filled her when the hot spray hit her skin, and she wasted no time in scrubbing at her skin. She’d just gotten the last of the muck from the outside of her wing when a brisk wind blew in from the window she’d opened earlier, shoving open the door as it flooded the rooms with a deep chill.

Skie was stretching lazily under the hot flood, arching her back as she raised her hands to the ceiling. The water had soaked her hair back, flowing down her back. When the wind shoved it’s way in, it hit the front of her body with an icy breath that hit her almost as hard as Victor’s fist had earlier. With a sudden squeal of surprise, she dropped to her haunches, curling up into a ball against the freezing wind. Reaching up, she managed to stop the water, and crawled to the open cabinet where the towels were. A curse flew from her lips as she wrapped the terrycloth around her naked form, kicking out with her foot at the open door. It flew against the frame hard, with a slam. Time froze in Skie’s mind for a moment as the door rattled, the hinges popping on their loose, rusting nails. She tried and failed for a moment to scramble on the wet tiles, but her feet and hands merely slipped under her.

The door, freed from it’s hinges, came down on her with a bone-rattling thud.

[The Cinderella Man]

While Skie took her turn in the shower, Victor searched for something that would keep him busy and distracted. Most of the times he tried to be as much of a gentleman as the next man, but then again, most of the time he was also as much of a man as the next man, so his curiosity was undeniable. Succubus or not, his companion was a woman who was even now getting very wet and very naked and only a glance away thanks to the shabby door of the bathroom, and the boxer was only a man who last saw a naked woman when he paid for the show in the “Saddle Ablaze” whorehouse. Or rather the exotic tavern, as the owners preferred to call it; whorehouse was such a harsh term. It was no excuse for invading someone’s privacy, of course, but the temptation was there, coaxing him with amiable promises like a seductive vixen.

He fended such thoughts by staring out the window at first, but there was only so much that the Radasanth Docks could offer as an amusement. So instead of watching this uninteresting play of everyday life with tired actors on a monotonous stage, Victor turned his attention to his firearm. He was never too fond of any weapon save his fists, but he was slowly growing accustomed to the bullet-spewing six-shooter. If anything, that small piece of machinery poured some boldness into him; it was such a seemingly insignificant thing and yet it took down swordsmen and mages alike. In a world where a lot of people wanted another lot of people dead, having such a thing was quite a commodity. That was one reason why he decided to clean it. Another, much more important, was that fumbling with metal cogs and doodads was bound to give both his fingers and his mind some reprieve from Skie and the sloshing sounds that came from the bathroom.

So the half-naked pugilist took a seat at the table, made sure his privates didn’t peek out of his shorts, took out his gun and started to dismantle it. A merchant in the Bazaar once told him to keep the damn thing clean and oiled, but Victor never paid much heed to that. He treated the weapon no better then he treated himself and they were both still ready for action when necessary. However, with nothing better to do, he let his fingers do their thing, removing the moving parts, dusting them off, checking them even though he had absolutely not idea what to check for.

It was somewhere in the middle of this tedious ritual – when Victor was about to try and put the revolver back together again – that a gust of wind invaded the room. It threw the rugged curtains of undyed wool like unimaginative flags on a battlefield, bringing a brisk chill into an already chilly room. More importantly, it pushed its way through the bathroom door, sending it slamming against the wall. Victor’s reaction was instinctive, his reflexes snapping his head backwards and in the direction of the sound, but only for a second. Because in the corner of the bathroom, with her hands wrapped around her body in feeble defense against the cold, Skie was huddled and naked as the day she was born. A glance was all he got, though; the gentlemanly part of him kicked in like a good habit – or a bad one, depending on the perspective – and he was back to the metal parts overspread on the table with a new mental image to wrestle.

Not for long, though. Soon another crash came, similar to the first one, but by the time Victor turned around this time, the door was falling backwards and a pair of bare feet was skidding desperately on the wet tiles. And then, with a final thud, the damn thing fell on the winged girl beneath. Unlike back in the muddy yard, where he deliberated on whether or not to come to Skie’s rescue, the boxer moved with no hesitation this time; a door was, after all, a less formidable opponent then a bunch of thugs. Not nearly as heavy as the thugs either. The whole thing was made from a rather flimsy type of wood, light enough for Victor to move it with one hand. He opened the now horizontal door with one hand, finding the trapped Skie beyond it. Wearing only a towel that left very few things to imagination, the black-haired girl was not only a sight to behold, but a sight that had the ability to bedazzle and stun. That was probably why it took several seconds for Victor to offer her a helping hand.

“Well, you certainly have a stroke of bad luck today,” he found some words during the pause as well, speaking them as he pulled her up, trying his earnest not to stare. “First those goons attack you, then the blacksmith, then we land into a pile of dung and now the door. I hope the ceiling doesn’t crashing down next.”

Another rather awkward moment ensued. She wore naught but a towel, he wore naught by his shorts and they were holding hands, inches away from each other. A smarter, bolder, more charismatic man would’ve probably tried to take advantage of such a position. But Victor’s smarts were shot in the ring, his boldness was never something to brag about and he had about as much charisma as an average bum. And then there was the fact that she was a succubus, an amicable one, but a freaky one-winged creature nonetheless. So he let her go, turned away, sat back at the table and gave her some space to make herself decent.

“You should probably put some clothes on. It's pretty cold in here. And don’t worry,” he reassured her, his fingers suddenly mighty clumsy with the revolver pieces. “I won’t turn around.”

[Skie and Avery]

From under the rough wood, Skie sighed. She wasn't sure if she had the willpower to shove the thing off of her, when the light filtered in. The door moved aside, and she found herself staring up at Victor. The lines of his face were drawn in mild concern, muscles moving under the skin with a slight ease as he moved the faulty door out of the way. After a few moments of silence, with her body still trembling from the chill, her hand was wrapped in his again. The warmth of his flesh was inviting, the pulse she felt just under the skin almost matching her own speeding rhythm. As he pulled her up, she used her free hand to keep a grip on the flimsy towel that was covering her, biting her lip as something low clenched in the pit of her belly. She gave a nervous laugh, because he was right. Today had been one blunder after another, but the frustration and stress that normally came with bad days had no hold on her now. Skie was a woman who believed that people made their own fates, and if she had really thought about her decision this morning to go get in some personal hand to hand combat training, she wouldn't have gone. It had been a folly, but one that she was now rather pleased she'd made.

He left her standing in the bathroom, and she watched as he bent over his work with the gun that was used to save her this morning. A smile played along her features; she'd always had a thing for heroes. They say that girls tend to fall for men who remind them of their fathers, and perhaps it was the childhood encounter with Devon dan Sabriel where she'd seen her father at work with his sword that had affected her so much. She now carried the same steel weapon that he'd held when he faced up against the Forgotten Ones and while she wasn't a silly simpering maiden who was prone to crushes, the heroics of the day had her looking in Victor in an entirely different light. They now shared a comradery that only two people who have faced the darker circumstances of life together could have.

With a light sound of whispering cloth, she let the towel fall to the floor. She walked into the room, her footsteps on the bare floor quiet, until only the bed separated them. She thought for a moment about walking around in front of him, but her shadow, stretched lazily out beside her, stopped her. The single back wing on her back loomed like a dark chapperone, an uncomfortable collar to remind her of her monstrous heritage. A succubus would bring her naked body before a man to taunt him with it. Instead, she crawled onto the side of small bed slowly, sitting up on her knees as she stared at the back of Victor's head. A blush blossomed over her cheeks, reddening her ears deepest, and she looked down at the bedspread as she wet her lips with her tongue.

"Victor..." she said quietly, "I don't think I have such terrible luck, really." She drew a breath, smiling shyly as she began to desperately hope that he would turn to face her. "And I don't mind if you look."

[The Cinderella Man]

Even if Victor somehow managed to disregard the fact that she was a succubus, Skie’s demeanor did a good job at reminding him that the wing on her back wasn’t just for show. She was no more of a lady then he was a lord, that much was clear. It was something he should’ve realized way back in the courtyard, when she walked amidst roughnecks, looking for a fight like some poor bastard out of his luck. The mellow, decent part of him – a remnant of the time when he was a pious son of a pious father – persisted on considering all women ladies, but even now Skie was behind him, sitting on the bed, wearing naught but her skin. Telling him she didn’t mind if he turned around to witness her nakedness. The boxer didn’t know much of nobility and gentlemen and courtesans – it was never his world – but he was pretty damn certain that decent women didn’t parade their bodies like flags on a festival. Other kind did that, the kind that worked in places like “Saddle Ablaze” and lured the passersby with sultry winks and luscious skin.

“I do,” he answered, sounding more curt then he intended. His fingers continued with their job, but his mind was off someplace else, some place about five feet behind him. It wasn’t that he didn’t want Skie. Whether it was the bewitchment of her magic or just mundane bodily attraction, Victor couldn’t say that he abhorred the thought of taking her bait. She was a beautiful woman – well, a beautiful succubus, but the concept was the same – and she was clearly interested in him, and that was more then a rundown pugilist such as him could hope for nowadays. Even now, as he tried to reason with this temptation, he could feel his manhood stir at the very thought of what was only a turn of a head away. And yet, she was also a stranger, somebody who he knew only by name and face, but little else. He barely felt comfortable enough to exchange words with her, let alone intimacy.

Despite his terse reply he could hear no sounds of motion behind his back, no shuffling of clothes. And it gnawed at him. The more he tried to focus on piecing his revolver together, the more his focus fled to Skie and the freshness of the scented soap that she brought back from the bathroom on her bare skin. His curiosity peaked. Reinforced with the fact that he hadn’t been with a woman in months, it was like a magnet that kept tugging at him, begging him to turn around. “What harm can it do?” it whispered, and no matter how much he struggled, the answer was too slippery and elusive for him to grasp it properly. So he surrendered and turned around.

Skie wasn’t everything a man could want from a woman, but she was pretty damn close. In fact, if it weren’t for that ghastly wing that served as a constant reminder of her heritage, Victor wouldn’t be able to find a flaw on her. Her face was bonny, her full lips stretched in what could’ve been a cryptic smile. Her hair hugged her visage, damp locks falling over her shoulder in waves as black as night. Her skin was spotless, as smooth as sin and twice as tempting as it encompassed her womanly curves. And her eyes... The blue eyes. The black hair. It was a stunning combination, something that men died for.

His eyes wandered as did his thoughts, both following the same route every virile man’s thoughts did. He could see them in each other’s arms, a tangle of limbs and sighs and bed sheets and sweat and touches and kisses and all that occurred between a man and a woman in throes of passion. It was his decency that pulled the reins back, bringing to surface what little chastity and honor was left in Victor. The boxer got up, walked to the bed and picked up one of the folded blankets. He didn’t exactly want to, but that was the safest route. And Victor always preferred to play it safe. He unfolded the blanket and draped it around her bare shoulders.

“You’ll catch a cold like that,” he said once the woolen cloth concealed her nakedness. Their eyes met, but it was difficult to determine who was more embarrassed by everything that transpired. Her wing loomed from behind, an almost ugly thing when compared to the beauty of its owner. It would serve as a good distraction. “So, what’s the story with your wing? I’m not knowledgeable when it comes to your...kind, but I reckon your ought to have two of them, not one.”

He was pushing his nose into matters that were none of his concern, just like he said he shouldn’t. But between dwelling on the sinful fantasies and palavering of the past, the reminiscing seemed like the safer option.

[Skie and Avery]

She opened her mouth to speak when he wrapped the blanket around her form, but no words came out. Instead, she clutched feebly onto the wool from the inside, pulling it close around her. Her shoulders slumped slightly, her form bowing over as if the rejection was a true physical weight that was pressing against her back. It felt heavier than the weight of the fists that had pummeled her earlier in the day. Her blush only deepened, scoring her cheeks sanguine. His curt reply and the following questioning of her deformity only drove home the sting.

Great, wonderful. A whore and a gimp. Her thoughts were doing more at harming her than the morning's attacks had been and she had to calm herself with a ragged breath before she could answer him, her eyes still on the bedspread and not on his.

"I'm a twin, my brother has a wing on the opposite shoulder. We were born that way, though we don't really know why." Her frown turned into a smile, though she couldn't quite force the bitterness from the normally cheerful gesture. "He can fly with his. I never quite figured all that out, how he could fly with just one, you know? I can't. Then again, he's the King of the Beauty too, worshiped as a god among our people."

She finally raised her chin, as if living these past battles against her pride was forcing her to reclaim that pride again. Still, she looked past him, out the open window where birds without her strange condition were using their limbs to climb the skies. She had already said far more than she intended, too much to say to any stranger, but for some reason she felt like she could continue with all the dark thoughts she normally kept to herself. It was probably the fact that she wouldn't see him ever again, she told herself. The anonymity kept her talking, like a child telling secrets to an imaginary friend or a pet. Secrets that would keep.

"When we were growing up, he always hid behind me. I was the strong one, and he was the one to run and cry and now I see all these amazing things he's doing and the one thing I've been striving for for, well, all my life, and I fail horribly. Every step I take brings disaster." She chuckled, shifting her weight on the bed so that she could curl farther into the protective wrapping of the blanket.

"In my father and brother's histories, I'm merely a footnote."

[The Cinderella Man]

Melancholy tiptoed into the room like a deft assassin, drawing closer to them with each word that was spoken. Skie’s story was one of sibling rivalry, where she seemed to get the short end of the proverbial stick while her brother enjoyed all the laurels of her people. It was a story of life in shadows that her family cast, making her feel less significant, inferior, useless. It wasn’t a story that Victor heard before, but the conclusion was always the same. Good people got hurt, worthy shoved aside, playing their role in yet another sad tale. It was the way of the world nowadays, it seemed. The boxer couldn’t remember the last time he heard somebody speak of a gleeful upbringing or a past that didn’t summon the clouds of gloom.

But the bitter taste of sobriety wasn’t the only thing that presented itself as the winged woman spoke. There was something more tangible in the air then just the grim notion that the words brought, and yet something still so vague that Victor wasn’t certain which of his senses were picking it up. At first he thought it was just his sympathy getting the better of him, making him feel all sorry and commiserative as if he just heard the world’s saddest story. The fact that Skie looked like somebody sapped the life out of her only added to his pity. And there was the tone of her voice, honest and doleful, voicing her tale in soft, mellisonant tones. But in the end, it was the smell that gave her off. At first Victor couldn’t quite distinguish it from the scent of her skin and the one that rose from the sheets, but by the time she concluded so did his mind. He felt the scent once before, back when they were in a cart pilled with dung and she cast her spell. It was stronger then, more uncouth and mixed with the foulness of the droppings, but now it was pure, smooth, swiveling from the succubus like dancing cobras. And they brought his chivalry to the test.

Victor knew it was her wanton magic pulling him in, teasing him like a sly temptress. And yet despite this realization, he never wanted her more then at that moment. His eyes observed her for the longest time while the silence lingered. It should’ve been the typical uncomfortable silence, the one that occurs when neither knew what to say, but there was nothing uncomfortable in sitting next to her, watching her as she gazed out the window. His mundane, down-the-earth mind was warning him with the voice of reason, assuring him this was just another way for her to lure him amidst the sheets. But the longer that voice gnawed at the man, the less heed Victor paid to it. And when he spoke again, he wasn’t nearly as curt as moments before.

“Being a footnote isn’t that bad. I oftentimes find footnotes more interesting then the history books,” he said. His hand found its way to her knee somehow, though whether it was merely giving her a reassuring touch over the coarse wool of the blanket or aimed for something more, even its owner couldn’t tell. He smiled amiably; it wasn’t a beautiful smile on a beautiful face, but it did its job decently enough.

Skie was unsurprisingly much better at it, her smile relinquishing her some of the burden all this reminiscing seemed to put on her shoulders. It was a tender thing, that smile of hers, a bit coy but deadlier then a hook to the face. And just like a well-timed blow to the head, it managed to make Victor forget. It made him forget about the extra leathery appendage that was still very much there. It made him disregard the fact that she was a succubus. It made him forget himself and his nice guy gimmick. He wanted to kiss her and comfort her and tell her that her people were either blind or nitwitted for not worshiping her instead of her brother. He wanted to throw that blanket off of her and see her nakedness again. He wanted to touch her...

With such thoughts running rampant in his mind, it should’ve been no surprise that his manhood reacted accordingly. And yet it was a surprise, and one that snapped the man out of his stargazing abruptly, making him retract his hand and get back on his feet, turning his back to the reason for this fervor.

“I, uh... I should probably go check my clothes. See if they’ve dried.” It was a feeble excuse. His clothes were no dryer then her hair was, and it was still soaking wet, dripping dewy droplets on her shoulders. But he had to get away lest thoughts would turn into more then just fantasies of a lonely man. For some reason – whether it was her magic or his dry spell – her very presence tempted him unnaturally. The boxer never found himself in a situation in which he was unable to turn down a woman, but he was in such a situation now and he felt like escaping. He felt like playing it safe.

[Skie and Avery]

His words were kind, but that was the thing about words. They could be as kind or hurtful as you wanted, and they didn't even have to mean a thing. She had resolved to keep her gaze out the window, where clouds were slowly ushered behind the silhouettes of rooftops by a lazy wind. However, her gaze was broken by a sudden pressure on her leg. She let her blue eyes fall, until she could see the source of the warm, unyielding grasp on her knee. Her nervous smile was flooding the air with pheromones, as they came sneaking out of her pores like some natural perfume that was trying desperately to calm the situation. The seductive tear gas, like most of Skie's good intentions, were only making things worse.

Her gaze traveled up his arm, taking in the sight of his muscular shoulders. She could appreciate the beauty there, the strength in him that had been brought by fighting. She could also appreciate the movement in his boxers, just visible on her peripheral vision without her needing to lower her gaze any more. She opened her mouth, letting her tongue dart out and wet her lips before she spoke. Before she could find the right words, he stood. Had he not, would she have been able to find them? His back turned and she knew what would happen now. Even soaking wet, he would walk away, as fast and as far as he could. She would let him.

Something furious in her, curved and dark, came screaming to the surface. It was like an assassin's dagger, shimmering in the dark, threatening her. It was partly her own jealousy against Avery, on how he could always just take what he wanted, and partly her mother's blood. The Moontae creed was very clear on what should be done, the teachings of her childhood repeating in her mind. When you thirst, you drink. When you hunger, you eat. When you lust, slake it. There is no need to deny yourself, for that is an abomination. Nurture your body, your needs. There is nothing wrong with love, even if it is just physical.

Was it true? There was nothing wrong with loving someone, even for a night, her mother had told her once. There was nothing wrong with the way her father had fallen into her mother's arms. Narrowing her eyes for a moment, Skie reached out from under the blanket, putting her fingertips on Victor's arm. She didn't grab him, just let her fingers brush gently along his wrist. He took another step, but it was a small one. Once his foot had come down, as loud to Skie as a bolt of thunder, he turned slowly. The trail of his eyes puzzled her, and she looked down herself. When she had reached for him, the blanket had slid down over her shoulder, revealing again nearly half of the nakedness that he had so recently sought to cover. Her eyes blinking furiously in embarrassment, she grabbed the edge of the blanket to cover herself again. To her surprise, however, this time it was she who was stopped. Two steps, padding barefoot on the hardwood floor, and then a warm, trembling hand was covering her own.

She looked up, and the blanket fell.

[The Cinderella Man]

When looking in retrospective at the moments such as the one at hand, one always seems to find a throng of words to describe what happened. Pages had been written of such moments, songs had been composed, tales told with the intricate amount of detail. And yet when one is captured in such a moment, words were like fish in a mountain stream; slippery, swimming away in the frivolous river of thoughts, practically unattainable. And even when you’re positive that you have your hands safely wrapped around one, it wriggles out of your grasp, leaving you tongueless. But that’s not such a bad thing; sometimes, in moments of intimacy, words are not only unnecessary, but unwanted.

Whether he wanted it or not, that was what Victor felt at the moment. Skie had stopped him with nothing more then a touch of a hand. He wanted to fight her, wanted to fend off this burning desire that the succubus evoked, but he was feeling a little bit like a man with a parasol, trying to fend off a hurricane. For the briefest of moments he was strong enough to sustain this attack of passion, and then the blanket slipped from her shoulder and blew what was left out of his chastity straight out the window. And his stubborn resistance against her charms was done for. When she made a motion to cover herself again, he was the one that stopped her from doing so. The words kept their slip-and-slide journey through his mind, but his actions were speaking instead, pleading her not to do so. Their eyes clashed, but it was a passionate collision; vibrant with the heat that radiated from them but gentle enough to make something in their chest flutter. And all of a sudden the touch of their hands wasn’t enough to satiate their hunger.

Victor sat back on the bed, but no sooner then he got settled, their lips met just like their hands seconds ago. It was a kiss of relief, the last strike of the battering ram that finally brought down the gates that kept them apart. It was a tentative caress of their lips at first, as if neither of them was certain that the other wanted it. But once they got a taste of each other it was like tasting the sweetest wine; no matter how much you drank, it left you craving for more.

The boxer’s hands were restless, itching for contact, eager to explore the smooth skin of her curvaceous body. They advanced with prudence at first, the right ascending up the length of her arm and towards her bare shoulder while its counterpart reached up for Skie’s bonny visage. It touched her cheek, cupping it, drawing her nearer as if somehow the touch would make their kiss more intimate. And it did, for her countenance tipped ever so slightly under the caress of his fingers, allowing their lips to part and meet again. This time the kiss was much more passionate, the insatiable kind that made the lovers feast on each others lips until they breaths ran short and the heat made them feel like they were in a furnace. Her scent was all around them, the sweet perfume of her body that brought all sorts of madness into his mind. It made him forget again. For when now that they kissed and touched, he couldn’t recollect what sort of insanity overtook him to make him reject her.

They parted with a longing sigh, but the pause lasted for no more then a heartbeat before Victor kissed her again, this time on the side of the neck. Her skin was tasteless, and yet he couldn’t get enough of it, like a thirsty man that finally reached an oasis. It wasn’t too far from the truth. The world was somewhat of a wasteland for the prizefighter as of late, a desert filled with demeaning looks and rejection slips. Today, in Skie’s den, he had found his oasis.

[Skie and Avery]

It had been so long since she had felt desirable. In the shadow of the Beauty, she was the ugly one, the cancerous black sheep of their gleaming ivory flock. She had been chasing after redemption in the shadow of her father's legends for so long that she had lost herself to them. Words were so powerful, but now, here, they were so meaningless. His lips touched hers, and she sighed into him, letting her tense posture relax against his touch. She leaned her face into his hands, shivered in delight as his other caressed her bare arm. It was all so innocent at first, kisses and touches that even virgin children could experience with no shame. As his calloused hands slid to her shoulder and across her cheek, they were light, pulling her closer to him with their gentle nuances.

She, too, reached out in a tentative caress. Her hands slid along his own arms as if she were afraid that anything bolder might see her shamed again, his back retreating down the hallway. Almost subconsciously, she let her hands move from his shoulders, her fingertips dancing down his back as their kiss parted and he was leaning forward again. Her lips, already swollen with his kisses, parted again. She expected another brush to her lips, but instead his face ducked to the side, his mouth closing on the side of her neck.

"Oh..." The words came out like the strange child of a moan and a growl, her voice low and hungry for more. She could feel that clenching coming again as it had in the shower, and this time she would obey it. She pulled him closer, her eyes closing as his lips did amazing things against her bare skin. As her arms wrapped around his back, her own tongue darting out to lick his ear playfully, his hands became more bold. Her hair was fisted in one, her head pulled gently to the side so that he could have more sway. The other had moved from her shoulder, to her side. It lingered there, his thumb lazily swaying back and forth until it seemed that he had reached his decision. As his mouth moved slightly, taking his kisses to the turn of her neck where it met her collar, his hand cupped her breast, moving slowly until his thumb strummed almost teasingly over the rosy peak found there.

It was too much for one woman to bear. Her hands dropped from his back, to his waistline. There, she found the soft fabric of his undershorts, and she let her fingers curl around the top edges. It was a powerful feeling, to have the boxer's boxers in her hands, knowing that she could even the odds with a tug and leave them both in a fair position; naked before each other. She pulled back, ignoring the small growling protest from Victor before she stepped off the bed, pulling him to his feet with her. He was not terribly taller than she was; she merely had to rise to the tips of her toes to kiss him, rather than pull him down as well. As they stood before each other, Skie leaned in, gently biting the edge of his chin before she let their lips meet again. One deep breath, inhaling the utterly masculine scent of him, and then she had the courage to do what her burning body was begging of her.

She pulled down the edge of his shorts, and helped him to remove them quickly. When they both poised nude before each other, there was only a moments hesitation. Skie was drinking in the full form of Victor, and it was she who reached out again. She leaned forward, resting her hands on his hips. She laid a chaste kiss against his chest, and letting her hands grow fearless, she stroked him as she pushed gently on his chest to sit him back down on the bed. She bent to lean in for more of the kisses they'd been sharing. It was intoxicating, the way this man stirred dormant fires to life. She smiled again, happy as he took her hips and guided them to meet his. For a moment, Skie was tempted to claim he'd been made for her, as their bodies met perfectly in so many places.

She cradled him close, her voice lifting in pleasure and joy as for the first time, willingly, her world collided and crested with anothers.

[The Cinderella Man]

Insanity overtook him. It was the sweet kind of lunacy, the kind that differed little from inebriety. Small wonder given the fact that Victor was drunk. He was drunk on Skie, drunk on the perfumed magic her body discharged through its pores. He was drunk on the warmth of her body that collided with his own and he was drunk on the sounds she made that all sounded like an aria of love and passion to his ears. And he was drunk on her kisses, and her caresses, and her eyes that looked down at him, sharing the flames of passion that burned within them both. This intoxication had undisputed dominion over his mind now, compounding itself with every second that he spent in her embrace. It trapped him in the world of blurry colors and sizzling touches that seemed to scorch their very skins.

When she coaxed him into sitting back on the bed – this time naked as the day he was born – and lowered herself on top of him, it took every ounce of Victor’s self-control and willpower to prevent him from finishing the job before he even got a chance to start it. It had been months since the last time he felt the woman’s warmth, months since something beautiful was willing to share these most intimate moments with someone such as him. But it was as if Skie knew somehow, for the succubus didn’t seem in any hurry. She exhaled a sigh that was almost a whimper, a sweet moan filled with alleviation and yearning, and closed her eyes as her body started to move at a slow, rhythmic pace.

Coherent thoughts seemed impossible past this point. Somewhere in the back of his mind Victor Callahan still remembered all the sermons and preaching and the words of holy men that insisted on the sanctity of marriage and the consummation of such a holy matrimony. Somewhere in this chaos of passion and desire there was his credo, the promise he made to himself never to lie with a woman who didn’t wear his ring on her finger. But those thoughts were broken, fragmented, buried so deep that they failed to occur to him even now when he made love to a woman he had met mere hours ago. It could’ve been his longing that clouded his usually rational mind or it could’ve been her magic or it could’ve been the Goddess of Love herself intervening. It didn’t matter. Victor was so enthralled by now that, if Skie asked him to jump through the window headfirst, he would’ve done it. For her.

Caught in throes of passion, the pair exchanged kisses and touches at a pace that gradually grew in speed. At first their lovemaking was slow, a legato of long strokes and lengthy kisses as they breathed into each other. But passion was like an avalanche; once it started to move, it only grew in both velocity and power until it blew their minds away. Their lips started to meet in an almost haphazard manner, exploring whatever part of the body they could reach. He could feel her teeth grazing against his shoulder, her nails passing over the muscles of his torso, leaving a barely notable trail on the sweaty sheen of his skin. He responded by pulling them both in a sitting position, letting her arch her body slightly backwards and lean it on his muscular hands. He kissed her neck again, this time lingering only for a second before his lips continued their descent down her svelte body. They stopped only when they reached her chest, her breasts rising and falling, rising and falling, faster and faster as her body demanded more oxygen. And yet he made both her breath and her heart race faster still when his lips closed around her rosy nipple, licking the sensitive piece of hardened, responsive skin, nibbling it just enough to hear an unrestrained moan rise from the depths of her soul and past her lips.

Breathing grew shallower, more frantic. Sporadic moans and grunts were growing in frequency, soaked in satisfaction. It was a desperate race towards the inevitable climax that both wanted to reach, but that both wanted to postpone for just a little while longer.

[Skie and Avery]

Every kiss and movement was the redemption of good deeds left undone. Victor's arms were a safe haven, and she had wanted this to last beyond just the evening, past the nearly-set sun that had been peaking at their pleasures. It had cast a wash of golden light into the bedroom window, a metallic paintbrush that caught the gleaming sweat drops that traveled down their skin. Their breaths, hot and needful to breath each other in, fogged in the chill that was coming with nightfall, but the two had more than enough to keep each other warm. Beyond the rushing blood of their bodies, there was something else growing in the heat.

Skie's eyes, so darkly indigo, were filled with racing points of stardust as she closed them. It was not to imagine any other that she did so, no face or form but the boxer's danced behind her eyelids. Instead, it was to keep back the tears that threatened to fall as each stroke of their hips was like a prod to a fire already threatening to spill out of the hearth. It was beautiful, these moments, and she knew why the Moontae now called themselves the Beauty. Nothing like this could be evil or demonic. It was true that they had only known each other for this one day, but the connection felt so much heavier. It was beyond the feeble grasp of desire but the sheer weight of what this man had come to mean to her in such a short time that pulled against her heart.

The difference between Skie and the rest of the Beauty was the blood of Devon dan Sabriel.

It broke all the rules, connections like this. The Beauty didn't get attached. They came together for pleasure; love was unimportant because they had love for all. Skie, however, and her heart, held something human. It was Devon's greatest gift, the ability to know true hate or love. In his embrace, kept safe and needed, Skie let every movement of her body say everything that was needed. As she pulled him closer, her fingers lacing through the thick, short locks of his hair, she found her voice rising with the tension in her body.

"Victor, please." she begged, her voice breathy, her eyes opening to behold him. Her pleas turned his eyes upwards, his lips still locked around the fleshy nub he had claimed as a prize, his teeth barely grazing the tip as if to ask 'Yes?'

"Please," she repeated, bending her neck so that her lips could brush against his forehead along the hairline. "Please don't stop." Her words seemed to throw oil on the already raging flames, and his hands slid from her back where they had been cradling her to her hips so that he could hold her in his muscular grasp and control the motion of their bodies. They worked together, their movements slowing but his strokes coming deeper, grinding and rocking as she sobbed and moaned against him. They held each other so close that Skie began to wonder if they really could be one person, that if her cheek against his might just melt through the skin and she could see everything inside him. She knew she would love it, that in the last hours she loved him. The blossom of knowledge unfolded in her mind, and she tried to slow their fall into the deep white light of orgasm, because when it was all over she would lose him as their daily currents ripped them apart to different lives.

Out the window, the first stars of the night had begun to twinkle feverishly in the dusky cloak of the sky. A single pinprick of pure white slowed in it's flicker. As Skie began to gasp, her body tensing and then unfurling in the force of her climax, she called a single name. "Victor." Her eyes opened, meeting his, and the sputtering star outside began to fall. The answering lights in her cobalt gaze started to fall and fade, leaving nothing but the matte expanse of blue, flecked here and there with earthly brown. It was Devon's greatest curse, the Slaying of Stars, the taking of souls. As she shuddered against him, her voice ripped from her throat as everything seemed to contract and explode in a dizzying burst, he took the back of her head in one hand and pulled her lips to meet his.

That simple kiss was the Architect of her Destruction, and somehow some of his.

In a flash, she saw inside him. Shadows pulled against his heart, a solid man with solid Faith, brought down by a small collection of cursed cells pulled the darkness around the prizefighter's soul. The pain and suffering of a struggling woman, of three struggling women to maintain their feeble family had scored itself in him, and there, the great background of it all was a fourth woman. Her words had been so powerful, especially her goodbye. The very absence of her had turned Victor's heart upon itself, drenched it with something dark and terrible. The thoughts that had lingered in his mind a thousand lonely nights before assaulted her, and she tried to save herself against the storm of truly tasting Victor's soul. She tried not to look too deep, the more she saw, the more she was threatened with actually seeing what he felt for her, and she was sure it would come up lacking with this special love she had for him.

She'd taken a soul before, slain Seth Dahlios' star in a moment of passion, but a moment of rage. It had been so different. She knew the terrible things that the Hex Mage had done, and was, and the loving things he'd done them for. She'd taken his star in hate, but somehow walked away a shaky ally. Now she had tasted the very core of someone in love, and found it was far more terrifying than the rage she'd felt for Dahlios.

And with that fear permeating, she was out of his soul, her gaze again to the room, where he still held her tight. It had been the fraction of a moment that she'd been gone within the confines of his memories and intentions. She lowered her face to his again in a kiss, this time breathing out, letting him take back what was his. She didn't want his soul, didn't want to Slay him. It was less violent this time than when she'd returned Seth's soul to him. She didn't vomit it, but kissed it into him. Exhaustion from their lovemaking and from the sheer depth of what she'd seen within him was draining her, and she let her body relax against his. She buried her head in his shoulder, grasping him with the intensity that she'd hold to a life raft that was bringing her out of the fearsome deep, and kissed and nibbled her way up his neck and to his lips. There, with the brush of her mouth on his, she whispered the only thing she could find to say in all the weighted emotions of her heart.

"You're a good man, Victor."

[The Cinderella Man]

They haven’t reached their climax together – such synchronization occurred only in bawdy tales – but it was a close call. For once her body started to shudder, and her muscles convulsed, and she cried out his name as her pleasure peaked... Well, there was only so much a mortal man could take. But just then the strangest thing happened, and for a man who had ridden a gigantic sea behemoth and fought against an army of mindless village folk, that meant something was seriously amiss.

Skie kissed him.

It was something she had done countless times in this little bed skirmish of theirs, but this time there was something terrifying in the touch of her lips. It was like kissing a cold barrel of a gun, tasting the death and the nothingness that was only inches away. It lasted no longer then a blink of an eye, this uncanny sensation, but in that fraction of a second Victor Callahan felt vacant. It was as if somehow, with the passion they exchanged, a large part of him departed as well. He was still himself, he could still think, he could still feel their sticky bodies clinging to each other. Even the hunger for the succubus was still there, as unreasonable and vibrant as the moment he kissed her for the first time. Only in that brief moment in time, it all felt so empty, so meaningless, so forlorn. It felt like standing on the edge of a canyon, ready to throw yourself into the chasm below.

But then, just as suddenly as this feeling robbed Victor of the full power of life, it gave everything back. And the contrast between the two amplified everything almost tenfold. After gazing into this empty abyss, every color, every sound, every single thing he felt at the moment somehow had more gravity, as if his senses suddenly became more acute. It felt like watching the world through a different set of eyes, ones that were open to things he never saw before.

The simple-minded boxer didn’t know what happened. He assumed it had something to do with Skie and her heritage, but right then and there he didn’t want to know the specifics. She was embracing him, so warm and gentle and smooth that it almost made him weep, so beautiful that he was ready to admit that she was a goddess and fight anybody who dared to state otherwise. His lips touched her forehead, his fingers running through her hair, leaning her head back on his shoulder. Once again, no words came to him, and once again, no words were needed. Their bodies told their own tale today, united in a quest for the ultimate sensation two people could share. And they told it well, leaving them spent and drifting away on the wings of satisfaction.

***

A whiff of wintry night wind reminded Victor that they had forgotten to close the window, waking the man up with a caress of icy fingers. The world was still veiled in blackness outside, with only the east giving in to the dark purplish hue that announced the inevitable arrival of the sun. The blanket that covered the pair of entangled bodies slipped almost down to their waists, leaving them to the mercy of the chill. Yet Victor didn’t mind that much. Even in the dim light and the coldness he could appreciate the view of the beauty in his arms. Her usually smooth skin was covered with the tiniest goosebumps, and when he ran his fingers over it, it made the woman fidget in his arms and embrace him even tighter. This was so endearing that it drew a smile on his face. He realized that he wouldn’t mind waking up to this every morning.

And then he remembered what exactly the two of them were.

They were strangers, brought together by auspicious circumstances, brought together by fate that decided to give them a moment worth of reprieve. A moment. No more. There was no tomorrow for them. They weren’t about to wake up and walk out of the inn holding each other’s hand and whispering sweet words of love. Regardless of how much Victor craved for something like that, it would’ve been a delusion think of the night they shared as more then just an opportune encounter. Skie was a succubus, a creature prone to these little escapades. The prizefighter was certain that, come morning, she would regret ever succumbing to the bodily desires. So he decided to intercept the morning.

He crept out of the bed as stealthily as he could, untangling himself from her embrace with the gentlest touches his hands could muster. When he succeeded in doing so without waking her up, he pulled the blanket over her sleeping form and tiptoed towards the bathroom. He didn’t dress too hastily – there was still a part of him that wanted this to be more then just a one-night stand – but soon enough he was fully dressed, standing at her bedside, looking at her blissful serenity. It felt wrong to leave without a goodbye, he knew. But what he knew even better was that, if she woke up and looked up at him with those enchanting eyes of hers, if she spoke all the words he wanted to hear and let her body emanate that mind-shattering scent again, it would be twice as hard to leave.

Leaning towards her sleeping visage, Victor kissed her cheek, his lips caressing her with velvety tenderness. He didn’t move away immediately, though. Instead, he took one final breath of her, one final breath of her skin and sweat and magic that gifted him one of the best nights of his life. And with that scent still infesting his system, he walked away.

[Skie and Avery]

Skie woke with a small smile pulling at the edges of her lips. The last time she could remember being this cold and happy at the same time had been as a child, playing in the first snows of winter with her brother. Now there was the same promising chill in the air, whispering of frost along the windows and the transformation of raindrops into fluffy sprinklings of snow, but the times had changed. Instead of laying curled in her familiar Concordian home, the rickety bed that had served as her nest for the past couple nights cradled her. Rather, she thought as she heard the light shuffling of clothing in the bathroom, the bed was just a pedestal for the divine art of the cradle she'd been held in. Victor Callahan might just be the average everyman to himself and those who passed by him, but to Skie he'd become something a little more.

His lips brushed her cheek and she almost told him 'Good Morning.' However, it didn't take more than a few moments to tell that something was about to go very wrong. She expected him, after that, to slide back under the covers. She could understand about not wanting to be naked for too long; she too felt the itch to at least pull her shirt on against the cold and the mere unfamiliarity of laying bare before another. He did not, however, move to reclaim his side of the bed. She felt him pull back, his breaths tickling along her neck, and then the sound of booted feet walking towards the door.

"Don't go..." she managed to say, her voice breaking as she sat up, pulling the blanket up to cover herself. It was nothing more than a whisper, but she could feel the gravity it held within her own heart. With her hand wrapped around the wool, she could keep it from shaking and letting off all the fear she felt for this moment. Her wing behind her however, huddled feebly against her back, trembling nearly in time with her racing heart.

Skie didn't know what she intended to do, or even say. She was standing at the edge of something she couldn't understand. She knew it was silly to call him back, that sitting up at that moment could have possibly have been the worst thing for her to do. What could possibly have come from it? She could cut open all this silly skin, and let him see exactly what she saw in him and exactly what she felt for everything he'd done and said and was, and she knew he would stand in the doorway, his muscled back to her, and never turn around.

She could spread all the love she'd managed to find and it still would be so tiny compared to the cold hard facts. No stars had crossed, only fallen. They might have shared this one night, this one moment where they knew such rare harmony, but it would only be one night. They could never be together.

He was only a few fatal footsteps away, but he might have been five thousand miles.

"Just stay," she said again, that stubborn longing to have his arms around her overpowering the knowledge that they were too far apart in so many ways to really think this could work. Tears were threatening to spill, though she blinked through thick lashes to keep them at bay. "Please, Victor, until morning? Goodbye is so much easier in the sunlight."

How could something so harmless as that long pause of silence hurt so much?

[The Cinderella Man]

Skie’s voice was everything he didn’t want to hear right now, a lasso thrown around his heart, pulling him back into her arms. And yet, at the same time, it was everything he did want to hear. He didn’t even have to turn his head to look at her to feel the temptation coaxing him, breaking his resolve and begging him to yield to her request. Of course he wanted to stay. At this moment, standing here and staring at the door, there was nothing Victor wanted more then to feel her warmth once again. But he knew the repercussions of such an action. He would crawl underneath her sheets again and they would try to replay all the kisses and moans and sweet little nothings they whispered into each other’s ears, for their passion was hardly spent yet. And they would be in their own personal heaven again, floating in each other’s arms as their bodies became one. But then the morning would come – all too soon as it always did – and parting would become even more difficult.

“No, it would be even more difficult in the morning and you know it,” the boxer responded, still stubbornly peering at the door as if there was something more interesting in the pattern of its wood then a half-naked vixen, freshly awoken. He turned around eventually, though – Skie deserved a proper goodbye instead of a cold shoulder. His eyes met her pleading look as silence once again descended into the room like a floating sheet of black silk. The black-haired woman looked perhaps more beautiful then ever, with her hair unkempt and wild after a passionate night and her face so amorous and almost angelic. It was like a magnet, but while it succeeded in drawing Victor away from the door and back to her bedside, it still lost the battle with his determination.

“Goodbye, beautiful Skie,” the prizefighter told her as his fingers grazed her cheek. The words and the caress were the harbingers of the proper goodbye, a long, gentle kiss he planted on her lips. He was playing with fire, he knew, and it threatened to scorch his resolve with the heat of her lips. But before her hands managed to embrace him, pull him closer, he pulled away.

Every step he took as he walked away from her filled his head with more and more thoughts. He wanted to break into a sprint and run away from the temptation. He wanted to kiss her again. And again. He wanted to linger just a while longer, just so she asked him to stay again. If she did that, if she raised her voice once again and uttered the same pleading words, he was ready to give in to her request. He was walking a thin line here, reluctant to go one way or the other. But when the doors of her room opened before him and closed behind him, and there were no words to be heard, Victor knew it was over. It made him sigh as he stood with his back to the closed door, but whether it was a sigh of sorrow of relief, he couldn’t say.

It was better this way, he assured himself as he made his way down the creaking stairs of the inn. It was better to have one night of burning passion then a hundred of diluted affection that died a little every day. And it was better for Skie as well that she didn’t get involved with the likes of him. She perhaps wasn’t an innocent, wide-eyed lass, but she still deserved better then a wandering pugilist who couldn’t even get into a sanctioned bout. There were better men out there that could offer her so much more. She would forget all about him in a fortnight, and rightfully so; Victor Callahan wasn’t the kind of a person that got his name into history books.

With this intricate delusion that he formed in his head, Victor walked through the foyer of the inn – where the old crone of an innkeeper dozed with her head on the reception desk – and out into the streets, feeling a bit better. If his loss was someone’s gain, then perhaps he was at least good for something. Outside, the streets were still asleep under the gray cover of the night that neared its end. He half expected to see Skie on the windowsill, but there was nothing to be seen except curtains thrown around by the draft. And when he started to walk in a random direction and away from the inn, he could’ve sworn that he heard her voice calling him, but the wooden wheels of a passing wooden carriage were so loud that he was certain it was only his mind playing tricks on him. So he kept his feet moving, his eyes looking at the Radasanth streets, but seeing a different world altogether. In that world, Skie was in his arms and tonight was just the beginning of something more.

Daydreaming was always such a bittersweet refuge for Victor Callahan.

[Skie and Avery]

His kiss was just as divine as each one that had come before it, though this one held something precious in it. It was that bittersweet tang of final things, the last bite of a favorite food, the last warm night of autumn, and the last parting kiss of two people who would much rather not have to say goodbye at all. He had turned back and she thought that would be enough, but then he was gone again, the door clicking shut quietly.

He had left her alone to the night. It was with that realization that she began to cry, hot tears spilling down her cheeks and pattering softly onto the blanket that covered her legs. She felt silly for crying over someone she had just met, but somewhere in her heart, as she'd fallen asleep with her head on his chest, she'd been convinced that this was the start of something beautiful. How could it not have been? Skie dan Sabriel was not a person who really opened herself up to many people, but it seemed that Victor had known exactly how to unlock every last little doorway. She dried her cheeks bitterly, sniffling past the next temptation to continue her tears, and stood.

The curtains had been whipping balefully ever since he left, as if the very winds outside were chastising them for missing the point completely. Now, she stared at them, wondering idly where she'd last left her clothes, when her common sense gave her a sound smacking across the back of her head. Not bothering to look for her shirt, she wrapped the blanket around her chest and stumbled to the window.

He hadn't gotten far yet. She could see him walking back along the piers, towards the direction she'd meandered in the day before. She'd been looking for a good fight to test herself with, and somehow had gotten more than she had bargained for. She called his name again, her voice breaking once with the desperation she felt. He had to hear her, she would make him. Her voice raised in volume, her heart poured into it as she yelled his name. Someone in the next room banged on the wall, but she wasn't interested in courtesy towards the sleeping guests around her. Instead, her will was focused on one name, that had poured off her lips in whispered passion and now would not be reached no matter how loud she shouted. Victor kept on walking, until she could not see him anymore.

She finally fell to the floor, pressing her forehead against the sill while she wept. This was the StarSlayer's curse; to be left alone. She could see the glint of the dan Sabriel sword from where she'd shoved it under the bed the afternoon before.

As sharp as the edge was, it couldn't cut quite as deeply as her heartache.

[Sighter Tnailog]

Quest Judging
Harmless

An amazing story, beautifully written. I will admit that more than one part of it brought a tear to my eye.

Duro, your writing is simply beautiful. Never doubt your skill...it is here, and it is here to stay.

And Manda, one thing...this thread would make Eric proud.

STORY

Continuity ~ 10/10. Almost flawless. The only thing I would say is something I've already mentioned to Manda regarding why her character wanted to hit Letho, and since we've already discussed it via AIM I don't see a need to comment further. If you need a hint, it has to do with some clarity issues in the introduction.
Setting ~ 9.5/10. You really brought an area of Radasanth alive for me that I don't often see, and better yet, I was able to really see...and smell...the effect. While there's always room for improvement, there's not much.
Pacing ~ 10/10. Simply astounding. Not only did you manage to pull the story along from start to finish in a way that kept me riveted -- having that prizefight outside the Citadel actually had me really worried as to the outcome, a thing that's rare in the melodramatic world of Althanas -- but you also pulled some amazing mini-pacing aspects into the final climax that mirrored the rest of the plot. This thread is a perfect example of what pacing means.

CHARACTER

Dialogue ~ 9/10. Your dialogue was to the point. The NPCs were clear, and the discussions were sound. It really felt like you were having conversations, not merely making long speeches to one another.
Action ~ 10/10. The things your characters did were in perfect keeping with who your characters were. While the flaws I've mentioned in Continuity and Clarity did exist, I felt they were so minor that to punish them in three places would be overkill and decided to let the score stand at perfect.
Persona ~ 10/10. A better example of characters coping with and handling the confusing and nebulous world of emotion I haven't seen on Althanas since "Foreplay" (another excellent example of Manda's writing). Duro, I once criticized your writing for precisely this facet. It appears that you took my advice, and the results are far beyond what I had ever hoped for. Congratulations.

WRITING STYLE

Technique ~ 9/10. Quite excellent. Could always be better, but as it stands the wonderful way you worked together gets you huge points. One thing I can really tell when I read your work is that you are working hard at actually reading what the other person is writing. And then when you respond, you try to draw out elements of each other. And your bunnying is done flawlessly, seamlessly, and always with the intention of bringing out an important point. Well done.
Mechanics ~ 9/10. I saw only a bare handful of spelling and/or grammatical errors. Watch the apostrophes on it's and its! Also, especially for Duro, the word "pugilist" is a wonderful word. In fact, it's a great word to throw in there every once or twice a thread as a way of spicing up your vocabulary. But because it's so peculiar and different, when it appears too much a reader really starts to notice, and wonders if you have any other words. The benefit of a smaller word -- say, "fighter," -- is that you can use it more often per thread without someone noticing. But when you spam the word "pugilist," the reader can't help but wonder if it's the only word you have in your thesaurus. Try to save the good words for just one or two uses, and you can start gaining the edge that pushes the 9 to a 10.
Clarity ~ 8.5/10. I was a bit confused by Manda's intro, as it wasn't entirely made plain that she was going to go prizefighting -- and it was also a bit hard to tell why she wanted to in the first place. That led to a spare bit of confusion at the beginning, but nothing too bad. I took away most of the points here, though, as opposed to taking them from action and continuity. The problem wasn't with the action nor the continuity as much as it was with the writing meant to portray them, so I hope this method shows that clearly.

MISCELLANEOUS

Wild Card ~ 9/10. Manda knows what I mean when I say the only reason this isn't a 10 is because of the shower.

TOTAL ~ 94. This is the highest score I have ever given. You should both accord it a tremendous honor. This entire thread glows to me, as if you wrote it with fire and gold.

EXP Rewards

Skie and Avery gains 5000 EXP!
The Cinderella Man gains 5400 EXP!

GP Rewards

Skie and Avery gains 540 GP!
The Cinderella Man gains 480 GP!

Other Rewards

Both of you have my undying respect.

[Letho]

EXP/GP added! Skie and Avery and The Cinderella Man, welcome to the next level.