Fallen Angel

[peterpan]

The rush of her words almost overwealmed me. It sounded so much as if she had truly opened her heart. But the gushing wound from which the words poured had been inflicted by the implement around my neck; her lips a gash that now lead straight to her heart.

Part of me wished to seal the gash yet I was ensorcelled myself. Only after her last pitiful words rolled from her mouth could I act, and seal her lips a briefest moment with my own.

I wish there were a demon script I could write on that beautiful ear, so that she would believe anything I told her.
"There is no thought you were never intended to think. No pleasure you were never intended to feel. I, Obsidian, intend them all for you."

Her lips were white with the effort not to speak now, her eyes desparate. lust inured me.

The seige of the fortress of my angel's heart was now finally begun. The cool logic of the Demon's mind saw everything as a problem in engineering, as I would engineer the conquest of Ariana. To push a small hole for her emotions to flow out of was not enough. Eventually her emotions would run dry and fortress Ariana would remain. The image brought a smile to my black lips, but only because I would see not one stone of the wall that fortress left standing on another.

With each betrayal, a part of her would trust me more: the Ariana which paced leopardlike within that wall, fury and sexuality combined. The Ariana that could only howl in powerless frustration as choice by choice, angel Ariana had steered them past the rapids of pleasure. The Ariana that watched gleefully now as the angel was dragged inexorably down the ever deepening gorge, narrowly missing rocks that would splinter her but always hearing the growing thunder.

And what of Noble, sweet Ariana, whose only desire was to abase her virgin self before her god's every whim and beg forgiveness for every weakness he had built into her? When pleasure took her despite all her efforts she could have one certainty deep in the bones of her exhausted and sweatdrenched limbs. She could not have fought one iota harder.

It was time to remove Ariana from the warm safe harbour of my chest, and set her sail. Gripping her slim trembling arms just below the elbows I brought them up before me, and held them so the naked wrists formed a cross above her head. She could not see that the coil that hung over the bed had arched forward cobralike in reaching for her.

"Bind," I commanded, and the head of the coil flowed over her wrists like silk, slithered in and out and around them before the jaws fixed on its own length, all in an eyeblink. Slowly the coil contracted towards what must be the very distant ceiling, for ariana was pulled not towards the satin slab, but upright and more, onto the balls of her feet.

Then I rose, slowly so as to appreciate the white column of her flesh, till I loomed over her once more. Large hands traced her and did not stop.

I wanted to tell her my use for her would never be exhausted, but for now I planned her to see the battle more simply. Let her think for now that she was not the true spoil. I told her what I suspected was my cruelest, utterest, blackest lie that in the end could surrender her entirely to me.

I intended her to believe this promise I would make. Let it be the only certainty on the side of my angel Ariana.
"If you wish to end this now, or at any point the need to end it becomes too great, you need only whisper the secret to Heavens Gate in my ear."

"Speak to me," I encouraged.

 

[Marigold]

Ariana

His lips brushed mine, smooth and hot.

"There is no thought you were never intended to think. No pleasure you were never intended to feel. I, Obsidian, intend them all for you."

What was he doing? Why did he speak of pleasure when surely it was to worst way to obtain his goal. Did he not know that an Angel's only pleasure was serving her God well and truly? If he wanted secrets, information, why did he not torture me and have done with it? The questions formed on my tongue, but I ruthlessly suppressed them. I'd spoken too much already.

He forced my arms up over my head, and something bound them tight, pulling me up until I dangled on my tiptoes. It hurt a bit, and would hurt worse as time progressed I was sure, but I could always take flight if the strain on my joints became too great. For now, I simply waited to see what would come next, my eyes narrow and wary upon him. Surely it would begin now, the beating, the pain. I'd expected it from the moment I'd stood lashed to the seigebow. It would almost be a relief ro have it begun.

He stood then, his hands trailing over my legs, my hips, my sides, leaving a curious tingle lingering wherever his hands had been. Again, I almost spoke. Get on with it, I wanted to snap, but I was keeping a tight check on my bespelled lips and remained stoically silent.

"If you wish to end this now, or at any point the need to end it becomes too great, you need only whisper the secret to Heavens Gate in my ear."

I felt a thrill of grim triumph as he said this. He was just like the rest, after all. Always looking for a chink in the armor. Why the triumph would have been tempered with a tinge of disapointment, I couldn't begin to guess.

"Speak to me," said he, and I did, my effort to remain silent dissapating like so much swordpierced demonflesh. I purposely did not say the word he'd wanted me to.

"You're so sure of yourself," I began, contemptuously, "You think merely by confusing me and hurting me, you'll have all the answers you need, that I'll arm you against my Brethren with no more trouble than the effort of taking me. You've not realised how deeply I am rooted in my duty. I am my Duty, and my Work. I will fight you, Hellspawn. Until my last breath you have nothing but an unceasing battle on your hands." Having stated this, I turned my eyes away from him and glared into the black, resolve holding my posture rigid. Let it begin, I thought. You'll not find it an easy task.

 

[peterpan]

My angel was so brave.

But her bravery needed pain. Pain to drown out the betrayals of her own flesh.

Had she not understood the story of the asp?

On some level she must have, and that is why she demanded pain with the authority and contempt of an Empress. But she was not an Empress. Just an angel. I would remind her.

"Watch me Ariana."

With her eyes locked unbreakably on my face I bent, and starting low so as not to tear the thin cloth, moved up my hand to cup her groin through through gathered folds of it. Before she could react I had made my hand a comfortable seat as another found her chest.

As if she were nothing to me, I threw her featherlight flesh high into the air above the bed. Instinctively she spread her glorious wings to catch herself, as she uttered startled words, and unable to look up or down from my face, held her position with the exertion of powerful wingbeats.

Having fully entered the light, she shone. Wings, flesh and unbraided hair scattered light as if lit from within. An illusion caused by the darkness of everything else the light fell on, but a unspeakably beautiful one that I had planned for her upon first seeing the flutter of those white wings against the black sky of the courtyard.

"Look on me," I commanded once more. I had shed the leathers that swathed my legs and now strode towards her with the feline grace of a panther, muscles rippling under a smooth black skin. To know my body would startle her was not vanity. It had been crafted around me while I still slept uneasily in the embrace of the Demon Dream, by demon craftsmen that had spent a careful century testing the desires of women. I had already spoken then, but forgotten the words I spoke. I woke in this body not knowing its purpose. In a sense I was as helpless to my destiny as Ariana was before it.

In one note it was necessarily deformed, by Demon standards. between the power of the chest and legs, The waist and buttocks had to be compressed to human proportions, for reasons that were obvious to the Demons that had studied Angel anatomy. A loincloth of chainmail was all that remained. It hung to my knees at front and back yet made no sound as I stalked towards my prey.

Red demon script, not tool but art, made complicated sigils upon my body. Above my left brow were the first words I had spoken. If the eye were fine enough it could percieve that in fact there was only one stroke to all the script, that started from my left brow and moved in a playful path but ever downwards across my chest. It told my life to one that could read it.

"Stay in the light," I commanded, then added in a more soothing tone: "There is a great sky above you, and it wants you, but there are things in it that I do not intend for you. Do not blunder around in the dark seeking to bump into them, but alight upon the bed."

With my words I also dared her, though in my heart I hoped this was a lesson in the trust of my words that she would not seek.

 

[Marigold]

Ariana

My eyes could not leave his face at his behest, and I wondered if he could see the fear in them. His hands found the very places I'd sought to hide from him, and he tossed me in the air as if I weighed no more than one of my feathers. Of course, we angels are neccesarily less massive than other creatures, but still, one should not be able to toss us about that way. I hovered in the light, no knowing which way to go.

He shed the kilt he had worn, and my fear grew by yet another notch. He looked powerful and...alluring, somehow. I found myself wishing yet again that he had been ugly like the others. Perhaps then I would not feel drawn to him against my will. I wondered what the red script writ upon him said. I just managed to keep from asking him.

"Stay in the light," he told me. "There is a great sky above you, and it wants you, but there are things in it that I do not intend for you. Do not blunder around in the dark seeking to bump into them, but alight upon the bed."

This brought up an agonizing choice. Do as he commanded me, land on the bed below, and willingly put myself into his grasp once again, or defy him and find out if he spoke the truth about the monsters in the dark? Duty screamed at me to flee, to let whatever lurked out of sight to rip me to pieces and put an end to the danger of my betraying my God. Yet, there was another little voice. You're tired, Ariana, it said. Land and take whatever comes.

Indecision held me in place, but I knew I would tire eventually. I couldn't hover for very long. In the end, duty won out, and I darted for the black, hoping death would be quick.

 

[peterpan]

My eyes stayed fixed on the afterimage my angel had left behind.

My eyes could penetrate the demon blackness easily, but I chose not to.

A few wingbeats, perhaps just enough that she suspected I was lying, then a shriek strangled into silence.

I waited the three breaths I had bound myself to take, if she chose this course. During this eternity I told myself many times that although I had constructed this course for her, although this small thing had been promised to the madness before even my construction, that the choice had been entirely hers. It would make her surrender to me easier. It would make the strong embrace of a Demon's arms a comfort. It would make her trust my words completely. She would have something I might never have again, for every word I spoke to myself rung hollow.

With my third breath, rather than the following breath, I commanded her release.

I was treated to a hiss that stuttered like laughter, reminding me to take one more breath.

"Release her instantly, or I shall curse you never to look upon an angel again. To never raise you eyes above from the rodents and beetles that are your correct and worthy prey."

In total silence two massive coils decended, the width of Ariana's waist at their narrowest. Where they joined was a writhing knot of many snakes. The snakes unravelled from their prize and wound their way up one of their gods or the other. One had a tatter of white cloth in its mouth, and watched me as it departed with the suspicion of a cat with a pigeon. Ariana's struggling, kicking legs were bare. The slip of gauzy cloth she had payed so much for now stopped in tatters just above the knee.

By happy luck Ariana's arms had been crushed to her stomach, one hand by chance or some instinct had found it's way to guard her most intimate gate. Perhaps she had been reaching for a sword. She had defended no more than that. How could she?

When finally she was left on her knees on the soft bed, wrists still bound above her, and the last snake that left her had left her throat her own once more, and her words of terror and confusion began to pour out, I took her into my arms and listened to her, and kneeded the flesh of her back and legs, and responded with comforting words I knew were just constructions to bind her closer to me. Yet I also felt better for saying them.

Finally as she slowed I said "Tell me of bravery. Tell me of the joy in your arms as you slew your first Demon."

 

[Marigold]

Ariana

Just a few breaths, waiting for the darkness to solidify itself and attack, and I wasn't dissapointed. No sooner had I felt the first touch than I was covered. Snakes. I'd never particularly feared them before, but they were all over me, surrounding me, wriggling themselves into my mouth, my ears, every orifce but the one my hand had got trapped blocking. I coundn't breath, couldn't see. I felt sick with terror, panic clawed at my heart like some rabid animal, but I could do nothing; they bound me completely. I don't know how long it lasted, but at once they all froze, and I found myself being lowered, and they were gone, replaced by the arms of Obsidian.

Don't let them get me. Don't let them take me back. Pleasepleaseplease don't let them near me.

The words tumbled from my lips in an endless stream, pleading, whimpering words that knew no rational thought. Only fear ruled my tongue. He soothed me and stroked me and whispered comforting nonsense.

Shhh...I'm here now...hush...I'll keep you safe....be still, Ariana...

I would have wrapped my arms about him and clung to him had they not been bound still. As it was, I pressed myself closer, thoughts of Duty and Honor scattered before the storm of terror. My panic did not abate, only seemed to grow stronger with each passing minute. Each brush of the sheet below felt like something creeping to get me. I would start and cry out at the least unexpected sound or touch. Any touch but his.

"Tell me of bravery. Tell me of the joy in your arms as you slew your first Demon."

I realized even as he said it that it was an attempt to distract me, to recall a memory that inspired confidence in myself to replace the fear. Gratitude flowed through me, for it was a touching, perceptive gesture, even if the memory it triggered had rather rhe opposite effect.

I started haltingly, letting my mind release the suffocating terror for now. "I'm afraid the tale is not one of bravery. I rather bungled the whole thing. It was a battle in the ruins of Tokyo, just a small offesive to wipe out a band of Demons that had taken up residence there. I'd been formed a month earlier, and it was my first mission. A squad of us were checking an alley, and found ourselves set upon by hunreds of them. Just little ones, that looked like rats grown knee-high, that walked on their hind legs. The squad leader called a retreat, but I was in the midst of a group of them and neither heard or noticed the others leaving. Suddenly, I was one angel in the midst of hundreds of little demons, all clamoring for a bite of me. Long story short, I managed to hack my way clear of them, and catch up with the others, minus a few chunks of flesh." I shrugged, embarrassed by my ineptitude even now. Embarrassed that he should know of it. "They gave me a stern lecture about paying attention. I learned my lesson well. I never got caught alone again. Until now."

I sighed, exhausted and thoroughly demoralized, resting my forehead on his chest once again. "I'm sorry the story isn't a better one."

 

[womanofsteel]

wow.

((I hate to bother the flow of all this and such and such, but I really must say that both of you are fantastic writers, and simply blow me away. Do you two know each other in real life? You seem to percieve each others thoughts or something. You are both incredible, and I can't tear myself away from you're story line! Just thought I'd let you know! *waves and scurries back to her watching corner*))

 

[peterpan]

OOC: Sure. In a past life..

IC:____________

"Every word that passes your lips is precious to me, my angel," I told her with sincerity. With but a kiss on her forehead I stood.

"Look at me, Ariana." I smiled down into her captive eyes and pale face as I stroked my angel's arms where they lay against my chest, from tense shoulders to bound wrists.

My fierce young warrior of heaven was so innocent. So pitifully naive. If danger did not come with poison breath or slashing teeth or sizzling acid or crushing coils or scrabbling claws she was entirely defenseless. More than defenseless, she did not see it.

Heaven had laid the groundwork for her defeat. It must be her inbred response to expect a dominant figure to appear and be her confessor. She was just a soldier. Perhaps Debriefing and confession were the same thing for warriors of heaven.

But then, I forget the assault I had just made on her. Her ensorcelled tongue. Still, she should not be so foolish as to take a Demon as confessor. I would enjoy using her every confession to make her mine.

Would she still have confessions left to bare once she acceded that all pleasures were intended for her? Confession was such a sweet game, especially in the arms of a lover to whom sin was adventure. The savage lover Ariana could be.

As my mind dwelt on this delightful thought, I moved around behind her, keeping contact with her eyes and her arms. Kneeling again I returned to the gentle touches of her body that so far she had not resisted, and gave me pleasure she could not suspect.

"I know the species well," I mused.

"Servants shaped from rodents. Run wild, and no doubt starving in a place such as that, they would strip the meat from you. Your choices may not have been wize, but they were certainly not cowardly."

"However, bred properly and fed well, they are obedient and useful servants, with powerful hands. They are indispensible in the maintainence of machinery, and the cleaning of ducts."

"Step into the light, little ones, and pay homage to your new lady."

At the edge of the light, all around us, the boundary was made jagged by the intrusion into the light of hundreds of little black feet and oversized hands as my little servants stepped shyly into view.

They were really quite sleek and beautiful, and playful as a legion of kittens that flowed at my command. Smaller than the wild Tokyo breed. I would teach Ariana to accept their touch, and not desist until she allowed one to sit on her shoulder and two in her lap. I would have them do tricks for her.

Ariana sought a rock to anchor to. Ariana would know there was nothing in my house or in her fears that I did not have power over. Not even pleasures she could not suspect.


OOC: I edited this a lot. first version came out just wrong on rereading

 

[Marigold]

Ariana

OOC: Thanks so much, WOS! Affirmation is a good thing!

IC:


"Every word that passes your lips is precious to me, my angel."

I almost smiled. I didn't believe him, not for a minute. The Demon had a goal for me, nothing more, nothing less, and I'd do well to remember the fact. I knelt on the bed as he stood, once again regaining control of my traitorous tongue. An inward sigh of frustration followed him. Why had I done that, looked to him for comfort in that way? The twin burdens of my strength and my duty were as heavy yolks to me at the moment, when they'd been nothing but badges of pride before. Some part of me wanted to give in and accept the comfort he offered. Even the affection. Affection was as alien to me as evil, and I found myself drawn to it like the proverbial moth. I must stay strong, and not be seduced by just another tactic, however effective.

He moved around to kneel behind me, his hands returning to my arms and sides, stroking gently. I fought the urge to lean into him like a kitten begging to be petted. His touch should arouse nothing but anger in me, instead it soothed the anger away, each light caress coaxing forth a bit of calm in its wake. I found myself incapable of pulling away. Not because of my bonds, but because it felt nice, and I was starved for the least bit of comfort my new world had to offer.

He then called the rats from the murky recesses, and I looked to them warily. In better care than their fellows, they were not nearly as repugnant. Their black eyes stared at me not with hunger, but with curiosity. I was surprised that I did not mind them so much. They were at least not the snakes, which I suspected would be a lifelong fear for me.

He dismissed the band of rodents back to the black, and it was just he and I again. My hatred of him was becoming harder and harder to cling to, but failure was simply not an option. I must keep silent, no matter what tool he used to disarm me next.

 

[peterpan]

OOC:___________
DAMN! thought the Demon Lord. The fluffy bunnies did not unnerve her. That must just be me.

Sometimes I just fall in love with my own scenery, but I admit those bunnies were past their useby date

Still think it was a great entrance. On MY planet the woman would be mercilessly tickled




IC:_____________

Laughing quietly at a private joke, I waved my little servants off to initiate another scenario I had planned for Ariana far in advance. Disappearing off into the blackness they set to work with a glee, to untie knots and work winches and haul in gangs on ropes, all to drag three tall cloth swathed frames on wooden wheels closer. In all it was just a few metres. Black as the cloth naturally was, they had been quite invisible in the dark and even now were just inpinging on what Ariana could see. She had heard the sounds much earlier and forgivably was staring while trying not to stare, into the dark with growing apprehension.

I let nothing on, but kept up the the slow massage of her body, one hand on her theigh and another on her waist.

When the three frames were in place, and all Ariana could see without twisting her head to look at me was three tall shrouds that ascended into blackness, the servants released their ropes and leapt back. The shrouds fell. Slowly at first but then faster and faster so that by the time Ariana realised what she saw, it was revealed completely. Behind each of them was the single most beautiful thing that I possessed, reflected from three directions.

As one hand slipped beneath her bodice and across her stomach and up to capture and caress a perfect breast, and the other slid up carrying the tattered hem to possess a taut inner thigh, I whispered a command in my angels perfect ear.
"Look at the beautiful angel in the mirror. Watch the black hands travelling her body. Give her what advice they gave you, for dangers such as this."

The spell that enslaved Ariana's eyes became frantic, for I hadn't told her which mirror.

____


OOC:______
Tell me more about your wings. Help me ravish a living breathing very unlikely woman

ps I imagine them as straight up at the moment (nice in the tall mirrors), although they could be folded or straight out beneath my arms. What exactly do they fold to? They could fold magically small I guess, since they must already be magically strong.

 

[Marigold]

Ariana

Dangers such as this? No one had ever spoken to me of these paticular dangers. I trembled as his hand cupped my breast, the other working its way to the inside of my thigh, perilously close to that part of me that was untouchable, unspeakable. Each hand coaxed forth a response. The one at my breast caused the nipple to become taut and sensitive, though his fingers had yet to touch it, the jolt I'd felt at the similar touch he'd offered earlier nothing to the fire this one ignited. Strangely, this sensation seemed to be linked to the one his other hand was eliciting, a warmth that pooled low in my belly and between my legs. The latter felt odd, the flesh tight somehow, and slick, but not in a way that hurt. In fact, the feelings seemed somehow to be the opposite of pain, a sort of slow euphoria that settled in those mysterious areas of my body.

A voice screamed at me to pull away, to push his hands from me, warned me that this was somehow the most deadly attack yet waged on me. It was the same voice that had told me to flee into the dark. I didn't trust it in quite the same way now.

I realized that a new voice had taken up residence in my poor, befuddled brain. This one told me to stay right where I was, and not move an inch for fear of losing the wonderful little thrills of pleasure that skittered along my nerves like drunken fireflies.

The voices waged a war over me, each trying to get me to do their bidding. There were offensives and counter-offensives and feints and dodges. This epic battle lasted for about ten seconds. The voice that whispered for me to stay won quite handily.

My eyes had been flitting from one mirror to the next whilst my mind sought to decide itself. Objectively, I saw a pale, bewinged girl in a tattered white covering that would have to boast quite a bit to call itself a dress. Her hair spilled like waterfall of liquid gold, covering her shoulders and brushing her cheeks with feathlight kisses. The girl's wings, which I knew usually lay along her back like a white, feathered cloak, were spread out to either side of her at forty-five degree angles, hovering in the air as if to take flight. They trembled slightly, almost imperceptably. She was on her knees on the dark sheet, her legs parted. She looked wild to me, wanton and uncaring of decency or modesty.

Behind the girl, crouched a figure almost lost in its own darkness. The red script that wasn't hid by the girl stood out in dramatic relief against the black skin, his entire form seemed huge and powerful against her diminutiveness. An air of force and menace hovered around him; he could snap the girl in two if he so chose, and yet his hands were unbelievably gentle as they traversed her flawless skin. Almost reverant.

If a painter had dreamed for a thousand years, he could not have imagined two more perfect foils for each other. The pale one seemed inutterably lovely and dainty next to the dark one. The dark one, in his turn, had his power and raw masculine beauty magnified by the creature he held in his arms. I gasped. What else could I do? Even the glories of Heaven could not touch the image that stood before me. The first voice, the voice of reason, fell completely silent. Perhaps even it was awed by the terrible rightness of it.

I found myself wishing my hands were unbound, though I didn't have any real idea what I would do with them if they were.

OOC: Did that touch any questions about the wings? I'll add to it if it's not sufficient. Also, have you checked your messages? I had a background question that didn't seem like it would fit very well on the board I had asked.

 

[peterpan]

As I looked upon the soaring wings of my angel, I had such questions. Only one answer came.

The questions I ask can only be answered by a lifetime of gazing upon my angel, in times of pleasure and pain and the hours that were less for being neither, that might slip from us unnoticed if I did not take care to keep the wonder of her forever before my sleepless eyes.

One day, perhaps, she would write that upon my body. Whatever mark I left on her this night was finally inconsequential to this. Only on that day would she truely be mine in all ways.

Comforted, I continued with my cruel seduction.

In the twisting of her fingers I saw she wanted her hands to be free. Not yet my sweet, my prisoner. Not until I had left your hands but one place to go. Soon now.

Releasing my grasp on her a moment, my fingers traced up her body to where the bodice of the gown was fastened at the back of her neck. As I separated the tiny bow knot I watched her face closely. Her eyes were still bound to the scene playing out before her. Her eyes were trapped in a stare between facination and terror. Her lips quivered and were bitten as if she were torn between shouting out a warning to the helpless girl before her, and watching her predicament progress a little further for her own vicarious pleasure.

When I looked, I found that the Ariana in the mirror, rather than considering her own predicament was staring at my fingers in fascination, where I now rolled the two ends of lace between my fingers.

As my fingers parted, her warning came, too late.

The translucent silk flowed down off her chest caressing it like water, to gather on the black satin she knelt upon. Her modesty was now a loose tube of tattered silk that hung draped across her taut spread thighs, lower than her hips, and lower still where it hung between.

Her belly arched forward involentarily to bury herself a little deeper in this final refuge. It had a wonderful roundness in this posture and I could not help but stroke it.

Still Ariana looked not down, but across in facination of the other girls plight. I knew the command I had given her eyes had worn off, perhaps before in fact my hands had left her breast and thigh.

I would not allow her the escape of this denial.

"Look down Ariana, and watch."

Under her intensely watchful gaze I cupped her left breast in my left hand, presenting it to her as I slid my thumb back and forth upon the nipple, till it hardend and sought my thumb more firmly.

"Now look till you are assured, from your breast to the girl's breast, as I lay my demonscript upon it"

Starting at her collarbone, I began a virtical column of spying demon symbols of great care, as wide as her finger. I progressed down to a fingerwidth from the flushed aureola, then finished the script in a hook that curved three quarters around her breast.

Gently I blew the ink dry, spying upon the sensation as I did.

 

[Marigold]

I watched myself in the mirror as he untied the string about my neck. Further and further I was falling, into his web, away from all I had known. My borrowed garment a tatter now, and pooled around my thighs at that, somehow punctuating my nakedness more than if it had been removed altogether. His hand traced over my stomach, creating some unknowable ache I could not put name to. He commanded me to look down, and I watched in rapt fascination as he cupped the round swell of my breast and teased the nipple to attention with his thumb. It jutted forth insistently, as if demanding something it knew of and I didn't. The feel of it, that touch, set butterflies to flittering frantically in my belly, just above my sex. My legs turned to water. I would not have been surprised if I had dissolved altogether.

"Now look till you are assured, from your breast to the girl's breast, as I lay my demonscript upon it."

He traced the letters upon my chest, over it, the soft strokes of the brush causing the fires of sensation to burn just a bit higher with every tiny line. The process seemed to take an eternity, the sweetness of it agonizing, my eyes traveling back and forth from the mirror to his hands upon me. We were one, that girl in the mirror and I.

He finished his careful tracing upon my body, and as his breath travelled over the already sensetized nipple, a whimper fell from my lips. The butterflies turned to liquid and trickled out between my legs. I felt the wetness of them on my thighs.

Suddenly, I was terrified. I'd stopped fighting at some point, become a spectator at my own undoing. I didn't recognize the woman in the mirror, didn't recognize the person attached to the breast that bore Obsidian's writing and hand. I drew a terrified breath.

"What's happening to me? What are you doing to me?"

The questions were asked in a breathless whisper even as I tried to pull away from his grasp.

 

[peterpan]

Releasing you, I wanted to say. Freeing you from your slavery. But then I remembered the women in the hall of conquests, how they had disturbed Ariana. How I had done nothing to comfort her there. I had told her they were trapped eternally in the instant of their release. No, Ariana would not understand that word.

Understanding would not help. If she knew what awaited her she would be repulsed; nausiated and violated and afraid and contemptious of one that would use her in such a bestial way. In the throes of passion she would be more forgiving. She would understand why release was good. Imperitive. Something she must have.

As I pondered my answer I kneeded her inner thighs, hands so close the thumbs touched and formed a steeple over her moistening slit. But I did not touch. I could feel her bodies fear. Deep. Inbuilt. Yet the thought was such anathema to my angel that I do not think she had even permitted herself to consider another's touch there. Perhaps not even her own. The ways of God were strange. Yes and sick, and depraved.

I kissed her shoulder.

"Do you remember the women in the hall of conquests?.." Why, after such consideration had I started like that, placing her thoughts precisely where I had sought to avoid leading them? I continued on hurriedly.

"Would you like to free them? To be the instrument of their freedom? We can do that, you and I. For most, their homes are gone, or cruelly changed.. But I have much information on each. It is inscribed all over their bodies. You could find them new homes. Adoptive homes. With loving families like the ones they were taken from. You could could chose the land and the home and the season of their wakening. The clothes they would wake in and the lives they would wake into. You would do this, and introduce them to the place you chose for them, for I would not wish to appear to them."

All the while I had kept up the possessive motion of my hands upon her thighs, kissing her shoulders, back and neck.

"But first you must be brave. Very very brave. For I must make one more mark upon you."

"Then I will release your hands. But only if you are brave, and make as little complaint as you are able. Do you promise to me that you will be brave?"

I lied. I did not expect her to control her ensorcelled tongue during this, but she would try and finally I would let her hands free.

 

[Marigold]

He held me implacably in his grasp, both his hands stroking the insides of my thighs now. I quivered like some frightened prey, both from fear and want. I didn't know which emotion was stronger. Then he spoke of freeing the humans in the hall. Perhaps it was indicative of my inner turmoil that I latched onto the idea so quickly. He was offering me a Purpose, a Cause. Evrything I had been formed for, everything I had been taught had stressed to me over and over that I was only worth the sum total of my output, that my deeds were the reason for my being. A large part of my current terror was derived from the thought that I would be stranded here with no Work, locked away like some rare bird in a gilded cage. That is a fate worse than death to a being who has been allowed to focus on nothing more than maximizing their usefulness to their people.

"But first you must be brave. Very very brave. For I must make one more mark upon you."

"Then I will release your hands. But only if you are brave, and make as little complaint as you are able. Do you promise to me that you will be brave?"

I nodded eagerly, like a child trying to convince an adult to let them have another treat. What was one mark more? Then, he would unbind me and let me begin my tasks, hopefully. I was anxious to be free, to leave this room and put the unsettling things I'd felt here out of my mind.

"I promise to be brave."

An Angel's promise is never broken.

 

[peterpan]

"I promise to be brave." she said.

An Angel's promise can never be broken.

I knew she would make that promise to me. Her need to please the one that commanded her, and her need to escape, both her warring minds now found a common out. And for such a small concession. A warrior of heaven must always be brave. What greater insult than to imply she would not slice open her own belly at the slightest whim of God.

But she had not asked what form of bravery I would demand of her.

Now she was trapped between the very commandments God had written into her before she ever woke, to enslave her.

Commandment: An angel's word is never broken. What promises had they elicited from her while she was still groggy from her very first morning? Born with the necessities to follow instructions and clean and feed herself, yet her mind still as innocent and needing structure as a newborn babe.

Commandment: An angel must remain untouched.

She would fail both. I would assure it.

The marks I made were also necessary. When the war had been just three hundred years old and I was finally cut free from the sacred rock, there was only the Archangel breed. Tall and powerful and in every respect identical and of the same mind. Perhaps even the very same mind. Certainly as they had betrayed and finally driven us from heaven they had shared the very same ruthlessness behind their benevolent smiles. They had struck first, I was always assured, and so had taken little loss in the first years.

This was the form of angel I was designed to conquer, to break. A Demon Lord upon an Archangel betrayer. There were no young angels, no smaller or lesser. No innocents.

The spying marks would help me be gentle, perhaps help her endure.

I slipped my hands up her body, dragging with them the loose tattered wrap of silk, all that remained of her modesty. My hands caressed her hips, her waist, her breasts, her shoulders as they ascended. There, rather than simply removing it from her, I hooked it over her head, so it encircled her wings and shoulders, and would form a slight pillow for her head.

Lengthening the coil that bound her wrists, I encoraged my young angel to lie back upon the satin sheets, still with her thighs spread wide and her legs trapped beneath her. I arranged her beautiful white wings against that satinness.

The tips of two fingers of my left hand I touched between her breasts, then traced them downwards. Down across the jut of her ribs. Down across her stomach and circling her navel. Down lower. My fingers split and formed a vee just before they would have touched where her God commanded her she must never be touched. My forearm lay upon her stomach, pinning her.

Spreading the fingers wider I exposed the fine detail within.

She made no sound, just a small intake of breath as I laid the first stroke upon her.

This script was different from the others. It took more ink. The pattern would not have been apparent at first, if I had forced my angel to watch and not let her stare up at where the coil around her wrists disappeared up into the blackness.

It took the form of solid black nodes of ink with only the most delicate threads of untouched skin between them. Node by node, they began to fill in one side of a sharp rectangular strip the width of two fingers that accentuated her slit, and penetrated deep into it leaving no white visible unless it added to the forming pattern. The sigils of this script where not in the black but in the fine tracery of the bareness that remained.

After each node I would gently blow my hot breath upon it, lips almost touching hers.

At last I reached the end and tapered it to a wedge. Still she made no sound, no movement but the shuddering of her breath and of her body. Even with the half-formed script I began to know the sensations that racked her.

For a moment I looked into her face, let her suspect, pray to god I had finished.

"You will watch as I complete the script upon you" I commanded her gently.

And so I made her spine curl upwards, her neck cran, her head push eagerly forwards dragged by her ensorcelled eyes, to watch as I began to mirror the pattern, starting this time from the narrowest point of the wedge I painted, along the other side of her delicate slit.

___

OOC: edited the last slightly.

 

[Marigold]

There are many kinds of torture.

I had expected beating and violence. Screaming rage that would tear my body to shreds. That, I believe I could have withstood.

Not so this delicate web of sensation, this ever-escalating application of exquisite pleasure to my body, my affection-starved brain. This I was helpless to combat, and he seemed to know when and where to attack. Obsidian did not break me with clubs or swords or whips. Rather, he was wearing me away in tiny pieces, gnawing at my defenses as a rat would a sack of grain. I wondered if there would be anything left of me when he was done.

He started on the other side of me, tracing his script over sensitive skin. He bade me watch, and I raised up on my elbows to obey. When he had done the first block of writing, I had felt his eyes on me as if it were a physical caress. Now my own eyes were forced to view what his had. Was this what he had seen? The flesh of my femininity splayed open before him, the inner lips shiny with the slick juices that had so frightened me before. Where the petals joined, a little peak rose, and I knew it was hypersensitive as his breath upon it had set me to trembling long before. Even now, as he finished the first block of script, he leaned close to blow, his hot breath sliding over the nub. Seeing this happen only made it worse, and a whimper escaped me before I could stop it.

So perilously close to giving in to it now. Just letting myself feel what he wrought upon me and abandoning all pretext of fighting. Still his brush worked its dangerous magic, and his breath, his face hovering over me like a Guardian would its human. A tear slid down my cheek, the first I'd shed since I'd been taken. The war inside me raged on, the side that advocated duty and honor growing more weak and pitiful with every stroke.

Finally, it was done, and instead of relief, I felt only loss. He would take me from this room now, perhaps never to touch me after this night. His magics were writ upon me now; He had no need of such access again. I wept openly now, in frustration, in fright, at the loss of security and balance. He sat back on his heels and I rolled to my side, my wings trailing out behind me. Once begun, the tears wouldn't stop, and I could hardly breathe for the sobs that held me in their power.

There are many forms of torture, and this was the cruelest one I'd ever imagined.

 

[peterpan]

Had I failed? I must not fail!

Any angel would break in the trap I had laid her, and fall into a madness of her own choosing. The Demon oracles had been clear on this, unclear only on the form of madness. Most extrapolated a delusion of demonhood, a denial of humanity. And then the victim would simply proceed as they imagined a Demon might, in mechanical wanton satisfaction of their desires. She would choose the madness that gave her most freedom. She would be free.

But Ariana had not broken. her reward was to be still sane, with guilt and self-loathing that would drive any other angel mad. I had failed her. Some part of me had still assumed her weaker in some way than other angels. For she had allowed me to take her. I had failed her. If I could not break her inbred conditioning, how long would I try before mercy overtook me? Forever.

"Ariana!"

I touched my hand to her sobbing form.

"Any other angel would have broken, and taken comfort in madness. That is what I intended for you when I tricked that promise from you."

"But I can give you nothing for your bravery but a promise in return. This torture will not stop. I will not leave you until you break, are conquered by these temptations that your God has forbidden you. You will not sleep until you accept defeat, accept pleasure. Or if you drop in exhaustion, into sleep, I shall enter your dreams to pleasure you. And soon you will be unable to tell waking from sleeping."

"If time will not wait, I will arrest it, and live a hundred years inside you, in the space of a single breath."

"And then you shall tell me the secret to Heaven's Gate," I added, cruelly.

I freed her wrists, but secured the coil to an ankle. Was this one more betrayal? I was no longer certain I could predict her feelings, even if I knew the sensations in her. I only knew I would not let her escape me.

Careful of her wings, I insinuated myself behind her on the bed, pressed my chest and thighs against her, and began to stroke her with one hand, favoring no part more than the rest.

I do not know if she heard or felt me, beyond the sensations I knew were hers.

A little servant brought a tray of grapes and wine, and lay it where I could reach. I ran a grape around her lips but it was as if they were nerveless, though I knew they were not.

"Let there be no secrets between us. Ask me anything. I will tell you. And perhaps delay a while your fate."

 

[Marigold]

The tears did not stop for a very long time. I listened to his words, his threats and cried all the harder. It had finally dawned on me that I was lost. There was no hope for holding out until he got bored and went away. Such hopes were childish and smacked of self-delusion. As he spoke, slowly I calmed, lulled by his voice, the rhythm of it, the timbre, if not the actual words. He moved the binding from my wrists to my ankle, and I berated myself for seven kinds of a fool to imagine it would all be over. I pulled my wings against me as he lie behind me, effectively erecting a feathered barrier between us. Still, his hands roamed over me, and I let them soothe me. A sort of paralyzation settled in. I was too tired and heartsore to move, too seeped in despair to cry anymore. Still his hands roamed, and I pretended it wasn't wrong to take comfort from it.

A servant, one of the cute ones, brought a tray of some sort of food and drink. I'd never eaten or drunk anything aside from manna, which is what the Father fed us. Even if I could have mustered the self-concern to worry about hunger, I was loathe to try anything so strange-looking. I just lie still as he made some small attempt to get me to partake of it, and he gave up with a small sigh. Oddly, I took comfort in this as well. At least there was something about me he couldn't control.

After a thoughtful pause, he said, "Let there be no secrets between us. Ask me anything. I will tell you. And perhaps delay a while your fate."

I still lie as if carved from stone whilst I considered his offer. What did I want to know? So many things. Why me? Why this? I rolled onto my back, wrapping myself in my wings so as not to squash them. It had the added benefit of covering me somewhat. I reached up to trace his brow distractedly, not really focused on him, but learning the feel him nonetheless. Suddenly, my attention went to where my hand dwelt, and I knew my question. Tracing my fingers along the script on his brow, I asked, "What does this say?"

 

[peterpan]

OOC:Here's my chance to dump a whole bunch of ideas that were building up. Tell me if they in anyway stray a bit over the top

IC:___________

My angel reached up and touched my brow. I did not know why. It felt almost like forgiveness. To answer her question would be to slap her hand away, slap her in the face just as she reached out. For those words she touched were her doom, written in stone seven hundred years ago.

Yet I would tell her. Tell her enough that maybe she would understand.

"When God drove the Demons from Heaven, they left with great vengence in their heart, and Demon Ink. Perhaps they were not truely demons then but some other form. But certainly they were engineers."

"Seeking to crush the armies of God, crush them totally and quickly, the demons decided to create a vast horde. Deep underground in a secret place where they hid, they chanced upon a great seam of coal. The matter of long dead creatures compressed into rock. Using almost all their Ink, they transformed it into the material of Demons, and carved from it a great army. That army was destroyed. Another was built. That was destroyed but the Demons were becoming wiser."

"The seam was not just material to the demons, but also a demon mind. It thought. It knew all things. It was as forthcoming with all its knowledge as a stone wall."

"Nevertheless each new Demon, when just a face and throat in the rock emersed in the demon dream, would speak. Just once. If the Demon were completed then those words would come to pass. The words they spoke were written on the only part of them yet completed: their face."

"Most spoke of victories they would see or how they would die."

"My words were strange. I simply said 'I will pleasure an angel.'"

I held my Angels hand to the words once more and looked into her eyes "That is what these words say. But there are many more words." Under my guidance, her hand followed the near invisible trail of the script as it decended my face like a scar.

"The words were more than strange to Demons that did not know what pleasure was. Another hundred years I lay in the demon dream. When the war had taught them sufficient wisdom, I was freed."

Ariana's hand continued down, traced the Sigils of my left shoulder then explored the patterns that covered my left arm. I showed her how the line traced to each fingertip, never crossing itself.

"These are the masters that worked on me. Signatures of pride. Statements assuring quality."

For a moment Ariana was squinting at a postage stamp size page of print in the centre of my palm, so fine it was illegible. "Oh, the lawyers make them put that. Nobody reads it."

My Laugh startled her, as if she had been caught doing something wrong. I returned her fingers to my arm, to trace the line all the way back up to my chest. A line of red scrawled across my breast to spiral around one nipple.

"That is from my first love, instructing any following woman that she found me most sensitive there." I smiled, as I held Ariana's palm to cover the painful words. "All the following marks on me are hers"

As I held my Angel's hand to my chest, I told her the story of my first lover.

"She was made pure, and I was instructed to give her pleasure."

"She was constructed in the form of an angel, baked of the finest white clay. In order that she was light enough for her wings, she was hollow. Each muscle was like a hollow gourd constructed of china so fine that she was translucent. Light made her glow as though lit from within. She was very delicate."

"Diligently, I learnt how to give her pleasure. It was difficult because she was so delicate. What gave her pleasure was my love for her, my need for her. So diligently I learnt these things."

"She was not created to last. Every year fine cracks would spread a little further through her, unless that year she posed entirely still. I promised her that the workshops in heaven could remake her. She believed me entirely. It was not possible for her not to trust me, so successful had I been in seducing her. But the angel that was promised to me did not come. Heaven stayed impossibly distant. Her cracks spread."

"One day, she left me."

I held Ariana's hand to my stomach, as if to cover a wound there.

"For a long time I searched for her before abandoning hope of ever knowing what happened to her. Then the truth was inflicted on me. It is not even a century since my scouts found her remains, lying like broken pottery at the very foot of heaven. And from their condition it must not have been even a decade since they had fallen there. She must have gone somewhere and waited, perfectly still, for centuries. Yet finally her patience was exhausted and with what emotion I cannot say, began the ascent to heaven on her own."

"Naturally her fate was already sealed. One way or another. But I had to know more. I had my scouts collect every fragment of her so that I might reconstruct her last instant."

"Her wings had been slashed by an angel's sword, but her body was broken only by the fall. There was no pain or fear in her face, just grief as she reached up to what must have been the sky, for destruction took her from the other direction."

"My conclusion was simple. An angel had found her near the very lip and slashed her wings. Then rather than despatch her efficiently with another stroke she had been flown far out over the edge and dropped, so that her remains would not sully heaven's gate."

As I moved Ariana's hand lower, I searched her eyes.

"There is one script that my first love wrote on me, mischeviously, that I have been unable to read. For she wrote it in angelscript. Much mirth did she make of the fact that our Demon creators had given her this language to mimic angels but not I to understand them. Perhaps you can read it for me. Perhaps you can also resolve one small mystery.."

As I guided her hand, I freed the loincloth, exposing my proud black member, the angelscript upon it. "How it was that I have seen these words but one other place and that was enscribed on a blade, the blade of a young angel that gave herself to me, before that blade blackend and shattered in my hands."

With those words I gripped her fingers around my hilt and held them there.

___

OOC: That is where I was thinking of using your tagline

 

[Marigold]

I will pleasure an angel.

How simple the words, how cruel. Yet, I could not truly feel anger or even fear. My thoughts had all settled into a sort of fatalistic acceptance that my life had changed, that I was to change. I mourned the past as if it were Obsidian's lost love. As he traced my fingers over the script on his body, all the words of making and living, the beginings of something other than dread stirred within me. Perhaps he was not just an evil monster. He certainly seemed to have loved his demon-girl, who had been made to resemble one of us. It was a sorrowful tale, and I hurt for him and the ill-fated creature. It seemed a cruel thing to do to him, to create a mate that was too fragile to last the lifetime such a feeling should endure. Perhaps she was the one the prophecy spoke of, not me.

He took off the remainder of the clothing covering him, the chainmail loincloth, and shock held me numb. I'd not imagined that males were so...different from females. His appendage, which I had no name for, jutted away from him proudly, almost menacingly. I felt helpless, but also fascinated. The very strangeness of him aroused my curiosity. He wrapped my fingers about its smooth, hot base, pointing out the writing upon it. These words I knew, like I knew my own hand, my own breath, my own heartbeat. Funny that he should not be able to read something writ upon his own body. I freed my hand to trail fingers over the words, my touch hesitant, almost nonexistant.

"The words are actually a gentle rebuke, formed into my sword after my first year at battle. Now...well, now they are eerily prophetic. I'd not thought of it before this moment." Still, I traced the letters with my fingertips, less lightly now, lost in thoughts of the past.

"It says, 'Pride goeth before the fall.' "

I smiled sadly into his eyes, wondering if he appreciated the irony.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

OOC: I liked that better than the tagline. I actually considered something along the lines of 'This is Ariana's sword', but decided that would be entirely too flip.

 

[peterpan]

Pride goeth before the fall. Pride goeth before the fall. Words such as any angel might recieve. Especially one that ran as hot as my angel Ariana. I could not hide my relief from her.

"Then they are not private words. Words you could only have heard from her lips. Thank.. thank whatever it is that brought us together. It has not been as cruel as I feared."

Finally understanding the joke, I began to laugh. "The words were not for me at all. They were her final joke, on the angel that would recieve the gift that she could not..."

Seeing the expression on Ariana's face I added, "Oh, she was not cruel. She meant you no additional pain. She merely wished to comiserate with you. To welcome you to your new life, strange though you may find it."

Insinuating a knee between her thighs I knelt over her to kiss her face, stroking the feathers that she wrapped around herself like a blanket. I began to kiss my way lower. Her jaw, her neck, her collar bone, the rising mound of her cleavage, as my hand slipped up her thigh, under her wing to squeeze possessively of her hip and waist.

 

[Marigold]

I rather thought instead of the words being a cruel joke to me, they showed a remarkable sense of acceptance. Had I been in her position, I think I would have resented the thought of anyone coming after. How was it that a demoness could be so unselfish? Yet another little illusion shattered. I began to wonder if my illusions were all that had held me together before, if I had been operating blind, in a sense. Had I been a mindless automoton fed partial truths and propoganda to elicit the behavior my superiors desired of me? The thought left me shaking. No. It was me, had always been me. I was letting myself doubt again. I could not let myself be seduced by the idle words of my enemy.

Was he my enemy? Obsdian had proven he was not the mindless monster I'd been used to dealing with. He'd been merciless, but not violent. His attacks on my defenses had actually been clever, far more effective than beatings would have been. My startled eyes jerked to his. Was that all this was? A ruthless tactic to keep me unbalanced enough to offer any sort of resistance?

He had begun to kiss me during these ruminations, his hands wandering under the protection of my wings, his mouth capturing the swell of my breasts. How nice it would be to let him continue, to let myself believe the fairy tale. To pretend to myself that he was somehow fond of me, that surrender was not just another victory to add to the list somewhere upon his person. Even the fact that I was tempted in this direction showed me how far I'd strayed, how foolish I had been.

I brought my hands up and shoved at his chest. The movement would have been enough to dislodge most beings. I am, of course, far stronger than I look. He merely caught my wrists and raised his head to give me a surprised look.

"No!" I said. "I'll not let you kiss me anymore, or touch me either. It's all some sort of trick. I'm not stupid, Hellspawn. I know what you want, and you'll not have the password from me this way or any other."

At this my fury returned to me with all the strength I'd ever posessed. I welcomed it with gratitude. I could recognize my anger, control it. Not so the roiling emotions of the minutes proceeding. It felt like an old friend had come to visit.

At this, I began to struggle in earnest.

OOC: I'll be gone the next 48 hours or so, and will not be able to post. See you when I get back!

 

[peterpan]

Her blows caught me by surprise. So happy had I been at my angels Innocence, and my first love's last message that I had almost forgotten the mental prison her god had decantered her into.

She cried out her denial as I gripped her wrists. "No! I'll not let you kiss me anymore, or touch me either. It's all some sort of trick. I'm not stupid, Hellspawn. I know what you want, and you'll not have the password from me this way or any other."

Ah yes, the password. She remembered the rules of this game even as I forgot.

Releasing her wrists, I leant back from her so she could not injure herself upon me, and taking the thigh I had straddled when I moved my knee between hers, arranged it on the other side of me from the thigh I had been stroking. Pulling her knees up around me, I slid my hands back to her ankles, now behind me, and inspired the coil that bound the one to also capture the other.

Thus encircled by her struggling legs I began to stroke them tauntingly, while she could do little about it. "The password to Heavens Gate. Have you not considered that your need is more desparate than God's? What we Demons might do with the secret of Heavens Gate is in the future. Your fate is now. Surely one angel's word could not bring heaven down."

The expression on her face was answer enough. Yet she could not stop my slow hands as I stroked my fingernails over her waist and stomach.

"This then is my gift to you. At the moment you succumb to the pleasure that I inflict upon you, you shall know that you fought well. That you fought with all your strength but it was not enough. That only a miracle of God could ever have saved you. But that miracle was withheld. When your body reaches it's human limits, should not God step in to assure the fairness of his commandments? Expect him as your strength fails you if you will. I say he will not come."

"Though I respect your strength, I also feel I can promise you this: it will not be long at all before you cling to this chest as though your soul depended on it. Do you think I lie?"

 

[Marigold]

"Though I respect your strength, I also feel I can promise you this: it will not be long at all before you cling to this chest as though your soul depended on it. Do you think I lie?"

No, I did not think he lied. In fact, the panic that thought inspired was the reason for my renewed attack, but fighting was getting me nowhere. Already his questing hands had started to build the feelings in my body again, and I wanted to scream in frustration. I'd always thought of myself as strong, nearly indestructable. How awful to find I was wrong.

So far, I'd wavered between full offense and passivity. I felt powerless. Nothing I'd tried had done the least bit of good. I was not used to having anything else demanded of me. My mind whirled as I tried to come up with something, anything new to try. Diplomacy was foreign to my nature. Angels did not negotiate. It would be blasphemy to quibble over details when you had the word of God on your side, but it occurred to me that it was the only thing I'd not tried. I chewed my lip and considered how best to start.

"What can I do to make you stop, to set me free?" The plea sounded whiny and desperate even to my own ears. Not at all the effect I was looking for. I continued, but in a more controlled tone. "Don't make me betray my People. I'll do anything short of that. I'll do chores or menial tasks. Just let me out of this room. You've won, don't you see? You've captured me. What does all...," I gestured back and forth between the two of us, "this prove? Surely there is some way to go about things that makes more sense."

That was the crux of the problem, I supposed. I'd understood none of what he'd been about since my capture. I did not like the way confusion felt. My universe had been rigid and well-ordered since I drew my first breath. How does a creature of law adapt when suddenly thrust into the very heart of chaos? So far, not very well.

I drew a deep breath and said quietly, meekly, "Could you not unbind my ankles, at the least?"