The ground shuddered beneath my feet. The army was off in the distance still, but even as they approached, the planet marked their approach. Huge red ants, larger than most I had seen closer to the Capitol, all scurried into their holes. They were going underground, and I knew that if we were wise, we too would follow.

It is only the petulant and the foolhardy who fight their wars on the surface in spite of so great a force.

We were the Fae Resistance. Fighters who held close to their ideals, and even though we didn’t have a very good statistical chance of success, we were ready to both kill and die for what we believed in. The problem was that we could no longer continue to live as we had been living. We had reached a breaking point. There was nothing more to lose beyond the physical forms that we held, and even those were beginning to wane.

The enemy had so much more than us in almost every regard. The only thing that we had an abundance of was self-righteous pride, and determination. It served us well, because when you think that you are in the right, and that your cause is just, you can draw on stores that previously hadn’t existed.

The heat was unbearable, even from my position sequestered amongst the rocks. I was holed off to the side of the primary theater. The whole scenario was a last stand attempt to draw the troops out from the Capitol, and then assassinate their chain of command — starting with the leader of their army, Lord Xan.

First, the shots came down over my position. It was all Fae Magic, which is what made this whole battle so sickening. A country should never have to sustain the hells of a civil war, but when the flames exploded in dangerous circumference around the incendiary projectiles, I wasn’t thinking about the cruelties of war any longer.

None of us were.

Just then, there was a tear in my vision and I was in another place altogether.

The clang of the battle was moving forward in a volley of arrows. They blotted out the dim light of the sun, and created phantoms in the smoke that hung in the air. I watched from the sides while the smoke made the shapes of cruel tentacled monsters, and fierce serpents.

As though they were mocking us, which they most certainly were, the illusionists took hold of the scene. The dragons of my hallucinations took form and began to soar through the sky on serpentine currents of air.

We were all hidden, and we knew well enough that the arrows themselves were more dangerous than the phantoms, but I felt the effect of the illusions regardless. The sight of them reminded me of the posh aristocratic sorcerers who inhabited the Capitol. We were fighting so hard for equality, and they stood for every form of cruel and vindictive entitlement I could think of. Xan, our target for the day, was their leader.

I recall watching the places where my friends were holed up and waiting. They were far away, and their actual positions were obscured by the shadows of monsters from above. Rage swelled up within me and I struggled to retain the level of composure that I knew would be required of me moving forward in our mission.

Another visual tear, followed by the sound of static and a high pitch ringing in my ears.

The carrier tone is the aftermath of an explosion that went off too close for comfort. We finally erected some deflection spells, but I was caught on the wrong side of them. I got lucky. No other way to frame the situation.

My body is full of adrenaline, and I am using every bit of my physical ability in order to move quickly. I have to close a great distance in a short period of time. Explosions around me spray my body with chunks of rocks. We have nearly missed the mark of what we were aiming to achieve.

In the distance, I can see Thane. He is supposed to be at my side but is caught up in an unfavorable battle. There are too many of them, and things are not going as smoothly as we had hoped they might.

I don't even have the presence of mind to wish that I as elsewhere.

My path to Thane is blocked, and I am pushed into the rear end of the fray. The rocks around me look like they have been lashed and marked by some furious storm. Rain pours down soot and debris from overhead. As the toxins are purged from the sky, I survey the field, and find our target -- the very reason for all of this sacrifice. Even as I see him, Xan is raining fire down from the heavens.

My vision widens as I consider what must be done. Without my consent, my senses have heightened to an exponential degree. Not only can I hear Thane's blade slide through the armor plating of the opponents he fights, but I can smell the seared flesh of our brothers and sisters on the far side of the battle lines. A vision of Xan grows in my head, and I realize that this is the future he wanted to achieve. Burning people alive who dared to disagree with his beliefs.

Without thinking, I took a step forward.

My role in all of this was supposed to be ancillary. I was supposed to create value. Provide information. I was not an action asset. That was Thane's job. However, every moment I continued to censor myself, was one more moment when I had to watch the world deteriorate around me. There wasn't enough time for things to unfold as we had planned, and it became increasingly clear to me that I needed to take a drastic step forward, and go at it alone.

The plan was complex, which is why my services were needed.

I had been studying Xan on an undercover level for years now. I knew his movements, and his habits. I knew everything that I could learn about him, given the fact that he was my sole point of focus for this entire assignment. Importantly, I had also uncovered his point of weakness.

Men like Xan took refuge in the complexities of their own minds. There is a level of arrogance there which prohibits them from thinking clearly about matters which might be better handled via other pathways.

Xan had mapped out the geometric pathways of power on which he drew his strength. He had planned out all of the theoretical advantages and disadvantages of retaining a full shield, versus retaining full attack power. In a field of battle like this, he was going to be more outwardly focused than inwardly defensive. That much was evident. The trick in knowing how to disable a person's magical shields has to do with knowing which geometrical structures to dislocate. In a complex system, removing one fundamental structural element can be the difference between relative impermeability and systemic collapse.

My job was to know the pathways forward, disable the shields, and let Thane follow up with the killing strike.

"Aria, STAND DOWN!"

Thane's voice rang clear in my head through private telepathic channels. The two of us had spent so time training together that our bodies and souls had fused. We could share thoughts, which was another reason why our placement together was crucial.

I saw out the corner of my eye as Thane struggled to free himself from his entanglements. He was a proficient fighter -- one of the best, but he was covered. There was no way for him to get there in time, and now, as Xan was preparing to launch another devastating attack, I had no choice. I had to strike.

I brought our psychic link to a close, and zeroed in on the pathway before me.

Every step I took, every subtle twitch of muscles and distribution of weight was correct. One foot planted on the base of a boulder, and the next followed with a swift step after the first. I leaped up into the air and drew my dagger from its sheath. Closing my eyes, I reached out with sensitivity, and felt for the swirling geometrical patterns which composed Xan's shield. I knew that to make a mistake at this point would be the equivalent of forfeiting our entire cause. The weight of the moment was daunting, but the pressure was all focused on locating a single point of entry.

The blade, magically imbued to disassemble psychic shields, slid between the first orbit. My feet landed on the ground, and my body began moving through the complex dance of motions necessary to achieve my purpose. One by one the orbiting shields around Xan fell, all while he was in the midst of his spell.

I could feel the raw anger and power emanating off from his body. He knew that I was approaching, but to interrupt his casting at this point could bring dire consequences. Whatever dark forces were being marshaled by his will could easily turn on him if he was not in control of every aspect of his attack.

The dim light faded from the sky and the ground beneath my feet began to shake. Still I pressed forward, finding myself in the final move of my dance with death. The dagger in my hand was now pressed up against my chest -- hilt first, elbows out, prepared to deliver the final blow to Xan's shields.

Diving forward from fifteen feet behind his position, I sank the blade into Xan's spine, disconnecting the meridian flow from where his power stemmed.

The shield was down but the spell had already been finished. I was too late.

Xan's entire attention turned on me with the quickness of a viper. All I needed to do was remove the blade, and puncture his heart. The killing stroke would have been so easy, but Xan prided himself on being not only magically powerful, but a physical warrior as well. He overwhelmed me with little effort, pulled the blade out by my wrist, and then spun me around onto the ground.

Static.

"Aria, so sweet..."

His voice was a growl in my ear. I wanted to curse in response, but his knee came strong into my back, and knocked all of the wind out of me. Choking on the dust of the ground, stars swam before my eyes.

"To be betrayed so exquisitely by a woman who has thrown herself at your feet..."

He bit my neck and spread my ass with one hand -- digging his fingers into my crotch. I listened to him inhale a deep long breath. The sound of his wind was punctuated by the unearthly screams of the damned.

"Do you hear that?"

His hand other hand was around my neck now, choking me and pushing me into the ground.

"That's the sound of the end of your kind."

His fingers dug into my sex and then pulled out again.

"Pity too... but before you die... I want to do you the favor of reflecting back to you what you have attempted to share with me.”

The hand that had been inside of me now dug into my back, prying between my left wing and my shoulder blade. I already couldn't breathe, and the screams of battle were tearing through my consciousness. He drove his hips into mine from behind and tore at my wing. I felt bones break, and tendons snap -- the sound was louder than any of the other elements of the battle. The echo was felt through my entire body.

As soon as the pressure had been exerted, I collapsed into relief.

Strangely, there was no pain. Only a flood of endorphins and adrenaline. I was starry-eyed, and dissociated. Then I felt a huge weight fall down on top of me, crushing me into the dirt. Blood poured over my body, and into the ground below.

The sound of battle was gone.

I watched myself from an outside perspective. All that remained was the steady and slowing beat of my own heart -- and Thane's voice.

“Aria! Aria, stay with me!”

I woke up, violently gasping for air. My heart was racing, and each breath surged into my lungs as I tried to get a grip on the world around me.

I remained in the same location, but my sight was still ambiguous. The lingering forms of sleep moved away from the center of my focus and I found myself in my room once more.

I was in the Capitol.

The revolution was over.

My shoulder still ached with sense memory -- a treat from my sub-conscious in the form of another rerun of horror and loss.

The pulsing illumination of a COM-device by my bed echoed and mimicked the raging of my own heartbeat. I looked over at the insignia to see who was trying to contact me. An Oak leaf grasped by an Eagle's Claw presented itself before me on the console.

Thane...

Bright iridescent Fae Fire danced around the symbol, climbing upward in a small arc on my bedside table.

The COM-device had been a gift to me from the new government. Operating on those same telepathic channels had the undesirable effect of giving me traumatic stress flashbacks; ironically, the COM-device seemed to be accomplishing the same goal.

I let the device continue to ring, and rolled out of bed to walk into the kitchen.

The windows of my small apartment were large enough to provide a fair view of myself to anyone who was bold enough to look into the window of an ex-resistance fighter. Fortunately for me, that list was completely empty, while the perks of my own view was relatively unlimited.

In the early mornings, like this, I could see the night sky in all of its crystalline clarity. When the moon was high in the sky, a silver light would bathe the wild area outside of my building. I had fired the gardeners about four years ago, and since then I had been treated to an incredible bouquet of seasonal wildflowers, and even a few small fruit trees. I didn't technically own the building, and the gardener wasn't technically my employee, but I did threaten him with an illegal weapon, and he never came back. Also, the landlord has an obvious soft spot for veterans. Besides, I think Thane gives him a pretty heavy tax deduction.

Thane finally gave up.

The COM-device went silent, and I was given a moment to breathe inside of my apartment without the rush of urgency. Whatever reason he was calling me this early in the morning was not likely to be anything positive, though it was probably serious. Thane had transformed into an incredible businessman and person of state. In the meanwhile, I was struggling to breathe at 4 AM after a dream-induced panic attack.

I cleared off some of the previously discarded clothes from a place on the floor, and sat down to stare out of my window at the wild area beyond. Meditation always helped me, but I didn't go in for any of those pre-recorded guide deals. There were twenty thousand gurus in the Capitol, now that we were all free liberal thinkers.

I didn't need a single one of them.

Closing my eyes, I extended my abdomen, and allowed air to fill in my entire body. Just focusing on my breath, and nothing else, I allowed the stress of the dream to pass away. Each muscle group began to relax, and my heartbeat returned to normal. My attention had just shifted focus to the cool feeling of damp clothes against my body when the COM-device went off once more.

This time, I didn't bother to ignore him. He would keep calling me every ten minutes until I arrived in the state building.

Like a child, I thought as I walked over to activate the link.

When Thane picked up on the other end, there was no greeting or small talk. He was unaccommodating, and strictly business.

"We have to talk."

"Great, cause I was just thinking about putting in my resignation." I was serious, but I didn't have to be there to see his eyes roll.

"Be here in an hour. I need you."

*click*

I watched as the device went dead once more, and then sat down to resume my meditation.

Thane could wait.

As a matter of course, I had already picked up my leave of absence papers before heading into Thane's office. We both knew it didn't mean much of anything, but I couldn't afford to let my own threats sit idly by while that fucker called me in the middle of important nightmares.

The secretary that I picked up the forms from smiled at me and greeted me by name.

"Aria, did you lose your last set of forms?"

I scanned her face, seeking out all hints of subtle irony and cynicism.

There were none.

She was guileless, and authentically concerned as to why I had filed for these forms at least six times in the last eight months, and yet, somehow I was still requesting more paperwork. The humble secretary knew nothing, and only wanted to help.

I ripped the forms out of her hand and then stalked down the hall to Thane's office.

When I walked in he was busy polishing his desk.

"You'd be better off polishing your cock," I said.

"I've got secretaries who take care of that for me."

He smiled -- this one was dripping with subtext.

"Just kidding, far too busy for that."

"Yea right."

He walked over behind me and as he moved, I listened to the soft clack of his shoes on the tile floor of his office.

Thane was dressed immaculately. In my mind's eye, I could see him standing there being measured by a team of private tailors while the secretary who ritualistically handed me my resignation papers busily sucked him off -- sure to catch every last drop of cum, lest it stain the finish on the marble floor.

Immediately, I felt self-conscious about my lack of formal attire and my own projected sexualized fantasy. Thane had adapted so well to this new environment, and I was still stuck in some ruffian, adolescent fantasy. Bags under my eyes, hardly bothering to wash my hair, much less swim in the subtle ambiance of custom perfume.

"You look nice."

"This is the same outfit I wore last week."

"It's a great outfit. I bet you can do everything that you used to be able to pull off in an outfit like that."

There was no need for me to respond. The compliments would continue relentlessly until I gave in and decided to pursue whatever it was that Thane had called me in here to achieve. History has a way of repeating itself.

"You used to just ask me to work together in order to achieve a goal. Now you're all about flattery and finery. How do you sleep at night?"

The door shut behind me, and I felt Thane stand beside me and walk me toward the desk.

"More flashbacks, is that what this is about?"

"You woke up right at the end..."

I shuddered, and he looked down -- legitimately humbled, if only for a moment.

"I wouldn't have contacted you this morning if I didn't think this was serious." His hand had already taken the hand that was clutching the papers. With ease and confidence, he loosened my grip and placed the papers on the desk. "We'll deal with those soon enough, though I'm pretty sure you're stockpiling the last four copies you've given me."

I thought about giving him an excuse, but I was already spent. It wasn't his fault that my mind kept going through all of the same shit every week. Defeated, I sat down on the plush leather recliner, and sank into submission.

Generally speaking, the types of assignments that Thane reserved for me specifically were very similar to the types of assignments we used to carry out together, though for the most part it was all political pretense these days. He wanted to know who was thinking what, and which way some vote might go. The usual shit.

What I couldn't understand is why he kept using me for these allegedly 'subversive' missions, when everyone knew that he and I regularly met up and discussed this very thing.

As Thane prattled on about his most recent point of intrigue, I sat there with my eyes at half-mast, waiting for the moment when he would get past the preliminaries and actually get to the point.

"Aria, I need to know that you'll be there for me on this one."

Thane always talked to people this way. It seemed to me like he didn't quite realize that there were other conscious people in the world. He was a narcissist to be sure, apparently seeming to forget that there were others as perceptive and highly functional as himself.

His smooth talking didn’t really matter much anyway. Both he and I knew what he was trying to pull, but it didn’t do much of anything to change my mind. I had my own reasons of wanting to go on this mission, and for speaking to Thane.

For the moment, I had enough reasons to allow myself to be seduced.

On an emotional level, Thane and I went back to the days of the revolution. He had been a leader of profound military force, and I had been a primary intelligence operative. We had been through hell and high water together, and that kind of history creates very deep bonds indeed.

Now that the revolution had been successful, and we had both reached the other side of that conflict, we no longer had that tight social glue that comes about as a result of enduring conflict, and achieving group victory. Our sense of group identity had dissolved into individually focused bureaucratic roles within the glorious new, Non-Violent State.

My eyes had to roll whenever I thought about it.

But for now, I was here in Thane’s Office. Watching his lips move while he told me all about how sweet I was, and how he always knew that I was cut out for a role like this, and so on.

Apparently, for some, “Non-Violent State” meant “Emotionally Manipulative and Politically Coercive State”.

Poor bastard could have saved so much energy if he had just gone straight to the shoulder massage in the beginning, and skipped all of the ego-affirming verbal nonsense. All it took was a pair of his strong hands to massage the tired muscles on either side of my spine, and I would have committed treason for that man. Not that treason was what was called for here. After all, treason would imply that one was working against the government, and not for them.

Emotional connections, and a strong physical touch go deeper than any political consulate — at least that’s been my experience.

"We can't use the regular channels for this mission,” he said. “The entire success of our project depends on the opportunity being presented to the council as serendipity.”

“Leave it to me to architect serendipity.”

He smiled.

“That’s the language of the new world order, but you know how I can’t abide that level of passivity. Those people in office don’t understand the sacrifice and hard work that caused us to arrive in this position in the first place.”

He paused, meaningfully, and let his hands rest on my shoulders. “I know you understand, because you were there. You gave more than they will ever understand.”

“Cut to the point, Thane.”

“It needs to be an opportunity that we happen across. If we brought this up to the council, there would be endless debates over the legitimacy, and the methodology. Not to mention the fact that the whole council strives to embody this new age, “Let it Be” philosophical approach.”

“As an attitude for de-escalating conflict, that approach has done more for this world than the rule of the previous regime.”

“The problem is that we are no longer facing a situation of social conflict. The conflict we face is an environmental emergency. I just don't know how they think we are going to make the kind of actions necessary; especially within the timescale that we need in order to survive.”

I took a deep breath and tried to center myself. The conflict that I was fighting was apparent to my rational mind. The issues that Thane brought up were important, and he was absolutely right. All of the data suggested that our world was in grave danger if we continued to do nothing about the approaching threat. However, there were legitimate reasons that the council was not exploring avenues of radical change like what Thane was suggesting.

The people had intentionally placed people in power that were not reactionary insurgents. Thane, myself, and a few others had been given decorated positions of ceremonial importance within the new system — but not anything that promised any sort of political power.

The people wanted to use us as a means of dismantling the previous system, and then replace that system with the equivalent of a doddering, conservative council of mystics. The new leadership of the Fae world was primarily a spiritual one, which was ironic, because the problems that faced the new leadership appeared to be more physical than philosophical.

The problem here was that my body was reacting to old intimacies between Thane and myself, while my mind was dismissing the sensible, community focused approach of the council.

I found it difficult to remain focused on rationally processing anything with his body pressed up against my back. Even if part of my mind rationally agreed with him, this was not a trivial decision.

I had to push him away.

"Just give me some space for a minute, Thane. You and I both know the danger that the Fae Realms face. What we don’t know is the potential consequences of opening a long-term portal. Essentially, what you are talking about is a tear between dimensions. As far as I’m aware there just isn’t a precedent for that sort of thing. We could be dealing with a whole new set of problems, just because we didn’t exercise the appropriate amount of caution in this specific scenario.”

“You and I have been trained to take risks.”

“We might have been trained, but if I’m not mistaken, don’t we need a human to open up the portal?”

He nodded.

“How in the nine hells do you think we are going to find a willing participant within the human realm?”

“Correction: You — not we.”

“Great, Thane. Real comforting — we would need someone who wanted to open up a portal for its own merit. That’s not the type of thing that humans just go out and do for a night on the town.”

I shook my head, practically fuming over the details of what Thane was asking of me.

“Martyr on a Stick! Sure, there is a cultural history to draw on here, but most of the time, the stories are about wayward travelers, and children. Even then, how long does the portal last? Certainly not a damned Rift.”

“It would have to be an adult male, and a virgin. I trust you’ll be able to figure out what needs to get done. Besides, we have already gathered as much research as possible.”

“Oh yea. A virgin? That ought to be fun. Let me guess, a blood ritual on a full moon as well? What kind of bullshit are you trying to pull? You know as well as I do that we don't have any data to support that kind of speculation."

"It's a brave new world for all of us, Aria." He shrugged, as though that simple motion could dismiss all of my concerns. "All I know is that if we don't take action, the Fae are going to run out of resources, and we will move into a sequence of extinction. Honestly, I don't see any other path of action which will take place quickly enough to provide the help we need."

"Aren't you at least a little bit concerned that we don't have a clear idea of why the Void is approaching?"

“Our Metaphysicists are working around the clock on that question. Policy makers are speculating about how we can use our social systems to adapt. Engineers are all working on structural alternatives for energy consumption theories."

I shook my head, knowing that everything he said was true. I myself had taken up the question within the Think Tank I had been assigned to after the revolution. They might have called it the “Eccentric’s Argument and Debate Club” for all of the good it did. However, they congratulated themselves on placing me somewhere that resembled a non-violent application for the skills that I had developed during my years as a field agent.

“We don’t understand why the Void is approaching,” Thane went on, “and there is not enough time for us to figure out a solution without sustaining major casualties. We need access to a denser form of energy, and the Material Plane has always provided that for us in the past."

"Yea, on a personal level. We don't even know if whole scale systemic support can be achieved. The ecology of the Fae Realms would have to operate parasitically on the Material Plane until there was some type of homeostasis, and nobody knows what that might look like. We don't even know if opening a portal on a permanent basis is a viable option."

“We owe it to ourselves to try, and I know you’re the woman for the job.”

He had already broken me down. At that point, I wasn't doing much more than stalling, and he knew that. Thane could read me like a book. We had done too much together. There was too much history. Had this been any less of a contentious issue, there wouldn’t have been much of a conversation at all.

"You're a Fixer..."

"That was a long time ago, Thane."

He leaned in over my shoulder and whispered in my ear. "One week, that's all that’s all we need. After that, you can come back here and argue with your debate team until the apocalypse swallows us whole.”

I laughed, though I was a bit uncomfortable. The sound of his voice so close to my ear brought some heat to my body. I tried to suppress the reaction, but flashes of memory came back to me nonetheless. Memories of comforts shared in cold and foreign spaces.

Thane backed off once more.

“We've charted out all of the astrological components of the time window. We have the research already compiled. The best minds have decided that now is the time. All we need is a field agent. Someone with your unique skill sets..."

"I'll do it Thane, you can stop now."

"If you don't want to, we can find someone else. I'm sur--"

"I told you..."

"Look, I just don't want this to be something that you're heart's not really into."

I slapped him.

I had to.

Thane was one of the most irritating man I have ever known. He was also one of the most charming. If I had wanted to hurt him, I wouldn't have used the palm of my hand. However, I had to at least send a message that I wasn't going to put up with any more of his patronizing bullshit. Charmers have to be put in line every now and then.

He rubbed a smiling cheek with one hand, and flicked an envelope onto my lap with the other.

"So glad to have you on board. This government needs someone with a bit of fire in them to do the work that needs to be done.”

He walked confidently over the back of his desk, and took a seat. Both boots were immediately hefted onto the polished obsidian surface. Everything in this world was ornate and well presented. So much magic was used to make everything appear well ordered and maintained. I knew that there was another reason I wanted to go to the Material Plane, but for the moment, I shoved that impulse down into the bottom of my mind once more.

I didn't feel like dignifying Thane with a response, so I simply turned my heel and left.

“Why don’t you take a walk in the courtyard, and clear your mind?” he called out after me, laughing to himself once more.

Fucking Thane.

Watching the sea of interns go about their business for the day was nauseating to say the least.

I didn't hold any malice for any one of these people in particular. There was something wholesale unattractive about the whole charade. Everyone was so busy, and I couldn't understand what they all thought they were accomplishing.

A couple even bumped into me as they passed, talking amongst themselves about some abstract and legalistic policy. Immediately, I had to deal with profuse apologies, and red blushed cheeks from both of the interns. There were portraits of both myself, Thane, and a handful of others in the hallways. I didn't look like much these days, but not too many Fae suffered the same sort of physical disabilities.

I waved them along.

They were problem solving, to be sure, but compared to the problems that we had faced in order to get here, it seemed trivial. A whole flood of busy work came in to replace the former tyrannical government, simply because they couldn't stand to have a little bit of nothingness.

You could leave, I reminded myself, not even bothering to speak within the privacy of my own mind. You could probably get access to this portal and just fuck around on the material plane for the remainder of your life. Seduce a fisherman, and start a half-breed family.

The thoughts themselves were entertaining, particularly because I remembered the possibilities held by assuming a different form on the material plane.

In transferring over to the material plane, a fae automatically assumed a form reflective of the natives. Of course, the previous echoes of my life would be on the new body, but a birthmark is a lot more manageable than a permanent disability.

None of the humans have wings. They wouldn't gawk at you any more.

The thought only kicked around in my head for a minute or two before I shoved it aside. I was familiar enough with both pain, and vanity. The final reason to push all of that out of my mind was because I remembered the true gravity of the situation we were in as a people.

Environmental collapse was no longer a theoretical topic of discussion; it was not so much a matter of if, but when. Not to mention there has also been an increase in cases of mental health trauma throughout the Capitol. More and more, Fae were succumbing to suicide and social alienation. I didn't blame them myself, though I found it difficult to make a distinction between PTSD and the greater psychological malaise of our race.

Thane's evaluation of the Void was not a matter to be taken lightly.

I shook my head and shoved the note back between my right ass cheek and my pants. The note fit snugly against my body as I walked away from the structures of the Consulate and toward the gardens which littered the grounds around the central building.

I let my eyes relax slightly, and tried to take in whatever beauty I could from this environment. The entire landscape was designed to engender psychological serenity, even if some of us didn't occupy that state of mind any longer.

The Fae consulate is a seductive place if you've never been. Just after the war, the image projected by the consulate was something holy and set apart for regeneration. The marble statues and magnificent gardens were signals of what could be, if we only worked to restore beauty. They are beautiful, but they are tirelessly maintained so that hardly a leaf is out of place.

As it turns out, the consulate gardens are just another indication of the subtle classism that has taken root within Fae society.

The gardens were tended to by gnolls, and the cleaning was managed by pixies. Supposedly, we had all once lived in an idyllic forest wonderland, but I couldn't even imagine that type of existence any longer. Supposedly, somewhere out on the fringes, there were Wild Fae; those faeries had all run away in an effort to retain both their culture and autonomy.

The Wild Fae had been tangential, yet crucial in our fight against Xan. More support was offered by them for our benefit than any other population in the realms. However, they only operated at a distance. The Wilder Ones appeared to be ultimately concerned with their own preservation, and only came into action when Xan's forces threatened to run them out of their deep forest retreat.

Following the revolution, we had a choice to join the Wilder Ones, and some did. The rest of us clung to the process of creating a civilized utopia. The promise of security and an improved quality of life were too enticing. It was a devil's bargain, but most of us were so caught up in the machinery of social engineering, that we didn't have attention to notice, or time to complain.

I wasn't completely jaded, but I did fail to see the beauty of the consulate most days of the week. When my mind is pre-occupied with the latest dramatic political episode, it is hard to see the beauty of the trees. It's hard to even appreciate the power and simplicity of a single moment.

Breathing more deeply now, I set my sights not on the nearest areas of the garden, but along the edges. Out there, along the periphery, there was still a bit of freedom to be had. The workers were ordered to maintain appearances as close to the common grounds as possible, but due to the construction of the gardens, the fringes were less accessible, and less critical for purposes of presentation.

My feet passed through the threshold of the garden's main entrance, and I looked around me. I had walked into a vast courtyard. Along the edges of the courtyard were openings which branched outward into increasingly private directions. Wind came at my face, and gently lifted my hair from my cheek.

The garden's labyrinth was a walking meditation place which accommodated officials with a higher level of security clearance, as well as the general public. As one moved further into the garden, the hedgerows themselves adapted their position to accommodate each person who walked between them. As you continue to press further into the garden, it becomes still more complex and secluded. Of course, when you want to leave, all you have to do is turn around with the intention of finding the exit. Malice was completely absent from the garden's design.

Today, my goal would be to go as deep as possible. I needed to find a gateway.

Thane entertained me; at least I had to laugh in order to deal with his bullshit. Our former resistance group was built out of the rejected idealism of the previous reich. Passing through the papered rose beds and small groups of office workers, I couldn't help but think about how far we had come, and what all of this used to be.

Before the revolution, this entire place was a practical necropolis. These very roses were undoubtedly fertilized by the blood of fallen heroes -- likely not all of them on our 'side'. Whenever I walked through here, I felt more like a living statue then an actual person. I figured out a long time ago that the stares are what really push that envelope for me.

Thane and I were close, and our bond was primarily militaristic, but I wasn't around a lot of the time, which meant that our relationship was more polyamorous than not. As a woman, and an intelligence operative, I got close with a number of people during the course of my work. Targets, clients, associates; whatever was called for to accomplish our mission.

They called me a Fixer.

Our job was to obtain information and connect people with either information, people or objects. Fixers are liminal creatures who host a unique range of skills. We are resourceful, and always manage to find our way in and out of situations. Sometimes things got intense, but luck was on my side more often than not.

Now that we had overthrown the previous regime, we were supposedly moving on into a new world where we didn't use the same military efforts. We won a victory of some kind, but the same mechanics as before seem to be in operation, if under a different paradigm.

I thought about my current task, and let my hand stray back to feel the note pressed up against my body. I had been on missions like this before in the past. You don't read the note until the exact moment before the portal, and even then, you only get one shot.

Everything cloak and dagger - makes me think we are just as bad as they were.

Laughter in the distance caused me to snap out of my reverie long enough to take note of my surroundings.

The corridors had gotten narrower, though there was still enough room between walls of vegetation to accommodate the group approaching from around the corner. They are on their way out, and I have yet to reach the area of the labyrinth where incidental contact ceases to be a possibility.

They are young, and smiling.

When I look at the younger generation, I realize that there is no way that they will ever be aware of the troubles that we faced in order to get here. Regardless of that reality, I try not to judge them too poorly for it. More likely than not, they will have their own troubles. In fact, I think the people who should be judged most severely are those who brought people like myself up onto a pedestal.

The laughter stopped as soon as they notice me.

I walked forward, with my face resolute; knowing that they were staring and doing everything possible to regain what 'composure' they felt was necessary in my presence. They retracted their wings to their sides, and bowed stiffly as I passed. I fought the urge to say something resentful to them. I wanted to tell them to knock it off, and start taking themselves more seriously.

I settled for a simple aphorism.

"I am nothing more than a role which you will one day need to fulfill."

My words will not be heard.

They will be memorialized in the minds of the younger generation. They may even be engraved on a placard and posted on the hallways of the Consulate, but that doesn't mean that they will be adhered.

The most incredible thing about raising a person up to the position of a deity, is that it gives you the ability to discount and ignore them.

"She's a hero. I couldn't possibly do that."

"Back in the day, life was more difficult, and people had to take themselves more seriously. These days, we live in a more progressive world."

All lies.

Nothing more than excuses to not examine the world around you with any degree of critical thought. All of these bitter reflections juxtaposed with the fragrance of jasmine.

"Maybe I'm the problem. Maybe this is the vacation I've been asking for all this time. Besides, if this actually is a way to help -- however unorthodox, this might be the right path."

The hedges began to narrow on either side of my body. The aisle got so close that the sides of my shoulders brushed up against either wall of vegetation.

Any minute now...

Then a voice called out from behind me.

"Mistress Aria! Mistress!"

That nasally high-pitched whine and formal title was all I needed to be completely sure that I had no interest in engaging with this person. I quickened my pace, but they were rushing toward me, and I couldn't blatantly run away from a Head of State.

"You're pretty deep in the labyrinth..."

"I needed to clear my mind."

"Hmm... well, a little bird told me that they saw you go into Thane's office this morning first thing."

"Tell that cocksucker to mind his own business."

"My dear!"

"Look, I'm sorry, Bartholomew, but I've been having some lousy dreams lately, and Thane's really the only one who can relate."

"Well, most certainly, but I have been recommending you stay at our Archetypal Therapy Psychological Wing for months, ever since Mary-Anne--"

"Cocksucker."

"Ahem."

I could feel his eyes narrowing in my direction, though I tried to maintain a straight face, and a steady pace.

"… Ever since Mary-Anne issued you your first resignation request."

"Well, she does have a big mouth."

If possible, his eyes narrowed even more at me. I knew I had to ditch him, but I wasn't exactly sure how.

"You're aware the confidential information is not to be shared amongst non-active operatives such as yourself."

I turned on him.

He was easily a full foot and a half shorter than me, which placed his head at right about the same level as my tits. He almost ran into me, and his nose came within a hair's length from my body. I watched with pleasure while his cheeks flushed red. He backed up and looked at me, attempting to regain whatever pomp and authority he had approached me with only moments ago.

"That's right. Ex-Operative. Which means I don't need to be hassled any longer by book wielding, political suck-offs like yourself. Mind your own fucking business, and let me mind mine."

I walked closer to him, making sure my breasts got right up in his face, causing him to backpedal.

"I came here so I could be alone, and collect my thoughts, and you're fucking with my process. So the next time you want to do a little investigatory work, get a warrant."

At the last word, the garden finally brought up an aerial root, and tripped Bart down onto the ground. Without wasting a moment, I turned around and walked quickly back into the maze, allowing the passageway to close in on itself in my wake.

I could hear him yell, but he couldn't see me, and thanks to the magic of the labyrinth, he would never find me unless I walked out.

You can wait there all day, my friend...

Another twenty feet, and I had arrived.

The gate was little more than a fountain, covered in moss and lime deposits. The fountain clearly hadn't been in operation for some time. To my satisfaction, the area around the edges of my little clearing was covered by a dense thicket.

Reaching behind me, I snagged the envelope out of my pants, and opened it up. Inside was a sheet of paper, and a holograph from the Intel Department. I took the image out first, and allowed it to unfold in front of me.

A figure of a man sprang out from the slip of paper and rotated around me in the air.

I narrowed my gaze, and strained to pick up the details of the image. Stretching the holograph out in front of me, I was able to get a good glimpse at the man's physique. I could also read the DNA Readout and Sociological Inquiry that was inscribed on the lower right hand corner of the holograph.

“You've got a great body for a human, but this psyche profile is ridiculous. Believes in both Faeries, and Aliens...”

Well, he'll get proof enough on the first, but ... humans are so gullible.

No sooner had I finished committing the details of his face to memory, when the holograph incinerated before my eyes.

"Fuck!"

I backed off, cursing Thane for nearly taking my eyebrows off. The rest of the briefing was straight forward enough. The human's name was Erol, and he was apparently swimming in a quagmire of esoterica. The basic parameters of the mission were easy enough to manage.

First and foremost, make contact with the subject. Second, undermine and redirect research to achieve personal aims. And lastly, save the Fae Realms.

Not too difficult.

I let out a long exhale, and rolled my eyes while the contents of the note began to glow and catch fire as well. Shaking my head, I dropped the paper to the ground and watched while it too ignited. This time, the fire didn’t stop at the end of the paper. With amusement and absent-minded fascination, I watched as the fire transformed into a blue light. The flare expanded and became a perfect oval, placed just over the base of the fountain.

I took another breath to sturdy myself, and then stepped into the portal.

I tripped over something in transit, and landed face first in the mud. It was an unceremonious drop which brought a curse to my lips, but that curse was never uttered.

I extended my arms to examine the ground, and I discovered that my skin had changed both color and texture. My hands and arms were scaled and red. My skin looked like the basin of a desert. Thin black lines working their way through deep amber scales.

I reached out one hand to touch the other, and I found that I also had nails that extended out from my fingertips like claws. The nails were black, and shone like perfect obsidian. In the reflection of my own nails, I could see horns had emerged from either side of my head. In shock, I looked down at a placid and undisturbed section of ground beneath my feet. The area of the muck that had not been disturbed by my fall offered me a perfect reflection along the surface of the ground.

My Gods... I have both wings.

The urge to fly overwhelmed me, but there was something else preventing me from fully indulging in this realization. I recognized myself, but the image was some twisted form which I had only dreamed of previously. I was a creature of the lower planes, both sexual and deadly. The eyes were slit and my nose had been flattened. My tongue had been elongated, and my wings were no longer light and translucent, but dark and leathery. I saw that the tar had stuck to the side of my cheek, and I reached over to wipe it from my newly pronounced cheekbones.

What is this place?

The mud stuck to my fingers like tar. The substance was long and viscous. I moved my shoulder over to the side of my face to wipe the gunk off of my cheek, and it ended up sticking to my shirt as well. I looked down and saw that my breasts, while still there, had decreased in size. I was lithe and reptilian in form.

When I looked around me, I had to squint my eyes from the harsh light overhead. There were no trees, and the air was rank like pitch and sulfur.

This is wrong, I shouldn't be here...

I looked about, trying to get my bearings. I could see no major landmarks around me. There were no hills in the distance. No vegetation. No signs of life anywhere. I knew that the portal had been directed to take me as close to my target as possible.

What I did not understand is how those directions had been somehow subverted so that I would end up here. All I could feel was the mire beneath my feet, and the glaring orb of fire in the sky, casting its hateful gaze down at the world below.

I felt the slightest shift under my feet, and lifted my boots up one at a time. The tar clung to one of them, and my foot pulled right out of the boot. Even the physiological structure of my feet had been modified. I let out a sharp exhale of frustration, and then proceeded to bend over and bother about putting my foot back in its correct place.

Just as I had finished, I felt a vibration making its way through the ground. I could feel the movement initially on the soles of my feet, but soon the sensation transferred throughout my whole body. The wave brought the hair of my neck on end, and I shook my shoulders out.

The magic that opened the portal must have had some foreign element in it…

I was trying to parse out how this could have happened. In all of the times that I had used the portals, I had never experienced anything similar to this. My sensory awareness spiked, and an instinct to flee overtook my body.

Approaching my position from the left, the tar began raising up from the ground like the crest of a wave. My feet were planted firmly in the muck. A sense of dread overwhelmed me, and I instinctively squatted down to prepare for a powerful launch into the air.

The strength of my wings took me by surprise. With wings like a bat, I was able to launch off of the ground with incredible vitality and speed. I leaped straight out of my shoes, and flew up into the air toward safety.

In mid flight, as I soared into the unforgiving heat above, a black serpentine form shot out from the tar beneath me. Like a whip, it coiled around my ankle, and clung tight.

I strained to break free, beating my wings furiously against the air, but there was no freedom to be found. I only began to feel the pull in my ankle, as well as the pressure from the creatures grasp. Thinking to strike it, or tear it off from me, but it grabbed a hold of my wrist as well.

One after another, black, inky tentacles from the pitch below shot out at me from the ground. The tendrils slid inward along my body toward the center of my body. With each tug, they drew my arms and legs farther apart from one another. Their hold was tight on me, and it seemed that any amount of struggling on my part only increased the tension of the creature.

I tried to relax, wondering if it was responding with tension to my fight, but it only reached a tentacle out and wrapped itself around my throat.

A searing pain began to radiate all over my body. The areas of contact immediately reacted in a bright blue rash, spreading out in all directions from the creature. I let out a scream, crying out for help, even though there was no one around. The tentacle poised over my mouth, ready to suffocate me, and then something changed in the environment.

I was pulled underneath the surface of the ground.

At first, I thought that death had finally arrived at the hands of a vicious tentacle demon, but I was wrong.

On the other side of the black pitch, there was water. But the strangest thing was that I was still able to breathe. I looked down and saw that the demon had penetrated my mouth, though instead of an inky black creature, I saw a translucent passage providing me with oxygen. Its nature had fundamentally changed.

Once more, the atmosphere around me began to change. A brilliant light flashed through the water and I found myself once more in-between realms.

Much to my dismay, the tentacles that had coiled themselves around my body had been replaced by a thick briar of blackberries. The portal had deposited me square in the middle of a maze of thorns, and my clothes and skin were suffering for the contact.

Fuckin' hells...

I took a deep breath, and then realized that things were not as bad as I had initially thought.

At least it's not fucking me...

My skin was soft and vulnerable compared to the hardened scales from the previous world. I didn't need a diviner to tell me I had finally made it to the human realm.

Cursing, I began the laborious task of unweaving myself from the briar patch. I found that if I dropped down toward the ground, the briars got thicker than up at top. This meant that the thorns were longer and more uncomfortable -- but at least there weren't an overwhelming number of elements to contend with.

I ended up getting some deep cuts along my arms, and thighs, but nothing too severe. My clothes on the other hand were in absolute shreds, and I had completely lost my boots.

On the other side of the berry patch, I reached a break in my frustration. I let out a long sigh, and let my eyes rest on the vegetation which surrounded me. There were huge redwood trees, all around me. I was along the edge of some sort of clearing, though the forest extended in all directions that I could see.

While the previous dimension had seemed utterly barren, I got the opposite impression from this place. I was in a wild and untamed environment, rich with life. Birds and insects were so present that it was difficult not to notice the songs of their lives.

Brushing my hand across my forehead, I wiped a stray spiderweb from my hair. I stuck my arm out to investigate, and along the scratches from the briar patch, walked a spider the size of my thumb.

Shivers caught me, but then I remembered where I was and relaxed.

There you go...

I watched as the spider disappeared into the debris on the forest floor, and continued to stare into the earth.

My mind went back through the portal. What the hell was that? Apart from the fact that I recalled the physicality of the experience, I could have sworn that the entire experience was a dream. Even in dreams, I have touched, and been touched in a way which was convincingly real. The part that I couldn't wrap my head around was that my fucking shoes were gone.

Toes wiggled in the air as I stared at the relentless proof that I had been elsewhere, regardless of where that place might have been. I felt confused, betrayed, and totally out of sorts. When I tried to think of the possible reasons why I could have experienced something like that, I grew fatigued. There was a total loss of will on my part to devote any energy toward thinking about why I had ended up there, or how I had gotten out.

The images would be burned into my consciousness, that much I knew.

My body had been different, and what's more, I had gotten my wings back once again. I swear, I could still feel the sting of the creature that had pulled me underground, but only while my eyes were closed. When I opened my eyes up once more to examine the source of the stinging, all I could see were thorn scratches.

Well, at least I'm here... not too bad looking in this form. Absolutely human.

Frequently, when Fae crossed over into the human realm, they magicked themselves up to be beautiful. The men more so than the women. However, this beauty charm, or ‘Glamour’ was not a necessary aspect of the transition into the material world.

If I were to go about the material realm in my actual form, there would be chaos. I would be captured and put into a sexualized circus for sure. That, or I would have to bring the lives of a few humans mercilessly short, and escape.

There wasn't any inherent danger in being in my true form, or Fae form, within the material realm, its' just that it was grossly impractical. How was a person supposed to get any work done while the rest of the world was too busy staring at you to provide a coherent response or maintain a conversation?

Absolutely not. I had to be incognito in order for this to work, but fortunately, there was something about the cross-dimensional travel which made that all work out.

I had heard of others, other Fae who had somewhat arrogantly decided to magick themselves into their original form while on the material plane, but I wasn't nearly that prideful. Not anymore.

In spite of it all, I was pleased to discover that I was actually fairly good looking.

I had more muscle and substance in my human form. Instead of one wing, I had intricate tattoo lines splayed downward along the side of my body. Through the torn fabric of my clothes, I could see both muscles and tattoos along the surface of my skin. I had both healthy tone and solid muscle definition. Much of the time, in the Fae Realm, I didn't consider much of my physical appearance. At least not since I was on active duty.

I was glad to know that whatever fates were involved at least had a sexual inclination for the way my body adapted to the change between realms.

I stood up and admired myself for a moment, trying to assess how much damage had been done to my clothes, and what sort of form I would be working with in order to complete my mission.

Tits and Ass for days, and a solid athleticism too. ‘Bout fucking time something went right.

I wasn't prepared to go anywhere just yet, and for the moment, I allowed myself to indulge in some stretches. It felt good to release some of the tension in my muscles. I was disoriented, but pleased to discover that I could at least function well enough in this form. My balance was on point, and after about a half hour of meditation, my focus was solid as well.

Unfortunately, I realized during my period of adjustment that I would have to deal with all of the problems that came along with adopting a human body.

Humans, as a general rule were more susceptible to illness and fatigue. Their brains required more effort to prevent them from losing focus. They were hungrier, more often, and due to their shortened lifespan, they had a much higher sex drive than the fae.

I had been on the material plane for less than an hour, and already my mind was swamped with desires and 'urgent needs' of all kinds.

I don't understand how they manage...

Shaking my head, I set about to clear my focus once more. I needed to create a Meta Map Spell in order to figure out where my target was supposed to be located. Casting spells in human form is easy enough, but you need to clear your mind of other preoccupations first, and sometimes, that can be more difficult than not.

Two critical components of the magic which operates portal technology are proximity and intention. These are highly subjective, and are therefore left to the efficacy of the magic itself in order to integrate these variables into the spell itself. The end result is that the user is theoretically transferred toward the exact, or approximate, location where they requested to be. The portal opens, and deposits the traveler across both time and space. When they arrive, all that they should need to do is be relatively observant, and their objective should make itself apparent.

All of the rules of magic, and especially the rules governing inter-dimensional travel are speculative. The study of magic is like every other pursuit of knowledge. A working model must be accepted until it is proven wrong. Unfortunately for me, I had already been through one major systemic anomaly.

It would be nice if my target was around, but it was pretty obvious that I could count on nothing.

Just standing there, I managed to get hungry and aroused and fatigued all at the same time. My attention waned, and I was unable to complete the Meta Map Spell. The frustrations left me feeling defeated and trapped by my own baser instincts. I couldn't tell if I wanted to fuck something, eat a raw fish or fall asleep.

Better hurry up and get out of here ... this place is harsher than I remember.

Yet another undocumented theory about inter-dimensional travel involves the supposition that forms tend to retain themselves as a matter of convention. If a Fae were to assume a human form for too long, they might forget how to access their native form. The obvious danger here is that they would lose touch with their magic, and consequentially never be able to cross planes again.

Being this fucking horny for no damned reason is about as exciting as it is frustrating. A temporary walk-in to the human form might be an enjoyable experience, but I'm not sure I want to make that kind of long-term commitment.

I looked around to see if I might be able to get away with masturbating for a bit, and saw nothing more than forest. I was excited to try it out, but before I could take my new nervous system for a spin, a man appeared from the tree line right in front of me.

Blushing, I pulled the tattered remains of my clothes over me, and then relaxed once more.

Shame, I thought. That was weird.

“Hey there... sorry to interrupt, just passing through."

Erol? I thought, scanning my memories for his characteristics. There you are...

"Actually, I'm all fucked up by this briar patch."

"Do you need some help?”

Well that was easy.

I wanted to wrap this whole thing up as quickly as possible. If this quest were up to me, I would straight take this guy's will and then force him to follow through with whatever plans Thane had in mind for the guy. I was in no mood for games, and I figured that if I was going to enjoy my time away from the Fae realm, it needed to be after my responsibilities were taken care of.

A sense of urgency overtook me, and I decided that I would charm him. I would move forward with as ruthless tactics as would be allowed.

No sex, and no seizure of free will, I thought to myself. I can work with that.

I brushed a leaf from my hair, and pretended to be very concerned with removing some imaginary thorn from my pants. Standing up, I was able to catch a glimpse at him as he approached. He looked like a total square.

"I've fucked with beings that are stronger than you," I silently swore, and then offered a nod of acknowledgment and a disarming smile.

He approached looking concerned, and a bit unsure of himself.

"So glad someone found me,” I said. “I might have been stuck here for a while."

"Looks like you might not have been too bothered."

*Astute and conservative.*

*Interesting.*

*Divert to the physical.*

"You wouldn't believe how deep some of those scratches go..."

*Blush.*

"Hiker?"

*Sensual thrust diverted into contextual small talk.*

He had closed the distance between the two of us by that point, and I noticed how easily my body responded around him. My body drew nearer to him on a subconscious level. I could feel my own heartbeat, as well as an increased level of heat flow through my entire system. My own impulses were fucking with my focus. The body I was in couldn't distinguish the difference between intent and reality.

I was ready to pounce him and strip his clothes off then and there. I had to breathe deeply and restrain myself.

"Actually I was climbing in some of those trees. Really just trying to get some solid exercise in, and my foot slipped. Fell straight down into that briar patch."

"Ouch," he winced.

"Really fucked up my clothes. If I didn't know better, I'd say these vines were trying to get in my pants."

I stared at him, catching his eyes directly within my own. I wanted to know whether or not he would respond to the imagery I had offered. I caught another blush, and moved to close the distance between the two of us once more.

"Ha ha... okay, well you look like you're doing all right now."

His stance shifted, and he looked to the side. The embarrassment only lasted for a moment, but the seed had been planted. He would have little choice at this point but to move forward with me in a context which had already included sexual conceptualization. He regained his footing and met my eyes as I moved closer.

If I could get close enough for contact, I could cast a touch based charm. He would retain enough autonomy to be useful, but every suggestion I had to offer would assume the position of primary directive in his mind. Naturally, to minimize damage to others in his life, he would still be able to function as usual.

I had no use for mental slaves, but I did need this man's help if I was going to achieve the reason for my visit to the material plane.

"I'm glad you're around, because I was beginning to wonder if I had actually gotten lost. The fall and all of the tangles from the briar patch are fucking with my head a bit. I don't seem to remember the way out of here."

He nodded and held my eye contact. "Well, you're actually pretty far in, so I wouldn't doubt that you might be lost. You're actually way off the trail. I was here looking for something a bit off the beaten path. If I hadn't of shown up, I'm not sure that you would have seen another person today."

This guy talks like a knight.

I nodded and did my best to appear grateful, but he sensed something was off in my demeanor.

"Here," he offered, "this might help."

From his backpack, he produced a large metal canteen.

I watched him carefully, and allowed myself the slightest hesitation before reaching out for the canteen.

"Here," he insisted, holding the canteen outward in my direction.

My hand reached out to grab ahold of the water, and I very carefully, and very intentionally placed the tips of my fingers along the backside of his hand. While I touched him, I looked him in the eyes and transmitted the mental energy necessary for the charm to work. My lips parted into an easy and gentle smile.

"Thank you for your help."

He blushed once more, and I felt the rush of magic course through my body.

It was done. The suggestion was planted, and the contact was made.

By all accounts, everything should have worked. Instead of staring at me in a post hypnotic haze, he only shrugged, and turned to the side. He even took a step backward and turned away for a bit; as though he wanted to give me a bit of privacy while I hydrated myself.

The whole thing was confusing, and after a long draw from the canteen, I looked down to see that one of my breasts was hanging out of a tear in my shirt. There was no way to remedy the situation by simply placing the breast back into the shirt. Both my body and the hole in the shirt were too large for that level of adjustment to be possible.

I looked over at him and watched as he intentionally diverted his gaze toward some nearby flowers. He had kneeled down toward the ground and brought out a camera so he could take a photo of a flowering vine that grew in bundles along the forest floor around us.

"Tell me what you're looking at," I said, verifying that my spell had worked.

"I'm sorry?"

He turned around to look at me. His eyes went to my breast, and then up to my face once more.

"I was thinking about something, what did you say?"

*Failure.*

I turned my shirt around my body so that my breasts were at least relatively contained. The scratches that were in the back of the shirt were at least salacious and revealing, but not entirely compromising the functionality of the shirt.

I shook my head and offered a defeated smile.

"I was just curious as to what you were looking at."

"Oh, this..."

The tips of his fingers gingerly brushed against a tri-color, trumpet shaped flower.

"Ipomoea Violacea. That's the formal name for it. It's one of the environmental factors I track in my research. I find that in all of the locations that I have visited over the last three years, some variety of this sort of plant has been present in the area, even if the actual subject I am looking for is nowhere to be found."

"You're looking for a rare type of flower?"

He smiled wearily.

"Something like that."

I offered the canteen back to him, and he accepted it with a continued smile.

"I've been looking all over the area, but I think I’ll be calling it for the day."

He looked up at the sky for a moment and then looked back down at me. He was working something out in his head, and then decided that it was important for him to share the thought pattern out loud.

"I was about to head back. I think it's probably going to start raining soon. Do you want to head back toward the road with me? You can get back home from there, I'm sure."

"Sure. That would be great."

I looked at him once more and offered a nod of gratitude. Right about then, he looked down and noticed that I was not wearing any shoes.

"Do you have a car?"

The question lingered in the air for a moment, and I shook my head from side to side.

"C'mon… I'll give you a ride back into town."

Fortunately for me, he wasn't exactly the talkative type. I had him, and I was able to move forward in contact with him. For the moment, that had to be enough. I wasn't in any condition to talk about much at all. I was tired and it was difficult enough for me to move my body through the forest, let alone bother to keep up any sense of conversation.

He seemed to sympathize with me in that regard, as he didn't mind the fact that I didn't have enough energy to share at that time. The entire time, I was walking, but I was also keeping an eye out for him. I wanted to know how he saw the world.

I noticed that he wore jewelry. Occult bracelets and amulets of different sorts. There were bits of copper wire, and crystals of different shapes. I was certain that there were more that I wasn't immediately aware of. He was too interested, even on a superficial level, to not have deeper and more hidden protection charms.

I wonder...

The prep info that I read through before the portal experience came back to me in pieces, though I didn't have the attention span to focus on them.

"Lots of jewelry."

The statement was more along the lines of a thought that spilled out from my mouth. An absence of filters, but it was interpreted as a conversation starter.

"Oh, lots of different purposes. I'm a bit of an enthusiast."

"What are they for?"

"Do you believe in lucky charms?"

"Sure, I believe in a lot of things."

"Well, that's it. They are basically lucky charms that help me by reminding me about certain ways that I want to live my life."

"You have a lot of different ways that you want to live your life."

"You seem pretty interested, but you're not wearing any jewelry yourself."

He was switching the topic, but I felt like If I pushed harder, I might be able to pick up something useful about him from this topic.

He was a powerfully built man, and the trinkets didn't seem like they went along with a warrior type persona. This man was a superstitious magician, through and through. However, just because I could pin down his type didn't mean I had any hope of understanding him without inquiry.

"They look like rocks to me," I said, wondering if I could bait him into revealing more.

His response was benign.

"That's what a lot of people see."

"But you don't see them that way. To you, they hold more symbolic meaning."

"I personally believe that lucky charms are just 'rocks' that have an emotional charge attached to them. That emotional charge can be anything, but the point is that it is there. Have you ever heard of a person who has jewelry as an heirloom?"

I nodded.

"Well, that jewelry is physically little more than metals, and rocks, crafted together in some sort of clever or stylistic fashion. When we accept the plane material explanation for it, we see nothing more than rocks and metal. However, as soon as we start talking about how it was created, and the intention of the person who created it, then the object begins to grow more pregnant with meaning. Now suppose that you have your entire life to know this person, who would be some sort of grandparent to you. Everything that grandparent has ever taught you, and all of the value that this person has provided for your life will be bound in emotion and memories.”

I nodded, my attention coming out of my state of fatigue out of sheer curiosity for the extent of this man's knowledge.

"Now, imagine that this grandmother gives you this ring. All of her memories may or may not still be attached to the object, so if you want to talk about generational significance, or artistic intention in creation, these might still cling to the object. But what is for sure is that all of the memories that you have associated with the grandmother will definitely be attached to the piece of metal."

"So the ring is symbolic for the value of the grandmother."

"Exactly, it is a talisman. A symbol for the psychic contents that you assigned to that person in your life."

"So, those are like heirlooms?"

I wanted to get the truth out of him, and sometimes, you have to pull a tail until the dog barks at you.

"No, but they are talismans of a different sort. Memories of people are not the only psychic contents that human beings have to work with, though they can be very powerful."

I got the impression that he didn't exactly know which ones were effective and which ones were not. All too often, the problem with folk magic is that one simply believes a thing to be true. In reality, magic is based on fundamental cultures of belief, meaning, if it doesn't have a cultural form of validation, chances are that one person's belief is not going to make enough of an impact. I recognized some of the stones that were effective, though I was pretty sure that the others didn't work exactly as he assumed.

"You know if you're going to hike in areas like this you really should have some kind of back up system."

"I'm sorry?"

"Forgive me if I'm a bit too assuming, but it doesn't seem like you were prepared to be caught in that area like you were. If you had broken a leg or something in that fall, we'd be in serious trouble."

He looked over toward me and made a quick evaluative glance.

“I might have been able to carry you out you don't want to have to rely on something like that. Besides, that would hurt like hell."

"Ha! I was lucky you showed up, but I don't have any jewelry."

He appreciated that, and we walked together closer toward the highway. When I could hear the trucks passing on the road, I began to worry that I would lose touch with him.

Calm. I had to remind myself. Chasing after something is the surest way to get that thing to run away from you.

We didn't have to hike too much farther before we found his vehicle. He drove a beat up, tiny thing compared to the other trucks that passed on the road. The inside was just as decorated as his body, and smelled of incense.

"I wish I knew how your brain worked..."

It was a true statement, and an invitation all at the same time. I spoke while examining more of the occult paraphernalia which filled our environment. I picked up what appeared to be a bird skull with stone inlets for eyes. The item itself was totally worthless.

I could feel the magic emanating from one of the objects in the car. If I had been free to cast a spell of identification, or perhaps even pick up each one, I might have been able to tell. For the moment, I was surrounded by both trash and treasure, unable to distinguish for myself why this man would see fit to keep everything.

"It's all part of my work."

"I think it's really fascinating. I wish I knew what draws you to collect stuff like this."

"Oh this, this is nothing. I've got way cooler stuff at home."

"Can you show me?"

He paused, clearly not knowing what to make of my proposition. It was clear to me that most people were not interested in what he did for a living. Obviously not many women either, if the surveillance data was right about his sex life. The pause lasted for a good few minutes while he considered his response. We were already rumbling down the mountain when he replied.

"Do you want to stop by my house? Oh, I'm Erol, by the way."

I nodded.

"Aria. I'd love to learn more about your work…"

I woke up while we were pulling into his driveway. The scenic mountain views were all absent now. Instead of hillsides and forests, I was treated to a small run down house adjacent to the railroad tracks, and a vacant lot.

"We're here."

As soon as we arrived, the door burst open, and two dogs ran out of the house and came up to the car on either side. Whatever drowsiness had been present inside of me was immediately dismissed by the appearance of the dogs. They were loud, happy, and beautiful.

"Aren't you concerned about them running away?"

"They do that on a regular basis, but they come back home again because we are family."

I watched as he opened the door and all pretense of project based worry left his expression.

"Oh, hello! Good to see you too."

Licks, scratches and kind nips on the hand all followed summarily.

Naturally, my presence had not gone unnoticed. As soon as I made any movement to get out of the car, both dogs were on me. They pushed their nose up into my crotch and jumped up onto me, scratching at my chest with their paws. In spite of the attack, there was no malice in their interaction. The dogs were wet, and smelled like they had just gotten back from playing out in the rain. I was smelled, and decreed "not a threat" by one of them. The other sneezed after smelling me, and backed away with its ears flattened against its back.

"Don't mind her... if one of them likes you well enough, the other will come around to it. Come on in, I'll show you around."

The rain was still coming down from the sky, though the showers were gentle, and patches of sunlight shone through the clouds. The scenery was idyllic, and I felt that apart from the abrasive interruption from the dogs, the whole experience might not have been much more than a continuation of a pleasant dream.

More strange things...

The observation was targeted at a windmill located outside of the house. It was composed of the rays of an alchemical sun, and the centerpiece was the maw of some mythological creature.

"Abraxas," he replied, opening the beak of the creature and pulling a few letters out from a box located inside of the monster's mouth. "The post office loves it, even though they don't know why."

I looked at him inquisitively, which was all the encouragement he needed in order to continue forward with his explanation.

"Abraxas is a gnostic entity whose function is to unite the dualism present in the world. No God, No Devil, both are absolved in a single concept. The mailbox is a joke of mine."

"What's the joke?"

"Each time they put a piece of mail inside, they are giving an offering to Abraxas. My hope is that on some level that helps them contend with the forces of darkness in our world just a little bit easier."

I paused.

There wasn't anything particularly funny about that joke. I wished that I could have because when you are busy flattering someone, it is often a good idea to think that their jokes are funny, but I got the sense that this guy had a bullshit detector of some sort inside of his brain. I didn't want to risk coming off as inauthentic if I could help it.

"I don't see the humor."

"It's all right. My jokes aren't really that funny. Come on in."

Interesting thing about the inside of his house is that apart from all of the useless and weird shit, his home actually felt comfortable.

As soon as we went in, he immediately set about watering his indoor plants, and opening windows so that fresh air could come into the building. In addition to the dogs, he also had a few pet rats that hung out in cages that were as interesting as they were expansive. Likely the most comforting element of Erol's home was that there was an incredible amount of life present within it.

I meandered around, looking at crystals that hung from the ceiling, and strange skulls that were posted against walls.

"Found most of them. There's a lot of beauty around here if you know where to find it. This is probably one of the most magically dense areas on the continent."

"How do you figure?"

He paused again, as though evaluating me. During his reflections, I knelt down to pet one of the dogs that had been following me around ever since we arrived.

"Amethyst really likes you. She's usually the skeptical one."

"Well, she's got good taste."

"C'mon, I have something I'd like to show you."

He led me downstairs into a basement room. The walls were lined with books and maps. I imagined that all of the books had been read at some point, and that notes were scattered throughout the text as they were across the surface of each map. There was a madness to the room, as well as a chronic sense of disorganized utility.

Coffee cups, all empty and stained on the bottom littered the landscape like tiny monuments to sleepless nights. There were reams of paper yet to be used, stacked up next to notebooks full of information and concepts. I took the experience as overwhelming proof that everything this person did with their time could be reduced to spending their life in research.

"The animals and plants keep you sane, huh?"

"You got it. That, and my trips out into the field. I stay here until I have a decent shot at tracking one down, and then I get out and try to find them."

"Find what?"

He looked at me and blinked.

"A portal."

For a moment the two of us stared into each other's eyes. I feel like in that moment, I saw him for the first time. Not as a target to be acquired, but as an interesting character of his own right.

"I'm listening."

"All right, well, I've been dreaming of these doors between worlds for my entire life. Ever since I was a little kid. For the longest time, I couldn't find any proof of their reality, except for in science fiction stories and old folktales."

"So what makes you think they're real?"

"Well, stories are models of reality transcribed through human experience."

"That's one way to look at it. Another is that we don't actually understand the world around us as thoroughly as we'd like to believe. I personally would prefer to move forward through a world that still has some mystery left in it. Unfortunately, with the sort of materialistic nihilism that we face in our world today, that's not always an option."

"Which is why you're tilting after windmills."

"Quixote."

I nodded.

The Fae are much longer-lived than most humans will ever conceive. We've been dealing with this variety of human almost exclusively since the first portals were made.

"Well, Sir Knight," I offered, "I'm pretty tired. Do you mind if I take a rest?"

There was a couch over in the corner of the room, complete with a ratty thin blanket. The place looked incredibly satisfying, and whatever adrenaline had been stirred up within me by the dogs.

"Sure," he shrugged. "Do the light's bother you? I could do some work while you sleep."

I shook my head and let my shoulders sink down into the earth. Being human was more work than I had imagined, and I couldn't wait to go back to sleep.

The couch was everything it had promised and more. The cushions were firm. One might go as far as to say uncomfortable, but I was not one of those people. Years of military training left me with little tolerance for luxury. The couch was sparse, and the blanket was worn completely thin. I felt like an accessory in a dingy hovel. For the next few hours, I could feel myself disappear, and that was all right. I had done my work, and now, I needed to adjust to my new form.

Amethyst actually came downstairs and laid down beside me, on the floor. The other dog continued to be standoffish, and contented itself to stare at us from a position at Erol's feet. The Mad Mystic himself dimmed half of the lights in the room so that the only area that was illuminated was his own workspace. I reclined in comfort, and let my mind drift into a familiar and safe place, all the while stroking the dog's thick fur.

I should have realized that that wouldn't have been enough. I was able to get to sleep, and I didn't fall into a nightmare landscape - both things for which I should have been grateful. Instead of turning into restorative sleep, I ended up waking up seemingly moments late in the astral realm.

The room was the same, relatively speaking, except that certain books spun about in mid air, while the others bobbed on the surface of the shelves like waves in the ocean. The dogs recognized me, and both of them nodded to acknowledge my presence. Erol, on the other hand, continued his work unaware that I was lucidly operating within a sub-conscious state. He was working on a solution to some sort of problem, and apparently having quite a bit of difficulty about it. He was talking to himself, and throughout the dream, the voice echoed around the room, reverberating against itself.

"Unreal... unreal... unreal... By all accounts ... counts... counts.., it should have been there .. er... er... er... "

The sounds of papers being shuffled from one stack to another, as well as the sound of books opening and closing followed suit. Looking down, I could see Amethyst biting at herself as if scratching some kind of itch. She only kept this up for a moment, and then was apparently satisfied with her progress, as she lay back down and offered me a lazy, but inquisitive eye.

I rose from the couch and walked over toward the workbench where Erol hovered. To my surprise, he was literally three or four inches off the ground in this realm, which I found to be incredibly funny. I stared at him with curiosity until I was too dizzy to continue forward with the inquiry.

His hands and eyes were moving at incredible speeds. I could literally see the thoughts flying around in his head, and down onto the papers around him. He was working on something, and there was math involved that I wasn't quick enough to understand. I looked down and the other dog was staring straight at me, narrowing her eyes.

It was a warning.

“You go anywhere near my master, and I will do everything within my power to fuck you over."

The message was clear in my brain. As clear as anything I had ever heard from Thane. The dog had spoken.

I offered a nod, and then stepped back a pace, so I could provide Erol with the space the dog had demanded, while still being able to peep over his shoulder.

The numbers flew up into the air and swirled around the surface of the desk, forming runes and the mirrored surface of a portal.

He's using math to scry... I thought, staring at him.

Suddenly, he stopped, and turned in my direction.

"What's that.. at ..at ..at..?"

I held my breath and stood there, a phantom against the background of his study. He stared at me, and reached out his hand to touch my form. It passed right through me, and he turned down to the dog.

"Rosemary, do you see something?"

The dog snorted, and laid its head down on the ground.

Over in the corner, sprawled out over a rigid couch, I could see my own body passed out half beneath the worn blanket. I looked naked, as my body pushed outward between the tears in my clothing. Erol stared at my sleeping body for a moment, and then stared back down at the dog. One final glance was cast in the direction of my dream body, and then he shuffled back over toward the standing desk.

"Rosemary..."

"Unique that I found... ound... ound... her there. Could be another piece of syner... syner.. er... gystic data.. da..da."

Experimentally, I pushed up off of the ground with my mind, with the expectation that I would not necessarily come back down again. I began to float upward through the air, where I hovered for some time over the standing desk watching Erol work.

The frustration was obvious to perceive, and honestly kind of irritating to watch. His mind worked like a maelstrom, circling around the same conclusions over and over again. Every point of his research was pushing toward a singular factor, but he did not have the relief that proof provided. Instead, he was simply being driven by some form of madness, forward into a future that he couldn't quite apprehend.

I stayed there for a while and watched him, doing my best to absorb all of the information he was working through. The information was abrasive and crude, like a child learning mathematics for the first time.

He would work something out with utter sincerity, and then make some mistake in calculation or lose his way somehow. The steps backward from that point were arduous, and the scratching of the pencil on the paper made me anxious.

The more anxious I felt around him, the farther I seemed to be propelled away from his body. I couldn't exactly tell if there was some type of field that he was projecting into the ether, or if I myself was deciding to flee from him on a subconscious level. As the moments passed onward, I drifted straight up through the ceiling, and into the atmosphere above the house. In retrospect, I could have probably used that time to go searching out for relevant answers in the astral realm. I might have even brought my quest to an abrupt close, but I couldn't be bothered with any of that.

I was more than content to let Erol continue to fuss over the issue while I drifted back toward a state of rest.

He obviously had some form of latent psychic capacity, otherwise he wouldn't have been able to hear my thoughts from the astral realm. I would say that much was obvious from our limited interaction so far. His pre-occupation with the occult, and his lifework of finding portals was going to make my job both easier and more difficult in different ways. However, I was confident that I could manage him if things got out of hand, so I felt no urgent need to seize control of the situation.

One thing was absolutely true: whoever had tipped Thane off on this guy was an excellent judge of character. If any human could pull off opening a Rift; it would be this guy. Of course all that means is that he was absolutely nuts to begin with, and totally obsessed. Those were potent forces to deal with, but if channeled correctly, they could do everything Thane had requested, and more.

Poor guy... doesn't even realize that he's a pawn on another person's chess board.

I drifted off to sleep, while floating amongst the stars.

In the background, I could still hear the continued mutterings and explorations around me in the basement of Erol's house. For the moment, I knew I was safe. When the time came, I would give Erol the budge he needed in the right direction. At that point, he would probably stop sleeping until he found the Rift and tore a hole between the dimensions.

Basically, I figured it would be the same as leading three dogs on a hunting expedition into the Outer Forests. The dogs hunt the game, and you basically run along to give them the company that they need to feel supported, and encouraged in the right direction. At that point, all you really have to worry about is not pissing off any Wilder Fae.

An imperfect analogy, but sleep will do that do you.

When I woke up, I was all alone. The lights had been turned out, and I was tangled up beneath the sheets. The lucid dream hadn't been the only one I had the night before, but the other passed through my memory like water through a sieve. I tried to grab at a few of the last remaining images, but they were too slippery to keep a hold of.

I rolled off of my position on the couch, and then did a few stretches to wake up my body. To my pleasure, I still had every bit as much dexterity as I had when first arriving on this side of the portal. Looking down at my clothes, I realized that with a few more nights of wearing these things, or one aggressive burst of athleticism, I would probably be naked.

Time to shed these things and pick up something else.

I made a mental note.

I must have made some noise waking up because both Rosemary and Amethyst came down to greet me. Well, ‘greet’ is a bit of a strong word. Amethyst licked my toes, reminding me that I also needed to pick up some boots. I get the feeling that Rosemary came along just because she was keeping the friendlier dog company.

I gave Rosemary a bit of a glare, and scratched Amethyst between the ears. Rose wasn't putting up with shit though, and simply snorted and turned away from me. Then it was Erol's turn to come down the stairs.

"See, I told you that they'd both come around to you."

"They're good company. How was work last night?"

"Well, I got caught up on some problem. I keep running into the same wall, but it's all right. I've got to take a rest on that for now."

"Oh, really? Mind sharing why?"

"Not that I'd rather be doing something else, but I gotta pay the bills, just like everyone else. My line of work is a bit unusual, which means I have to take on clients when I get them."

"Do tell," I said, stretching my spine upward into the air.

I was probably flashing him both nipples at this point, but I didn't even care. Soon enough this entire relationship would be nothing more than a thing of the past. If he was attracted to me between now and then, that was his problem, not mine. In fact, it would probably only make my job easier.

"So, I guess I can get you some breakfast, and you'll be on your way..."

He popped my ego right out of the sky. I practically sagged to the ground for a moment, and then caught myself.

"You can feed me if you like, but I want to hear about this gig that you got."

He nodded, and I pushed forward through the layers of hesitation and space he was attempting to orchestrate between the two of us. I rolled my eyes, and lead the way upstairs while Erol and the two dogs followed.

Dude doesn't understand what he's up against...

"Kitchen is to the left."

"Got it. What's this job about?"

Turns out the weirdness didn't exactly stop with manic spurts of researching portal technology into the early hours of the morning. In addition to obsessive occult research, Erol was also a paranormal investigator, psychic, and certified exorcist. He shared his brief resume with me, and I practically spit out my orange juice laughing.

"Is something wrong?"

"No," I smiled. "It's just when you go at something, you dive in all the way. I mean you're basically trolling the bottom of the ocean of occultism. No shallow waters with you."

"Well, I don't like to half ass things, and I've found that I've got a natural talent for this sort of thing."

"Can I come?"

"What do you mean come?"

"Come with you. Come to see your client today."

"You don't even know what I'm going to be doing. I could be exorcising a demon from a saw mill for all you know."

My memory actually flashed back to the hell realms for a minute, and I thought about the tentacle creature that had dragged me beneath the surface of the tar sands. Then I thought about the Fae Revolution. The montage of prior experiences passed through my mind in a few moments, which allowed Erol to believe that I actually took him seriously.

"I can handle it," I said, taking another mouthful of cereal to my face, "but we need to stop somewhere first. These fucking clothes aren't going to put a very professional image on for your client."

"Professional?"

"Well, sure. I'm going to help you out."

I laughed. This whole thing was too much fun.

"I like you, Erol," I said, bringing my bowl to my lips and savoring the last sugary mouthful of breakfast. "I'm ready when you are."

Sometimes, you have to be a bit forceful with these types. I knew what I was doing, and the whole goal was to mix flattery and a bombardment of desire to share company with a lonely man. That's what gets them every time. Eventually, you end up getting on their nerves, but by that time, you've usually got them hooked. At least that's been my experience.

I got up and washed my glass and bowl out, indicating that while I was persistent and imposing. At least I wasn't a bad guest. Then, the two of us made our way out the front door.

"So, tell me about this job."

Erol had let me bully him straight into the car, where I promptly began interrogating him about his employment.

"This one is a long time client for me. She's a woman named Rita. Late sixties, and pretty well off. She is forever having problems with her extended family. They are always having minor disputes or needing to call on psychics for help. She used me once about five years ago, and ever since, when she needs someone who knows his way around the occult, she gives me a call."

He was a good driver, even though he tended toward being a bit scatterbrained. Each time the car approached a stop sign; he would meticulously slow to a stop, and then remain immobile for exactly three seconds. Following the pause, he would check all of his mirrors, look both ways, and then move forward through the intersection. In spite of his attention to detail, he didn't seem to have any trouble continuing to keep track of his own thoughts.

I was impressed.

"Anyways, the whole reason she gave me a call today is because her daughter lost an engagement ring, and she wants me to give her a hand in finding the damn thing."

"You find lost objects?"

"If I was high, I might be able to pull something like that off, but I can't just enter the astral realm and walk around at will. Besides that, I don't have enough time to deal with a full on trip today. No, in these sorts of situations, it is better to use my intuition and problem solving skills. Rita already trusts me, so she's more likely to share information than a new and more skeptical client."

"So you're basically a con artist."

The car came to an abrupt stop.

"What the fuck?"

"Stay here a minute."

"What did you just call me?"

"It's cool, just stay here a minute. Rita doesn't want to see my tits pop out of my shirt."

I left him fuming in the car for a couple of minutes.

He ended up stopping right in front of a laundromat, and I knew that this would be the easiest opportunity for me to change clothes. With a strut in my walk, I moved confidently into the building, and walked straight for the dryers. There was only one person in the building at the time, an older man about the fifty-five years of age. I smiled at him, and then opened up a drier that appeared to have women's clothes, and not too much time left on the timer.

The first try didn't produce what I was looking for, but by the third load I looked through I found a great dress that was just my size.

"Excuse me ma'am..."

I also found a leather jacket. No boots though.

"Ma'am..."

I let out a deep breath and did what was asked of me in the moment. Dropping my pants to the floor first, and then pulling off my shirt, I turned around and addressed the man.

"Can I help you?"

Mind you, I didn't stop changing into the dress and jacket, but that only took a few moments, during which time the man turned obvious shades of red, and diverted his gaze to the side. I threw my clothes in the dryer and shut all three doors one after the other.

"Thanks!"

Erol was there waiting with an exasperated and skeptical look on his face. I opened the car door and then sat down once more.

"Drive."

"Did you just steal those clothes?"

"I traded them, now get a move on it."

The man from the laundromat had regained his composure and was now outside of the building trying to flag us down. Erol quickly realized that the man was waving his arms in our direction, and on impulse accelerated the car back into traffic.

"Christ, you called me a con artist and then you immediately go out and steal a whole wardrobe from some stranger at a laundromat."

"Traded, I told you. Besides, don't you think this jacket looks good on me?"

I swear I could see him start to grow more irritated by the moment. I was having a good time, but I didn't need to deal with getting him too upset. I decided it was time to lay off for a while.

"Also, don't worry about the problem with your client Rita, I'll help you out."

"Help?"

His tone was highly skeptical. In one word he made it very clear exactly how little he thought of me in that moment. I didn't mind personally.

You only really care about what other people think about you if you don't understand what you're capable of doing. If he didn't think I was capable, that was his problem. I knew how to take care of myself, and my silence communicated that clearly enough for my tastes.

"Look, when we get there, just stay in the car. All right, I'm starting to think that bringing you along was a total mistake. I'd drop you off somewhere now, but I'm almost late, and Rita tends to appreciate it when I'm on time."

"Wouldn't want to upset Rita..."

He laughed.

"You've never met her, she can be a very trying lady if she wants to be. I find it best to maintain a professional image in front of my clients. Goes a long way to insuring repeated business. What do you do for a living?"

"I'm a Government Spy."

The line was delivered in a deadpan tone. I stared straight at him, begging him to make eye contact with me long enough to see that I was telling the truth. He blew me off, but in that half a second's hesitation, he also blew a stop sign, which I found hilarious.

"Ha! Damn. I thought you were serious for a moment. You have a really solid delivery."

"Thanks."

I rolled my eyes, and put my bare feet up on the dash. My dress rode up around my crotch and I stared out the window, not really giving a shit for the moment. My apathy lasted the rest of the drive. I was feeling moody. No way around it. I was tired of being incognito, and getting treated like shit by these humans. I took a sharp inhale, and then resolved to step up my game. I needed to come clean with Erol if I wanted him to help me out, but I needed to do it at the right moment. I had a feeling that this client of his was going to provide that opportunity.

That and I needed some more boots.

"I'll be back in about an hour. If you're gone when I come back, it was nice to meet you. If you're still around, I'll drop you off wherever you need to go. Sound good?"

I didn't bother responding. I just got out of the car, and started walking up the long entryway to Rita's Mansion. Erol cursed behind me, and I let the soles of my feet get massaged by the cobblestone walkways. My posture was high, and I probably looked every part the gypsy mystic in my new outfit.

"Relax, Erol. Let's see what this lady has to say. I'll stay quiet while you figure things out, and if I can do anything to help, I'll pitch in."

"I'm just not sure if it's professional to bring another person to a house call..."

He was lying. I could tell, though I wasn't sure exactly why.

"Do you have a thing for this lady? A bit of a ‘special touch’ for the job?" I laughed to myself, imagining how lucky an older woman would be to have Erol as her ‘private psychic’, as long as she didn't have to deal with the guy 24/7.

He let out a sharp sigh, and tried to regain his composure.

I rang the doorbell, and then stood there like a boss.

"Don't worry about it, hun, everything's going to be fine. I don't care what you've got going on with Rita. None of my business."

"Great. Thanks."

We stood there together, awkwardly for a couple of minutes until a middle-aged woman answered the door. She was thin, and wore so much make up that her lipstick actually clung together in a visible paste at the corners of her mouth. Her outfit was saucy for an older woman, and my suspicious were immediately confirmed.

"Erol! So good to see you. I see you've brought a guest..."

"Rita, I'd like you to mee--"

"Aria. Hedge Witch and Cunning Linguist at your service." I immediately reached out to shake Rita's thinly gloved hand.

Erol cleared his throat and interrupted our introduction.

"Aria is here to observe today, Rita. Do you mind?"

"Charmed.. of course, I'm sure. You are here to learn a thing or to from Sir Erol?"

I grinned.

"Oh, I've learned a lot already."

"Well keep an eye out sister. He's sharp as a fox, if you know what I mean..."

She raised her eyebrows lewdly, and then proceeded to give Erol a gratuitous, full body hug.

Poor woman, I thought. She probably doesn't get much attention from anyone else. This is likely a surrogate relationship for her.

The humility in my own thought processes shocked me out of my arrogant rampage. I bowed slightly for ‘Sir Erol’, and let him lead the way inside of the house. The Good Lady Rita spent no time assailing Erol's ears with the latest drama from her family, up to and including some juicy details about her daughter's most recent affair, and the dreams she has been having about her pastor, not all of which have been exactly orthodox.

Erol listened as dutifully as any therapist.

I watched as he gave Rita his entire attention, waiting patiently for her to drop subtle hints about the true reason she had decided to call him today. The arrangement between the two was incredible to watch, really. She was using him as a container for every piece of psychic content that she was able to dish out over the course of the first forty minutes we were in the house. She literally did not stop talking once, and Erol was right there with her in attention the entire time.

When the crucial moment came, my attention snapped back into focus.

"So, what do you think?"

"Well, it seems to me like the real question here is not about where the engagement ring is located, but whether or not your daughter is satisfied in her love life."

"My dear... you do know how to cut to the heart of the matter..."

"Why don't you lay down for a while and I'll do a reading. We'll see what we can't find out?"

I smiled.

The man was a professional, you had to hand it to him.

I held my breath while watching how routine all of this was for the woman. Quite literally, the two of them were falling into what appeared to be just shy of a well rehearsed sexual routine.

First, Rita led him to the a long, luxurious , leather sofa. Then she lay down in front of him and held her hands out to either side. Knowing exactly what was expected of him, Erol moved along the side, and began a thorough massage of Rita's body.

The entire situation would have been funny, except for how serious everything was.

Erol paid absolute attention to the slightest knots and points of tension in Rita's body. During the entire experience, Rita let out low purring noises, while Erol would occasionally mutter something like, "Ah…" or, "Yep. Right there ... You feel that?"

Of course she would immediately reply with another encouraging groan, at which point they would start all over. This whole experience went on for literally an hour. I stuck around for most of the first part of the experience, but moved on to explore the house during the remainder of the massage.

Erol was doing his work, and he was right the first time, there was nothing for me to do insofar as help was concerned, at least not with this part of the experience.

"If he wants to play masseuse to that cougar I don't need to have anything to do with it."

The incredible thing about the whole massage session is that while Rita was down for the count, nobody else was home in the entire place.

If I had been a thief, I could have ransacked the place while Rita was purring downstairs in the lounge. The whole experience reminded me of the old plays that came into vogue ever since the new government had been instated back at the Capitol.

All of these plays featured charlatan mystics and cunning thieves who overthrew cruel dictators, usually by means of some apparatus of wit and good fortune.

Nothing was said in the plays about sacrifice and expertise; those did not sell tickets in quite the same numbers as the idea that the fates themselves had designated a moral victory over Xan.

I shook my head and caught myself.

Keep present, I reminded myself.

Too much of that line of thinking and I might work myself up into an anxiety attack. Price was too high.

I didn't see any particular need to inform anyone about my departure, so I chose to walk as carefully as possible up the long carpeted flight of stairs.

The second floor was composed of a series of libraries, and bedrooms. I could hear the sounds of the massage from downstairs continue, and I decided to take some initiative on behalf of Erol, and find that ring that the lady was so concerned about losing.

If I was a young sexy woman with a fair amount of money, I'm not sure that a ring would be on my highest list of priorities. Particularly if there was some amount of unwanted emotional attachment that came along with it.

In a perfect would, I could have simply cast a tracking spell on the daughter, and then probed her mind for the information concerning the ring. However, I was getting a bit bored, and wanted to have the option of using the same 'psychic' techniques that Erol used. I figured if I could get down to business and cut him off without rubbing my hands all over Rita, then he might be able to respect me as a partner.

On the other hand, If I lost patience, I could just scare the shit out of him, and let that be that.

The obvious decision was to investigate the daughter's room. There wasn't anything binding the older woman from looking through her daughter's room herself. In fact, I imagine she might have. Then again, if she wanted a back massage in good conscience, it would probably be in her best interest to retain as much ignorance as possible.

I suspected that amid those moans and grunting noises, Erol fancied that he could discern some secret language of the heart; as a matter of fact, I wouldn't put it past him. Chances are he was picking up something from all of that touching. I'm just not sure it was the quickest way to manage that information.

Finding the daughter wasn't too difficult.

There were giggles and the sound of splashing coming out from behind a closed door at the end of the hall. I figured that there might be more than one daughter in question, but that this was as good of a start as any. I also didn't feel like digging around in some rich brat's room, looking for a piece of jewelry that she either hid away or pawned off for club drugs.

An entire dimension was dying. I just figured I had better things to do with my time.

Of course the door was locked, but I felt like I was closing in on something so I didn't bother with the subtleties any longer.

Locks in the Fae Realm are by nature more complex than their counterparts in the human realm. In a city full of fae, you need complex magical protections or at the very least, a hybridized security system with unique enchantments on your access key. In the Human Realm, they had no reason to use anything besides the most basic tumblers and deadbolts. What's worse is that most of the materials they use are magnetic, which means that a basic earth enchantment will do the trick most of the time.

I placed my hand on the door, and spoke the words necessary to connect with the bar of steel that was being used to secure the door shut. A sigil burned into the fine oak surface of the door, and the lock twisted open.

On the other side of the door, whoever was in the bath together was too busy getting randy to notice, or care.

I let myself into the bathroom, and immediately cast an orb of silence around both of the humans in the tub.

The spell was simple. All it did was set up a sound-negating barrier in a ten-foot radius around the target. . When I was satisfied that their screams could not be heard outside of the barrier I had erected, I stepped through the bubble myself, and began my own investigation.

"Mom!"

"MOM!"

"She can't hear you. Right, now, it's just the three of us, so I suggest you relax."

The man she was with at the time had been buried between her legs as I entered the room, but with some unceremonious squealing and thrashing around, the two had separated. I sat on the bathroom counter for a moment scoping out the situation. First, I decided to lay down some ground rules.

"You move, or do something that doesn't suit me, and there will be unfortunate consequences. I've dealt with types much worse than you. However, if you help me out, all of this will go by quickly, and there won't be much for you to worry about. "

"MOM! CALL THE POLICE!"

I exhaled sharply.

"You don't listen very well, do you."

The man was obviously unsure of all of this, but his cock wouldn't back down, which gave me an idea.

"We're going to play a game, " I began, hopping down off of the counter.

"I'm going to need you to bend over, like you were, and I'm going to need you to fuck her. You can do that, can’t you?"

At this affront to his sensitivities, the man spoke up and got out of the bath to confront me. I didn't feel like getting into a fight, so I walked past him, ducking and deflecting his clumsy punches as I did so. When I got over to the woman, I grabbed her hair by the roots, and then pulled hard.

My hand left her scalp with several long strands of hair between my fingertips. Her boy toy got a solid hit on me from behind, and I fell onto the woman head first. She broke my fall, and the two of us went down together into the tub.

The water was warm, and smelled like jasmine and vanilla. I was more than a bit irritated at being interrupted, but the water was so nice that it was hard to be crass about it.

"Oh, I'm sorry," he stammered.

Obviously this dude was pussy whipped, but it was clear enough that the apology was not intended for me.

"She's fine," I said, shortly. "Have a seat."

Using the strands of hair that I still clutched in my hand, I cast a spell of binding on the boy toy.

First his legs, then his hands, and finally his mouth.

He fell to the floor in a spectacular, wet slump, and remained laying down on his back. To my surprise, and disappointment, his erection had softened since our little scuffle.

I turned to the girl who was watching me with horror in her eyes from above the surface of the water.

"You... sit on his dick. Now."

The girl started to protest, and I slapped her. I needed this to be quick, and I had already dealt with enough bullshit from the two of these people to warrant a total loss of patience.

"Look at him."

My voice was cool, but firm. I wanted her to give me her attention. She started crying for a minute, so I told her again.

"Look at him!"

She stopped.

"Do you see how easily he was taken care of? I can do the same and worse to you, so why don't you just cut the shit, and do as I say."

Cowering still, she walked over and sat on his lap.

"That's better...now get him hard."

I reclined on the edge of the tub and watched the two of them for a minute. It was awkward, and unfortunate. I was making this shit up as I went along, and had not expected it to take a turn for the perverted, but sometimes that's how it goes. More likely than not I was acting out my own frustrations on the two, but it wasn't so bad... really."

"Good, now put it in."

I allowed myself to be aroused for a minute, looking at the two, but it didn't last, mostly because of the fact that they were both terrified.

Fear doesn't really go well with my libido. I guess I'm a softie at heart.

"Now, while you fuck, I'm going to tell you why I'm here. I'm going to make a guess that the two of you are some young couple, and you like to play around with one another... am I right?"

The young woman nodded, while biting her lip.

"Great. I'm very happy for you."

"I'm also going to guess that your relationship is relatively new, is that correct?"

Another urgent nod.

"Great, now you can tell me where the engagement ring is for your previous relationship."

This did not go over well. The bound man began twitching and bucking his hips. He tried to say something but the ropes were bound up in his mouth. I took a deep breath, and stared at the girl.

"I didn't say stop."

She kept going, but her movements had lost whatever momentum she had gained since they started fucking once more. This next part was difficult, but I didn't really mind the extra effort.

I walked over to the woman and stood over her while she squatted down over her muted boyfriend's cock. Grabbing her head once more in my hands, I shoved her mouth into the crotch of my dress. While she was there, a few more strands of hair provided me with the cords necessary to bind her body to his.

Moments later, the final spell was cast.

The two were attached to one another, and the only way they were coming undone was if he shot off a load inside of her.

She realized what was happening, as well as him. The two of them tried to stop moving, but at that point, there wasn't anything to be done about the fact.

"Now. You need to tell me where this engagement ring is at, or I am going to do everything in my power to make sure that every one of those sperm is a dead ringer for your eggs. Are we clear?"

She was scared shitless, and I knew I had one.

I walked around the two of them for a moment, pushing on her occasionally so I could feel the sexual energy rise between them. He was doing everything in his power not to explode, and I didn't want to make things too easy for him either.

"No more privileged single girl lifestyle. No more nights on the town. If I have my say, you'll have one child dangling off of each sagging tit for the next two years of your post partum depression."

Her eyes grew wide, and she turned back to look at her man, commanding him not to cum, but all he could do was sweat in response.

"Of course, I could go get Rita and bring her up here. I'm sure she'd love to understand where the engagement ring disappeared to..."

"Okay!"

She strained trying to push herself off, and then finally slumped back down on the cock, bringing a groan out of her boyfriend.

"I didn't pawn it or anything."

"Yet."

She glared at me.

"It's in my room, under the ballerina statue. Code 0069."

"Nice."

I had to laugh.

"Be back soon."

"Hey. Untie me!" HEY!"

As soon as I passed through the barrier, I didn't hear anything. I didn't want to think about what might have happened if I had been wrong. Intuition told me to turn left right out of the bathroom, at which point I found the young woman's room. It was locked, of course, but that didn't matter. I was only in the room for a minute before finding the dancer in question.

Lifting the statuette up from its place on the desk, I saw a tiny safety box, which hardly needed a lock at all. For formality and irony more than anything else, I entered in the code.

"0 - 0 - 6 - 9"

The lock popped open, and low and behold, there it was, a beautiful and ornate engagement ring. I let out a sigh, picked up the ring, and then walked downstairs.

In order to retain the effect of the spells, I would need to continuously meditate on them for about as long as we were inside of the house. Otherwise, the bubble of silence would pop, and the two lovers would only have to deal with cum and hair stuck to their bodies.

The part about the impregnation was a farce. I can't do that shit. Wouldn't even want to, if I could, but they didn't know that, and the drama had been interesting for me.

Walking down the stairs, I decided I was curious to know what would happen if things just stopped. I let go of the enchantments, and immediately heard the sound of her boyfriend orgasm from the bathroom.

Nice...

The sound had also gotten the attention of Rita, who now stood at the base of the stairs with Erol.

In a casual flip, I tossed the ring through the air to Erol, who to my surprise caught it without fumbling.

"Took care of it Rita. Just make sure you pay my man all right. C'mon Erol, it's time to go."

"What?"

The woman was incensed, and had completely snapped out of whatever hypnotic state Erol had managed to put her in while I was upstairs. Just then, the girl came out with a towel wrapped around her breasts, crying.

"Stop them!"

Erol's eyes widened, and he shoved the engagement ring into Rita's hands. Rita was about to release her anger in our direction, and then realized that I had in fact found the object she was looking for. Being a quick woman, she turned that anger immediately to her daughter instead.

"Samantha! You lied to me!"

"Thank you, Rita. Sorry for the inconvenience, but I’m glad my partner could help you out. The money will be in your account by tonight, Erol. Good day."

I smiled and took him by the elbow.

"Time to go ... Partner."

Poor bastard, I thought. Can't take care of shit if left to his own devices.

We made our exit.

“How did you do that?”

The inquisition didn’t start until well after we had left the neighborhood. At least this time, Erol had the common sense not to stick around after a potential conflict. Sticking around at the scene of the crime, as it were, was not exactly the wisest thing to do for someone who wanted to get by unnoticed. I ignored him for a while, and thought about why this time he was so interested in leaving, but back at the laundromat, he had been so reticent.

He stewed in his own bitterness for a moment, but I let him be.

“You just show up, cause some trouble, and think you can slide by without an explanation?”

“Yep.”

The guy was getting on my nerves.

“You know, I thought you would be less of a bitch.”

“Wait, you thought?”

“That’s right, I hoped you would be at least a little more forward with things, but it turns out you’re just a pandering coward who gets paid to feel up old ladies.”

“What do you mean, you thought? Thought implies that you have been watching me; that you had some sort of precognitive observation.”

“Don’t bother giving yourself too much credit. I might have been simply talking about a character evaluation based on the time I have spent with you since yesterday.”

“That’s not what it sounded like.”

“Are you one of those paranoid types too? Think that somebody is out to get you, and that you have some sort of secret that they are struggling to obtain?”

“I don’t see how that’s any of your business.”

“You are. Well, that’s nice.”

“Look, why don’t you just tell me where you live, and I’ll drop you off at home. Not that I don’t enjoy being pushed into the threat of excitement every couple of hours, but I think we had better stop this before it gets any worse.”

“That’s a real bitch thing to say.”

That really got him.

We were in the middle lane on a major thoroughfare. He cranked his head backward, straining to see if there were any cars passing though on the right hand side. The lane was blocked, and I could see his frustration building.

When the river of traffic moved to carry us forward, I decided to lay off for a while. I lowered my seat backward in the car with a loud thump.

“I’m hungry,” I announced. “I just saved your ass with that old woman, so why don’t you treat me to lunch?”

He was still furious, but I had a point. Likely it would have been a couple of months worth of sensual massage before he uncovered any clues that would have lead him to the fact that the daughter was hiding there ring all along.

“How do I know you aren’t trying to steal my client from me?”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Erol, she’s obviously mad for you. I’m not sure I’d be ale to provide the same services you offer.”

I offered a smile from the seat, and propped my feet up on the dashboard once more.

“I’m new to the area, so you should just pick some place out for us to eat, and take me there. Lots of hard work finding that ring, and I need some food before we continue.”

He could have kept going, but I wasn’t going to encourage him in any way whatsoever. I needed food, and I needed some time to think.

One of the main reasons I helped him out was because I knew we needed to be on our way. I didn’t have time for this guy to fuck around with Rita for the next three months, on the basis that he needed the money. There was no reason at all in my mind why we should have to go about delaying working on important matters, simply because he needed to get some cash.

I didn’t have time to deal with that kind of shit.

He cooled off for a minute, and I allowed my eyes to close. I didn't really care where he took me to get food, as long as it was edible, and we got back to business afterward. I tried to relax, and let some of the pressures of the future slip past my mind and out the open window of the car.

The day was peaceful in spite of it all. If I let myself fall into it, the world around me on the Material plane was a pleasant place to be — at least it seemed like it might be if given a chance.

My thoughts strayed back to the Fae Realm, and I felt guilt.

It wasn’t that I was being inactive. Far from that, it’s just that I kept getting this feeling like people on this realm didn’t quite appreciate the fact that their existence kept moving right along. Surely, this planet faced struggles on par with the Fae world. Everything the scientists had been discovering suggested that it was the case.

What got me more than anything else was how perfectly oblivious these people were to any problems outside of their own petty squabbles and relationships.

I shook my head, still thinking about that brat back in the mansion.

“What kind of world do you think she occupies?”

“Who? Rita?”

I hadn’t meant to speak out loud, but the words came unfiltered, and Erol met my contemplations head on.

When I opened my eyes, I saw that we had passed beyond the edge of town. The strip malls and congested roadways had been replaced by thick stands of trees. In between the trees, long stretches of wild grassland seized every piece of ground except for the highway. The vegetation was thick, and wonderful.

In my mind, I couldn’t help but think about the intense levels of competition and violence which were implicit in an ecosystem like that one. On the surface, it looked like such an idyllic place, but just beneath, there was a near endless chain of death. The grass choked out all but the most stubborn of wildflowers. The trees out shaded the grasses, or emitted sub-surface level toxins to prevent them from even taking root.

The whole observation reminded me of the pain that our own realm was going through.

I thought about the approach of the Void in terms of a larger perspective. It could be that our way of life was quite naturally supposed to be eliminated. If there was a reason that the Fae Realm could no longer support the life of the Capitol, why should it be personal?

What right did we have to suck the life-force out of the Material Plane, like some vampiric parasite, desperate to maintain whatever half life had brought us to that position in the first place.

A shade grew over my disposition, and just like that, the depression was back.

“What are you so concerned about?”

The question caught off guard.

We had only been in the car for twenty minutes or so. He didn’t have that much time to get over whatever imagined chaos he had suffered at my hands back at his client’s house. I turned to him, my eyes still sour.

“Some of your inborn sensitivities coming out?”

I didn’t have to be so callous, but I had enough excuses to where it didn’t really matter.

“Just worry about making sure we get some food, and we’ll talk about the rest later.”

He nodded, and we continued down the forested highway.

“Look, I’m not sure how you did that back there, but if you’re really not trying to fuck me over then I owe you a bit of thanks. This place ought to do it.”

He turned off the right hand side of the road into a small cleared inlet, surrounded by trees.

’Heaven and Hearth’ said the sign above the building. It was broad daylight, so there wasn’t much spectacular about the building. In fact, compared to the rest of the forest surrounding it, the building itself was kind of an eyesore. The driveway to the building was nothing more than a dirt lot, worn down by excessive abuse by tires.

“I came here once a long time ago by myself — it was actually the night that I moved to this town. I always thought it would be nice to go here with someone else. I think you’ll like it. They have a lot of good food, but it’s all pretty high quality stuff.

The two of us got out of the car, and I looked grimly at the building. It wasn't that the building itself was problematic, it was the way my mood soured everything else I was experiencing. The passion was gone, and I didn't seem to have a way fo getting things back on track.

Erol led me into the building, and as soon as I entered, the first thing I noticed was the sound of stringed instruments playing in the background. The whole place was empty, but for some reason, there was an overwhelming glut of food everywhere.

There were cakes on the widow seals, and bowls of fruit on the tables. I remember seeing pitchers of water and juice everywhere, and then smelling some type of barbecued animal coming out from the kitchens in the back.

My senses were completely overwhelmed with decadence. The only way it would have been more incredible is if the cakes themselves had been served on Thane's naked body.

Gods, I thought to myself. I need to hurry up and get home. It's pretty obvious that I'm getting bored with this place. I've grown reckless here, and this new form is not helping my emotions whatsoever.

"Welcome to Heaven and Hearth. How can I help you?"

"Do you still have seating by the Hearth in the back?"

The woman smiled and nodded in our direction.

"Great, we'll go back there."

"Right this way."

We were lead through the rows of kitschy booths into a back patio area with rustic wooden furniture. There was an overhead canopy, so if it rained, the whole area wouldn't get soaked, and in the middle of the patio, there was a fire. The Hearth, as it was, was probably the most impressive component of the restaurant.

I felt like I was in a blacksmiths shop while they fired weapons of war. The fire was incredible, and all contained within a series of cob walls that held the flames at bay.

"They use the fire for roasting pigs, and making their oven fired breads. I remember the last time I was here, it really felt like a blast into the renaissance era or something."

The waitress just smiled, and the two of us took a seat at a comfortable distance from the hearth. Had it been nighttime, and a bit colder, the fire might have been more revitalizing. As it was, I felt more of a strange oppressive heat coming off from the flames. In spite of the lack of comfort, I couldn't quite take my eyes from off the center of the fire.

The waitress disappeared for a moment, and then came back shortly with a pitcher of ice water and several trays of frozen deserts.

"You're kidding, right?"

She simply smiled, and sat the tray on the table. I picked up a frozen banana, and put it to my lips. The feeling was soothing and refreshing compared to the heat of the day. My mind went blank as I sucked and nibbled on the tip of the fruit.

This isn't so bad after all...

The thought was in my head for only a moment, before I had to laugh at the absurdity of it all. Meanwhile Erol was busily sucking a strawberry, while daintily holding it between thumb and index finger.

"You've only been here once?"

"Yep. Just that one time."

He smiled and waved his hand around the table.

"No reason to treat myself to this level of pleasure on a regular basis. "

Just then, something drew his attention to his pocket. He pulled out a small phone, and opened it up while tossing the remainder of the strawberry in his mouth. I turned away from him once more to give my attention to the fire, and then to the woods beyond.

"Well, lunch has been taken care of."

I squinted at him like the sound of his voice was an interruption to some deep, private thought.

He shut the phone, and smiled at me, totally at ease with himself.

"That was Rita. Well, actually, that was the bank, but she made a deposit into my account just now."

I couldn't give a shit, but I gave him a response regardless.

"Good news."

"Yea, she usually takes forever to pay, but after this, I won't have to work again for some time. That means I'll have tons of time to devote to personal projects. Pretty neat."

He flagged down the waitress, and asked her to bring some smoked salmon and tonic water.

"Fancy."

"Things are really looking up I guess. You never know when something is going to just fall into your lap like that. Thanks a lot for the help."

"Don't trouble yourself."

"I'd love to share the cut with you. After all, you were the one that did all of the hard work. If you wanted to talk about splitting responsibilities in the future, I mean I guess we could talk about being partners."

"Erol..."

"I'm sorry,” he continued, “for giving you such a hard time earlier. Who am I to question your methods? As long as nobody gets hurt, and my clients are satisfied, then I don't see much of a reason to--"

"Erol."

"What?"

"There's something in the fire."

I could feel his attention change immediately.

The air was definitely getting warmer by the second, though chills ran down the center of my spine. My pupils dilated, and my body grew tense.

Just then, I saw the telltale sign of faerie magic drifting through the flames of the hearth. The sign was small, and could have been missed by anyone who wasn't intimately familiar with their meaning.

Without wasting another moment, I stood up so quickly the table flipped in front of us. While the table was in mid air, I grabbed Erol and dove backward on the ground behind us. As we fell, the table burst into flames, the waitress screamed and our drinks fell to the ground.

Still grabbing ahold of Erol's collar, I twisted him in my direction and stared straight into his eyes.

"Stay out of my fucking way."

Before I could say anything more, and before Erol could respond, another blast of energy cracked the table into pieces, leaving us exposed and on the ground.

I rose up and took a knee in front of Erol.

Flaming bolts of energy shot past my face and around my person. Magic had begun to emanate out from within me. All I could hope for was that I might be able to provide the two of us with enough passive defense so I could figure out who it was that was attacking us. For a person to take a stand and attack two targets in broad daylight meant that they didn't care who saw, and they were not planning on leaving any witnesses.

I really feel like we might have fallen then and there, had it not been for the mandatory safety installations that the county had required the restaurant install prior to providing operation permits.

A thick haze sprayed out from hidden dispersal points within the cob structuring of the hearth. Within moments, the fire was smothered, and the whole area was covered in a thin white layer of chemical flame retardant. I stood up, my body still pushing the chemicals away from its surface. The reasonable thing to do would have been to wait, and maintain some sense of composure, Draw the attacker out, and then engage on my own terms.

The only problem with that approach was that while I may be able to defend myself, Erol here was as defenseless and trapped as he had likely been in his entire life. Knowing that now was one of the few moments I would have when the environment itself dictated the favor of the battle in my direction, I took action.

My movement into the cloud was incisive and acrobatic. For a moment, I felt the thrill of being in battle once more. The way that my mind executed mastery over my body was addictive. I had already plotted out the most likely trajectory between the fire pit and Erol's position. My body was in place quickly enough, allowing me to meet the attacker head on.

For my bravado, I was rewarded with a glancing knife blow to my upper thigh. The cut stung, but I was in motion, and the damage was more superficial than not. As soon as I made contact, I positioned myself as closely to the attacker as possible. I wanted to be inside of the range of any blade, and more persistent in my attack than any magical assault. The aggressive nature of my attack was necessary in my mind, in order to determine just how bad the odds were for us getting out alive.

Landing on the balls of my feet, I bounced, and drove my injured thigh upward to catch the assailant between the legs. The attack was deflected with a downward strike. I felt the hilt of the weapon clang against my kneecap, and gritted my teeth through the pain. Through the fire in my nerves, I forced my elbow downward, meeting the arm that held the blade head on. The blow was solid, and though I felt the searing heat of yet another cut, the strength holding the knife had been compromised.

Another sequence of hits followed as my shoulder connected with a nose, and my free hand worked around the back for a low end kidney punch. The sound of the dagger falling to the floor gave me strength, so I jumped into the air for an aerial attack.

The attacker dove forward at the same exact moment, and the crotch of my leg wrapped around the neck of the assailant. My weight fell down upon their back squarely, and the two of us collapsed onto the ground below. Immediately on landing, I allowed my instincts to push me forward. A simple twist of my torso thrust my weight down toward one side of the attacker. My thigh and knee retained their tight hold on the neck of the fighter. As I fell, the satisfying crack of my enemy's neck reverberated through my legs.

I stood up once more, as the dust from the fire extinguisher finally cleared.

"Oh my God!"

I ignored the sound of Erol's vomiting in the background, as well as the cries of the waitress from inside of the building. The tree line was my primary concern, and where we stood, we were completely vulnerable to attack. A glance behind me showed me where Erol was sick on the ground, as well as a nearby table that he was unsuccessfully trying to hide under.

With a quick move, I kicked the legs of the table inward, causing the table to fall at a diagonal to the ground. With Erol protected, I took an immediate dive toward the central hearth. At that moment, the best coverage I could find was behind the protection of the cob walls which surrounded the extinguished flames.

Even as I dove, arrows sank into the ground behind me. The same volley had peppered the table where Erol was hid. The arrows were coming from the right hand side of the woods. There had been about eight total. A skilled Fae archer could use a multiplication spell on the arrows in flight, but that did not mean that the they could achieve a spread of multiple targets. A quick evaluation of circumstance, led me to believe that there were at least two more attackers hidden within the woods. I glanced down at the fallen assailant, and immediately cursed.

Gods be Damned!

None of this made any sense, and it most definitely didn't bode well for things to come. The entire experience here was an awful reoccurring flashback to my time as an active service member. The problem here was that for reasons unknown to myself, I was no longer fighting with the same allies as before. In the past, our side had fought for freedom from oppression. The Wild Fae had decided to help in their own way, and had then retreated back into obscurity.

Looking down at the body of the fallen, I recognized the Crest of the Wilderness.

The fallen attacker had been a Wild Fae Assassin.

Now that I knew the identity of those who were attacking us, my job was supposedly easier. I could likely deduce the methods of attack, set up responses, and with a bit of luck, I could win the battle. The unfortunate reality of the situation was that now that I knew whom I had killed, I actually felt sickened.

The Wild Fae had been some of my strongest role models throughout the course of the War. I admired their skill and ethical philosophy. I even found myself longing for the aesthetic of their homes after going back to the Capitol.

The Capitol itself was stale, and grotesquely artificial in my own mind. There was a certain vivacity to the Wild Fae that I felt the rest of the populace missed out on in their return to the Capitol.

In all likelihood, if I examined the body of the assassin closer, I would undoubtedly recognize who they were. I would have trained with them, and eaten smoked rabbit over a small campfire with them. No doubt it was the same for the archers hidden in the wood. .

With tears welling up in my eyes, I reached my hand into the fire pit. My hand clasped around an ember the size of an apple, and I pulled it out from the ashes.

Ignoring the searing pain on my fingertips, I cast a spell on the embers, and threw it as far across the field of battle as possible.

I didn't throw the ember at the archers, but in a line perpendicular to their position. As the ember soared through the air, a wall of flame spilled out from inside of the coals, and connected with the grasses below. The flames would not last for more than a minute, because the ember itself had not contained that much potential for heat.

A minute was all that I needed.

"Erol, get up! We're leaving!"

He was unresponsive so I slapped him across the face and grabbed ahold of his collar. While staring into his eyes and willing him to be present with me, I fished the keys to the truck out of his pocket.

"Follow, or die."

The words were spoken with a grit in my teeth. I had no interest in having him die, but I absolutely was not going to kill any more Wild Fae in the name of Thane's pet mission.

Something about this whole situation had gotten incredibly fucked up, and I needed space in order to figure things out.

I left at a run, opting to go around the side of the restaurant, rather than through it. The wall of magical flame provided cover, both visually, and by incinerating the shafts of the arrows as they passed through the blaze. Even as we passed along the side of the building, the deadly arrowheads buried themselves into the wooden siding of the restaurant. However, the shots were all based off of an estimate of where we might be, as opposed to a straight on, vulnerable kill shot.

We were lucky, and I had no desire to press that luck any further.

The car was unlocked, and the keys were in the ignition before the firewall had been extinguished. To his credit, Erol didn't make any sort of bother about my driving his truck. I knew the police would be en route, but we were far enough away from the city to where I didn't think it would be too much of a problem. I put the car in gear, and we accelerated through the dirt lot and onto the highway once more.

As a matter of course, I knew the battle had to be over.

There was no reason that the Wilder Fae would leave their fallen on the Material Plane, regardless of their reasons for staging the attack. Among everything else that they stood for, honor to the fallen would be respected if nothing else. The way that the humans dealt with their corpses on the Material Plane was a process of chemical preservation and, dissection, autopsy and cosmetic beautification.

The process made me sick just to think about, and I didn't have half of the sensibilities of the Wilder Fae. There was no way in the Hells that they would tolerate that level of barbarism, enacted toward one of their fallen.

For the moment, we were safe once more.

As we passed, the one-mile mark away from the cafe, a police car approached, siren's wailing in the distance. I pulled respectfully over to the side of the highway and slowed in order to make room for the car. While pulled over, I cast a glamour spell on the two of us. For convenience sake, I transformed myself into Rita's Daughter, and Erol into her boyfriend. I had seen both of them naked within the last few hours, and it was easiest to bring their images to mind.

The cop car sped past with only a slight slow and glare in our direction. I smiled in response, and the cop continued on his way to the restaurant.

As soon as the threat was passed, I dismissed the spell. The implications of spending any more time in that young woman's skin than necessary was completely and totally undesirable to me. Not to mention that Erol, in spite of himself, was more attractive in his natural form than that young stud Rita's daughter had been wrapped around. At least Erol had a brain. He would have figured out where the ring was, sooner or later.

We just didn't have time for deductive reason.

I looked over to catch a glimpse of him, and to his credit, he was doing better now that we were on the road, and the coast was clear. He was still a bit visibly shaken up, but I didn't blame him too much.

"First time you've seen somebody killed?"

He nodded and looked out the side of the car.

I recognized this pattern of behavior from myself during basic training. The idea that you can take a life in the moment of battle is very different from actually taking the action. When someone does that on your behalf, you're often caught between an overwhelming sense of gratitude, and a total repulsion at the character of the person who has undoubtedly been labeled a killer in your own mind.

I didn't care what Erol thought of me as a person, but I wanted him to know that I wasn't planning on killing him. I figured that at least with that level of common ground, he and I had a fighting chance of getting our shit done together. After this afternoon, there wouldn't be any more coyness between the two of us.

He knew in no uncertain terms that I was dangerous, and that magic was a very real and deadly factor in this entire equation. What's more is that beyond a doubt, a very real enemy had been defined in his mind. He may not know the entirety of the reasons for the attack, but the fact that they wanted him dead was more than enough information, I'm sure.

I let him process his thoughts, and continued to steadily drive into the forest. The only thing left for me to worry about at present was when he would get his thoughts together and start sharing the details of his research. I decided it was time to lay it all out.

"I need whatever information you have about the next portal opening, and I need you to give it to me in non-scientific speech. I don't want to deal with any of that bullshit math, I just need you to do the translations, and tell me where we need to go. Do you understand me?"

The question was direct.

I looked at him as I drove, and caught him staring wide-eyed in my direction.

"That's right, everything's coming clear now, I'm sure. Maybe you feel some sense of relief that I killed for you, but let me be the first to tell you that the one who died was worth more to me than you, and I'm not sure I would have done the same thing again. Is that understood?"

He nodded and cleared his throat.

"We need to go back to my house, then I will help you."

" Of course we do..."

"I knew you were coming."

That was one of the first of a long strain of statements that came out from Erol's mouth as we went around the far side of the mountain, and made our way back into town. As it turned out, he actually didn't know shit, but his theories were interesting regardless.

At the end of it all, it was revealed that I was actually an agent of the O.T.O, here to bring about the new world order. As it turned out, I apparently had the DNA of archaic serpent masters inside of my body. Any human beings who used magic were descendants of Atlantis. The combination of DNA sequencing made our race particularly susceptible to forces of darkness. Obviously the fact that I was a trained warrior and was willing to kill in order to seek after occult knowledge was evidence to that end.

As for the others, the people that attacked us earlier that afternoon were none other than the Shadow Government of the Material Plane. Undoubtedly, they had been tracking his phone, which had cued them off to our location. His research was getting close to its completion, and now that all of the hard work had been finished, the vampires were closing in on him in order to make the kill.

From his synopsis, it wasn't clear to me whether or not he classified me as a vampire, but I didn't really care, as long as he cooperated.

"You're completely nuts," I replied. "You know that, don't you?"

"I know what I saw."

All I could do was shake my head and drive.

"Erol, I can't even begin to explain to you how inaccurate your picture of reality is."

I was going to tell him what was actually happening, but I didn't actually know myself. Perhaps in some way, his vision of reality was accurate, though the symbols might have been twisted within the limits of his paradigm.

Either way, I had no desire to share with him any more than necessary. At the moment, he had already conceded to giving me the information for the location of the next portal; I didn't need to care about much more than that. I figured we could worry about opening the damn thing when we got there, but at least it would be a push in the right direction.

"Don't be long, or the Shadow Government might make this a short trip."

"Oh God... You're right. If they have my phone tapped, then they probably have the house under surveillance as well. No! No. Don't stop here. Keep driving!"

I pulled over in front of his house.

"Hurry the fuck up."

The stress was obviously getting to him. He wasn't thinking clearly enough to be a rational person. Besides that, he was starting to get on my nerves.

"Oh, you're right. If they have this place under surveillance, then they would totally know that my car had driven pat and that would only tip them off that we know that they know."

"If you're not back in five minutes, I'm going to leave without you. That means the next O.T.O agent assigned to your case will find a crucified corpse on your lawn instead of an Erol. Now get the fuck out of the car."

"You wouldn't do that..."

He opened the car door, stepped out, and looked at me earnestly. "You need me."

As much as I would love to say that his last statement wasn't true, I could not. Likely, the most painful part about spending time with Erol was that for all of his un-examined conclusions, there was a ring of truth at the basis of his observations. Regardless if the conclusions drawn weren't accurate, for some reason, he still had his finger on the pulse.

Five minutes passed, and neither the O.T.O, nor the Shadow Government showed up to assassinate Erol, and steal his files. Regardless of the apparent moment of safety, Erol's return was not without some level of surprise.

Emerging out from the house, briefcase in one hand, and backpack in another was Erol. Following closely behind were Amethyst and Rosemary.

I should have known.

He opened the back door to the truck cab, and the dogs leaped in without hesitation.

"I'll drive from here," he said with confidence.

I thought about telling him to fuck off, but then I realized that I needed to back off a bit and let him take the helm for a while. There was no reason for me to continue assert control in a non-threatening situation.

"You're right," I conceded, and I opened the door and climbed into the passenger side of the truck.

Now that he was back in control, I could see a natural sort of liveliness to him. The adventure was beginning once more in his mind. Behind Erol's soul, in that moment, stood a sense of exploration and finality of purpose. The truth behind the experience was written all over his face. He expected that the moments to follow would be the purpose for which he had lived out these many years of his life.

"Good for you," I muttered.

Shunting the dogs to one side of the rear cab, I lowered my seat.

Erol may have found his purpose, but I still had no idea what the hell was happening. The appearance of the Wilder Fae worried me more than an little. As far as I was concerned, I was stuck, operating on previous orders, with new information that threw a significant doubt into the nature of the mission overall.

The problem was that this new information only provided a source of cognitive dissonance, and not any sense of true evidence of betrayal. The problem with the Void was documented, and had no apparent solution. The entire reason I had agreed with Thane in the first place was because of the overwhelming evidence that our world was about to suffer catastrophic ecological changes, and nobody was doing anything about it.

"But why would they want to stop me..."

"Who's they?"

Ever perceptive, Erol had picked up his investigation where he left off not long ago.

"My brain hurt.

I strained to think of a way to explain it to him in a way he could understand. I didn't want to go through the entire history of a fictitious race with him, while contending with the long standing imaginary constructs that he held in his own mind.

"At a certain point, people end up believing what they want to believe, and I'm not sure it is worth while to attempt to change things after that."

"Well if I've got something wrong, and you can prove it, then why not just share it with me?"

"Because I can't prove it. Not yet anyways."

"Why are you here?"

"I need you to open a portal."

The car started accelerating, and Erol rolled down the window to feel the fresh air of the highway blow into the cab of the truck. Rosemary opted to join Erol in the indulgence offered by the breeze, while Amethyst was content to rest her head on my shoulder.

The comfort of another creature felt nice, and I allowed myself to be soothed by the dog's affection.

I had expected a stream of questions to come out of Erol's mouth, but instead, he let me alone for a while, and focused on his driving. The break was peaceful, if short-lived. As it turned out, he was simply taking my information and processing it within his own mind. He needed to reason why I wanted him to open a portal, and fit it within whatever paradigm that he had constructed for himself.

I was getting tired of dealing with his conflicted and limited paradigm. Letting him believe whatever hew wanted about the experience was liberating, in that I didn't have to explain everything to him, but it still felt manipulative and disconnected.

I'm no better than Thane, if I keep this game up, I thought.

Fortunately, I didn't have to wait too long before Erol spoke up.

"I wanted to say I'm sorry," he began. "About the O.T.O, and the Shadow Government bit."

I shrugged, but he continued regardless.

"Things have happened to me in the past, before you showed up. You're not the only person who has ever taken an interest in my work."

"Is that right?"

I was genuinely interested, though still cautious about the significance of this information.

"Absolutely. I've gotten strange letters in the mail. Unnecessary clicks on the phone line. Even the sensation that I was being followed out in the middle of the wilderness."

None of that surprised me in the least. After all, I had been given information on him as a target before even coming to the Material Plane. Likely there had been other scouts in the past that had kept and eye on him. Still, there was no reason to discount this information out of hand.

"So what?"

"I know that I'm onto something, and I know that I'm not the only one that is interested in this information. Having you come into my life, and directly verify what I had suspected all along..."

"What exactly is it that you think these portals do?"

"Well, it's obvious. They open dimensions between worlds."

"And you automatically suspect Atlantis and the Shadow Government?"

"That's why I want to apologize. Sometimes, I get a bit carried away. The fact is, that I don't know what is on the other side, and I don't know why you want me in particular to open the portal."

He shrugged.

"It may just be that I have been studying these things my whole life, or it may be something else. Regardless of what it is, or who you are, I want you to know that I'm with you, though I might not be doing this for the same reason as yourself."

He had gaffed me.

"What do you mean?"

He continued to drive, quiet for a time, as though collecting his thoughts. All around us, I could see nothing except a sea of thick redwood trees. The highway itself had narrowed, and the little beat up truck continued to rumble along in spite of itself.

"I think humanity needs you. Whatever you are, wherever you've come from. I think humanity needs something in this world to pull them out of a state of philosophical depression."

"I'm not sure you understand what you are saying."

"Well, the way I see it, you are a representative of a race capable of things that we humans only dream of. I recognize that obviously you have the capacity for both good, and bad, which means that there is no certainty as to the outcome of an intersection between the two races. "

He paused for a moment, and let out a long sigh.

"As a matter of fact, in all likelihood, your culture will likely overthrow our own. I don't think it will be personal either. Historically, every time a more advanced civilization has interacted with a less technologically integrated civilization, there has been an unrepentant dominance and absorption of the previous culture into the dominant new culture. I don't think you'll have a choice."

"I don't understand how that is an advantage to humanity."

"Well, that's because you don't see humanity as I do."

"Elucidate."

He laughed.

"The problem is that most people in our world today don't have any kind of imaginative capacities whatsoever. Scientific reductionism has taken so firmly a hold on our cultural psychology that we can't seem to determine the difference between our own ass and an ad in a fashion magazine."

"No offense, but I've seen more than a few asses here that look nothing like they belong in a fashion magazine."

"Okay, well, maybe that was a bad analogy. What I mean to say is that there is nothing special about the human, in their own self-evaluation. Everything has been reduced to materialism and consumerism. All emotions and tendencies are commoditized. Religious instincts are used for political control, or subverted into dominance schemes. "

"Sounds like you did this to yourselves."

"It’s true! But, that doesn't make it any less depressing."

"I don't think you'll find us to be the benevolent saviors you hope for."

As I spoke, my mind replayed the battle with Xan, and all of the intricacies of the political system within the Capitol. The very fact that the Wilder elves had attacked meant that there was no final bastion of ideological purity within the Fae Realm. If there was no purity, then I could hardly believe that we could be seen as the saviors of another world.

"Your spiritual death sounds like a personal problem that each human needs to face. I sincerely doubt we will change that for you."

"That’s just it! I don't think you will change anything either. However, I think that opening the portal might lead to creating a catalyst, which challenges the basic assumptions of the world we live in."

"I see..."

He was right.

Not even the Fae knew how the rift would work out. We were working in entirely unknown territory. It went without saying that the opening of a Rift would change everything, but that didn't necessarily mean that everything would change for the better.

It was more like a desperate strike into the darkness, in hopes that whatever rested on the other side was somehow better than what was inevitable in the absence of such exploration.

Of course, whenever we struck out into new territories, there was always the risk that was associated with that process of discovery. Problems might be alleviated, but then again, things might only grow in their complexity, as well.

"Neither side knows what will happen."

"And both sides believe that there is a hope for things to change."

I looked at him, skeptical of how much he understood.

He caught the glance and laughed again.

"It's obvious that the stakes are high. Otherwise, why show yourself? Why expose yourself, or put yourself in danger to protect the life of someone like me?"

He shook his head and bit his lip.

"No, things are changing, for sure. All I can say is that I am going to do everything in my power to make that change happen. As for the consequences, I'll leave the burden of impact to someone else."

Amethyst lifted her head to stare at her master, and then lowered it down once more to the seat. I agreed with her sentiment entirely.

"We will see."

Whether it was the hum of the car, or the fatigue from the battle at the restaurant, I found that it was soon time for me to nap. Closing my eyes once more, I drifted off to sleep; passively riding along with Erol while he carted us forward to our destinies.

I woke up to the sight of fire.

The fire was contained within a sphere that was thousands of miles away. I adjusted my eyes to the light, and looked around my environment. The familiar car, and the comforting presence of the dog were no longer part of the picture. Instead, I had somehow found myself once more in the landscape of the Demon Realm.

With a mixture of revulsion and intrigue, I looked at the body that I once more inhabited. The same reptilian form as before covered my skin, and I thought about the words of Erol.

Could this be? I thought to myself.

I wasn’t sure if this was my true form, or if this was only another passing moment. The whole question brought deeper thoughts into my brain, and in the way that only dreams can provide, an answer arrived matter-of-factly in my consciousness.

Like a giggle, or a transformation of thought, the conclusion left me, as soon as it had arrived.

I blinked.

Whatever that thought was, it didn’t seem to matter much any more. I was here, and that was enough for me to worry about. I felt more capable than I did the time before. Already, I was keeping an eye on the ground, and making my way toward more stable places to rest.

I launched up into the air, and felt the beauty of my wings as they manipulated the air currents around me. I felt powerful, and strong. A smile came to my face, in spite of the horrific landscape, and I remembered the simple joys of flying.

Without any effort at all, my wings opened and caught the air currents on the way down, transforming my plummet into a graceful arc. I soared past the edges of the wasteland, and into the rocky grey mountains beyond.

The pleasure slowed when I realized that I was not alone, and that I most likely stood out like a bloodstain against the vacant sky. I opted to dive down to the ground, and fly along the parched and cracked soil beneath my shadow. In all likelihood, whomever I had observed would also have seen me.

As I grew closer to the mountainsides, it became clear to me that I had been seen by whatever beings had been standing on the cliffs. I could feel their eyes on my body as I approached. My body shrank, and I remembered the difficulties that I had experienced during my last visit to this place. I dared not stop on the ground, but I was also hesitant to approach.

In the end, curiosity won out over deliberation, and I decided to fly upward, along the incline of the mountain. Once I reached an altitude that was slightly higher than that of my target, I slowed to a stop.

The claws on my feet dug into the gravel and sand which made up the sides of the mountain. A feeling of relief, and also dismay followed thereafter. In front of me, on the plateau, was a demon whom I knew to be Thane.

"I see you've acclimated to your new form!"

He laughed and extended both of his wings for emphasis. He sounded victorious, as though none of this was any sort of surprise to him. Thane had always been a worldly type of person, but to believe that something as strange and perverse as this world was to be considered normal.

"How did you know it was me?” I called out, still hesitant to truly approach and close the distance between the two of us.

"The same way you knew it was me. The soul knows its partner, regardless of what plane it is on. The whole reason we are here speaking together right now is not an accident, Aria."

His words rang clearly in my mind, even though the distance between the two of us was still considerable.

Plucking up my bravery, I leapt into the air, and glided down the side of the mountain toward his position. I landed close, but not too close. Near enough to recognize him by his eyes, and some of his more basic characteristics.

Even still, the match was not exact. His body was stronger than I remember. The scales on his skin made his entire frame appear to be more boxlike in construction.

His chest was bold, and his tale was thick at the base of his spine, and tapered off toward the end, some five or six feet away.

He looked deadly, and dangerous to be around. What made me feel more sad than anything else, was that I knew he looked like me.

"Impressed?" he asked, his teeth glinting in the light of the sun.

I was more than just impressed. He had me terrified.

I stared at him, with inspired awe in my eyes. The way that he held himself was so warlike, and majestic in this form. I was speechless.

"You may see me as something which is worthy of admiration, but I can't be anywhere as beautiful as yourself."

He smiled, though the smile was edged with teeth which made my heart race.

"The way that you soared through the air. It had been such a long time since I had seen you express your natural beauty like that; it really is something."

Now it was my turn to smile.

"It really is you, Thane. Once the compliments start flowing, it’s like honey for flies, isn't it?"

He had to laugh.

"You sound upset."

"Well, a lot of shit has happened since I saw you last. I don't even know what to make of all of it."

He nodded, like he already knew what I was going to say. The non-verbal cue that he was aware of the attack too me by surprise.

"There are a lot of changes on the horizon, Aria. I just want you to know how very much all of your work here means to us."

"Us?"

"The Fae race, though we won't be called that any longer when this is all over with."

"What are you talking about? What do you mean we won't be called that any--"

"Take a look around, and tell me what you see."

He gestured out over the barren landscape. Not a single thing covered the ground, save for cracks and rocks. The whole absence of life was disconcerting, in a strange way. I felt like the world was somehow incomplete."

"I see death."

He shook his head and grinned.

I hated it when he did that; behaved as though he knew something I didn't. It was one of his many secrets. The problem was that he was both so convincing, and well-informed that I really didn't know what to expect from him.

I shrugged.

"What do you see?"

"Potential," he said, smiling obligingly. "When I look around here, I see an emptiness. You had mentioned that it reminded you of death, but can death not also be a form of transition?"

He reminded me of a winged serpent, or a fallen angel. The reference was obviously to one of the more familiar trends of occultism and esoterica within the Capitol.

Ever since a relative peace had taken hold of the city, the people's thoughts had grown increasingly philosophical. As a result, everybody and their mother were collecting Tarot decks. The cards themselves had a long life in the human realm, but their magic was trans dimensional, as was their efficacy. The Tarot was a pictorial map of the mind of the gods; well, one of many.

"I understand, but both you and I know that your a man of action, and not metaphysical speculation."

"Ha ha! Exactly!"

"And what follows Death?"

I strained my memory for a moment to think of the answer.

"Fuck your games, Thane."

"Ah ah, keep your Temper."

He squatted down and began stretching his hulking frame along the ground. I wasn't sure if it was just my eyes, but the rocks of the mountain appeared to crack and break beneath the shifting of his movements. Suddenly, the answer came.

"Temperance."

"That's right, my dear. Temperance. Let not a soul say that you are an unreflective person, and what does that mean?"

He smiled at me, and I kicked him. I didn't even bother to restrain myself.

The blow connected squarely beneath his arm. He had anticipated my movements, and captured my leg. As easily as I had kicked him, he dove in the same direction as the arc of my kick. The physics of the maneuver were brilliant. Thane had always been an incredible fighter, but the resulting power in his new form was not something I was prepared to handle.

I was immediately swept off of my feet, and launched like a throwing hammer into the air away from Thane.

The damage was minimal, but what was truly incredible was how quickly I was able to react. My wings extended out to either side of my body and stabilized my fall. Without much effort at all, I was able to hover there in the air, just off the side of the mountain.

"Temperance, means the regeneration of health, toward a balance and equilibrium!"

He shouted the sentence, and when I looked at him, I saw how happy he was with himself.

"This, is what follows after Death!"

I lowered myself down to the plateau once more. The fight was not sincere. The whole process had been an elaborate form of demonstration. Nothing more. Meanwhile, Thane was gesturing toward me, like I was some divine revelation sent here to prove his point.

"Don't you see it?" he asked with complete earnest. "Your wings! The angels of mythology do not look as beautiful as you."

The flattery was nice, but I had seen my reflection in this world. We were once Fae, but there was something darker about this place. I wasn't convinced that this form of renewal was exactly what was meant by the ancient knowledge of the cards.

"One could never fault you for your ambition."

"Precisely! But tell me, what have I accomplished in any of the realms without you by my side?"

I thought about his statement for a moment, and then decided he was right, again.

I let out a sigh.

Telling Thane that he was right more than once in a row was a terrible idea, even if it was true. He saw my expression, and it was too late to conceal my thoughts.

"You know it's true, and what's more, is I know that you and I have the same set of values, even if we tend to express them differently."

"Nope. Not this time," I replied in all gravity. "You know very well that there are things that you have done recently that I want nothing to do with."

"Well, don't hold back now..."

He smiled again.

"Well, like cozying up to all of the politicians at the Capitol."

"Keep going."

"And, trading in your combat ethic for those ridiculous boots you always wore..."

"You didn't like my boots!"

I looked up at him to see if he was being serious or not, but there was a smirk on his face.

"You think this is funny?"

"Not at all. I think it's one hundred percent accurate. The problem is that while you are accurate, I feel like that was a necessary sacrifice that had to be made in order to get where we are now."

Once more, he gestured around the wasteland like it was some kingdom he had inherited. In the distance, I saw storm clouds begin to roll across the desert.

"What I don't think you realize is that this entire experience is an opportunity to end all of that trivial bullshit once and for all. We're going to wash away all of the self-righteous babble, and bring the Fae back to the state of power that we should enjoy."

"And what's the cost?"

"What do you mean cost?"

What cost could possibly be prohibitive to bring the Fae back to their rightful place in the world?"

"What possible cost would be too much to insure that each young Fae grows old in the knowledge that they will not be depotentiated in the name of progress?"

"Depotentiated, that's a bit of a soft word, don't you think?"

"Well, I was going to say castrated, but you've never had a problem with that."

Another smile.

"So... I'm going to go on a limb here and say that I'm dreaming, because the last time I saw you, you looked different, even though you sound the same."

As I spoke those word, I saw his body change once more, though this time, it wasn't a new body, it was a fluctuating form. Something dark took over his body, and he changed from a handsome demon, into a horrifying creature. I continued to stand boldly in front of him, and allowed no emotion to cross my face whatsoever.

"Soon, you and I will be able to assume our rightful place in the world once more. We were never meant for the Capitol. We were meant for greater things, and this is going to be the opportunity which changes all of that for you and I."

His smile was toxic now, and the light in his eyes had changed into an unnatural green flame.

"Storm's coming," I said, nodding behind him.

The darkened clouds had risen up in the sky like tidal wave about to crash over the entire valley. The crest of the wave was a magnificent face of darkness, soaring so high it threatened even to blot out the oppressive sun.

"And with the storm, there will be floods, destruction, and complete structural change. When it has passed, the landscape that you see here will be unrecognizable. We will move forward into a new era of equality. Our tortured planet no longer oppressed by the structures of the planes."

During that final sentence, Thane's voice changed, if only for a moment. Something else had come through in its entirety, leaving me to wonder if any of us truly knew what the consequences of this Rift might actually be.

"You know how much I value equality."

"Exactly! And soon enough, balance will be restored. When that happens... I want you by my side."

His eyes narrowed, and the vision faded. The final impression that I held was being overwhelmed by a wall of darkness, except for two glowing eyes.

When I woke up again, I found myself back in the car with Amethyst licking my face. Erol was technically in the back of the car, pulling some gear out from the rear of the truck. Rosemary was nowhere to be seen.

"Ugh, alright Amethyst, I get it. I'm up."

How long was I out? I thought, looking out at a darkened sky.

Around us, I saw the familiar trees of the redwoods, as well as more barren hillsides than before. Either a fire, deforestation, or higher altitude. I couldn't exactly tell which, because the only light wee had in that place came from the ignition of the car, and the headlamp that waved about erratically as Erol struggled with whatever he was working on in the back of the truck. I hopped out of the car, and Amethyst followed suit.

"What's going on?"

"Oh! You're up." "

The lamp shone right in my face for a moment, and then was diverted self-consciously to the side.

"Well, glad to see that you've at least gotten some rest. You really passed out for a while."

I nodded, and walked back toward where Erol was working to try and understand what he was hoping to accomplish.

"What's that?"

"Well, it’s an emergency tarp that I keep in the back, in case I get stranded, and need to camp outside of the car. Um. Basically, I was thinking that we may need to take a break from driving for a while, and recharge. You were already asleep, and when I looked at you, I saw that your neck was a bit cramped. I thought that with a solid place to lie down, both you and I might feel more rejuvenated with the continuation of our journey.

"You're setting up camp; that's all you needed to say, Erol."

From the looks of it, Erol was more struggling with bungee cords, and unkempt tarps than he was setting up a campsite.

"Looks like you're just making things difficult for yourself."

"Well, I wouldn't normally do this by myself, but the next site is quite a ways away, and I've been driving all day. I need a break, and it looked like you were ready for some kind of break as well."

"What the fuck is wrong with you?"

"You're serious?"

"Just get in the truck. Get in the truck, and I'll drive the rest of the way. You can sleep."

I left him standing there in the dark with a half folded tarp in his hands, and walked around to the driver’s side of the car. He stood there for a minute, and then figured it was an easier decision than not. The tarp was folded up and both of the dogs were inside of the cab once more, sitting on Erol's lap.

"I swear... I will never understand how your brain works. Are all humans this insufferable?"

The keys were left in the ignition, and the truck turned on quickly; ready to continue forward in its journey.

"So where do I go from here?"

"Well, the next place I have in mind is not so much of a theoretical location for a portal event, but a place of great potential."

"Straight, left, right... directions, Erol."

"Right, oh. I mean straight. Go straight."

We were moving forward soon enough, at which point Erol revealed to me that we were moving northwest.

Our destination was a secluded beach somewhere northwest of our current position. He theorized that due to the excessive flush of psilocybin in that area every year around this time, it would be a favorable location for a portal to open. In addition to the flora, he also had some mathematical calculations which integrated Ley Line analysis of the region, along with the other 'documented' instances of portals within his research.

I tried to tell him that none of his research was legitimately 'documented', because if it were, he wouldn't be massaging Rita to pay his bills.

Naturally, his response to that was less than favorable, but I didn't press the point. I needed him to take us there, and there was no use in pushing any more criticism in his direction than necessary.

For a long while, I sat there, staring at the highway, and listening to talk radio. The stories were mildly interesting, as were the responses of the callers, but they weren't interesting enough to hold my entire attention. The only purpose that they actually managed to serve was separating myself from the silence that threatened to swallow the car in my isolation.

Before passing out himself, Erol had informed me of the highways to keep an eye out for, as well as a few major landmarks that would indicate we were headed in the right direction. The trip would take all night, and I would be driving for the rest of the time if I had anything to say about it.

I had the unshakable feeling like we were headed for a trap. Some terrible situation was about to unfold; yet there was no alternative available to either of us. We needed to move forward into the unknown and deal with whatever savage consequences existed before us. Meanwhile, all that was asked of me was to keep my eyes on the road, and maintain consciousness while the dogs and my passenger slept in the cab.

I had a hard time feeling anything but contempt for the man, but I got the feeling that it wasn't so much contempt that I was feeling, but frustration on a larger scale which was lashing out wherever it could. I was so unbelievably bitter, angry and depressed, that the full magnitude of it couldn't even be expressed coherently. All I could do was stick to the task at hand, and deal with whatever emotions were most aggressively emergent.

In all reality, Erol really wasn't a bad guy at all.

He was good looking, compassionate, intelligent, intuitive, and let's face it, even if he was driven in a way that the rest of his society didn't support, you couldn't exactly call him unmotivated. The way he laid down there with his dogs gave me plenty to think about, as I wondered what his life had been like before I showed up and made things more complicated for him.

And more complicated yet, I thought.

By the time this was all over, I had some serious doubts as to where he would find himself. Then again, none of us really knew what would happen when, and if the portal could actually be opened. As far as I was aware, the only information we actually had was some combination of actual experience and theoretical knowledge. The problem was that neither of us had experience with opening the portal for any extended period of time. There was no way of knowing what would happen.

My thoughts were interrupted by the strangest conversation coming out of the speakers of the car.

"You know when I wake up at night, and I look out the window, I see her and she's there waiting for me."

"Who's that? Whose there waiting for you?"

"They are. The people. The people of light. They are asking me questions, and hoping that I do good things for them, and I just want them to know that I'm doing my best. I am doing everything I can and I don't know what to say about it except that the dark ones."

"The dark ones?"

"That's right, I call them the shadow people."

"Are these actual people?"

"Well, no. I'm not talking about humans. These are extra-dimensional beings that a previous incarnation of the government came into contact with. They are not who they say they are... I can't trust them."

"Sounds difficult... are you all right where you are at right now. Are you safe?"

"Well, of course. I'm here by my bed. I've got one standing in the corner of the room, and one standing on the side. They are telling me they live here, and that this is their home too."

"So, they aren't doing anything to harm you, and they live there. Have you told them to go to the light?"

"I tried, and they laughed at me."

"The laugh, is it an audible laugh?"

"No, it sounds like the scratching of leaves against a frosted window...."

"Gods, that's enough."

I reached my hand out and switched off the dial. The absence of noise caused Rosemary to get up and look at me. She blinked lazily, and then settled down again.

"So much for the radio, can't believe you listen to that shit."

I didn't expect Erol to be up, but as soon as I spoke, he got up with a groan and a yawn.

"It's nice to know that there are others out there even crazier than myself."

His statement gave me pause.

"Gets lonely working on portal theories, and meditations on the paranormal. I need some company, and so I turn to the radio in order to find what I'm looking for. The strangest part about that entire conversation is that is just some snippet from someone's life."

"You were awake for that?"

"Sure. I was awake enough to listen. I allow myself to drift off like that, and the radio keeps me company. Of course not while I'm driving, but since you're taking care of that..."

I strained my mind to wonder what it was exactly that the man on the radio had been experiencing, but I couldn't come to any sort of conclusions. Erol must have known what I was thinking, because he responded to my unvoiced question.

"The problem is that most psychic phenomenon is a subjective experience. It's all dependent on the way that a person interprets information that enters their perception. It could very well be that a shadow person and a woman of light were taking up space in that man's room. The problem is that not everybody is even open to those sorts of possibilities, and so there is an inherent loneliness in experiencing psychic phenomenon. When you factor in the subjectivity of interpretation, all of the sudden, we are in territory that is even more isolating."

I nodded.

"So, you get aliens, angels, ancestors..."

"And all the rest of it. The point is, we have no idea what is on the other side of all of these experiences. All we have is the figurative finger pointing at the moon."

"I understand."

"That's why I think this mission we are on right now is so important. The entire premise here is that we might be able to create an opening between dimensions. The hope is that it changes something, and makes it so that people don't have to believe that people are crazy just because they are having psychic experiences. If I'm correct in my theory, I think we will all come to accept psychic experiences as an aspect of life, not as some unique phenomenon, or indicator of insanity."

I was stunned.

"I can't believe it..."

"What's that?"

"The audacity of males is cross-dimensional."

He had a good laugh about that, which was nice to hear. I was being completely serious, but it was nice to at least see some element of comfort in the situation. The laughter was short-lived, leaving us in the darkness of the car once more, but it was a moment.

"You know, I have the feeling that the audacity is complimented equally by some level of sacrifice that we are never fully aware of until it happens."

"Try not to complain too much for me."

"Oh, I'm not intending to be sexist. Women definitely have their own sacrifices that they need to make over the course of their lives. I just think that more often than not, men are called to make sacrifices that are more physical in nature; usually more permanent."

"Are you afraid?"

He shrugged, and winced involuntarily.

"I've had a few dreams. Nothing that prevents me from wanting to move forward, but I consider them to be warnings. Dreams are powerful things, and I don't think it is ever wise to ignore them."

"You know, I'm familiar enough with your culture to know that most of your stories have been written by men."

"Interesting, but I don't think it negates my statement."

I grinned.

"You would think that."

This brought out another laugh, though, this time it was less severe than the first. Both Amethyst and Rosemary were up for the occasion. Amethyst was even wagging her tail back and forth against the rear cab of the truck.

"If you see history, and the mythological process of storytelling as an anthropological record of the psyche of the storytellers, and the storytellers were predominately men, that doesn't preclude these records as being used to assemble an archetype of male experience. It might prevent anyone from talking about ‘human’ or ‘female’ experience, but one would hope that over enough time, something would have been distilled there, inside of those stories."

"Like the Tarot."

He nodded.

"Exactly. A pictorial account of human behavior throughout the ages."

I didn't bother to tell him that instead of being centered within a masculine viewpoint, he was also now centering himself within a human viewpoint. The point seemed moot, as I doubted he could have expressed his thoughts in any other way.

"Do you even know who I am, or where I'm from?"

Another smile, though this one was a bit more sad than the last.

"I see what you and I are doing as an adventure. Imagine you were driving late at night, and you were listening to a radio show..."

"And I heard you talking about how you went to discover a portal between dimensions with some type of alien visitor..."

A smile brought a squint to my eyes.

"You're right. People would think you were crazy."

"So I accept what ever is happening, and hope that at the end of it all, there's going to be something there worth while for me."

"Hm. You're just the passenger. Not a bad way to deflect responsibility."

"C'mon, let's roll down the window and put on some tunes."

"And Everything Looks Good Tonight..."

"La La La La La La La La..."

The dogs joined in, and we both sang the chorus. Sacrifices would most certainly be asked. No story was complete without them.

For the moment, I knew he was right.

No reason not to enjoy it while it lasted.

"Well, we're here."

"We may have bonded this trip, but that doesn't give you permission to make inane statements of observation."

"Oh, right, gotcha. You get to play a hardass now that you've been behind the wheel all night."

I let the response slide, and did my best to appreciate the scenery.

Our final destination was more beautiful than I had anticipated. There was definitely something magical about those beaches. The stones on the ground looked like they were made of gems. Some of the stones were pitch black, others were blue, green, and rose colored; all of them were smooth enough to where you could see your reflection in them if you squatted down toward the ground.

The sound of the waves and the wind provided a backdrop for the birds of early morning. We were there at dawn, and the sun rose behind us in the sky. Light shot outward toward the ocean, and I smiled thinking about how beautiful the sunset was going to be later on that night.

Assuming we make it that long...

The thought came into my head unbidden. There was no reason to believe that all safety and beauty should dissipate throughout the course of the day, but still I felt uncomfortable. I couldn't tell if it was because I was operating on a lack of sleep, or if it was because of some more legitimate reason. I was certain that our arrival meant my full awareness was necessary.

The memory of the dream from the day before was still fresh in my mind. The sun of the demon world cast a dark shadow in my thoughts. The soft glow of these coastal dunes at dawn was much more to my liking.

"Now what?"

I turned away from the lapping waves to find Erol was carefully attending to his rats.

They were running along his shoulders while his arms were spread outward from his body. Both dogs scampered around him and barked playfully at their master. He looked so loved, and yet he was alone.

I walked over closer, and gave Amethyst a scratch between the ears. She pounced after a stick on the ground and brought it to me expectantly.

"Did you hear me?" I asked, as I threw the stick into the ocean.

He started to speak, but was interrupted by a sharp bark from Rosemary.

The cry surprised both of us, and we watched as the dog positioned itself between the truck and a figure that was standing on the edge of the dunes.

"Rosemary.... Hush!"

Amethyst came back drenched in seawater, only to drop the stick at my side, and lower her gaze in the direction of the figure on the hill. Amethyst's stance grew closer to the ground, and a low growl came out from her throat.

"I think we've found out where we need to go."

Even as I spoke, the figure fled from the hill, opting to disappear backward into the depths of the sand dunes.

"You think following them is a good idea?"

His voice was laced with reservation. He didn't want to have another episode like the restaurant any more than I did. Still, I shook my head.

"I don't think it's going to be like that. If they wanted to attack, they would have done so already. Our guard was down. We need to follow."

Whether or not the decision to follow was an aspect of the will of fate, or not was not a concern for me. I had my own questions to answer, and I had a suspicion that the if we moved in the direction that this stranger lead us toward, I might find more than just the answers to my questions. I would find the transfer point. The portal used by the Wilder Fae to track us down.

I had been too blind before to piece things together. The battle had been too shocking.

“Put your stuff away, Erol, and stay with the dogs. I need to have a word with this stranger.”

“What if they come back while you’re gone?”

“Like I said, if they wanted you dead, you would already be gone. I’ll be back shortly.“

I sprinted off in the direction of the figure. They already had a fair enough start on me, but I had a feeling that we would talk soon. You don’t make yourself known unless you wish to be known — especially if you are the Wilder Fae.

My feet sank into the sand, and I could feel the grains of sand on the dunes slip in-between my toes. My muscles burned as I ascended the hill, but the exertion felt good. I smiled, thinking about how cramped my legs had gotten after driving all night. An early morning run was exactly what I needed to wake my body up again.

When I arrived at the top of the dune, I noticed that the figure I was chasing had left footprints along the crest of the next dune, which lead toward a hill. I accommodated for the change in trajectory, and made it my goal to balance along the crest of the dune with each footfall.

Scanning the peaks of the dunes, in mid sprint, I saw my target ahead of me by forty yards or so. All of the time I had spent in training came back to me, and my body assumed the position of peak physical performance.

The landscape around me came into hyper focus, and I became incredibly sensitive to the most subtle changes in the shape of the dune.

I wanted my feet to land at precisely the right angle, allowing me to minimize drag in the sand, and make up the distance left to cover.

The dunes went on for a half-mile or so, before transferring into more stable ground. The trade off was that instead of negotiating the surface of the dunes, the chase would lead up the trail toward a set of beachside cliffs.

My breath ran heavily, and my vision started to go soft. At that moment, I had only one goal:

I had to capture that person and make them answer for the intrigue surrounding the attack at the restaurant.

A leap from the final crest of the sand dune left me skidding down the side of the final hill. At the base of the dune, the ground assumed a different texture as I climbed upward on the hill toward the sea cliffs. The sand had been replaced by a more firm foundation. In addition to the foundational changes of the soil, sparse, wind-blown trees began to crop up on either side of the trail.

Through the switchbacks, I sprinted up the hill, until the trees around had grown tense enough to provide a semblance of protection. That coverage was all that the Wild Fae needed to deceive me in my pursuit. While I ran headfirst up the hill, I was tackled from behind by the very figure I had chased.

The impact threw me off balance, and I fell face first into the ground. My body burned from the abrasions on my skin. I also lost what breath was inside of my body while my assailant brought their entire weight down on my chest cavity.

Stars exploded in my vision, and for a moment, I lost all context. My body was little more than a vector for confusion and pain in that moment.

Without wasting any time, my attacker wrapped a cord around my throat, and pinned my shoulders to the ground with their knees. I struggled, and bucked my hips, but the more I thrashed around, the tighter the cord grew on my skin. I flailed around for a moment longer, refusing to give into the submission.

Then everything went black.

I woke up with cords wrapped tightly around my body. My neck ached, and my jaw was spread wide by rope. When I spoke, the words only came out as muffled yelps, but that was enough to let my captor know that I was conscious.

The figure I had chased was alone, by all appearances. More of them could have been waiting in the trees beyond. My wits were not the sharpest they had ever been. I was both fatigued, and in physical pain, but I was alive, and that counted for something.

"You don't recover nearly as quickly as you used to..."

My vision blurred, and I looked at the figure standing in front of me.

They were dressed in the garb of the Wilder Fae Assassins.

Dark green clothes.

Masks covering their faces, but their bodies displayed alluringly for all to envy. This one was a woman, and she looked not only beautiful, but also highly capable. I realized then, that even if I had not been in a state of fatigue, I would have had difficulty matching myself against her prowess.

While we all had trained hard during the years of conflict in the Revolution, the Wilder Fae had always trained. They exercised and ate like warriors even in times of peace, so that if, and when -- for it was always a when -- conflict arose, they would be prepared to do what was necessary to protect their way of life.

The Wilder Fae were some of the fiercest allies during the time of the Revolution, but they were also some of the most philosophically stoic. Their separatist attitudes protected them from getting caught up in the nationalistic self-righteousness that infected both the Revolutionary Troops, and Xan's Army.

The only reason they had become involved in the war was to protect their won autonomy. Anything beyond that, was never acknowledged. As a result, a great many of the Revolutionary Army soldiers never quite found it inside of themselves to trust the Wilder Fae with any aspect of battle at all. Even when the sacrifice of the Wilder Fae saved countless lives, and enabled the support and tactical knowledge necessary for us to survive the final battle against Xan.

I stopped moaning, and allowed myself to find a sense of composure. I knew that whatever this one wanted to talk about, it must have been important. I also noted that I was not dead... which meant that there was a great deal for me to learn from what they might have to share.

"Aria, you don't recover quite as quickly as you used to."

I narrowed my eyes, trying to figure out who it was that spoke to me. The mask extinguished all defining characteristics of the face, and the eyes were not familiar enough to me to do any good.

"Don't try figuring out who I am. If I wanted to tell you that, you would already know. Just as if I wanted to kill you, you would already be done.

I'm aware of your mission into the Material Plane, and I'm also aware of the good intentions you have for moving forward. You are a strong and noble warrior; you always have been. In fact, this is the only reason you are alive right now.

I've come here to tell you that the reasons behind your current mission are not what they seem to be. Mistakes that you make will cause traumas to ripple outward across all dimensions. Our seers have warned us of your ignorance, which is why the plot had been formed against you and the human in your care."

At the mention of Erol, my eyes lit up again, and pain flashed across my face.

"No need to worry. The human has been drugged, and sleeps now by the sea, in the company of his animals. At this point, the only person you should be concerned about is yourself."

At this, she produced a knife which I knew to be wickedly sharp. She grabbed the knife by the hilt and began to press it slowly into my mouth. As the blade touched each cord, they were severed, without so much as a fraction of hesitation. The cords did not stand a chance against the edge of that blade. One by one, the thin cords snapped, each time relieving pressure on my jaw. I began to sweat, as the blade inched close and closer into my mouth. My muscles twitched with involuntary fear at the prospect of the sadistic intent of this rogue fae.

When the last cord was slit, I felt the blade just brush the side of my lip as the woman pulled the knife out from my mouth. The taste of blood seeped into my mouth, and I licked my lips subconsciously in an effort to heal this tiny wound.

"You killed a good friend of mine, and I would be happy to feed your blood to the hillside."

The statement was not a threat, but a cold and soberly delivered fact.

"Then why don't you?"

The woman hung her head for a moment, and then raised it up toward me once more. When she saw me again, she had a smile on her lips. The smile was one of a person who has inside information that they will never share. I myself have smiled that way at people in the past. The smile is one that says, ‘I know why, but you'd never believe me’.

"Let's just say you and I are little more than character being moved along by the hand of fate, and right now, it is not my responsibility to kill you, though at some point, it most definitely might be."

"Why not do it now, and save yourself the trouble?"

"For the same reason you wouldn't... which is perhaps another reason why I'm going to let you go."

"Doesn't make sense," I began. "If you were going to let me go in the first place, why go to the troub--"

*SLAP*

"Next time, I'll use the flat of my blade..."

Too cocky. I was getting too cocky.

"You are bright, and that has served you well, but you are dealing in matters that are far outside of your comprehension. I have brought you here to deliver you a warning."

The way she glared at me, I felt the heat of her stare burn through any defenses that I might have possessed.

"Do not forget where you have come from, as you move forward on your path. If you do, I swear to every one of the Gods that my blade will taste your blood once more -- and this time, I will let it drink its fill."

My lip stung as a subtle reminder as the woman backed away from the tree.

"If you and I have reached an understanding, I will take you and your friend to the portal you seek."

I was cut free from my bondage. What's more is I was gifted the very dagger that loosed my bonds.

"For you to remember all of the potential behind the power you possess."

"Or to stab you in the back..."

She didn't respond, she only walked through the underbrush, back toward the trail we had both ascended. She walked in front of me without fear. Of course the inclination to strike out at her would be there. She had totally and completely caught me. There was no other way of seeing the situation. The grace had to do with how she treated me after I was captured.

Ultimately, I realized she had actually given me a gift, in her own way.

The descent back down to the dunes was slow and contemplative. She was in no obvious hurry. What's more is that the sun was already low in the sky by the time we slid down the dunes that lead back toward the beach. In the lapse of consciousness, we had lost an entire day.

In the distance, both dogs started hollering at us, announcing our presence.

As though the dogs themselves had awakened Erol from whatever spell he was under, I watched as he sat up in the back of the truck. Amethyst ran up to see me, and stopped short of our approach. Her ears lay flat on her head, and she growled, but there was an air of uncertainty in her tone.

"Give it up Amethyst... we can't always win."

I got a small yelp in response, and our new 'guide' received nothing more than a sharp snorting blow from Amethyst's nose. Figuring she was as satisfied as she was going to get, she bounded back to Rosemary and Erol, communicating her concerns the entire time.

"Amethyst... that's enough girl."

When the two of us approached, both Rosemary and Erol were wary about our approach.

"How long was I asleep?"

"You slept the entire day," the woman responded. 'I had to have a word with your friend here in private. Your dogs kept you company."

"You poisoned me?"

"Best to let that one go, Erol."

He looked somewhat confused, and uncomfortable, then relented and sat down on the bed of his truck.

"Good. Now that we're all together, I have a few announcements. Erol. The information that got you here was sufficient, but you are going to need something else if you want to move forward. That information is what I am prepared to offer the two of you. You are both free to take the information or leave it. At this point, I am one hundred percent detached from whatever future you two choose to bring about."

"That's a lie."

"I didn't say I would remain detached."

"Exactly one hour ago, the two of you were dosed with the most potent psilocybin that grow in this region. Your psyches, as well as your physiologies are different, so I would not expect that the remainder of the night would be similar by any stretch of the phrase for either of you. However..." She took a long breath, and let her chest and shoulders fall into a relaxed and composed position."… they are certain to be highly formative. May the gods show you the way forward. I will lead the two of you toward your final destination. You will come together to perform the magic necessary to open the portal, and the hand of fate will guide you further from that place. May the gods care for us all."

"You aren't going to tell us your name?"

"I need no name, as to you, I am no more than Psychopomp."

"You mean to say we are going to the realm of the dead?"

"And beyond, is my hope."

The sun was already inches away from kissing the horizon. Stretching out over the vanishing point, brilliant hues of red, pink, and violet spread throughout the air. When the sun hit clouds, the light reflected and modified its appearance even more; creating one of the most beautiful sunsets I had seen in my entire life.

"Come, quickly. Leave everything behind. We will need to hurry if we want to get to the peak before the sun sets. If one is going to initiate the catalyst for Ragnorok, one might as well do it with auspicious timing."

"You think this is the end of the world?"

"It's the Death archetype, Erol. We are moving toward a closure of one mode of experience, and pushing into the next."

The words had been straight from my memory of Thane. Whatever synchronicities were guiding this moment, were far too ironic for my own liking.

"Very rarely does the Death card actually mean someone's physical demise, though that is something that has surrounded your movements thus far."

Her ominous warning echoed in the back of our minds as we followed her up the same trail I had ascended earlier. I realized that in my haste, I had missed out on the beauty of the area. The grasslands that jutted out from between dunes contained a mixture of soil that was conducive toward the growing of bright blue fungi.

"These are the clue," Erol said, mostly to himself.

The dogs padded along after us, and the rats were left to sit in the truck, alongside whatever gear Erol may have had the presence of mind to bring. We were on our own now, and on our way, even if we now kept stranger company than before.

Right when we started walking past the final area of the trail that I remembered before the assault, my vision began to shift. The world around me grew more vivid, and I felt an incredible burst of energy growing inside of my body. The fatigue that I had felt previously was gone, and I was left in a state of nervous arousal.

The fluctuation in my energetic state seemed to be tied directly to fluctuations in my field of vision as well. As I grew more and more aware, the world around me seemed to arc, and glow with the colors of the sunset. Leaves, that had moments before, been the colors of the changing of the season, now caught a light which brought them to life beyond my wildest imagination.

The hillside was on fire, yet none of it would burn up.

We were walking within a perpetually renewing world. In spite of the fact that we marched on toward the embrace of some form of death, the earth itself was reminding me, in its own morbid way, to be at peace.

I tried to understand what Erol was going through at that time, but could not.

He had withdrawn into himself, and stuck close to the two dogs which walked close by his side. I could tell by his expression that he was bewildered by his experience, but no more information was made clear to me. I realized in that moment just how little I had endeavored to connect with Erol, during my time here on the Material Plane.

A sense of guilt and frustration came over me, as I realized that to me, Erol had been nothing more than a tool to achieve my own ends. The questioning of my own assumptions meant that I could no longer be sure about whatever purpose I had set out for in this world. I could no longer be content to think of myself as a savior of the Fae race, or some agent sent on behalf of a failing government.

I had my own agency to worry about, and I would be held accountable for my own decisions in life, not the decisions I made in the name of some cause or paradigm.

One foot moved in front of the other, and the world around me grew darker with each step.

At the next opportunity, I stared off into the sunset in order to verify my delusions.

Was the sun actually setting?

Were we missing our key opportunity?

The glance revealed that while the sun was setting, it had far from disappeared behind the horizon. As a matter of fact, it appeared that only my eyes had grown more acutely sensitive to the light of the world.

When I looked forward, and saw our nameless leader, they seemed somehow more familiar than before. I recalled a moment from years ago when I had walked behind a figure such as this with Thane at my side instead of Erol.

Then everything came flooding back to me.

The fire that surrounded us came from the preliminary attack from Xan's army. The knowledge that I was moving forward, walking to my death. The feeling that I would be held accountable for my actions regardless of which side of the conflict I was on.

"It's all cyclical."

The woman turned her head toward me and grinned, though I could not see her face, I knew her expression from the light reflecting in her eyes. She knew where we had come from, and it seemed like she knew exactly what each of us would be getting out of this experience. There were things that she understood that she was not telling us, critical information about the events that would unfold.

She knew everything, but then again...

Then, as I saw her, and my conceptions began to change, so did she.

Instead of seeing a woman who was masterfully leading us down the road of our fate. Instead of seeing some puppeteer, I saw a woman who was brave enough to let us make our own decisions, instead of pushing forward toward some private goal, she was allowing others to play their role within the greater theater. We were all moving forward together. I realized that I was both correct, and incorrect.

What was more important was that I realized how impressionable my thoughts were as I worked to understand the world around me.

"I thought you knew what was going to happen, before it did."

The woman let out a long exhale, and composed herself. "I have an idea of what might come to pass, because I know what is needed to achieve that which you are searching for. However, I can't know the future any more than anybody else. As a matter of opinion, I sincerely doubt that any one of us can actually know the past."

"I remember you," I said, without hesitation.

"No you don't," she replied in an instant. "You remember impressions which lead up to the most traumatic experience of your life. Many Fae lost something precious that day, and you were one of those cases of interminable suffering."

"Your vision of the world in the past is just as narrow as your vision of the world in the present, and it's not your fault, though you could work to change it if you liked."

"How do you mean?"

She shook her head, and remained silent.

You already know, came a voice in my mind, as clear as anything she could have expressed in her words.

I struggled for a moment, and nearly fell faint on the trail.

"How did you do that? I closed those off years ago."

"Let's be real about it," she replied, her voice audible this time. "You put up very weak defenses of denial and isolation. Your abilities may have atrophied, but you have everything you need inside of you."

It was too much. The pain was fresh, and my reality continued to shift toward reliving the traumas of the past. I lost touch of where and when I was. The hillsides seemed unstable in my mind, and I couldn't tell if I was living in my memories, or my mission on the Material Plane.

From behind me, I heard the sound of a bark.

Leaning down to the ground, Amethyst came up to me and licked my face graciously. The warm, wet and enthusiastic affection of the dog brought me back to reality. For a moment, I was able to center myself again; though I realized in that moment just how easy it would be to slip into madness and trauma.

"If you must choose to be irresponsible, at least do yourself the favor of not lying to yourself."

Looking up in that moment, I saw Erol's sympathetic face.

He offered a hand, and pulled me up to my feet. His eyes were full of compassion, and I got the sense that while he didn't know what I was going through, he was suspending his own difficulties in order to care for my own. I felt selfish, but his smile dismissed those thoughts from my mind.

"We're almost there."

The message was simple enough. When I turned to face the peak of the cliffs, I could see the sun was more than halfway set behind the horizon line. The colors had changed from vibrant pinks and violets to a blood red sphere of fire that was sinking into the sea.

Our guide pushed forward, unheeding of my troubles. Her callousness brought me to hate her, but it was only a passing feeling. I saw her in that moment as the being she was. Her own hurts, and insecurities were as apparent to me as anything else in the vivid world that I occupied. I nodded, and followed her lead toward the top of cliffs.

Within a minute, we were on top of this hill, looking west, over the sea. The peak housed rocky soil, and a lonely, wind-blown tree whose roots dug fiercely into the side of the cliff. I felt the wind beating on my face, and heard the sound of the waves echo up the walls of the cliffside.

"Remove your clothes. Here you will open the portal."

She brought the two of us together like we were getting married.

When I raised my head up to look him in the eyes, I saw that he was turning his gaze elsewhere. A rich crimson glow filled his cheeks, and lines of worry wrinkled his brow.

"Cut it out..."

I had to tell him to come off it. There wasn't any room in our experience for that kind of bashful shit. I may have been feeling a bit nervous myself, but this wasn't the first time that I had been called to share my body in the line of duty.

"You'll enjoy it more if you don't think about it too much."

"Actually, I don't think that's going to work this time."

He caught me off guard, once more. I had pinned him for a total and complete wimp of a man. There must have been some kind of internalized prejudice there, because I totally misunderstood his statement.

"I've done research into this sort of thing. Using Sex as a mechanism for opening portal has a historical precedent. The problem is that you need to be one hundred percent present with the other person during the entire experience. There can't be any second-guessing about your intentions either. If you want this to work, we had better take it seriously."

"Now, human, you're running out of time."

Our guide brought us back into the present moment.

Realizing that I needed to take charge of the situation, I dove forward and grabbed a hold of his shirt with both hands. My push forward knocked him on the ground. Straddling him, I pushed our lips together and pulled the first kiss out of him with willpower alone.

I could feel something inside of him begin to unlock as he indulged in his senses. The kiss had been uncomfortable at first. but as soon as he opened up to me, I felt the first exchanges of passion starting to flow between the two of us.

He hooked his thumbs around my waistband, and began to tug on my skirt. The fabric slid easily over my hips, but I wanted him to work harder than that. My hand reached up by its own and grabbed his arm. I pinned him to the ground, and pressed my hips against his.

He grew hard beneath my body, and began straining against me, finally pushing back and giving me some of his actual strength.

That's right...

If I thought of this man as weak, I would never respect him as a person. I needed him to want me so badly that he couldn't control himself. When he felt that way about me, I needed him to be so in control of his emotions that he treated me with love, even as he fucked me raw.

Some men don't require any sort of cajoling in order to reach this state.

Others, like Erol, and likely like every single philosophically inclined male we were engendering with the new Fae society, need you to push and prod them until they finally give in and share themselves with you. There is something about them that is defective and insincere in their sensitivity; almost like they are afraid to actually sexually express themselves.

I can't tolerate that kind of fear in a lover.

He must have picked up on whatever form of derision I was directing his way because, something in his eyes changed. He began to push back on me, even going as far as to lift his knee up between me legs and press up against my crotch. I leaned in to give him another kiss, and he kissed me, but he also bit me on the lip. I tore away from his kiss, and slapped him hard across the face.

"What the hell did you do that for?"

I only shrugged, and glared at him, imperiously pinning his body down on the floor with my thighs on either side of his body. Given the size of his frame and his muscular capacity, he could have probably flipped me over on my side if he knew how to handle himself, or had the will to do so, but he wasn't there yet.

Our guide, who was sitting along the sidelines, watching all of this without the slightest trace of amusement attempted to clarify my position.

"She wants you to love her without restraint."

I couldn't have said it any more plainly, and was honestly grateful that I didn't have to say anything to him in the first place. He didn't quite flash on it right away, and had to be encouraged by the guide once more.

"Try not holding back."

As though those words held some secret over him, he reached his leg up over my neck, and pushed me down toward the ground. The move was obviously born out of frustration and ingenuity, as it was effective, though only for a moment.

He pulled himself into a sit-up position while strengthening the hold he had on my upper body. I tried to arch my back away from him, and ended up placing my crotch right at his fae.

The struggle had pushed my skirt up over my thighs, so he had little trouble pulling my thighs apart and tasting me.

As soon as his tongue made contact, I lost a critical component of my resolve. Just feeling the pleasure of possibility weakened my defense against him. He seized ahold of that weakness and grabbed ahold of my thighs with both of his arms, holding himself in a position to lick at my body, while still struggling to hold my upper body down to the ground. The position was unsustainable though, and ultimately not worthwhile for me, no matter how good it felt. I needed more from him if this was going to work.

My hand reached upward in the space between our bodies, until I found his cock. He was still clothed, but I could fondle him through his pants. Just reaching out to touch him melted his resolve slightly, which was all I needed to turn the position backward on himself.

While Erol may have had size and passion, I had the benefit of tactical training. Wrestling with men who wanted to fuck me was not something that was new to me.

Thane and I had given each other plenty of practice during our time in the core; this guy didn't have a chance.

With his back on the ground, I was free to lower my clit down toward his mouth. He was happy to have something to focus on, and eagerly began to lap at my body once more. In the meanwhile, I was free to unbutton his pants, and pull them down around his ass. The struggle was momentary, but the reward was great.

I had always heard that human men were more well endowed than Fae men, though the few times I had indulged in the pleasure, I guess I had been looking for all the wrong men. He was hard, and when released from his pants, his cock sprang upward and hit me in the face.

He was warm, and smooth. I bit my lip, and savored the feeling of the head of his dick on the side of my cheek. I could feel the blood pumping through his body. I had to swallow in anticipation as my mouth was already salivating at the thought of bringing him inside of me. My lips parted for a taste, while my hand wrapped around the girth of his shaft. I had to stretch my jaw just to fit him inside of me.

My entire experience became strictly sensual as soon as my lips wrapped around him. Being eaten out is one thing, but getting head while giving head is something else entirely.

I was free to spread my legs and totally let go, while I focused on more pressing matters. In the meanwhile, tiny ripples of stress relief passed through my body from between my hips to the crown of my head.

I worked the length of his cock with my hand, surrendering my saliva as an offering to his body. Each time his heartbeat pulsed inside of my mouth, I lost a bit of my drive to control or dominate him. The games I had played with him earlier seemed to be petty, to mean nothing at all. The only thing I wanted at that moment was to be closer to him.

His testicles were soon swollen with arousal. I pushed my fingers into the crevices of his body, and held onto the muscles and flesh that I found there. His cock went deeper into my mouth, and pressed up against the back of my throat. When his lips closed around my clit, and began to pull, I pressed my head down and took all of him.

Mirroring my movements, he pressed his nose below my clit, and fucked me with his tongue. The effect wasn't quite the same, but I appreciated the passion and the intent. Reaching a hand behind my back, I grabbed a hold of his hair and pulled him toward my body I wanted his face pressed as far up against my body as he could stand. I held him there for as long as my lips were brushing up against the hair at the base of his cock.

With a gasp, I released my hold on him, watching as his body reappeared from my lips. He was hard, and dripping with saliva. My hands gravitated back toward his cock, and I stroked him from top to bottom.

I pushed his pants down around his ankles and quickly positioned myself over his hips. I faced away from him, and squatted down over his dick. The two of us were already dripping wet, and our bodies joined together with no resistance at all. On one side of me, our guide was on the ground with her legs spread, pleasuring herself. She rubbed her clit, and stared shamelessly in our direction, touching her breasts with one hand while supporting herself with the other.

When she saw me, she smiled, and nodded to the other side of my body, where the cliff fell off into the sea.

The light had been changing while the two of us had spent time playing around. Now, instead of a deep crimson, the sky was fast becoming a dark purple. The gradient faded into a tiny point of flame somewhere on the distance. I stared at the sun while it disappeared behind the horizon line, refusing to blink for as long as I could stand it. I wanted the last images of that sunset to burn themselves into my retina while I built myself to orgasm.

Erol's fingertips brought me back into reality. They were not the gentle touch of a considerate lover, but the urgent hold of someone lost in the throes of passion. He held ahold of my hips, digging his nails into my skin while I rode his cock. I made a point of slowing down at that point, really savoring each inch of him as I rocked my hips back and forth on his body.

I found that if I arched my back just so, I could press my clit up against the bottom of his shaft, while the rest of him massaged the inside of my body. The two of us were connected in a way that I had needed desperately for the better part of a year. I wanted to give every single bit of my attention to the smallest details of our interaction, but a part of me wanted only to devour his body within mine.

The hunger grew inside of me, and I began to slide him more sharply inside of me. I slammed backward on his cock, and forward once more; each time trying to push him deeper. My only focus was on getting more of him, so I had hardly noticed his hands gripping upward on my body.

He pulled at my breasts, and brought himself upward so that his body was flush with mine. With timing that any warrior would have envied, he pulled to the side and twisted me off of his center of balance. The move was subtle, but just strong enough to push me backward and twist me onto my hands and knees.

Wasting no time whatsoever, he grabbed a hold of my hips and pushed his cock back inside of me. The thrust was strong, and the force pushed my torso down onto the ground. My breasts scratched up against the ground of the cliffside, and my mouth opened wide - gasping for air. With my eyes dilated and my gaze on the horizon, I finally felt well-fucked.

My ears were full of the sounds of wet bodies slapping up against one another. No matter where my mind went, I was wrenched back to the immediacy of the moment.

This was my body that was being ravaged.

The sound was of my own sopping wet body being pulled and pushed to the brink of orgasm.

Erol reached up and grabbed a handful of hair by the roots. His body was close to mine, and the sheen of sweat that began forming on our bodies caused him to slip along my ass and lower back as slickly as his dick pushed into me. He yanked hard and pain brought me back into the present moment. My fingers wrapped around my clit, and I began rubbing myself furiously.

"OOoh!"

As though my moan was a question to be answered, he let go of my hair and slapped my ass. His other hand remained rooted along the base of my spine.

"GAh! Don't stop... I'm gonna cum," I begged him in spite of myself.

Being well fucked had reduced me to a level of submission I didn't frequent very often. Every sound that came out from my lips was a plea for release. Another slap on my ass was followed by one final push. I felt the climax in my heart before anything else took place. Biting my lip, I strained my fingers against my clit, and then broke.

"NOW!" the guide shouted.

My senses were overwhelmed, but I did my best to focus on the magic necessary to open up the portal. Everything inside of me, and all of the power I was able to draw from him channeled inside of me. My eyes widened, and I lost control of myself.

A rush of sperm filled the inside of my vagina. His body collapsed on mine, and I felt his body push harder into me, each contraction seeking still more penetration inside of my body. My own body responded in kind to his, and wild contractions and gushing arousal seized my sex. My mouth opened, and I turned around to see his face. Our eyes met, as well as our lips.

The two of us were too sloppy and overwhelmed to make a proper kiss, but we did manage to convulse and fill in toward one another. I worked his cock until he had nothing more to give, and then pulled him into my arms so we could hold one another in the afterglow. After his cock slid out from inside of me, the sperm followed, as well as the alchemy of our union.

A blue arc shot out from the ground between our bodies, and he was torn away from me by the momentary tear between dimensions.

I struggled in my post-coital haze to make sense of my environment, while the guide's voice echoed in my mind alongside the crackling of the portal's energy.

"So we have arrived at the beginning of the end..."

I scrambled backward away from the portal. My body was close to the edge of the cliff, and through the portal, I could see a vague figure of Erol and the Wilder Fae.

Erol was on the ground panting. The Guide grabbed Erol's wrist, and slashed a blade across his palm. The blood dripped out onto the portal itself, and I watched as dark crimson stains dropped through the iridescent surface of the portal like dye through a vertical scrying pool.

"Gah!"

A cry of pain brought Erol back into focus within his own consciousness. He had been lost, as I was following the sex. Both dogs came into the scene at full tilt, seeking to attack the Wilder Fae. She must have held some power over beasts, as a simple glance pushed them away with a look of fear in their eyes. Their tails were wrapped between their legs, and their ears were flattened. They skirted around the periphery of the scene, growling as their master bled into the portal.

"You'll want to dismiss them, Human. There's no telling what would happen to them if they chose to follow where you're going."

Both of us were an easy target for whatever manipulations the Wilder Fae was working to achieve. However, there was no further attack on either Erol, or myself. She wrung his hand out in the portal, squeezing the last bit of blood into its aqueous surface, and then offered Erol the scarf which had been wrapped around her face. The scarf served as a bandage, and she held his hand while applying pressure to the wound.

"That should keep it going until around midnight."

The guide looked at the two of us, and smiled. "Thanks for the show." She winked at Erol, and then knelt down to kiss him on the lips.

"Sorry about your hand. These things get hungry you understand. No real way to go about it except regular feedings. Not quite sure how you're planning on reaping the benefits of the portal while staying alive yourself. Particularly if you want to keep your soul intact."

I narrowed my eyes at the Fae.

"What are you saying?"

"Perhaps I didn't make myself clear in the beginning. At any rate, the rift will require sacrifice in order to remain open. However, the consequences of that level of sacrifice are dire for the person who is making them. You are involved in a very perverse enterprise, Aria, but I suspect that you knew that from the beginning."

"I knew nothing!"

"Don't lie to me. You knew that our world was dying, and you knew that the quickest way to make a change was by tearing a hole between the dimensions."

There was no malice in her tone, though she was admonishing me.

"The consequences of that situation are now being made clear to you -- if not now, then soon enough."

She stretched out her languid body, and arced her back toward the sky. She looked so beautiful, and reserved. She had composure, grace, and a softness in her eyes. She had definitely climaxed while watching us, but that had been nothing more than a bit of personal pleasure. A circumstantial bit of voyeurism, nothing more.

I was still dealing with the disorientation of being fucked. Sex itself didn't wear me out like this, but I had never been involved on the channeling end of sex magic before. In the past, in my work with Xan, I had been on the donating end of some of his... experiments. But I have never been the conduit.

"Now you know what is asked of you if you want to achieve your goal..."

She started to step forward, evidently intent on walking through the portal herself.

"Wait!"

"I have nothing else to say to you. Your decisions are yours to live out from this point forward. It will be a wonder if you make it out alive."

With no further words, the wilder fae took another step toward me. I reached out to stop her, but when my hand went through the portal, I reached into a different part of the planes than where she was already headed. I snatched my hand back quickly, not knowing where she was headed, or if the dimension of my nightmares would be at hand.

"Erol... I need you to back away from the portal."

I got to my feet, and fought to retain my awareness. The last bets of post-orgasmic haze were cleared from my mind, and I realized how precarious my position actually was.

I was only inches away from a trip into the rocky waters below. Somewhere, ten feet away, Erol's pants were on the ground. My skirt was filthy, and hiked up over my hips. I adjusted my skirt so it covered my sticky, sex-stained body, and walked over to where Erol sat on the ground.

The dogs had come back to their master now that the Wilder Fae had left the scene. Neither of the two was terribly happy to see me approach, but I didn't blame them.

"It's ok girls..."

Erol's voice was soothing and sincere as he addressed his family. It was obvious that the two dogs were concerned about him, but there was a tone of finality and resignation in his voice that seemed to spur them on even further. They refused to be consoled, in spite of his best efforts. Rosemary relentlessly licked the side of his face, while Amethyst nudged the palm of his injured hand with a concerned look in her eye.

I watched in silence, and adjusted my posture. One thing was certain about all of this. Our work had just begun.

Walking over myself, I grabbed him by his free hand, and gave him a hand to his feet. Whatever aggression had been directed toward him earlier, was not there any more. There was no more room for that level of derision. Only a softened, affection remained. I caught myself, in the way that I was treating him -- the hardness all gone from my stance.

"Thanks for loving me that way."

As I said them, the words rang hollow compared to the magnitude of the experience, but I consoled myself by at least knowing that they were accurate. I had been fucked solid before, but there was something refreshing about my human form that made me feel like I was experiencing it for the first time. It could have been a mixture of things -- my emotional state, a new flame -- who knows.

"I wanted to share that with you, because I'm not certain what is going to happen from this point forward. You ought to know that what we shared was powerful for me, even if we were working to achieve..."

"You don't have to do this thing..." he said. "Not that I don't believe you, or that I think this was all instrumental."

"Well, I try to speak my mind when I feel moved to do so."

I couldn't apologize for being honest; that was one of the things that was not in my nature.

"All I mean to say is that, I'm not sure this has to be the end. Let's go through, and see what's on the other side. Maybe we can figure out a few more pieces of the puzzle together, and nobody has to kill themselves on behalf of an experiment that we're not sure is even going to work."

A cloud grew over my disposition.

The sacrifice.

I bit my lip and closed my eyes. If Thane were here, I knew what he would do. He wouldn't have thought twice about it. Blood needed to be shed. Sacrifices needed to be made in order to serve the greater good. The only other solution would be to let the portal close once more, and accept whatever minor ripples came out from the experience.

We have become the conquerors, I realized, within the safety of my own mind.

"Don't worry about it. I think you and I can figure something out together. Let's see if this opening made any kind of impact on your world. You are from the Astral Plane, right?

"Not exactly. I'm from the Fae Realm, though we can't be certain that is where the portal is going to take us."

"The Fae Realm is less dense than the Material Plane?"

I nodded, that much was accurate, and didn't require a lecture on metaphysics.

He shrugged in response.

"Shouldn't it be easier to detect changes in your world, easier than say the impact this portal will have on the material plane?"

I paced away from the portal, and opened up my lungs. When my head was clear, I thought about what he was asking, and nodded an affirmative.

"The primary reason for opening the rift is to absorb some of the vitality of the material plane into our damaged ecosystem. Theoretically, I should be able to go through, visit the Capitol, and get a reading by the time the portal closes."

"Then that's what we'll do."

"Excuse me?"

"You didn't think I was just going to stay here? For Christ's sake, we fucked, and I gave my blood and sperm to open up the damned thing. I'm not staying here."

"What about your dogs?"

Both of the dogs looked at their master with concern in their eyes.

"They can stay by the truck and keep Binksy company."

Rosemary barked straight in his ear, and pounced him with her paws. Amethyst on the other hand didn't seem to think it was such a bad idea.

"The rat?"

"Sure. Binksy the Rat. They will find their way back."

Amethyst seemed to agree with the sentiment, but Rosemary was more than a bit worried. I myself was not entirely sold. All Erol did was scratch Rosemary's chin encouragingly, and shrug.

"You're going to have to kill me if you want to stop me, which might end up helping both of us out anyways. But, if you're not interested in doing that."

"I don't think I would have enjoyed myself as much if I knew that I would have to kill you afterward."

He thought this was funny, but I was being serious.

"Buzzkill huh?"

"Yep."

I let out a long sigh, and realized that something fundamental had changed between the two of us. He wasn't going to take no for an answer. What's more is I got the sense that he was totally committed.

"All right, let's go. No sense in waiting around to lose time. If we're going to get to the Fae Realm and get a solid reading then we're going to have to move."

He nodded, and gave each of his dogs a hug. Then he leaned in toward them and whispered something into their ear. The dogs both cocked their head to the side, and without any mistake indicated that they understood their master's request, and would follow directions.

"Unbelievable. You and the Wilder Fae. I don't have that kind of touch with animals."

"You just have to believe that they understand you and be sincere about it; they can sense those sorts of things."

I watched as the two dogs bounded down the trail, away from the two of us. Amethyst stopped for a moment before heading down, but a short bark from Rosemary, and they were both on their way. Erol, on the other hand was showing no trace of sentimentality. He was balancing on one foot, working on pulling his pants up over his bare ass when I turned my attention in his direction once more.

"So, how does this work?"

My attention had been focused on his body, and it took me a moment to respond appropriately.

"Um, similar to the spell. Most magic works under a few common principles."

"Intention?"

I nodded.

"Yep. Intention, and recall. For instance, it would be nearly impossible for you to get over to the Capitol having never been there. You'd probably end up in the Wild somewhere, or worse."

A frown came across my face as I recalled the possibilities in the latter category.

"Worse," he shuddered. "Don't tell me about them, I don't want it in my mind. I'll just focus on going the same place you are going, and leave the navigation up to you. We can go to the Capitol, take the readings, and make a decision before we come back here at midnight."

"Decision?"

He ignored my question as though it were not even relevant.

"How's the time difference?"

I blinked, still caught on the depth taking place behind the scenes in Erol's mind.

"Time is a pretty flippant thing when dealing between dimensions. One to the other, I've never made much of a study. All of the work I've done has only been time sensitive within the context of one plane."

"Okay, we'll have to assume the worse then. Are you ready?"

I looked him over from head to toe, and then I looked at myself.

We were stained with cum, sweat and blood. Our clothes were dirty, and our bodies were scratched and scarred. All we had was a knife and a desperate hope to pin our actions on. There was no special equipment, and no real, verifiable information.

"I'd say we are about as ready as we're going to get."

"All right then."

He approached my side, and we turned to together to face the portal. The light reflected eerily against the inky black ocean beyond. All of the beautiful colors that had once painted the sky were now absent. The only source of light was the chaotic uncertainty that waited before us.

I closed my eyes, and pictured a clear vision of the Capital in my mind. I envisioned the two of us in our current location. I thought about every inch of Erol's body, and rendered the two of us together in my mind.

As he held my hand, I could feel the sweat coming off from the palm of his hand. He had come off as self-assured, but there was something comforting about the fact that he was just as terrified as I was. We both knew that there was no way to go but forward.

Seizing our bravery, and holding onto one another by the hand, we made the jump.

The colors swirled all around me, and I felt a tightening of Erol's fingers around my hand.

We floated through the chaos of the portal, and every single bit of my attention was focused on securing our arrival at the capital. I felt waves of panic rise up inside of me, and reality threatened to never quite pull itself together again, as it should. None of my fears became realized at that point. There was nothing to worry about after all.

The two of us arrived on our hands and knees in front of the great stone steps of the Capitol building.

The air was cool, and there was no light in the sky except for the bright blue fae fires which lined the stone pillars of the building like glowfish in some purple ocean.

My hands and knees were scratched, and I had to recover from a queasy feeling in the pit of my stomach, but the trip had gone smoothly into the Fae Realm.

Home...

I looked at my body and was honestly a bit sad to be back in my broken body once more.

One wing stuck out uncomfortably through the back of my dress. The fabric had been ripped, and since my breasts were now significantly smaller, the dress sagged at the top. My skin was a different color once more, and I seemed to be a reflection of the evening around the two of us.

The strangest thing about our arrival was that there was no one else around. The Capitol was not usually this empty. Something was terribly wrong.

Erol on the other hand was not yet able to get out of his state of shock from the transfer.

This isn't my body...

I took a sharp inhale, and tried to clear my mind for a moment.

Focus.

My hands immediately went to my face, and I began to rub the bones around my eyelids.

"We are in another dimension. All souls inhabit new forms for each dimension they visit. I personally haven't ever met a human who has come to the Fae Realm before, but that really shouldn't be our focus right now. Can you pull yourself together or not?"

He gulped, and nodded.

"Good, then follow me. We need to get over to the University."

I let go of his hand, and took a few steps. The acclimation to the new body was a bit slower this time. I ended up stumbling a bit, and losing my inner sense of balance. The vertigo passed while I held my head with both hands. Pushing forward, I willed myself to continue.

"If you die, then that is the course of your life, but for sake of the gods you are going to push through this."

The promise was spoken to myself, through grit teeth, but it had an impact on Erol as well, as he ended up getting his shit together as well. The two of us ran toward a transport station located nearby the capitol, and hopped on a pair of hover discs. Aristocratic government types who were accustomed to sitting in their desks all day were usually the ones who used these sorts of things. They were a relic from Xan's era, which had been stripped of its privatization and made available for public use.

"Lean into it," I nodded. "Yea. Like that."

He could have flown.

Most fae preferred to fly, rather than taking the hover discs. However, there were a few who, like me were no longer physically capable of flight. Whether they were handicapped, or indulgent business types, I always thought hover discs looked too flashy to be taken seriously. However, with no one around, and a limited amount of time, I didn't mind dealing with a bit of pretension in order to achieve our goal.

The portal remained behind us, as Erol and I cruised through the vacant streets of the Fae Realm.

Where is everyone? I thought.

The empty streets of the Capitol brought an urgency to the situation that stretched beyond what was reasonable. I had grown worried, but I needed to push that into the back of my mind.

Focus on the present moment.

The way the disc moved through the air became my sole focus. I allowed the wind to caress my body, and took pleasure in the way that the disc pushed long grasses down to the ground in my wake. In the distance, the University came into view.

The buildings were more deteriorated than the Capitol. The University was untouched by the superficial protections that were offered to the Capitol. Every financial resource that had been directed toward the University since before the revolution had been directed exclusively into research.

We pulled up along the side of the great library, and jumped off.

"I don't understand why we can't just bring something like that back through to the human dimension. That technology alone would change lives."

"Fundamental difference in physics. Now, can we please focus on the task at hand?"

Once we reached the inside of the library, I started to feel a sense of relief wash over me. The outer landscape had been eerily absent of people, but the University library had the most subtle indications that people were around. The space was comfortable in a very physical, old-sweater kind of way.

Going downstairs, I saw that the fae fire lamps hi-lighting the stairs were in operation still. Down in the basement, where our research lab awaited, there were the sounds of Fae at work.

When I opened the door to the lab, Erol just about lost his cool.

"My God!"

The scientists that had been hard at work, turned an irritated eye toward the source of the outburst.

I had been on an acquaintance-based relationship with these people for some time, but there was no real love present. When I had last seen them, I had been busily attempting to remove myself from the majority of prominent Fae society over the last year. A hand full of people had offered me sympathies, while the vast majority couldn't understand or relate to my depression.

These trollish Fae, that permanently dwelled in the basement laboratories of the University Library were a part of the latter group.

"We need your data on the approaching environmental instability."

He paused and regarded me suspiciously, while all of the others in the lab stopped what they were doing and turned toward Erol and myself. All movement in the room stopped, and all that was left was the monitors which surrounded the workstations of the lab.

"Aria, why are you still here?"

"I noticed that the streets were pretty empty on my way over here."

His laughter in response to that statement was sick, like something braking inside of his soul. He coughed, and squinted at me from behind his wire-framed glasses. Pulling a cigarette out of his pocket, he lit up and walked over to open up one of the windows which lead upward to the surface level through a ventilation shaft.

"There was an evacuation. Most of the populace is with the Wilder Fae right now in the outer forests. Most of the members of the Capitol are in negotiations with the Tribe about using their lands as an extended shelter, though from the looks of it, I'm not sure how much good that is actually going to do."

"Can you show us what you are seeing? We need to know if there have been any changes in metaphysical currents in the last hour or so."

His eyes narrowed, as he looked at me, smoke rising through the air from his nostrils.

"What do you know?"

I shook my head, and pushed his inquisition off to the side.

"No time. I'm here because we need to get real time information on what's happening with cross dimensional currents, and this lab is the only place where I can get an accurate readout in the time frame needed."

He stubbed out his smoke on the wall, leaving a black, ashy stain followed by a flick towards the nearest trash can. The rest of the attendants in the lab were watching the entire situation unfold like it was the most interesting social phenomenon they had seen in their lives.

"Get back to work!"

He walked over to a station that was covered in papers and monitors, and waved the two of us over.

"They don't understand why you are here. That or they do, and your celebrity is giving them pause. You hear to save the world?"

I had to close my eyes and swallow.

"Readouts."

"Sure. Well, right over here you can see that blip you're talking about."

He was pointing to a veritable cliff in data.

"I'm sorry, but that doesn't look much like a 'blip' to me"

He laughed, which managed to make me uncomfortable again, though the laugh clearly transformed into a cough by the end of his fit.

Just a bit of a joke, but I can see you're in no mood for it."

He scrolled the panel outward, with a wave of both hands. The entire picture panned out, and I could see how my initial ‘cliff’ was part of a much larger picture.

The data on the screen looked like a long and protracted crash of some sort, followed by an unexpected and sharp rise in something. The cliff itself was nothing more than the other side of that sharp unexpected rise. Beyond the cliff, and into the present moment, there were no patterns, only chaos.

"As you can see, from the data there are a number of reasons why we might be more than a bit surprised at your visit."

Turning to the side, I saw that a young scientist with curiosity in his eyes that could not be dismissed was peaking over to see what was transpiring between myself and the lead technician.

Erol, on the other hand, was absolutely stricken dumb. He was giving his entire attention to the screens, instruments and papers.

The technician pointed at the monitor with his nicotine stained fingers, and began to explain.

'This huge fall you see here is the data which caused the evacuation. We are calling this the destabilization of our ecosystem, due to the approach of the void. The readings center geographically around the capitol itself, while the outer forests are relatively unaffected. Of course, over time, we suspect that those too will become inhabitable."

"Inhabitable?"

"Well yes. We don't have extended data to work with, but there is a very grave risk for all those who stay within the contaminated area."

Finally, Erol spoke up.

"You mean this area."

The scientist grinned, showing his yellow teeth to the two of us.

"Sometimes, my boy, you need to make a decision about your priorities. For us, this data was more important, and I'd say since your arrival, we may have not thrown our lives away after all."

"What do you mean by that?"

This time the reply came from me. The scientist's tone grew more serious, and he brought his arms together over his chest in a resting position.

"Well that answer is pretty easy to manage, though I think you two would have a better job of providing the details yourself."

He pointed at the screen once more.

"If the destabilization had maintained its course, we would have reached some level of critical threshold by now, if not within the next four or five hours. The problem is that since just before you showed up, that downward trajectory has been halted. Now, thing's aren't exactly getting better, but if you were to take an average of these peaks, I'd say that we have reached some level of stabilization."

He paused again, and leaned back against the table, then he opened his hand out to both sides, indicating both his team, and himself by his gesture.

"Now you've seen your data. You come in here anticipating a modification which has been proven, and I'm lead to believe that you had something to do with that. Now, I've seen your memorials in the Capitol. I know what you're capable of, and I know that you have a history of involvement in questionable activities."

He shook his head.

"But I'd say that the people in this room, myself included, would be more than interested in knowing what it is you are up to, considering it may just indicate the salvation of our race."

I blew him off.

"Nothing that spectacular, I can assure you."

Of course, he didn't buy it, but I didn't have the time to explain everything to a team of scientists. I looked at Erol, and made eye contact.

"You get everything you were looking for?"

"Well, of course, but the problem is that we need stabilization. The portal needs sacrifice in order to continue to open."

I felt like slapping him.

“Gods damn you, Erol, for not knowing how to keep your fuckin' mouth shut."

"They are scientists! Don't you think it's a smart idea to let them in on what's going on? Maybe they will be able to help."

"It's not a regular portal... is it?"

The lab tech was already putting the pieces together. I let out a sigh, and decided to let this one go.

"Rift, technically speaking. The whole point is to take the portal and maintain it indefinitely."

"Oh, I know what it is all right. I just didn't know that someone would be foolish enough to try and do something like that."

This got under my skin.

"Foolish? You were thanking me a minute ago."

"You have no idea what kind of external factors could be involved in something like that. You may have immediately stabilized the situation, but there's no telling what will happen as a result."

He shook his head back and forth as though he was fully realizing something tragic in his own mind.

"That's dark magic... dark magic indeed."

"Look, hate to break up your little pity parade, but while you're sitting here looking into a mirror of your own doom, I'd rather take a chance on making some kind of change..."

My self-righteous tirade was interrupted by a cry outside of the library that sounded like a mixture between the wail of a banshee and a quake. The lab tech shrunk into himself, and stared with wide eyes at the data on the screen.

The needle was oscillating furiously; each dip lower than the last, and each peak more perilous.

"It's coming," he whispered, another cigarette compulsively shoved between his lips.

I didn't wait around for any explanation. I only grabbed Erol by the collar and yanked him toward the door.

"We're leaving. Now!"

Sprinting up the stairs was to be endured only with minor tremor. The ground itself was in revolt, and it seemed as though the central location was not too far away from our current position.

Erol stumbled to the floor, and yanked on my hand. I held onto him, turned around, and grabbed him with both hands. Yanking him to his feet, we pushed past the end of the stairwell, and into the main floor of the library.

Books had fallen all over the floor, and the doors hung wide open. Outside, a fierce wind blew and for the first time, I began to be truly afraid. I paused for a moment, and realized that my fear was magnified, as I was actually concerned for Erol's welfare, and doubted as to whether or not he'd be able to manage to get through the chaos that was growing outside. I turned around and looked at him.

He was pale, and his eyes were bewildered. His mind wasn't present, and he was struggling with some internal revelation. I knew that this had been too much for him. There was a reason why humans didn't come to the Fae Realm, as a general rule, but this whole experience was only pushing that boundary further.

"Look at me."

I grabbed him again, and held him close to my face.

"I won't be able to protect you once we're out there. We need to get to that portal, and you need to get your head together. Do you understand?"

The whole library shook as we stood there. I saw focus come back into his expression, and a nod come from his head.

"Good. It's time to go now. Just follow my lead, and we'll do what we can."

I let out one final exhale while we stared at one another. I wanted the eye contact to be significant; to provide him with the help that I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to provide once we got outside.

"Those men downstairs are ready to die. I've seen it in the eyes of men before. You can join them, or you can follow me, but I'm not going like that."

With that, I spat on the floor, and set my brow into a glare. Blood and adrenaline returned to my entire body, and I sank into a predatory state of consciousness. Anything I had left in the past was now called to the present. There was no more room for dispossessed states of depression or powerlessness.

I broke out into a sprint, and didn't look back. I had given him the only warning he would receive, and that was more than most would have received. The rest was up to him.

The rush of the wind whipping past my face as I ran toward the door brought a sensation of elation. The doors themselves slammed to the side, as though the environment itself was frightened of my approach. The blue lights underneath the surface of the hover discs wavered eerily on the ground beneath them. In the distance, I could see the darkness approaching; it was headed straight for the Capitol.

"The portal!"

I hopped on the hover disc, and ducked down toward the ground to reduce the drag on my body. They didn't make these things to go extraordinarily fast, but if you knew what you were doing, there was an override switch available on the bottom of the disc. The switch is pressure sensitive, which means that if you want to get going, you have to be in a position to physically handle yourself. Most of the populace doesn't engage in risky behavior like this, but there are a number of youth that have caught onto the secret, and hold races in the older, more abandoned districts.

My hair whipped behind me, and I watched as debris flew beneath my transport. I thought about Erol, but I couldn't risk looking backward to see if he was all right or not. The environment was moving by so quickly that I had to keep my eyes on the road. To divert my attention for only an instant would mean a fall. At this speed, it would not only be painful, but I might actually do some serious damage to myself.

Narrowing my eyes, I squinted into the distance. Everything around me was growing darker, with the storm. The darkness that came out of the skyline and moved toward the portal held the same qualities as the tentacled creature from the hell realm. This time, it was projected against a sky that was only lit by faerie fire. The resulting atmosphere was a soft glue glow coming up from the Capitol. The light pushed upward through gradients of darkness into the stars of the sky. Between the stars, and the ground, a clear outline of inky black tendrils stretched toward the Capitol building.

The sight was so awesome, that I nearly ran into the side of the hedge which outlined the garden courtyard of the capitol. The hover disc spun wildly in the wrong direction, and I ducked down and clutched at both sides of the disc with my hands. I lowered my gaze and stared at the nearest fixed point possible. The fixed point in my vision was a bright source of blue light just outside of the Capitol building, some twenty yards away.

The portal was there, but something was wrong. Two figures were outlined by its light, and the approaching darkness from behind. My wild crash was so taxing that I couldn't be sure who was there, or if I had seen anything at all. Keeping track of the details around me was low on my list of priorities.

Spinning still closer, I slowed, and stumbled off the edge of my disc. My body hit the ground, and I skidded toward the outer ring of the Portal's light. My body burned once more from the scratches and burns that seemed to perpetually cover my skin. I bit my lip, and struggled to focus my eyes. I was acting on impulse. There was no room for forethought any longer.

To keep the portal open seemed to be an invitation to destruction of unknown magnitude, but to allow it to close would mean the end of the Fae Realm -- or at least the complete destruction of the Capitol.

A pair of figures walked over toward me.

Though my vision was blurry, I was still able to see the two of them approach. The details were lost to me, but seeing the gait of one of them, I knew it was Thane. Worry and fear consumed my body.

"Thane!"

The ground quaked once more beneath my body, and as I stood up, a thunderous crack sounded through the air, as a marble edifice broke into pieces and fell to the ground. Struggling to my feet, I sprinted the final distance toward the portal. Thane received me with open arms, and I dove into him.

"Thane, I heard that most of the officials are over with the Wilder Fae. I don't know what to do, but we should find a way to warn them."

"Shh..."

He stroked my hair, and held me against his body.

"Don't worry about a thing. You did great."

"Great? Thane. I had a dream about you. I think something really bad is happening. We really need to get out of here. Come on, if we all work together, I think we may be able to unweave the magic of the portal before it expires."

"Expires?"

"That's what the Wilder Fae said, when they scouted me. I thought you knew about that."

I pulled him toward the portal, but he resisted. Then it became clear to me; Thane did not want to close the Portal. I shook my head back and forth and made eye contact with him.

"This place is going into the Abyss, Thane. Take a look around; your idea isn't going to work. Not like you had hoped anyway."

Thane pulled his hand away, and the other man that was with him came up behind me. I saw Thane's eyes narrow at him, and the man stopped, just short of my body.

I bit my lip and stepped out to the side of the two of them.

"What's going on, Thane?"

I watched as he put his hands to his face, and took a deep breath to compose himself. When he had finished, he had attained full on political composure once more. He could have been going to a press release for the wedding of the minister's daughter. Seeing him change so drastically within the context of the deteriorating environment around us gave me chills.

I began to back away from him, unconsciously moving toward the portal.

My movement toward the portal seemed to put the other man on edge once more, but Thane held up a firm palm.

"That won't be necessary, Xavier. Our Agent-in-the-Field is an experienced Veteran. She knows how to handle herself. Likely even better than you."

Thane's vote of confidence was a nice thing to experience, but I was still caught behind the wall of bullshit he was busy erecting with his pretentious attitude. Looking forward into the future, I was entirely uncertain as to the intentions that Thane might have, but I could be certain of two things. Firstly, he was resuming his position as a militaristic expression of the Fae Government.

At this point, I couldn't be certain whether or not this was a sanctioned activity or not, but knowing Thane, it probably wasn't. His newest boy toy, Xavier, was likely in this for whatever prestige Thane had managed to convince him existed for him at the end of some rainbow of service. For all of the care that I felt for him, I fucking despised Thane. However, now was not the time or place to proclaim whatever mixed feelings I had for him.

Secondly, he wanted the portal to remain open, which made him a very dangerous man.

The fact that he wanted the portal to remain open meant that he was willing to sacrifice any and all life in order to achieve his goal. If the portal required any form of regular sacrifice, that also meant that he would be willing to kill, or order the death of people in order to pursue his goal. Likely he would have Xavier here to that work for him.

My mind was spinning out at a thousand miles a minute in an effort to get a hold of every aspect of the situation. I was in the middle of processing all of this information when Erol showed up on his hover disc. He was scratched to hell, and obviously had taken a number of falls himself on the way over. Thane caught my line of eyesight first, and then followed my gaze to Erol's approach.

"You know him?"

"He's a researcher... from the library."

Thane shook his head, and smiled.

"I could always tell when you were lying. You know that's a skill you really ought to either brush up on or forget all together."

His smile was smooth as silk as he walked out to greet Erol.

"So the man of the hour approaches... I don't believe we've met."

Fucking Thane. All I could do was sit and stare.

The apocalypse was nearly approaching, and yet here he was, practically sitting down for tea with some fucked up human who couldn't even manage to operate a hover disc.

I walked over toward Erol to try and position myself in such a way that I might be able to protect him if something went wrong, but Thane already had me beat.

"Erol, is it?"

He nodded, guileless and far too honest for his own good.

"I just wanted to tell you how much we appreciate the efforts that you have made in come over here. You must feel like a very brave explorer."

Even Erol was having a bit of difficult swallowing what Thane was dishing out. I watched him look over his right shoulder toward the approaching storm. Rain was already falling down over us, and the wind was picking up to a point where the rain actually stung my skin almost as badly as the abrasions left from the ground.

"Don't you think we ought to talk more once we go through the portal?"

Erol's words rose high over the sound of the wind.

I tried to cut him off, or to redirect the conversation somehow, but Thane had already leapt at the opportunity. I watched as he offered Erol a hand so he could get off of his hover disc, like a princess descending out from a pumpkin.

"Right you are my friend. This place is in grave danger, and we need to do everything in our power to amend the situation. I just want you to know that the whole Fae Realm owes you a debt for your unflinching service in the face of this most perilous situation we face."

There was nothing to be done.

Thane would slaughter him right there and leave him bleeding on the steps of the capitol.

Whatever elder gods ushered forward from the depths of the abyss in the form of this storm would approach, and the rest of the dimensions would fall into chaotic disarray. I knew that I had to act out, but the end was already in sight.

"Did Aria tell you about the sacrifice?"

I watched helplessly, as Thane's teeth gleamed in the bright light of the portal. He walked Erol over to the portal with one hand around his shoulder, and the other hand at his side.

"Why she did mention that."

"The portal took my blood in the beginning," Erol offered. "I don't have anything more to live for at this point. I see this as the culmination of my life's work, and I know that the ripple effects into the Human Realm are going to be absolutely crucial."

I saw him wince, and then stand up straight, as though trying to regain his composure and nerve.

"I think you should take my life and use it to sustain the energy of the portal."

"We couldn't possibly do that!" Thane interrupted.

That clinched it.

Erol was hooked now by his own damned heroic impulse. The two went back and forth again for a minute, before I heard Erol make his final proclamation.

"I'm going to do it myself, regardless. I know we don't have time for this any more. You're very kind, and I know you care about the welfare of your people. Otherwise, you wouldn't have sent Aria to reach out to me. I want to help, and this is the best way I know how."

"Your sacrifice will not be forgotten."

With the theatrics done, Xavier moved forward and drew a blade as he headed toward Erol's body.

"I'll do it," I announced, grabbing ahold of the soldier's back collar and shoving him roughly to the side. "I met him. I brought him here, I’ll take his life."

Thane's eyes narrowed like a cat focusing in on his prey.

"Interesting Development, Aria."

He drew his own sword and then bowed toward me theatrically.

"Do continue."

I hadn't properly thought about it before starting. All I knew was that I had a minute to express myself, and if I didn't Erol was going to meet his swift and deluded end at the hands of the new tyrant in training.

Thane wouldn't dare dirty his hand on something so menial. That's why you get thugs to carry around a weapon for you. The sword was meant for me; likely everyone except for Erol knew that much.

I turned to the side, and snubbed my nose at Thane. I didn't need to give him any more reason to believe he had power over me than he already had. There was something different about me. He had sensed it. Things weren't business as usual. We were at odds, and there was no way around the fact.

I strained my mind to think of a way that I could persuade him otherwise. All the while drawing the blade that the Wilder Fae had given me and stalking toward the portal.

"Hold him."

I shoved Xavier in the back, pushing him toward Erol.

"I've seen what a coward this guy is when push comes to shove. I don't want to bother cutting him twice."

"Seems like a sorry excuse to me..."

I narrowed my eyes at him, and then turned to Thane as though Xavier's presence itself was insignificant. In the meanwhile, the wind and rain abused our skin with its ferocity. Thane himself seemed to be more than a bit amused by my slight on his assistant. Xavier on the other hand didn't take the slight very smoothly.

I turned my back on him just as a test to see what he would do, and was rewarded with a sharp shove for my efforts. I ended up being pushed straight into Erol, who caught me before I fell into the portal itself.

"I say if the portal is hungry that we feed it until it's sated."

"Might be some time before that happens," Thane replied in a predatory fashion.

"Ha! Such a charmer."

I laughed, and then abruptly turned around to lash my dagger out toward Xavier. A lesser man would have fallen there on the ground. My arc was perfectly directed to slice his jugular and leave him nothing more than a puddle on the ground. He brought up his arm, and deflected my blow just before it struck home. Xavier himself was terribly angry, though Thane did little more than smile with surprise at my action.

I couldn't wait any longer. The moment had come when we needed to take a chance with the portal. I couldn't fly here, which meant that I would have been mismatched in an honest fight. The evasive maneuver was quick.

All I did was dive backward and shoulder Erol in the chest. He doesn't have a sense of balance to save his life, and the two of us toppled backward into the portal. The escape wasn't clean though. I got tagged along the outer thigh by Xavier while I was passing through the portal.

Blood sprayed downward from the hit and was absorbed into the ether of the gateway. The sight of the blood floating around me brought a lapse in my thinking. I wasn't able to focus my intention in any consistent format. I had planned to lure them both back into the human realm, but fear seized a hold of me, and I was pulled downward into the darkness.

Looking up over me, I swear I saw Thane laughing while the Void approached the portal.

We landed a decent ways away from one another, on ground that appeared to be closer to dust and rock than anything else.

Looking up at the sky, I searched for the telltale sun, but there was no sign of the orb of fire. Sure enough, we made it to the hell realm, but the storm that had been present in the Fae realm was worse in the Hell realm.

At least the Capitol had been somewhat sheltered by trees and buildings.

Dust and mud kicked upward into my face, and pelted against my skin. On a more positive note, the physical adaptation made it so that the wind spraying debris didn't hurt as much. Still, it was a pain in the ass to get my bearings. I can't say that I was happy to be there, but it was better than at least two alternatives I could think of in the moment.

Focus.

The command was imperative, as I knew there would be an encounter to follow. I had only enough time to avoid immediate onslaught, but there was no cover except the sheer rock face behind me. Coughing and sputtering, over to the left of me by thirty feet was another demon. I could only assume it was Erol, though had he arrived any later than myself, I wasn't in a position to be able to determine.

I ran over to the wreck of a creature, and looked at him. He was different in this realm. He didn't look like I did. He looked altogether separate from the nature of this reality. He was weak, and an interloper.

"This isn't good. Get over here."

I grabbed him by the robes that now covered his body, and threw him backward into the wall behind us. His body hit hard, and he slumped to the ground. I regret throwing him so hard, but I was glad to know that he appeared to be little more than a bundle of rocks that appeared too soft to mesh into the rest of the scenery.

Just then, Xavier arrived alongside Thane.

There was no strict portal per say, as much as there was a blast of light followed by an expulsion of two forms. The portal itself flashed and then faded, leaving only a trace of itself in the outline of the storm.

Taking my chance, I sprang into action and sprinted low toward Xavier. The hit connected strong, and I pushed my dagger viciously upward into his gut. As I stabbed him, he hugged me and raked at my back with his claws. I did not miss the fact that Thane immediately positioned himself behind the two of us. He was willing to see how the conflict worked its way into completion, and I was all right with that.

Finally, I felt teeth sinking into my neck, and I was forced to yield in my assault.

An abdominal wound is never something that you should strive for in battle. I struck at him, and I did some serious damage. My hands were both stinging from the caustic blood of my victim, as I'm sure his mouth was stinging from tasting my flesh. The final break away from that deadly embrace resolved itself through expanding my wings. Impulsively, both wings shot outward from my back. The position of his claws was such that they were both pushed to the side from the force of my extension. The wind currents caught me and lifted me upward into the air, dragging my dagger upward along the inside of his abdomen. The blade got caught on his sternum, dragging me back down toward the ground after him. His weight was too strong for me to pull up into the air, but I refused to let go of the blade of the weapon. My muscles strained, but my grip held fast. Two hands clutched at my own and yanked the blade from its place in his chest cavity.

"You thought it was going to be so easy, you bitch!"

With the hands on my wrist still, he strained downward, gripping more of my arm with each pull. The wind buffeted in circles. Instead of fighting to pull me down, he grinned, and opened his own wings. An explosive leap into the air pushed us both into the mercy of the wind currents.

My body was raked against the side of the cliffs and debris fell downward toward the ground. Darkness swelled all around the two of us. The blackness grew as we flew upward, to the point where it was difficult to see anything more than the light of his eyes.

Xavier was strong enough to hold onto me with one hand, which as soon as he realized was the case, started using to his advantage. His left hand was a gauntlet which was armed with several blades and spikes. Not something which a Fae would typically wear, but most definitely something a cruel fucker would wear if he wanted to strike fear into the heart of his enemies.

I felt the edges of that cruel metal dig into my own body. He wasn't able to get a good strike in, as our weight and momentum was tied together in an upward spiral against the currents of the sky. However, between the cliffside, and the gauntlet, I ended up shedding more than my share of blood into the darkness below.

His teeth flashed in the reflection of a lightning bolt, and I saw my opportunity.

Inverting the handle of the blade with a quick flip, I brought the tip of the dagger down dead center on the hand that held onto my body. The timing was critical, as I needed him to be in mid-attack, and not securing my body with his gauntlet hand. The blade actually pierced through his hand, and into my own forearm. Just then, I released hold on the blade and folded my wings inward.

I fell backward toward the cliffside, and as I fell, I dug the claws of my feet inward on the sides of his body. The vicious gauntlet swung over my body, missing a blow to my face by inches. My feet dug inward into him, along either side of his lower flank. He pushed into the cliffside in response, trying to beat my body against the stone until I fell into submission. I twisted my body around and then opened my wings once more so I came up behind his body. In that upward thrust of motion, my claws reached out and dug straight into the connective tissue of his wings.

With a cry of pain and anger, my claws severed his wings, totally destabilizing his flight pattern.

Thousands of feet into the air, he had just lost his ability to fly, giving me the critical advantage I needed to move into my own killing strike.

I grabbed either side of his abdomen and pulled with all of my strength. The knife wound moved deeper with the tear, driving into the core of his body. Muscles tore, and a shower of blood and entrails fell downward beneath his body.

Even as he was being disemboweled, he struck out at my body with the knife. No matter the piercing pain into my arms, I held on tight, and refused to compromise in my hold. Both of us were falling downward now, dead weight plummeting toward the ground of the Hell Realms. Refusing to yield until I saw the faint blue flash of the portal, I committed to the dive, and every bit of fear it entailed.

At the last possible second, I let go of the body, and opened my wings once more. The impact still hurt, but I was able to hit the ground at an angle and roll off the impact. Xavier on the other hand was little more than a twitching mass of broken bones, crumbled up on the bottom of a cliffside that reached toward the sky.

With my eyes narrowed, and a limp in my step, I walked over to the fallen body of Xavier, picking up the dagger that was now held weakly in his hands. I placed the dagger between my teeth, not even caring that his blood now tainted my mouth. With both hands, I dragged him viscerally against the rough, rocky floor, until the two of us were placed in front of the portal.

The sound of clapping brought my attention out of the moment as Thane stood there, applauding my apparent victory. In the light of the portal, I could see that he held Erol in his arms, with his own sword at the ready. While Thane was watching with a look of dark amusement, Erol had a look of horror in his eyes. He wasn't staring at the woman he had known, but a murderous demon, covered in blood, and dragging the body of her victim to sacrifice.

I saw all of that in his eyes, but it didn't phase me whatsoever.

Without so much as glancing in their direction a second time, I pulled Xavier's body up toward the edge of the portal, and slammed him down on the ground in front of the glistening blue light.

Feed your spirit into the rifts between dimensions...

With a single thrust, I brought my blade across his throat, and into the ground below. Blood pooled out onto the floor around us, and I shoved his broken corpse into the portal.

White light exploded all around us, and lightening came down from the sky. The atmosphere smelled like Iron and burning amber. The portal expanded into an iris the size of the missing sun, and blinked in my direction.

I held no fear, and stood there, honoring my own integrity above all else. The eye expanded upward toward the sky, outward in all directions like a static field, cutting the realm in two. Geometrical formations emanated outward from that central locus; throbbing outward like the after-tremors of an orgasm.

One glance at Thane, told me all that I needed to know.

Erol was horrified, and Thane was drunk with the power and awe of possibility.

"IT'S WORKING!"

The time for compassion and peace was past. I knew which side of this conflict I had to fall on in order to survive and make the best of the situation. I knew what would be asked of me moving forward, and I knew that if I showed the slightest qualm in performing the action, it would throw the entire operation at risk. From this moment forward, I was working for myself, first and foremost.

Xavier had to die as an example, and I knew what needed to happen next.

Walking over to Thane, I glared at him in the brilliant light of the portal and took Erol by the collar of his robes. Erol had lost all composure. He was absolutely terrified, and for good reason.

My eyes spoke more than my words could manage, besides I didn't feel like screaming over the storm or the violent cracking of the portal.

With one hand on my dagger, and one hand on Erol, I dragged his body toward the portal.

Time to finish this...

Gold and murderous, without the slightest inkling of care for what the future might hold, I brought the dagger up into the air. This strike would be for myself.

Not for Erol.

Not for Thane.

And not for some blood-thirsty portal.

My offering of the first sacrifice was for the portal. Xavier and whatever dark entities feasted on his soul were meant for one another. As for Erol, he ended up in the wrong place at the wrong time. Or perhaps this was his destiny. I couldn't tell, and at this point, it didn't really matter.

The dagger was brought down at a spot just to the left of his heart, while my other hand wrapped firmly around his neck. I brought my index finger and thumb upward on his jugular vein, and pressed into the space between his jaw and his neck. I watched dispassionately as he struggled to breath, and then stopped. The dagger was pulled out of his chest, and I watched as he collapsed onto the ground.

More blood poured into the portal, and I watched as the body began to disappear.

Thane walked up behind me and dared to put his hand on my shoulder. The interpretation of my actions meant that I had succeeded. There was no reason for anyone to believe that I was under the command of anyone but myself. I pushed his hand off of my shoulder definitively, and turned around to meet him eye to eye.

"Don't you ever push that shit on me again. There is no reason for you or anyone else to tell me what to do. And if you ever draw that sword on me again, you had better be prepared to run me through. I swear by the names of whatever Gods are left after all of this, that I will pull your own hear out, and eat if I have to. Do I make myself clear?"

The silence that surrounded us was deafening.

The storm and the portal had merged into one, and darkness came out from the center of the portal.

I saw the reflection of the portal in Thane's eyes, causing the effect of a strange illusion.

His eyes in demonic form were slit, just like mine. We both had the eyes like a serpent, but with the reflection from the portal, the eyes looked like the eyes of a cat.

He didn't respond to me, except to turn me around and face the portal itself.

The brilliant blue outer ring, and arcing rays of light were still there, though the portal had shrunk in magnitude since its initial expansion. From the inside of the portal a darkness had expanded outward from the center. The effect was similar to staring into the heart of an eclipse.

The image reminded me of the saying "Careful not to stare into the Void too long, lest you find it stares back."

However, the horror did not stop there.

There, in front of me, Erol was levitating in the center of the portal. His body was hung upside down like an occult crucifix. Blood streamed from his side, and his hair was pushed about in either direction. I couldn't tell if he was alive or not, but the pulsating rays from inside of the Void itself caused his body to shift and undulate as though he were still breathing.

The sound of the atmosphere around us grew to a deafening series of percussive blasts. All the while, the edges of the portal became more and more wild in their expression. The boundaries between the void and the outer ring of blue began to dissolve, and the void from inside of the iris began to leak outward onto the ground by our feet. That same inky blackness poured out slow at first, and then stronger so that a deluge had formed.

The desert of the Hell Realms was being flooded.

Transformative action was taking place, and all the while, Erol floated there like a martyr for a lost realm.

The void clung to our legs and climbed upward to encase our bodies. The moment it touched us, it held our bodies fast to the ground. No amount of struggle could undo the connection to it. No matter how hard I tried, I was not able to free myself.

My mind flashed back to the first time I had been here inside of this world, and of the creature that had dragged me through the bottom of the tar, and into the human realm. As Erol had died, I figured that I might as well resign myself to my own fate.

I stopped fighting, and decided to sit down instead. The void flowed over me then, like a river, off the side of my body, and into the landscape behind me. The rain that fell from the sky, mixed with the fluid from the void, and swirled around either side of me. I looked down and saw the liquid was rising and was just below my breasts.

"What are we going to do?"

Thane had lost his sense of composure.

My response was descriptive of my belief about what the right thing to do was, in a situation like that. I responded with nothing. I did nothing. I did my best to embody complete acceptance of my situation.

There was no reason to behave otherwise.

Staring unblinking into the face of Erol, I saw that the void was consuming him. He had been suspended, and the outpour had been flowing out underneath his body. Now, when I saw him, it was clear to me that the substance of the Void was slowly working its way upward around the edges of his body. His complexion was pale, and his body thin. He looked like the Franciscan Friers in the textbooks of Occultism on the Material Plane.

Then, his eyes opened.

A shot of terror ran through me, as I saw that though the outer ring of light had all but faded, the light was now coming out from inside of his body. His eyes were the same brilliant fire as my memories of the sun. He screamed, and instead of a voice, coming out, all that was left was light pouring out from his mouth.

The Void seeped upward toward the edges of his mouth, and through the tear ducts of his eyes.

In my horror, I found that my bottom lip had been touched by the rising level of that thick tar which now covered all things. I closed my mouth in time to prevent it from getting inside of me mouth.

Tears flowed down from my eyes, and joined the deluge. As the fluid rose up over my own face, I remember the last picture in my mind was the fire of being coming out from inside of Erol. Those three points of light had burnt themselves into my retina, as I was overwhelmed by the darkness around me.

Once underneath the substance, there was nowhere for me to go; nothing for me to do but surrender completely.

I opened my mouth, and felt the liquid rush inward and threaten to fill my lungs. My own body was fighting against me, so strong was my will to continue living that I couldn't bring myself to open my lungs and allow the fluid to claim me completely. The deprivation of oxygen pushed my brain into panic. I tried to open my eyes, but they remained clasped shut. The haunting lights still pierced my vision and grew more brilliant still as I faced the swift approach of my own death.

Tremors ran through my body and my chest seized. I opened the back of my throat involuntarily, and gasped for the oxygen that I knew would never be there.

The Void rushed inside of me, and I felt my heart explode with the light that stained my vision. When the light burned out, there was nothing.

Once more, I was lost to time and space.

The darkness to follow was not absolute. In all reality, I doubt that any darkness ever will be. Though, that doesn't mean that there won't be dark times in the future.

The theory comes from the place that says that things have existed in the past, and they will continue to exist, in the future, though their forms may modify. In addition to that theory, we also have the concept that there is a variety of content in this life.

Some content works for the destruction and degradation of other things, and other content works to rebuild. These sorts of things work cyclically, which means that for any progress to be made, there needs to be a certain level of destruction.

The difficulty comes not in accepting the components of destruction which are necessary to move forward, but in the way that we ourselves participate in destruction. What I mean to say specifically is that some destruction is fetishized, while other destruction is done out of carelessness.

As I lay floating in the void, a soft glow pulsed around me. I felt protection and a certain level of sacrifice given on my behalf. Something was protecting me from whatever elements were out there in the shadows. Large serpentine creatures swam past me, and inspected my body. I could not see them, but I could feel them. I could feel all things pass by me, and I had the freedom to reflect on their nature.

Even the monsters of the deep; creatures fierce and powerful from dimensions far away from the place where I grew up, you couldn't apply the concepts of good or evil to these things. The paradigm needed to accommodate them simply wasn't large enough to be effective.

There is a creature the size of a Leviathan who has just swam past a naked, floating body.

A body now bounces along the wake of the serpent.

There is no pain.

A soft, warm glow radiates from the inside of the vessel.

There is no fear.

Time itself has ceased to hold any meaning.

Attachment to the world of the living is absent.

There is no realm of the dead. The vessel floats in an amniotic stasis in the Bardo between the realms.

That last thought echoed around in my mind for a while, pushing me along toward whatever reflections may be forthcoming. From that point, I moved into nostalgia.

I thought about all of the relationships I had been fortunate enough to have, and all of the pain that was associated with each of those relationships. Every single time I had grown close to somebody, there was this feeling of total and complete betrayal. The sadness was profound, and then I realized that there was no reason for the sadness, or the anger, or even the joy.

Holding onto those concepts was about as realistic as holding onto those friends.

If relationships and emotions are impermanent, and all of my states of mind are impermanent, then what is this thing that is holding onto me?

I looked down at my body.

That same body that I had reviled and despised throughout all of my experiences. That same body that had carried me when I had needed to achieve some pressing and ultimately futile goal. That body was outlined in light, a small, slow light that came out from the inside of my chest, and pushed me forward through the darkness between realms.

Light, of that sort, can only be called hope, because it refuses to part, even when all sensibilities indicate that reality should be otherwise.

Would I retain this light if I had been eaten by the Leviathan?

The thought bounced outward, but no response came back. No verbal response anyways. The light, on the other hand, continued in spite of my question, and I felt both petty and childish at the same time.

At that point, I realized that I was in a place that had been designated for myself, by myself. Or, at least, I realized that this might be a possibility.

I started to unfold myself, pushing my shoulders around a bit, and turning my neck this way and that. I wanted to try and wake myself up. To see if I could push my existence toward something different. I wanted to know if it was possible to move myself through space with the same freedom as was available for my mind to reflect on whichever topic came to mind.

My body unfurled, and I directed myself like an arrow toward somewhere, anywhere that the light would grow, and this awful, terrible, oppressive darkness would be forced to subside. The thought itself modified the world around me, and I saw in the distance a clear reflective shimmer, the faint bit of hope that there was more to be found.

Traveling toward the light was easier than I thought. My body began moving upward of its own accord. There was nothing stopping me any longer. All I needed to do was push forward, and I was propelled by a force from within. The environment itself wanted me to move forward. I was being guided by the hand of fate.

The water around me grew less dense, and then when I reached the surface, I found that beyond the surface, was a brilliantly colored sky, full of pastel pinks and oranges. The light around me faded in the face of the light from without, and the temperature of the water dropped to a point where it was barely comfortable. Something changed around me, and suddenly, I realized that I was no longer floating in-between realms. I had in fact surfaced in one of them.

The air in my lungs came in gasping mouthfuls, and the water on my lips tasted like salt. I looked down at my body and saw that I was no longer a Demon. However, I was neither Fae nor Human at that point.

There were strange anatomical differences that were incongruent. I tried to place myself, and soon became overwhelmed and anxious. I began to panic, and the full awareness that I was a vulnerable creature once more, and too far from the shore for personal comfort. Moving my body now, and finding coordination once more, I began to swim through the water toward the shore.

Initially, I didn't make much progress, but I managed to figure out my coordination, and soon enough was making steady progress toward having land under my feet. The only time I got creeped out was when I remembered the sensation of the serpent that had passed by me when I was floating in the water below. The memory brought more than a bit of anxiety to my mind, though I didn't have the luxury of focusing on those fears at the moment. I had a solid trek to get through, and I was fast running out of stamina. My body felt like I had just woken up out of a dream, but the problem was that I did not feel nearly as refreshed as I would have felt after a solid night's sleep.

Quieting down my mind, I limited my activity to a series of motions. First focusing on pairing up alternating movements of my hands and feet, and then working on allowing my body to move fluidly through the water in its expression. Once I started to utilize more finesse, and let the abrasive anxieties and lack of coordination wear off, I made fairly steady headway toward the shoreline.

By the time I got closer, I was able to catch a few waves in, by surfing along the contour of the waves with my body. Feeling like I was propelled enough along the surface of the water by the currents themselves was a massive relief. The rush of the water in my ears, and the sound of the waves crashing around me was a beautiful sensation. The feelings that ran through me were more of a refreshing, and calm baptism, than the pain of uncertainty.

Each wave that I rode passed through me, until one of them carried me along and deposited me ungracefully on the shore. My body slammed into the sand, and I rolled beneath the final expression of the wave. The sounds around me changed to a soft hiss, accented by the sound of birds overhead. As the water receded back into the ocean, I felt the wet sand lodge itself in my armpits and hair. My body sank into the sand of the beach, and I absorbed the rays of light overhead.

Looking up overhead, I saw that there were not one, but two orbs of light in the sky. The second sun was a brilliant violet color. Colors changed all round it in gradients away from a pure bright center. The contrast between the two suns brought out strange burnt colors in the atmosphere like I had never seen before. Another wave rushed over me, and water poured into my nostrils. The feeling was abrupt, and unpleasant, so I stood up, and got my bearings.

My body retained elements from all of the different forms I had experienced thus far, though the overall combination was not terribly impressive.

My skin was fleshy and pale. There were no protective scales, or luxurious natural tones. A quick look down at my hands and I realized that my claws had diminished from their weaponized, demonic state, but not quite as refined and gracious as they had been when I was a human. I might still be able to do some damage with them, but they were significantly less powerful than I remembered.

I brought my hand to my mouth, and realized that my teeth were disappointingly sharp. I would still be able to eat well, and I could likely use them as a weapon as well, but the implications of tasting more blood in my mouth didn't quite sit with me.

The water wasn't still enough to give me any sort of affirmative about my eyes, but I imagined that if the source of light was different in this world, my eyes wouldn't be the same either.

Possibly the most disappointing aspect of my new form wasn't any of the physical characteristics just listed -- it was my wing.

At least while I had been a demon, I had enjoyed the pleasure of flight once more. When I had been a human, the tattoos had at least been appealing in their own way. Whatever form I was in now, was just as disabled as my Fae body.

I collapsed onto my ass and felt the first waves of loss pass through me. Each wave that followed made its own attempt at cheering me back up, and placing me back in that state of elation and purpose that had been so restorative. I looked around at the new world before my eyes and cried, alone on the shoreline.

What have I done?

“Mom, mom! There’s a dead man on the sidewalk! Come quick!”

The voices were faint, but they came through all right. The visions of afterlife still burned behind my eyelids. I had seen things that no man should ever be asked to see while continuing to be asked to live his life.

“See! See! He’s not moving, and he’s just laying there!”

“Oh my God. Somebody call an ambulance.”

“No luck ma’am, you think he’s the only one, you’re delusional. Take a look around, this place is in awful shape. He’s probably another one of those freaks. Better to leave the dead where they are.”

Freaks?

I struggled to move, and with some effort, I was able to push myself upward.

“Eeep!”

“This one’s still got a pulse!”

“Quick, roll him over.”

“Oh my God, what happened to him?”

“I don’t know. Maybe some kind of cult.”

“Mom, why does he have markings all over his face?”

“Hush…”

“I don’t like this… I don’t think we should help him.”

“Maeve said that she found a weird one the other day. Wings, and sharp teeth, like a demon. They tied it up and poured gasoline all over it. You know what happened next. They look human enough at first glance, but they’d just as soon eat your children as shake your hand.”

“You don’t know that!”

“Sure I do. Maeve told me herself.”

“What the hell does Maeve know? Besides, do you see wings on this one?”

“You know, I’d do it just to be safe… back off. I’ll bet the wings are hidden underneath those robes of his.”

A boot to the shoulder woke me out of my dream-state. The pain was so sudden and undeserved. A flare of anger grew inside of me. I tried to cut it out, but I couldn’t.

Another sharp kick to the side, and my hand reached out of its own accord and grabbed the man by his leg. I was weak, but all I really needed was a point of contact. I reached into his body, and touched the only part of him that I could see clearly anymore. My fingers grasped something delicate, and separated it from his body.

The man fell down to the floor, and his soul went free.

Everyone screamed — and then, there was silence.