Under the stars, Lucia talks of home.
guest story by Mind-Control-Makeover
tags: heroic azuras, karla & lucia, nsfw
Karla smiled when sparks from the flint caught the tinder. She looked up from the fire with satisfaction. Lucia sat against the saddle bag, hugging her knees and pulling at a strip of jerky. Karla blew on the fire.
“There we go. We’ll be toasty in a minute.”
“We’d be toasty already at the inn.”
“Aw, but it’s such a clear sky tonight.” Karla crept around the fire and sat next to Lucia on the ground. Karla wore well-aged leathers, in contrasts to Lucia’s fashionable riding dress. Karla hugged Lucia around the shoulders. This elicited a half-hearted growl. Thrilled by the response, Karla reached around to the bags and took out a flask. She swallowed a mouthful and passed it to Lucia. “Thanks for indulging me. I love the stars.”
Lucia sniffed the flask and took a pull. “You’re lucky that you’re cute when you’re happy. I swear, ‘looking at the stars.’ Humans can be so provincial sometimes.”
“Provincial?” Karla chuckled. “Are we foolish mortals too easily impressed by stars, now?”
“No… well, I mean, yes.” Lucia rested her head on Karla’s shoulder. “I feel like, there’s so many more skies and so many more stars and things between the stars… I don’t know, I’m being a brat. You’re not wrong. Stars can be lovely.”
Karla slid her hand down to Lucia’s. “Are you missing… home?”
“I’m not planning on going back, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“You miss something.”
“It’s strange to think about the future, is all. Not with you, I mean.” Lucia gave Karla’s hand a reassuring squeeze. “But here, in the mortal world. Your world’s big, but everywhere you go has more in common than different. In every corner of Hell, you can find something so completely unique and itself.”
“I’m not sure Hell is where I’d look for surprises.”
“It’s different when you live there. You can stumble across lifetimes’ worth of strange sights, sounds, tastes, sex…”
“Oh, that’s also provincial now? I didn’t realize that I need more fangs downstairs.”
“I don’t mean it like that.” Lucia smacked Karla on the arm. “It’s not about comparison. Let me show you.”
Lucia lifted Karla’s arm to her lap. She rolled up the sleeve with one hand while deftly massage the palm with her other. Karla felt tendrils of numbness curl over her skin as Lucia’s illusions took hold.
“What are you doing?”
“Ssh. Close your eyes for me. I wonder if you know… Hm. Are you familiar with the mamunon?”
“Hoarding demons. Chaos spirits of greed. The mamunon roam the cosmos in search of lost treasures. They build their bodies out of precious materials.”
“That’s where you’re wrong. Firstly, sometimes they just steal things to be little shits. But more importantly, they don’t build their own bodies. The Hoard Mother does that. The mamunon bring their favorite treasures to the Hoard Mother and she uses the raw materials to give birth.”
“This is what they do instead of sex?”
“No, this is what sex is to them.” Phantom sensations flowed through Karla’s nerves. She felt herself holding a heavy jewel. Silky tendrils caressed her skin. They were beckoning her. The tendrils guided her hand up to a beaked maw. Karla hesitated, prepared for the beak to snap down on her wrist. But gradually, Karla realized it was waiting for her to push it in on her own.
She met resistance. The passage was clogged with bony scales. She’d have to work the prize in there. As Karla wedged the gem in, the scales opened with resistance and closed again with elastic force. But slowly, the resistance faded, until Karla slid her entire arm in and pushed the treasure through. Karla withdrew. The tendrils caressed her arm. The beak gently teased her knuckles. It was an intimate gesture, Karla realized, of gratitude.
Karla blinked. She held her arm straight up. Lucia giggled and pulled Karla’s arm back down.
“Was that better or worse?”
“That was… different.”
“How about something really impressive.” Lucia weaved her magic again. “Like an archon.”
“The Unwounded?” Karla’s voice had a twinge of concern.
“I take it you’ve heard of them.”
“Only in the most guarded accounts of the First Apocalypse. They’re the unyielding doom. Those who will never know pain. The eaters of halos. Did you fuck one of the halo eaters?!”
“Of course not. I’m in one piece, aren’t I? But I got to watch.”
The illusion formed in Karla’s hand.
“Holy Ones, forgive my sins…”
It was massive. It weighed more than a longsword. A carapace of rough metal covered the shaft, tapering along the bottom into an edge like polished obsidian. There was no glans, only a knife tip so sharp that Karla shuddered as she imagined the illusion parting the flesh of her palm. And it throbbed. It felt hot as a stove and it throbbed with a seismic pulse, whose blood could split continental plates.
“Is it… is it anything like humans…?”
“No. It’s not really a cock, despite its positioning. It’s a horn. Archons aren’t born. They’re forged. But they find pleasure inflicting wounds on each other.”
“They fight each other with these?”
“It’s willing. It is the only time an archon will feel pain. They’re all curious. One on one. Many on one. Some refuse to do it more than once. Some become addicted to it.”
Karla barely breathed. “What is it like to watch?”
“Imagine the strongest person you know. Someone who never flinches or doubts themselves.” Lucia threaded her fingers through Karla’s. “Now imagine them shuddering. Imagine they’re trying and failing not to cry. Imagine that no matter how many times they agreed to it, they’re being violated. Indelibly.”
“Is that your favorite?”
“My favorite?” Lucia thought for a moment. “It’s up there. But my favorite is the kafkee.”
“The kafkee?” Karla blinked. “Aren’t those monks?”
“They’re historians. They live in cloisters on the frozen edge of space, where they record all the blasphemies in the universe.”
“And have amazing sex, I guess.”
Lucia laughed. “They’re too stuck up to put it that way. But once in a while, one of them sees too much and it swells up inside of them.”
Lucia’s magic came over Karla yet again. Karla’s hand was guided down a bony torso with skin like paper, to the junction between spindly legs. There, she found a smooth blister.
“The visions stick in them and take root in them. It’s like a splinter. They need to get it out. They need it to be squeezed from them. They beg to be milked.”
The blister swelled under Karla’s palm. It was hot, fat, and round. Karla realized it was a teat, trembling with built-up pressure. Karla ran her hand around the curve of it. The skin felt feverish. Karla squeezed the flesh and warm milk trickled over her fingers.
“I wish I could give you some, for real. It makes you have dreams with your whole body. It shows you things that no language will ever have words for. It’s so vast and numbing, yet so physical and personal.”
“Like this sudden sense of distance even though you can feel yourself standing still?”
“Yes.”
“Like seeing thousands of patterns even though it’s pure chaos?”
“Yes, it’s like that.”
“Sounds a lot like looking at the stars.”
The illusion winked out. Lucia huffed and blew out her cheeks. Karla snuggled up closer. “If you’re taking requests, there’s another type of demon sex I’d like to learn about.”
“Very well.” Lucia didn’t look at Karla. “If you’re such a diligent pupil.”
Flipping over onto her partner, Karla kissed Lucia’s frown and moved south from there.
Mind-Control-Makeover mostly write mind control stories, which you can read on EMCSA or on his personal blog. But he surprised me with this incredible, characterful sketch of Lucia talking about home. I’m gobsmacked; it’s so creative and soft!