Feature Writer: DragonCobolt
Feature Title: BY RUIN REDEEMED 2
Published: 14.08.2024
Story Codes: Demonic
Synopsis: The angel Cae gets used to living in Hell.
By Ruin Redeemed 2
Emerging from the dungeon and into the pounding rain, Cae did not receive her first uninterrupted vista of the Realm of Ruin, home to one of the Lords of Hell – the sheeting, grayish rain was too thick, too fierce, too uninterrupted to provide more than a few lumpy hints of building and hill and landscape that sprawled out beyond her. However, she was shown the courtesy of a demon, when Baron Citri clapped his hands twice and one of the guardsdemons that flanked them held aloft a small shaft of metal which unfurled with a creaking thump into a kind of mobile covering, which kept the rain at bay. Citri, looking rather pathetically relieved, stepped close to Cae, his shoulder brushing against hers – his lava bright skin feeling shocking and distractingly warm. Cae’s cheeks blushed silver and she stepped a bit to the side, freeing herself from the contact…and now, soaking her other shoulder and her wing in the rain. Behind her, Baron Ruti, still rubbing his belly, seemed as unconcerned by the rain as the other guardsdemons.
“Sorry about the weather,” Citri said, his lips quirked up ever so slightly, his red-on-black eyes glittering. It was as if he knew that his touch had…felt so…
Intense.
Cae frowned at him. “Isn’t this realm your Lord’s? On Heaven, it never rains lest the Hosts will it. No droplet falls where it isn’t wished.”
“Ah, of course it would, in Heaven,” Citri said, his eyes actually rolling, as if they sought to escape the absurdity of his fellow traveler. The sight of it made Cae quite forget the warmth between her thighs and the tingling on her shoulders and replace it with anger. Her frown transmuted into a scowl – even as a shape loomed in the rains ahead of them. They were walking across damp, brownish grass that squelched unpleasantly between her toes, and ahead, Cae couldn’t tell if she was approaching a hovel or a home or a small mountain. The rain allowed through only shapes and the faint glitter of hellish lanterns.
“Because we run our realms properly,” Cae said.
“Yes, with whips and chains,” Citri said.
“Ah, chains, of course,” Cae said, making quite a show of rubbing her golden wrists, the darkening bruises of her only recently released shackles still quite visible. “I’m sure you know nothing of that in Hell.”
Citri, to her annoyance, shot her a little smile – as if he was pleased – and they came close enough for the shape to resolve into an awning, a double set of doors, and a pair of lanterns at the very least. There were two wings sweeping to either side of this entrance, the wings of a vast manor house, but the rain and darkness left the door feeling queerly disconnected from the whole. Giving it a look, Cae found that Ruin’s tastes were decidedly old fashioned by the general standards of the Realms. The doorway was narrow and high, the door ending in an elegant arch, with the wood itself craven with geometric reliefs and designs that evoked a strange sense of oblique sadness – the patterns at the top unraveling as they reached the bottom, as if the entire door was running down. The only decorations that had true form were the knockers: A pair of great iron rings grasped in the claws of somber gargoyles the size of her fist, set into the wood and left to wait. Citri did not knock, nor did he wait. He simply snapped his fingers and the doors swung open with a ponderous groan, revealing a foyer with a crackling fireplace at the end, red carpet on the wood paneling, and archways that led off to the wings. There was a chandelier hanging from the ceiling, and hell light glimmered on each candle: Red and brooding.
Leaning against the wall near one of the fireplaces was a cloaked figure that stood two, three heads taller than Cae or her companions. A towering darkness that made her entire heart still for a moment. She could see nothing save for the cloak, the high collar, midnight black hair, and the spreading of horns above his head like a thicket. They were not the horns of a ram or goat, but the horns of a mighty stag.
Next to him, slim and taut, was creature at once finely dressed and slovenly put together. His tunic was black, his jerkin and hose impeccably matched in hues of red and dark gold, but everything seemed to have been thrown on. None had been pressed or laundered in some time – while he was not stained, he had the lived in look of a mortal who had been on campaign for weeks, not a demon in the height of his finery. The man within the clothing looked midway between a human being and a scuttling thing from the darkness. His skin was chalk pale, and his eyes were faceted orbs that glittered in eyes that never seemed to blink. Curled antenna jutted from his brows, and his whole body seemed to move in starts and jitters, like any number of verminous insects.
“My lord,” Citri said, looking past the ill-dressed demon.
The cloaked figure sighed. He turned, slowly, to face Cae.
Cae’s throat went dry and her heart lumped in her chest.
Arral, the Lord of Ruin, was a figure cut from obsidian and smoke in equal measures – his features shrouded in a glittering cloud that promised darkness and quiet and peace all in equal measures. His jaw was chiseled, while his nose slightly too hooked and broad for what some might consider classical beauty – his lips thin lines of black-on-black flesh more meant for frowns and stern pursing than for smiles or laughter. His eyes were lined with worry despite his immortal age…and were of the most arresting deep hue of pale silver on charcoal black. It was like looking into the pools in the deepest parts of Heaven’s libraries, seeing the holy water gleam in carved hexagons of stone, waiting to be tapped for battle or sacred duty. Beneath his cloak…well, he could look like anything. Cae found her mind catching on stray thoughts, like a finger tugging on a splinter in the wall.
Is he muscled like his Baron of Fire? Or scrawny and emaciated like his Baron of Rot?
She pushed the thoughts away, trying to instead focus on the here, the now.
“Ruti! Citri! What have you done!?” The faceted-eyed man, who by process of elimination could only be Degi, the Baron of Despair snapped.
“Don’t yell at me,” Citri said, holding up two hands in a warding gesture. “Glower at our little Ru!”
“I-I…I just…” Ruti stammered.
“You let her go!?” Degi exploded. “She could flee right now – she could plunge her hand into the Lord’s heart and rip it out. She-”
Arral lifted one hand from his robes – his fingers large and firm. Calloused, even, Cae noticed. His Barons silenced, all of them looking at him as he regarded Cae. Then he bowed his head. “Do you want a room, General Silverhawk?” he asked, his voice a deep, bassy rumble that made Cae’s bones buzz. Her eyes widened – but then she nodded, curtly.
“And my clothing. Armor. Weapon.”
Arral nodded. “Those can be provided,” he said.
Cae narrowed her eyes fractionally, suspicion dripping from her words as if they had been freshly envenomed. “Will they now? Without my parole?”
Arral’s chuckle was as deep as ever other part of him. His sheer size seemed that his every word, no matter how softly murmured would quake the world around him. “I believe, as Dee’s worry has already been proven false and you have not immediately smote me with Heaven’s fury, that we can take a risk on you not choosing to go against every legion of Hell with a single sword and suit of plate armor. By now, I think you’ve already seen why it would be…a waste of your talents, hmm?”
He arched an eyebrow at her. Cae considered all she had seen, and felt as if she were being tested. The very idea offended her – these demons had captured her to use her to defend themselves, and this overgrown brute thought she needed yet more harrowing, yet more examinations? And that his parlor questing could be anything next to the holy flames and the chastising whips of her mentors and elders? Hah!
She sneered up at him, her wings mantling. “Hell is as divided as their thoughts – your Houses plot against one another. If I slew you, Destruction and Pestilence would both swoop in and claim these areas. It would be as if you had never existed. And…” Her sneer faltered for a moment as the logic of what she was saying caught up with her confidence – she had been more focused on how fractious Hell was, she had missed the fact that…
Well.
If there were enough Lords of Hell that any single Lord could be lost…
Compare that to Heaven. If the highest of the high, the Council of Eleven, were to lose a member, how many centuries would it be before Heaven could select a new?
The hesitation had been slight. But it had been enough. Arral’s lips quirked in the closest thing that she thought a Lord of Ruin could put into a smile. Cae’s anger flashed bright in her, but not bright enough to cover for her shame at being so hoodwinked. He started to open his mouth to speak, but then his eyes fell upon something – and at once, the smile was snuffed away, transformed into a fierce scowl, a scowl that showed terribly sharp fangs. Before Cae could move, his hand had rushed forward and snatched hold of her wing. The feeling of those blazing hot fingers against her damp sinew and muscle made her tense and gasp in shock – even his other hand swept along her feathers. Then, in a voice of pure murder, he snarled. “Who clipped her wings?”
The Barons exchanged a glance, and Degi stepped forward. “I-I did, my Lor-”
“We shall deal with you,” Arral snarled, releasing her. “Citri, you will see to it that her wings are repaired posthaste. Degi, your punishment…” He sighed. “I will consider what it shall be. Dismissed.”
Degi opened his mouth to speak, then ducked his head, his antenna curling in on themselves. “Yes, my lord,” he said, woodenly.
He started to stalk away, a shadow vanishing into the archway to the western wing. Cae noticed, faintly, that the kindest of the Barons she had met so far, Ruti, had already vanished as well, leaving her alone with Citri and Arral. While the idea of being with the two alone in nothing but a shift and short leggings was…strangely appealing in a way that Cae couldn’t explain, she was more focused on Arral’s order that her wings were fixed: “How can you fix anything?” She asked, frowning intently. “You’re the Lord of Ruin.”
Arral shook his head. “Take her to her chambers, I will send the servants. I…must discipline my Barons.” He turned and started to leave as well, the heavy sounds of his footfalls ringing against the wood – his feet were cloven, she could tell. Cae brushed her wings against her back, drawing them in tight while Citri ambled to her side, his hands slipped deep into his pockets. His voice was soft. “Sorry you had to see that,” he said, quietly. “Dee and Arral often butt heads – but they make it up in the end.”
“Why would you even have such a creature?” Cae asked. “Fire can smelt, you say. What can despair do?”
Citri was silent for a time, considering. “Have you ever wept and been seen?” he asked, curiously. Cae shot a look at him – her brow furrowing. Her eyes flashed and she scowled at him, her wings tightening as her shoulders tensed.
“Angels have no need to weep,” she said, quietly.
“Hm. Well. Come,” Citri said, starting away from her, his hands still within his pockets as he headed for the rear of the foyer. There, a pair of staircases swept up to the second level, and he began to take them two at a time.
Cae shook her head and let out a soft ‘tsch!’ It seemed that these demons would be perpetually throwing absurdities and lies at her, until she couldn’t know up from down, good from evil. She would stand steadfast against them – and, as she started to walk up the stairs, she affirmed her resolution. She would learn all she could. There would be a weakness of Hell that she would find here. If she could save the House of Ruin, then doom the forces of the Destroyer? Well, then. Maybe it would be all worth it, no matter how shameful and degrading it was.
She took the steps one at a time.
***
The home of Arral, the Lord of Ruin, did not constrain itself. It sprawled over the hillside it was built upon, with two wings which themselves covered more space than Cae thought possible – but rather than being like the vast splendor of Heaven, nor the endless teeming masses she had expected of Hell…nor, even the mortal extravagance of some of the Realms, this place felt as if it had been lived in. Once. Long ago. The rooms that she walked past were full of dust and cobwebs, and a sense that life could be breathed into them again, were conditions right. Cae paused at one such door, looking in at a sitting room with a writing desk, a small stool, a window looking out into the gray streaks of rain that swept along the window. For some reason, she felt like crying – a deep sadness welling up within her breast. She pushed it aside and frowned. She needed to think more like a general.
Each Lord held reign over a part of the amorphous mass that was Hell – the worrying part, the part that made it so frightening for Heaven and her Hosts, was that Hell did not simply remain as the Creator had made it. It grew, and it shrank. It shucked off realms that had been corrupted but were now subsumed back into the vastness of the World – some remained corrupted, some seemed as pristine as the day they had been spoken into existence. Always churning. Always changing. What place did this old, static monolith have in that chaos? Was this idea, Ruin, a splinter in Hell’s perpetual change, something as against the grain as…
An angel that wants to be a general?
She squashed that thought, deep within herself. She didn’t want to be a general. She simply had always had the aptitude for it. She wanted to fulfill her place in Heaven’s plan. There was no ego in this, no grandiose visions that her mentors had warned her of – nothing that might draw her from the path of righteousness.
“I suppose there can’t be a ruin if there was no past for it to be tumble from,” she said, softly, more to affix the idea in her head than to make conversation with Citri. He paused at the doorway that was flush with the far end of this long, long corridor. He turned and placed his hand on the knob, smiling slightly as thin wisps of smoke rose from his orange fingers.
“Very astute,” he said. “Might I ask what inspired this realization?”
Cae quirked her lips back at him. “You may ask.”
Silence stretched between them.
Citri laughed. His smile was broad. “I can see why Ruti wanted to free you,” he said. “You’re not what we thought an angel would be like.”
Cae cocked her head. “What did you expect an angel to be like?”
Citri shrugged, then leaned against the door. His shoulders slumped and he took on a posture of exaggerated relaxation as he let his head loll to the side. This posture made Cae think, most unusually, of a moment in her first campaign where she had first seen what mortals referred to as a ‘cat.’ The absurd creature had tried to beg food off her by placing its paws upon her gold-clad shin, then when she had looked down upon it, quizzical and confused, the creature had seemed to slough its bones to some otherspace and become a puddle of black fur sprawled on its back, paws in the air, eyes glittering like golden pools. Those eyes had said: Feed me! Pet me! Care for me!
Quite ridiculous. Citri had that mien right now.
“Oh, stuffier,” he said.
Cae arched a silver eyebrow.
“Stuffier,” she said, her voice as stern and stentorian as she could make it – aping her mentor of the swordswoman’s art, the Lady Fireblade.
“They say that not a raindrop falls in Heaven without the High Council knowing of it- that everything is measured and cut well before it comes time. That when an angel dies off schedule, they will crawl from the grave to report in once more,” Citri said, dryly. “But you? You have a fire in you like a demon. You want things.”
Cae bit back her immediate response. Angels want things, you absurd creature. Instead, she let that enigmatic smile dust her lips again. “And you have the spine of an angel somewhere in there.”
As if becoming aware of his absurd slouch, Citri stood a bit taller, frowning. He didn’t ask a question with his voice, but he did furrow his brows at her. She took mercy, her wings mantling and then settling for a moment.
“You obviously have plans beyond what you’ve told me,” Cae said, dryly. “Some angels think demons can’t plan. But clearly, you can. Now, is that plan going to be to try and woo me to your side? To corrupt me into a demon as well?” She stepped closer to him. “The first step on that would be to seem kindly and gentle to me – and what better way than to have your right hand clap me in irons, then your left release me?”
“For a general, you love giving intelligence to your enemies,” Citri said, standing to his full height, his lips pursed in irritation.
“Just scouting the ground, Baron,” Cae said. “Now, you are going to have my clipped wings healed – another example, by the way, of fixing what you broke. That is not a deception.”
Citri sighed – and his breath came with sparks. “There truly is a disunity in the House of Ruin. Lord Arral does not know himself. His plan is flying to pieces.”
“Oh?” Cae asked, already guarding herself against whatever falsehood that Citri would drop in her ear – poisoned honey, she was sure. Citri rolled his eyes to the ceiling, then gripped the door and opened it, revealing that the chamber he had led her towards was a large stone room that had been set aside for bathing, dominating the entirety of the west wing’s endpoint. The place was warm and moist, humid even, and the floor was warm enough that Cae was sure that furnaces were built in the level below, worked by who knew what servile demon or magic deviltry. She took a step in as Citri took a firm grip upon the door’s knob behind her.
“He thought you were a homely man before we got the armor off,” he said, then closed the door behind her.
Cae started, then spun to face the door, wings flaring. “What in Heaven does that mean!?” She exclaimed – but she could already hear Citri’s footsteps – fierce, clomping, angry footsteps. She scowled fiercely. It was no great loss for her to play her hand on the matter of recognizing the obvious subterfuge – after all, had she been a slow angel, they wouldn’t have wanted to capture her in the first place. And it had revealed something…but what? What ground could her body have to do with Lord Arral’s plans? Surely, he was not some mortal, who could imagine that the subtle distinctions between man, woman, or anything in-between would have any grounds on a battlefield that was won more in the mind and the boardroom than it ever was fought out on the surface of a Realm. So, what was it?
Maybe Citri was trying to mislead her into thinking that his master’s house was divided – so she might trust Ruti more? But could she imagine that pathetic creature truly carrying off a deception? Or-
“Oh, you’re here!”
The warm, female voice caused her to turn back around and see that she was not alone in this bath. She had not expected to be alone. What she had not expected was to see a succubus here, in the House of Ruin.
The demon was clearly a succubus, one of the many thousands kinds of demons that Hell had cataloged and sorted and named and given classification. The only reason Cae tended to simply think of demons as demons rather than, say, an abakuthi or a lerandor or a druge, was that the actual specific distinctions mattered less than one might think while in a battle. While yes, there were taxonomic and arcane differences between the turgarghes and the guldors, both did fly, and both were violent, and thus, you could dismiss the needless complexity of their distinction and focus on what mattered on the battlefield. Outside of a battlefield…
Succubi were tempters. Corruptors. Sinful purveyors of what the Creator had suffered such pain to bring to mortalkind – the pleasure of the flesh, turned into a weapon. The Creator had not made flesh to feel joy so that it could spark jealousy, fuel envy, or tarnish love into base lust.
The Creator had made it so that mortals would be fruitful and multiply, and thus, fulfill Her design!
Thus, the succubi were, to the base nature, the utter perversion of all that was good for a mortal at home: They were utterly incapable of having children. This particular one showed all the signs of being a member of the House of Ruin: Her hair was flickering, glittering flames. Her skin was brilliant orange, lined with tattoo like patterns of pale white. Her long and sinous tail ended not in the more nominal spade tip that other succubi had, but rather, a flickering candleflame that winked and sparked as her tail twitched from side to side. Her body was curvy and tempting to a mortal male, but seemed rather unimpressive to Cae, who was looking more for the signs of battle training and the muscles of a swordswoman.
Or…weapons, for that matter. She was dressed in little save a shift, her feet bare and steaming on the moist floor.
“…oh!” the succubus said, her eyes widening. “I can see, now, why the House is in such an uproar.” She rubbed her chin, then covered her mouth with her hand. “Oh poor Arral! Poor Ruti!” She laughed even more loudly now, unable to contain her mirth. Cae crossed her arms over her chest and scowled at her, wings mantling up.
“You are to heal my wings?” she asked.
“Ahem!” The succubus coughed. “Yes, my, uh, General.” She bowed her head. “I am Laeushale.”
“A succubus healer?” Cae asked, dryly.
“…I beg pardon?” Laeushale asked, cocking her head.
“I just thought that of all the demons in the pits of Hell, a succubus would be least suited to healing – well, among the least suited. Your kind only seems eager to sow pain.” She walked over towards the succubus, pleased that she was a bit taller than her. Definitely broader shoulders too – she was fairly sure, should this moment turn to violence, that she could handle Laeushale.
“What’s a succubus?” Laeushale sounded baffled, her tail twitching to a stillness behind her. Her brow furrowed and she bit her lower lip, clearly befuddled.
“Y-You are!” Cae said, scoffing.
“I am?” she asked, looking down at herself. “Well, wait, who says I am this succubus?”
“I…the…we in Heaven have taken great strides to learn the names of demons, to give some categories to your absurdities,” Cae said, frowning. “You’re a temptress. A demoness who seeks to mislead humans with lustful thoughts.”
Laeushale crossed her arms over her chest, scowling now. “Well, that’s a very fine thing to say to your healer.”
“W-Well, I…” Cae stammered, somewhat thrown.
“I’m a spirit of fire,” Laeushale said. “Serving under Baron Citri. I’m a creature of growth and breath, and you call me…a…temptress!?” She huffed. “I haven’t even seen a mortal in my whole life.”
Cae’s wings shifted and she blushed, feeling almost exactly like she had when, as a young angel, she had once said that the Creator hadn’t created demons – it had been a trick question that many young angels were forced to grapple with in class, but rarely did an angel state their wrong ideas so loudly in front of so many. She could still remember the teacher dryly dissecting her theological mistake before a thousand other attentive cadets, and could remember their snickering and laughter. She hated the feeling, it was like mud dripping down her scalp.
“W-Well, the, what do I call you, then, if, ah, if you’re no succubus?” Cae asked.
Laeushale managed, despite being a demon, a female, and several centuries younger, to exactly match her old teacher’s prune-faced expression. “I don’t know. My name?”
Cae bowed her head. “My apologies, madame Laeushale. I would like my wings healed. They do not hurt but…I would enjoy flying again.”
Laeushale sighed. “Very well! Very well.” She smiled, slightly. “First, take your clothing off.”
Cae nodded, then reached down and tugged her shift up and over her head. It got tangled in her wings for a moment, so she had to wriggle and squirm, then finally got it free. She folded it neatly, then placed it on her shoulder so she could skim her leggings down around her hips. Once she had stepped from them, she snatched the leggings up, folded them, then tucked both articles of clothing together and then turned to Laeushale, asking her: “Where should I place them?”
“I expected more hesitation,” Laeushale said, chuckling. “Isn’t Heaven meant to be more modest?”
“Well, yes, around men,” Cae said, shrugging slightly. “It’s not as if you are interested.”
Laeushale’s expression became quite hard to read. It was like she had just taken a drink of the finest wine that she had ever tasted – save that she was so shocked at the flavor that she had breathed some of it and was now trying to not choke to death. She coughed, wheezed, then finally said. “I…I see!” She gestured with one hand to one of the corners of the bathhouse. It really was quite a large chamber, designed for many guests. It felt terribly empty and forlorn, and Cae could see that several of the baths had long been left to sit empty, their tile growing mold and mildew. The stone slab that Laeushale led her to, though, was situated beside a large brazier full of coals. When Cae touched the slab, she found it was surprisingly warm.
“Lay upon your belly,” Laeushale said, smiling slightly. “I’ll begin work on your left wing.”
Cae settled down. The stone was wide enough for her, and when she laid her arms before her and tucked her head to the side, she was remarkably comfortable. Laeushale reached out and picked up a long handled bronze dipper that had been recessed into the ornate brickwork of the wall. Pulling it free, she revealed that it was full of clear, pure water which she drizzled over the brazier. Blessedly warm steam cascaded outwards, leaving Cae’s body feeling as if she had been dumped directly into Heaven’s most blissful sauna’s. She closed her eyes to half lidded droops – but in secret, she kept herself at ready using her other senses, her ears twitched up, ready for the sound of any footsteps, any rasp of blade on leather, any scrape of claw on tile.
“Lets see what we have to work with,” Laeushale said. Her shockingly hot fingers felt their way along not Cae’s wing, but along her neck, to her shoulder, to the joining of wing muscle and shoulder blade. Her fingers probed her firmly, the tips softened by her long exposure to oils and rubbing lotions. When Cae flicked her eye up, she could see the succu- …the spirit of flame was attentive, focused, her eyes narrowed, her tongue jutting from the side of her mouth as if she were a painter. She leaned forward and hummed. “You have a lot of tension in your back and neck. And your shoulders. And your whole body, how long has it been since you have taken time to yourself?”
“I have no time for myself,” Cae said, shrugging her shoulders. “All my time is the Creator’s.”
“She’s not here to collect, though,” Laeushale said, sighing. Her fingers and palms slipped up, moving along Cae’s wing, finding where her pinion feathers had been clipped. She felt out – with gentle, gentle fingertips – where the feathers pinned into the bone and flesh. She gently tugged on one feather, as if to feel how firmly seated it was. Cae let out a soft gasp – the sensation was shocking and prickly. She lifted her head up as Laeushale asked: “Does that hurt?”
“A small amount,” Cae said, slowly letting her head rest down once more.
“Hmm. Before we can coax your body’s natural healing into their full fury, we need you to relax. So we can let this energy move throughout your body – it’s currently tensed up as if you expect us to be attacked at any moment.” She clicked her tongue. “The guards might have been asleep at the switch for poor Ruti, but I assure you, they’ve been riled up. You are safe for the time being.”
“I am currently naked in a house of the Lord of Hell,” Cae said, her voice soft. “I will not be safe for a long time.”
Laeushale sighed, quietly. “No, you are under the hands of a healer. Heaven or Hell, I think we share that commonality, don’t we?”
Cae lifted her head. She looked into Laeushale’s gray on white eyes, and tried to see any sign of deception there. But it was hopeless – there were records and stories of mortals, mortals, beings that had only been drawing breath for a scant handful of years, barely two decades, who had had the verve and the wit and the sheer steely iron will to bluff, lie and swindle their way into Heaven’s vaults. It was part of what made relying on mortal sorcerers so…troublesome. Angels were simply not made to see lies…at least, not lies on the face and the tongue. She sighed and laid her head down. She tried to relax, and found that despite her sternly ordering her muscles to unetnse, they balked.
Am I an angel, or a mortal levy? She thought in irritation, then scowled and focused.
“Are you trying to relax?” Laeushale asked, picking up a small pot stashed underneath the stone slab. “You know that never works – it is as absurd as trying to order the sea to retreat from the beach, or a horse to charge a spear.” She chuckled. “Come. Let me help you get your legions under control, my Lady General.”
Cae remained skeptical as Laeushale rubbed oil between her palms. She remained skeptical as the demon or spirit or whatever she was placed her palms upon her shoulders, tracing lines of golden muscle and sinew. She remained skeptical – and then the blazing heat of Laeushale’s touch flared from subtle to intense, throbbing through Cae’s muscles like reverberating shock-waves. She jerked her head up and her wings flared as she gasped quietly, her thighs pressing together as she clutched onto the stone slab with fingers that soon went silver at tip and knuckles. “C-Creator,” she whispered, huskily as the heat was joined by pressure, smooth, warm waves of pressure that swept up and down her shoulders. Thumbs pressed to the knots in her neck, easing them away with a strength that would have shattered the chains of a rampaging war demon. Cae’s eyelids quivered, then drooped, then closed as she groaned into her arms. Her hips worked in subtle sympathy with the gentle hands caressing her back and shoulders as she felt the heat flowing through her nerves, along her spine. Her whole body felt as if it was melting – just as gold would flow in a blacksmith’s fire, turning to pools of quivering bliss. Her groans came rhythmically, in time with Laeushale’s working down her back, along her spine, between her wings. Glistneing oil was spread along her muscles and soaked into her skin, adding to the decadence of it all.
“C-Creator, this is Heavenly,” Cae murmured. “Mmm. But also, it’s…mmm…wrong…”
“Oh?” Laeushale asked, her voice carefully even as she slipped around and moved onto the slab. Her thighs spread to either side of Cae’s thighs, and Cae could feel the blazing heat of her silk smooth skin, pressing to her hips. The demoness remained hunched over and on her knees – so the points of contact remained primarily those lovely, divine hands of hers as she worked along the small of Cae’s back, easing more and more tension.
“Our bodies…mmm…angel’s bodies aren’t- ahhh – meant to feel this kind of oh lord – ah…” She panted. “Pleasure.”
“Heh. Then why did your Creator make you able to feel at all?” Laeushale asked, her voice wry.
“T-There’s a lot of debate about that.” Cae said, then blinked as she felt a curious slipping gasp – her buttocks and her inner thighs went untouched by Laeushale. She wouldn’t remark on it…but her body seemed acutely aware of the lack of touch. Her skin felt as if it was starved by it. Her…nethers…most of all. Cae frowned, trying to place the strange heat and slipperiness between her thighs as Laeushale continued along her left leg – she slid off the slab to once more work on her own two feet. The sensation of her calves being gently palpated and stroked was enough to nearly distract her from both her feelings and her thoughts. Cae managed to carry on. “I believe it’s because we have many pleasures we should feel doesn’t mean that we should lack so we can avoid the few we should…avoid.” She groaned again, then gasped as she felt her nipples grazing against the stone.
They were hard.
Achingly so.
Cae’s cheeks flushed silver and a dawning, horrifying realization just smote her, as if she had been bashed in the back of the head by a large hammer.
She was wet.
She was hot.
Her…her…
Her…
She was…
Aroused!
Her cheeks burned brighter and she snapped her wings out in alarm, nearly smacking Laeushale in the face. The demoness jerked aside at the last second, then chuckled. “What’s wrong?” she asked, grinning slightly.
“N-Nothing!” Cae said, half rolling onto her side. She draped one arm over her hefty chest, her other hand dipping between her thighs, trying to cup her hands over the offending, secret place of hers. Her cheeks burned even brighter at the knowing expression on Laeushale’s face. Laeushale clicked her tongue, then started to wipe her hands off.
“You’re relaxed enough, I think, that I can work the magic. Then I will give you the privacy you so clearly seek,” Laeushale said. “But it is quite natural to feel such…urges and sensations when a beautiful woman is touching your body. There’s nothing to be ashamed of.”
“Angels are not made for that,” Cae snapped, her wings mantling. But despite it…my pinons…she needed to be healed. That was the only way to fly again, to be truly able to soar again. And…and… Laeushale had avoided touching her privates. Cae could imagine another world, another demoness, eager to tempt her into sin. Caressing around her most private parts, stroking her, touching her. The image was a hazy one, nearly tangible, more tempting all the more so because so many details were unclear to Cae. Would she touch her…there or there? The exact places, the exact sensations, she couldn’t guess. Cae shook her head and tried to banish the thoughts that were as firmly planted as if they had been whispered by a thousand succubi at once.
“And yet…” Laeushale sighed. “Come, lay on your belly. I shall get something.”
Cae laid on her belly, nervous tension tingling along her back. She kept her ears twitched up and her eyes ready to swing around – and her mind plagued her with images of Laeushale returning with some kind of devilish, Hell-built contraption. The images were as vague as the first set, and as terrible. And as tempting. Cae tensed herself, ready for-
Laeushale returned, carrying a thick fluffy towel. She laid it across Cae’s buttocks and swept it up the small of her back, tucking it around her. She smiled. “There!” she said. “Some privacy while I work on your wings.” She chuckled. “In my defense, oh Lady General, you did say you weren’t bodyshy around other women until I awoke in you dreams of Sappho.”
“Oh shut up,” Cae muttered, feeling a farce ontop of a fool. She laid her head back onto her arms and closed her eyes, sighing as Laeushale began to stroke along her wing. She could feel the magic now – it was reaching into her belly, drawing natural energies and focusing them. Where Cae could heal a pinon feather on her own, given time and food enough, Laeushale was coaxing it like she was breathing into a flame. She worked the billows of Cae’s own healing with her fingers, her caresses, her soft, murmured incantations. The demonic words flowed along Cae’s ears without meaning, as many of the arcane tongues did, but they were oddly soothing. She felt a tingling pain in her wing, then a fierce brightness that snapped into nothingness The same pain came and swept along her other. Then…she opened her eyes and craned her head around.
Her wings were whole once more.
“And there we go,” Laeushale said, smiling. “Now, in exchange, I will need…your everlasting soul.” She let forth an evil cackle, her hands rubbing together as she leaned forward and grinned most wickedly at Cae. Cae responded with her coolest look.
“There is a saying in many realms – hit a mule twice with an ax handle and even he will learn,” she said, with as much dignity as she could while naked and glistening with oil. Laeushale burst out laughing with the same delight of a bubbling brook, then patted her shoulder.
“You’ll do all right, Lady General,” she said, her eyes sparkling. “I shall now leave you alone – your room is three doors down from the bathhouse.”
“I…” Cae paused. “Wait.”
Laeushale, who had started to walk away, turned back. An eager gleam flickered in her eyes and Cae realized, with a lurch, that the soft tone she had used must have…sent…oh dear. She hurriedly added: “N-Not that!”
Laeushale burst out laughing again, her delight clear. “Oh my Lord, you’re just…” She shook her head. “I am sorry, Lady General, I will seek to not take overly much advantage of you. What is it you wish to know?”
“Firstly, where is my armor?” Cae asked.
“In your quarters. Another way to tell you got the right room. That and it shall have been dusted,” Laeushale said, smiling gently. “It has been polished and repaired – they even got some of Destruction’s blood off it. And that fellow’s blood gets everywhere.” She clicked her tongue.
“Secondly,” Cae said. “I don’t…if you’re…I want to know how this House is organized. Whose loyalty is to who? Is it direct fealty to the Barons, then the Barons to the Lord, or could, say, Lord Ruti give you orders?” She asked.
“Orders?” Laeushale chortled. “Citri can barely give me suggestions. I am here for it is my nature, it is for my joy, my being, myself. Can you order your heart? Or order your liver? Or your c…” she licked her lips. “…ompletely spectacular muscles.”
“You speak as if you and Citri are of the same body!” Cae said, chuckling.
Laeushale cocked her head. “We are.”
“Ah, you’ve taken his oath, and, thus…is that…how it is? As the King is the Kingdom and so on?” Cae asked, frowning. “That is how some mortals see their realms.”
Laeushale nodded. “Precisely!”
Cae frowned. Now…is that a figure of speech? A way of describing unions between demons? Or is it literal truth? She couldn’t see how it could be – they were clearly different beings. Ah, just as succubi are a clear taxonomy? A classification that must hew to reality? An unsettling thought was crawling into her mind – that Heaven saw order where there was none, sense where there was only insanity, a howling chaos of contradiction. What if the true answer was that Laeushale and Citri were of the same not because of magic or sympathy or metaphor, but because there was no true difference between demon and demon. No order. No organization. No Lords to topple, no armies to scatter. What if they simply were.
Then what was she sitting on?
Was it here because she expected it? Because they knew she would expect it?
She shook her head, trying to toss aside the thought, but it was hooked into her like a splinter, worrying into the depths of her finger, throbbing out of proportion in relation to the size of the offending object.
Laeushale frowned at her. “Do you want some books on the subjects? We have some writings, I’m sure, Ruti has a large library…”
“Maybe I will, later,” Cae said, trying to sound calm. “Now, um. I believe that’s all I need to know.”
“Very good, my Lady General,” Laeushale said, bowing to her once more.
She left the room – and with Cae thinking through her options. She stood, then dressed. She walked to her room and stepped inside without seeing anything within – her mind was still focused on the possibilities. But…no. She had to work with what she could act upon. If Hell and demonkind were so far outside of what could be understood as to see no distinction between a baron and a masseuse, then there was little to nothing she could do. But if the fealty bonds were similar to mortalkind…then she would have an angle. A lever, even. If she could earn the personal loyalty of a demon, that demon might turn a blind eye to her, to her actions, it might provide for her a chance in the future.
But if the House of Ruin was a body as much as her heart, shoulders, hands and mind were?
Did that mean that Ruti, Citri, and Degi were all themselves merely fragments of Lord Arral? Projections of his innermost thoughts and roiling mind?
She shook her head and focused on the here, the now. Her weapon and her armor were racked up against the wall of the rectangular room. They were, as Laeushale had promised, well tended to, well repaired. She walked to the window and peered out into the rain. It was still cascading down. She sighed, then flung herself into the four poster bed that dominated the room. The cushions were decadently warm and relaxing – like collapsing into a cloud, against the more stern, hard backed kind of rest she had in Heaven. Cae’s wings flared under her and she looked up at the ceiling, feeling as if she had too many questions. Too many worries. Too many fears.
Cae sighed in frustration. She would sleep. Sometimes, when her mind had been unable to grapple with a lesson in Heaven, she would sleep and when she would awaken, the lesson would come into focus in her mind.
She laid on her back, her arms crossed over her chest.
And still?
Still between her thighs, a tingle remained. A warm glow. A wetness. An…urgency. She bit her lip, hard. Her mind saw, for a moment of hazy, dreamlike perfection, the two pointer fingers of Laeushale sliding along her back, tracing lines in the gleaming oil that had been spread across her flesh. Those two bright sparks would slide along the cleft of her ass. She let out a soft gasp as her mind brought to the forefront how decadently wrong it would feel to have those fingers complete their transit, sliding down between her thighs, then cup around and finally touch her-
“No!” Cae sat up, panting, her thighs pressed together tightly. She was an angel. A being of Heaven. Angels were not born through copulation and pregnancy – they were birthed from souls being pure enough to fall into Grace, being taken up into Heaven and…finding themselves once more. Angels were of male or female make, or neither, or both, or anywhere in between, because mortals were like that – that and the common tongue and their bodies were all that was left of the mortality that had created their immortal perfection.
By its very nature, any pleasure related to her cunt, her breasts, her body? It could be nothing but turning away from the plan of the Creator, who had suffered to birth the World. It was mocking Her scared pain, to take delight – as She wanted – without bringing forth the child – which She wished for. The Creator’s gifts were not to be used frivolously.
She laid back onto her side and closed her eyes.
She would sleep, and she would waken and somethings would make more sense.
***
The chains clinked. Her arms were bound above and behind her head. She could see nothing. But she could feel cool, slippery fingers sliding along her jaw. A thumb forced into her mouth and she was made to taste it. The tingle of the contact buzzed along her tongue – fermentation. Sweat like wine. Her head spun as she gasped and whimpered as the thumb was removed. She had never been let go. She was going to be trapped here, forever.
And…
And…
It made sense at the time. Later, when she woke, Cae would never understand why. But the dream shifted, it grew brighter, whiter. The bandage fell aside and she was once more at her greatest shame. She had failed in a mission with her section. Her shield arm had been weak. Her javelin had missed its mark. Two other angels had been wounded, and one might have died had it not been for her section leader, who had swept in to bring his sword down onto a demon’s skull. It was her worst mistake.
At the time, she had gone to the block with her head raised, her face fierce, her knees only quivering lightly.
But in the dream, she sobbed.
“No, don’t do it!” she cried out as the chains were drawn taut. She was naked, her golden body displayed for the angels who were passing judgment on her. Her back was exposed as her wings were locked into specially made shackles, just for them. She was pinned into place. She heard thumping footsteps, cracking stone and pavement between weight and strength alike, and when she craned her head around, the proctor had been replaced by that obsidian mass, that immense figure.
Arral, the Lord of Ruin. He held the silver whip that had been used to scourge her.
“You know you want it,” he said, chuckling.
The whip cracked against her back. The agony was just as she remembered – but what she didn’t remember was the strange heat between her loins. She arched her back and gasped. Her arms strained against the restraints. The feeling of being on display, of everyone seeing her…being aware of her. Of her body. Her breasts. Her thighs. Her ass.
She was beautiful. They had to know it. And them knowing it meant she had to know it. The glow of that knowledge blazed between her thighs as the whip cracked against her again, leaving a lateral sting against her golden skin, a silver streak that turned to red as she gasped and clenched her teeth. Her nipples were hard enough to cut glass, she was sure of it. Her head reared backwards as Arral brought the whip down again and this time, it landed expertly between her wings, making them surge, strain against the restraints. She was unable to move, she couldn’t stop it, she couldn’t turn from the whipping…but as she gasped and clenched her teeth, Arral stepped forward.
“Would you look at that.” The whip pressed between her thighs, and shamefully, she moaned. The sound was not the sound of pain – even if she so badly hoped that the angels watching would mistake it as such. She gasped as she felt the raised notches on the whip grind against her golden cuntlips, spreading them. She blushed and gasped again as one of those ridges bumped fiercely against her clit, hitting it square on. Her back arched and she bucked her hips as Arral withdrew his whip just at the moment she most needed it. She strained and tried to cum, but…but…
“What’s this, Angel?” Arral asked, holding aloft the whip, forcing her to see her glowing arousal. Silvery liquid, glittering brightly, like starlight.
“M-M…I…I don’t…”
Crack!
His palm slapped her buttocks. His palm was so large, it was as if her entire backside had been set aflame. It tingled and buzzed and left her cunt aching. Her head hung forward. In the dream, she was weak. So weak.
“M…My juices, my lord…” she panted.
“What does that mean?” Arral purred.
“I am a whore,” she whispered. “A golden whore.”
“No.” His thumb caught her chin, forcing her head up and-
***
Cae jerked away, gasping. The rain had stopped and ruddy red light shone through the window. Her breath heaved her chest up and down as her heart raced. “W-What a…nightmare,” she whispered, softly. Then, in fear, she scrambled from the bed. She might never have shown the aptitude towards heavenly magic that would have shunted her from field work to learning in the great golden spires and dark libraries of Heaven. She still knew the basics that every Angel was taught – and that included how to detect magic, if it was at work. There were some methods, but the easiest was to carve the most simple of runes that basically anyone could learn. While she would never be able to fill it with the magical energy to bring it to activity, lest she was on a ley line or similar place of power…if there was a spell that had been cast in the room, it would show clearly.
She used her fingernail and her sheer brute strength to etch a tiny one above her headboard, her knees resting on the pillows she had tossed and turned on. The small rune did not glow even a single iota.
Cae flushed.
“…they could…have cloaked the spell,” she muttered, quietly. Could they? Magic was difficult to use in the form of deception – illusions were tricky, and could be scryed through. It was all about controlling energy, releasing it at the right time, and energy was hard to conceal. That was the fundamentals she had been taught. But…w-who knew what demons could do?
Or you simply had a dream, her mind whispered to her. It would not be the first time.
Yes, but her prior dreams had been…well, there had been one of her proctor that she had managed to winnow from her mind through a strict discipline of freezingly cold showers and self chastisement. It was wildly inappropriate to…imagine that…with… she shook her head. She had never had this happen with a demon, let alone a Lord of Hell. The very idea was absurd.
A soft rap at the door jerked her attention around.
“Lady General,” a cheerful male voice called in. “You are invited to breakfast with the Lord and his court.”
“I’ll be there soon,” Cae called out. “I simply need to, uh, bathe. And, uh, dress.”
“Very good, my Lady General,” the male voice came through clearly – as did the soft sound of padding footfalls. Cae sighed, then glowered at the stubbornly inert rune.
“It could have been a dream sending,” she muttered under her breath. She slid from the bed and ignored the damp, glowing spot she had left behind. Instead, she hunted through the room and found that it had a washroom. She tied herself as best as she could – wiping away some sweat she had accumulated and leaving herself somewhat more refreshed. She then checked the cabinet in the room and found it was stocked with clothing. Much to her relief, none of it was the saulty, lewd outfits that she might have expected from some Lords of Hell. Instead, she was able to dress quite similarly to how she had in Heaven, save that the colors were that of the House of Ruin: Red, black, gold. She brushed her hands along her collar to make it lay flat, then adjusted her wings to ensure they were framing her uniform well. There, she looked at herself in the mirror.
“I look like a traitor,” she muttered quietly. She shook her head, then closed her eyes. “Creator, see me through this…maze.”
She sighed, then, as a final action before she left her room, she went to the window and peered out. She had to see what the Lord of Ruin called his home domain. The landscape was Hellish, as she had expected. The trees were black, the leaves red, and the sky was umber and streaked with lines of smoke rising in the distance. Grass grew here and there in patches between the boulders and low mounds of black earth that jutted between the forests – the grass was as brown as she had seen last night, and sometimes was covered with fierce thorns that grew from the stalks like wildflowers. She saw a few creatures – animals? – fluttering in the sky.
The manor home was so mortal – it was so akin to that of a noble lord. But it was seated here, in the perfect rendition of Hell itself. And there, there was the ruined dungeon that she had been kept within. She frowned. Blue skies had shone through there, not the reddish light of this day. Was the weather here such that the skies itself changed hues once a day?
She sighed.
“It’s time for breakfast,” she said.
***
The breakfast table for the House of Ruin was a baroque, carved mass of dark wood that rose from the center of a room clearly meant to sit forty, but was currently only holding four: Arral was at the head of the table, with Degi, Ruti and Citri scattered about it. Citri was, at the very moment Cae walked into the room, teasing what she recognized as a cat despite it being made entirely of glittering fire by trapping the small, flame furred creature within an upside down dish cover, which now rocked perilously from side by side as the flame kitten swept back and forth within the silver, letting forth piteous mews.
“Oh you brute, let him go,” Cae said, frowning.
“Let him singe the nice tablecloth?” Citri asked, his voice full of offense and dudgeon. “I’d never.”
Said nice tablecloth was blood red and decorated with sensual, feminine demonic forms, stitched into existence by interweavings of black and red string. Ruti reached over to scratch his midnight black finger against the flame kitten’s belly, while Cae was offered a seat by Degi.
“I would like to express my most sincerer apologies,” Degi said, simply, as he pulled the chair back with a jittery motion.
Cae sighed. “I accept your apology, Baron Degi. I am not exactly a safe houseguest. And my wings are doing quite well now, so, it is forgiven.” Save that he captured me, along with the rest of the House of Ruin.
Degi inclined his head.
“Oh, you can call him Dee, like the rest of us,” Citri said, smirking as he placed a finger on the outer edge of the inverted dish covering and then pushed, setting the canted hemisphere to a wild spinning on its slanted axis, which produced more mewing from within.
“Do you always torture small animals?” Cae asked.
“He likes it,” Citri said. “See?” He gestured and Cae leaned over.
The kitten made more mewing noises, and blinked as it looked around with black on red eyes. She frowned. “He doesn’t seem happy.”
“He’s sad he has a silver palace, when he wishes for gold and cream, have you never met a cat before?” Citri asked, smirking at him.
“You seem to describe yourself, Baron of Fire,” Cae said.
“…I like her,” Ruti said, managing to get the words out without a stammer or halter.
“Me too,” Citri crooned, his eyes flashing as he looked square into Cae’s eyes. Cae forced the smile that threatened to spread across her features aside – instead, she looked away from to Arral, who was regarding her with a serious, somber expression. Before he could speak, Laeushale and a fellow fire spirit entered into the room, bearing a platter of…of…
“Where did you get this?” Cae exclaimed, blinking. The food heaped before her looked as if had come straight from the refectories of Heaven: Mounds of white rice, stacked high enough to satiate even the largest angel in the Hosts, and slices of unflavored, unseasoned meat, a few pinches of salt, and a tiny dish of butter to add if one wished to be decadent, and a sliced fruit that she was fairly sure was an aleeze fruit, with the seeds picked out and placed aside somewhere else. She looked from the meal to Arral, who smiled slightly.
“Rue actually was the one who pushed to get it,” he rumbled, causing Ruti to blush hard and look aside.
Cae hesitated a moment, looking down at the food. She worried that she might be biting into meat gone bad, stale rice, butter far past its best used date.
“F…Fo…Food r…ro…rots f…it…” Ruti stammered. “I…ju-j…all the…all the parts.” He gestured, making a vague motion with his hands. “Picked n-near the s-s…start.”
“Ah…” Cae said, slowly. She thrust her fork into the rice, then bit down – and it was as fresh as if it had been cooked a mere hour before. She wondered how hard it was to reach so far away from Rot, towards freshness. She wondered how hard Ruti had strained himself for her. Guilt surged in her, but as the food was already made and she was ravenously hungry, she started to eat with a steady, focused intensity. She polished off the meal in a few scant moments, licking her lips, her fork, then the bowl clean. Once she was finished, she set the dish down and the four men all goggled at her. Behind her, she heard Laeushale giggling quietly with her fellow suc…fire spirit.
“What?” Cae asked.
“You eat like you’re going to die this afternoon,” Degi said, his voice dry.
“I might,” Cae said. “That is the way of soldiers.”
“Hurm,” Degi said, looking unsure, while Lord Arall nodded.
“It is good you eat quickly,” he said. “For after breakfast, we do need to get to work. Pestilence is remaining at a remove, but Destruction it seems has decided that his failure to capture Rue has meant that he needs to move directly into active combat. He has mustered two legions and is moving in on our eastern reaches – he seeks to capture some mortal towns, to cut off some of our souls.” He frowned. “I don’t think we will have time to stop him, as my forces are in…”
“Ruins?” Cae asked.
“Yes,” Lord Arral said, sighing quietly. “So your first mission: Retake those villages, and ensure that Destruction must either invest more forces if he wishes to claim more territory, or go to the fields of negotiations.” He leaned forward. “Or do you wish to use those wings?”
Cae considered her plate. She considered all she had learned. She considered what the Highest of the High might think, if she brought even more with her back to Heaven. She resolutely do not think of dreams. Nor chains. Nor whips. Nor mysteries about what lurked beneath vast robes. Nor how fermented grapes could be said to rot, and of thumbs forced into her mouth tasting of wine.
Those thoughts remained buried deep as she nodded.
“Lets see what we have to work with.”
THE END OF CHAPTER TWO