"Edy?  What's wrong?  What did he do to you?!"

Idiot.

Baron Tannault Gilend, the Fool, looks confused.  His cell has the same arrangement as elf bitch's.  From the sound I heard outside?  Figured he was masturbating.  Instead?

He was exercising.

Actual pushups, situps, and not wearing a shirt.  Guy may be a short obsessed siscon?  But he's a seriously buff siscon.  Weak mana though.  Overcompensating?

As before, my shadow paladin escort is in Edel and Ushi's shadows while the black and greens stay outside.  Can see the sun nearing the horizon thru the window.  How long did we spend with that elf?

Butler and the maidettes left, like disappeared even.  Turn around and suddenly gone.  Maybe he's a very very sneaky butler?  Though he did say he would return with dinner if we missed that too.  Not-sebastian's disapproving look is harsh! 

And how is he suddenly just 'gone' like that?  Is that [Butler Magic]?  Hope he doesn't start attacking me like Clouseau's Cato.

'Hyah!'

I've straddled a bench and my back is against a cold stone wall.  In between my legs is Red, curled up, clutching my chest, and bawling her eyes out.  On the other side of her is Frankie.  Hugging Red as hard as she can.

The crude mana-metal coil rings I made for our marriage connect us.  And while we can't 'hear' each other's thoughts?  We can often 'feel' them.

Aezeti fessing up to her part in knight-wife's almost rape?  Was bad.  Me letting my feelings from Aezeti conversing with Alex and Mitsu leak into that connection?  Was worse.  Really need to get better at filtering myself.

That the woman who is like a mother to her, wanted her raped?  Wanted her broken?  Wanted betrayal?  And even gave them a drug to make it happen?  Wanted her to remain a child?  A toy?

Knight-wife knew what 'Aezi' felt for her wasn't pure.  Wasn't, clean.  But the lonely motherless girl had no one else.  Desperate for love.  Even a twisted one.

Yeah, I was going to kill elf bitch.  Even sent Alex and Mitsu in there to make it slow and painful.  Then?  On the edge of death?  Ferra would raise her and give Red the mother she deserved.  Since [Shadow Rise] doesn't work out of my direct sight?  This is also an experiment to see if I can use my shadow oracles as relays.

'Hi honey.  Surprise!  Here's you new, and undeath improved, mother!'

Wait.  Can I change an undead's personality?  Shit.  Didn't even consider that.  Undead elf bitch might still be, well, a bitch.  And is that even the real issue here?  Creating undead can't be the solution to every problem.  Can it?

Hmm...

But as Red's falling apart in my arms?  She's also forgiving her.  With all the bad elf bitch did?  She also did good.  It was the elf who taught her the sword.  Who supported her dream to become a knight.  Taught her the 'knightly' virtues.

Knightly virtues emphasize the more 'chivalrous' parts of the unwritten moral codes.

Fool pulls a chair up to the other side of the bars and says with a kind look in his eyes.

"Please Edy.  Tell me what happened."

He looks a lot more composed today.  Maybe spending the night in this medieval drunk tank really did help temper tantrum Tan.

I speak instead.

"Your sister now knows who her mentor really is."  Red tries to crawl further into my chest.

"Ah.  That."  Did this fucker know?  "My father would remind me to never leave a servant with Aezi that you didn't want to turn, strange." 

Oh, come on!  Stop pissing me off! 

"And the reason no one saw fit to warn your sister?"  Is her whole family shit?

Fool hangs his head. 

"After mother, went away, Edy hid inside herself.  For weeks she had to be fed, even changed.  A corpse that still breathed."  Hey.  "Aezi was the one who rescued Edy."  Shorty shrugs.  "Then brought Edy back out of herself."

Feel Ushi having the same horrible suspicion I am as she asks. 

"Lord Tannault.  What happened to her mother?"

As Edel starts shaking, a lot, the Fool answers. 

"Goblins."

Fuck.

He continues.  "Sister was only eight at the time and they were inseparable.  No one ever figured out how goblin raiders got so close to the estate without being discovered.  The men killed and the women, taken."

"[Kiss of Grannus]"

Red's state is getting dangerous.  Her vitals all over the place.  Thoughts crumbling.  Chantless cast to support her mind while hiding it from her brother.

"Aezi happened to be in the area and managed to rescue sister but..."  Shorty now shudders.  "It took weeks to find their den.  By then?  Mother and the others had been bred multiple times.  Given birth to dozens."  The brother's expression turned very dark.  "What she had become?  It?  It, wasn't mother anymore."

Jesus.

"Father tried but...  But she was...  Wasn't...  She entered the church and we never saw her again."  Fool's voice is shaking.

Red's still crying but its softer now.

Fool looks in a lot of pain.  "Edy wasn't the only one hurt.  Only one, changed by that.  She was just, the youngest."

Ushalen told me before Colrac that being knocked up by goblins and orcs isn't like being raped by demons.  Your mana and eggs are not, 'polluted.'  Still, being raped twenty-four seven and giving birth to multiple imps at a time every week or two?  Damages the victim's body and mind.

While Ushalen had been an orc sow?  She was bred by demons first.  So her mana and eggs did turn, toxic.

I, and Ushi, are having the terrible thought that elf bitch arranged for Red's mother to...

Red's head snaps up.  "But?  She saved, me?"  Shit.  The connection.  "Oh, mother. Is it, my fault?"

The fingernails of my knight-wife are digging into my chest so hard they are drawing blood.

You know what?  I've changed my mind.  Again.  Almost willed Alex and Mitsu to stop.  Now?  Plan C.

"[Shadow Rise]"

"Aiyeeeee!!!"

Muffled a bit but still reached our ears thru stone walls and heavy doors.  Good.

*skyyrrryyrrraahkahkahk*

Elf bitch is tough.  Can sense her resisting.  Even after being worked over by a torturer and an assassin.  Takes more mana to rip her apart than it did with Mitsu or Yodo.  My most expensive living shadow births so far.  Is it going to fail?

My breath catches as a spike of pain drives into my brain.  Elf bitch really was hiding how truly strong she is.  All that willpower and memory is fighting me.

Good.

Flood my rage into a being far more twisted than even Alex's was.  And considering how many he tortured, broke, and killed over decades? That's really freaking saying something.  Even Vira couldn't compete with this elf bitch.

Can feel the wetness and smell the iron of bloody tears running down my face as the elf's death grip, literally, on her body loosens. 

Memories begin scrolling thru my mind.  Some to vague to see and scattering to nothing.  Others clear enough to make out.  Wow.  Aezeti was actually born this way?  No trauma to push her over the edge?  Gods, she just discovered this fetish and loved it.  What an evil thing.  Even other shadows are repelled.  Well, got what I need.

"Metia's tits!"  Shorty screams as a, thing appears.

More ink than smoke and looks like a version of the elf.  An evil black slime version.  With a freakishly long tongue hanging out.

Trying to reach Red.  Desperately wants to consume her.  To do, things to her.  Ew.  Gross.  Really didn't need to know that.

Fool is screaming at the top of his lungs and crawling back into a corner.

~Mine! Mine! Mine! Mine! Mine! Mine! Mine!~

Repeated over and over again as it struggles against my will.

Red has stopped crying.  Turned so she also straddles the bench.  Leaning back against me.  Holding my arms around her.  Don't mind it but the plate armor is kind of digging in.

Frankie has gotten up and is standing next to me.  Leaning on my shoulder while using a cloth and her saliva to wipe the blood from my face.  What are you, my mother?

Edel turns while keeping an eye on the roiling thing in the middle of the room that looks vaguely like her old mentor.  Someone she loved as her substitute mother for fourteen years.  Turns my face and gives me a deep passionate kiss.

~No! No! No! No! No! No!~

The thing struggles even more urgently against my will.

Knight-wife finally stops examining my tonsils with her tongue.  Then faces the monster that dragged a mother into hell while scheming for many years to turn her daughter into its plaything.

"I will always be his.  I will never be yours."  She calmly speaks, turns back to me, and resumes the examination.

~Aiyeeeyahh!~

I'm not sure if you can call what is coming out of the thing a, scream.  Rage, anguish, hate, longing, they are all in there.

Red pauses to whisper.  "Husband, please end her."

*zzkkrryyysshhh*

Like with Vira I don't push Aezi out of me.  Letting her fade away peacefully.  Instead I pull, rip, tear, grind, crush, elf bitch's presence in my mind.  Before us the struggling thing of ink and smoke begins turning more and more, solid. 

As it does cracks start opening across its surface.  Its inner purple flames guttering, fading.  Finally, extinguished.  Suddenly the dried husk looking lump shatters.  Pieces dropping and crumbling into nothing.  Not enough remaining for even the simplest thought or feeling.

Destroying her soul so completely that nothing exists to pass on.

Oh, yeah, among those memories I could see?  Were ones from when she setup Red's mom to become a goblin sow.

Edel rests her head on my shoulder.  "Thank you husband.  May whatever is left of mother, rest now."

"What the pit was that?!"

Oh yeah, completely forgot about him.  But Red didn't and tells him-  Frankie, stop licking my ear.

"Tan.  That thing was what was left of Aezi."  She's got a very cool 'don't give a shit' look right now.  "My husband saved me again.  This time from becoming that elf bitch's plaything."  Did she just spit?

Edel caresses my face while talking to her brother.

"Whatever Aezi told you or promised you?  It is over."  Put a shirt on shorty.  "This man owns me, body and soul.  And whatever is left of my heart after what you bastards put me thru?"  Red?  Your stare is kind of scary right now.  "It is his too."

Fool's shoulders drop and his head hangs.  "I am sorry Edy.  Many, blamed you, for mom.  Still do."  He looks at where the thing was.  "It was really her doing.  Wasn't it."

My turn I guess.  Since I got the inside scoop.

"Yes."

"Huh.  She was behind it all."

"No."

"Eh?"  The fool is being foolish again.

"You made my wife's life hell because it was easy.  Easier to blame an eight year old girl than stand up to a couple hundred year old elf.  Easier to take your grief out on someone who couldn't defend herself.  To naive to understand.  To trusting to do anything but agree."

Seriously, I got a lot of elf bitch's memories.  She hardly had to do a thing.  Red's family laid all the blame on her.  They physically abused her until she got too strong.  Then kept emotionally abusing her until she fled.  She didn't have any friends until Stormgarde.

Even then her brother, who was also attending, kept tearing her down.  Elf bitch encouraged it to, supposedly, 'toughen her up.'  A siscon like Tan was easy to manipulate.  Lady Alote chose to save Red by 'distracting' shorty.

Ali has owned him ever since.

Sigh.  Its way too fucking late for tears.  Dumbass.

"I...  I know we have dishonored you Edy and disgraced ourselves.  Over and over again.  For so many years."  Shorty waits till now to kowtow?  "Ali chose to be your friend.  Even chose to save you from me."  Ah.  His tears are making the floor wet.  "Please, save her."

"Will it hurt?"  My turn.

Fool's head rises.  "Wha-?"

"I asked if it, will, hurt.  Will her suffering more, hurt you?  Will her dying alone and afraid, hurt you?"  Fuck these assholes.  "If it will hurt?  Then I'm fine with it."

Despair blooms on shorty's face.

My thoughts are turning darker and darker.  What if I shadow one in front of the other?

"Husband, no." "Master, stop."  Eh?  Why?

"What they put you thru Red?"  Frankie's hugging my head?  "They should suffer."

"Husband, they are who they are.  To weak to not blame someone weaker."  She stands and buries my face in her boob plate.  "However, I will never forgive them for hurting you.  My love who embraced my pain and seeks vendetta for my heart."

Ushi does the same and my head is now surrounded by cleavage and boobs.  I'm blinded, but still seeing it from multiple angles thanks to my shadows.  Like taking part in, and watching the, porno at the same time.  Yeah, its amazing.

"Shvell.  Iv ush fink iz fu zhe ves."  (Boob mic: 'Well. If you think its for the best.')

What is this?  Red and Frankie giving each other such a serious look?  Shit, they just nodded to each other.  Well.  Though I don't think its appropriate to have sex in front of relatives?  If you really want to I'm will to make that sacrifi-

"Master!" "Husband!"

My head is abruptly released so I'm unblinded.  They both step back and drop to kowtow.

""Please save Lady Chastel!""

Oh...  That...

Crap.