A sense of déjà vu washed over Maria as consciousness came back to her as the feeling of a warm body pulling her in close as they spooned. The gentle pressure wrapped around her calf, and light but warm breaths lazily washing over the back of her neck. It would have made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up, if she still had any hair there. With little effort, Maria eased herself back into the warm cuddle, enjoying the feeling of another person holding her.

Much like two days ago, she felt soft breasts quashed into her back, as a flaccid member pressed up against her ass. The light breath came and went with the big spoon’s sleeping breaths. Slowly, it managed to bring Maria fully out of her dreaming state and out into the waking world. Though unlike two days ago, the breath on her neck didn’t turn into kisses as Maria finally came around.

Blinking her violet eyes, Maria pushed away the sleepy haze to find herself in Edith’s, and now her, bedroom. She could tell it was still early morning and the suns had yet to finish their rising, but Maria could still see all clearly. Being able to see in the dark was a strange experience as she could easily tell the room was mostly dark and thus her brain told her she shouldn’t be able to see much, but yet she could. Though it was different to seeing in the light. All the colors were slightly muted from their normal tones, and when she closed her eyes it didn’t feel like light was shining through her lids.

All in all, it was a little disconcerting, but she knew she would grow use to it fast. Or at least she hoped she would because it was causing a tiny bit of a headache just above her temples on both sides. It wasn’t anything too bad, though, and could easily ignore it with even a simple thought.

Closing her eyes, she leaned back into the comfort of her demon. Though the past few days were insane to say the least, she was happy. Even if she was going to turn into something new within potentially three months. A tiny bit of panic rose up in her chest as she wondered about how she could hide the changes from her friends back on Earth. Though she rarely saw them in person, she did see them on video chats every other week for D&D.

Just as fast as the panic came, it washed away as Edith’s arms pulled her in closer, and the tail on her calf gripped tighter.

“Good morning, my dear Maria,” Edith lazily said into the back of Maria’s neck. Unlike her sleepful breathing earlier, this did cause a little shiver to run through her. Not much of a shiver, but a shiver nonetheless.

“Good morning, Edith.”

“Did you sleep well?” Maria nodded. “Good.” Maria could hear the smile in Edith’s voice.

“What about you?”

“I slept very well, thank you. Hmmm,” Edith hummed lazily as she nuzzled into Maria’s hair, giving it a not-so-subtle sniff. “You know, we can stay in bed for as long as we like this morning.”

Maria giggled. “You would really like that, wouldn’t you?” she said as she gave her rear a little wiggle.

Her demon laughed lightly. “Oh, I most certainly would. Though it doesn’t have to be sex. I am more than happy to hold you like this for as long as I can.”

For some reason, Maria suddenly felt very shy. Her cheeks flushed slightly as she whispered back, “I would really like that.” Edith didn’t say anything back, she just seemed to nuzzle into her more. So much so that Maria could lightly feel Edith’s horns touch the back of her head.

The pair stayed quiet for a long time. Just enjoying the feeling of being so close to one another and listening to the sound of their breathing. Maria watched as the room grew lighter, while Edith contently purred into the back of her head. It was relaxing, and Maria was feeling the most relaxed she had in a long time. Eventually the suns finished their morning rise, giving way to bright unearthly purple skies. Maria eventually felt her stomach growl lightly, and heard Edith giggle behind her.

“Hungry?”

“Yeah. As much as I want to stay here, breakfast does sound nice.”

“Well, why don’t we get up, get showered, eat some food, and get cuddly on the couch.”

“That sounds good, but you did say we could go out early and get my phone working. I just really want to let my friends know I’m okay. I mean it’s been three days now so they might be really worried.”

“Four.”

“What?”

“It’s been four days, not three.”

“No it hasn’t,” Maria said, pulling away just enough so that she could turn over to face her lover, without leaving her arms. “My birthday, when I woke up here,” Maria said, holding up one finger. “Yesterday with all the bureaucratic stuff, and today,” She finished holding up two more fingers.

“No, you woke up the day after your birthday.”

“What?” Maria said rather flatly.

“Remember when I said humans are really weak to magic? Well, traveling through a gate for the first time really knocks you out, so you ended up sleeping for a full day. That’s how I had enough time to get all your stuff here, as well as taking care of all your Earthly connections. Like bills, subscriptions, phone plan. Though I should clarify that I didn’t cancel everything, I just paid for a year in advance on all of them so there wouldn’t be any trouble. Would be really awkward if you ever went back only to find debt collectors and stuff after you.”

Maria just stared at her demon, with little emotion on her face.

“What?” Edith asked, looking a bit worried.

“You should have told me all that when I first woke, Edith. That’s the kind of stuff I really need to know.”

“I—” Edith caught herself. Her face shifted to look genuinely upset with herself. “Yeah, I should have…  I’m really shit at all this.”

“You’re not shit, Edith,” Maria said, losing the expressionless face to one of compassion.

“But I am a bit. I’ve... I’ve never had a real partner like you before… Most of what I had before were all flings or friend’s with benefits. So I'm pretty used to dealing with everything by myself and not having to share everything with other people. It’s the same way at work, too. I get everything done without help or talking to people about it... I really need to learn to get better at sharing what’s going on with you. I’m sorry, Maria…”

Maria leaned in and gave her demon a soft kiss on the lips, before snuggling up close. “It’s okay. I kind of understand. When I was still living with my parents, they didn’t interact with me a lot or help me any, but I never really had to worry about anything either. I always had money. I had a roof over my head for free. I could literally just say what I wanted to eat, and it would be made for me. Then when they chucked me out, I was completely lost. I had no idea how to do anything by myself, no idea where I was going to go, or what to do. And most importantly I had no idea how to ask for help. I’m still not the best at it, but at least I’ve gotten better.”

Edith cupped Maria’s cheek with her red hand. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” Maria smiled at her demon. “Now why don’t we get showered and all that?”

“Sounds good.”

Once again, the pair got up and made their way to the shower. This time, Maria didn’t notice anything new about herself in the mirror, which was nice. Much like the day before, Edith insisted on taking a shower together, not that Maria was going to disagree. Actually, Maria still felt a little annoyed with herself for not doing anything to Edith in return last night, so maybe showering together could help her fix that.

The waterfall spray was large enough for both of them to fit under at once which was nice, but Maria still pushed herself right up against Edith. Her demon looked down at her with a slightly raised eyebrow, but Maria ignored the look and kept on washing herself all the while continuing to rub up against her lover. Quickly, Maria could see she was getting a rise out of Edit which caused her to giggled.

“You know, if you don’t stop that, things are going to get a lot steamier in here.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Maria said back, doing her best to put on an expression of ignorance. Edith gave her a devilish grin in return, no pun intended, before using her tail on Maria’s chest to slowly push her back until her back hit the tiled wall. The coldness of the wall made her gasp, which only spurred her demon on.

“Are you sure you don’t know what I’m talking about? Because to me it seems like,” Edith paused as she placed a hand on either side of Maria and leaned in close to her ear. “You’re trying to start something.”

Maria did her best to not let overly dominating Edith get a rise out of her as well. This was about pleasing Edith, not her. Slowly reaching out, Maria ran a tentative finger along Edith’s growing length.

“Whatever could you be talking about?”

Edith gently nipped at the top of Maria’s ear, and growled into it. Maria felt a shiver of excitement run though her body as she let out a small ‘eep’ at Edith’s bite.

“I haven’t been trying to do anything, but take a nice…” she took Edith’s now mostly erect cock in her hand, “and relaxing shower with my demon.”

Maria felt her lover throb a little in her hand, and she gave it a small stroke. Edith growled approvingly and thrust her hips forward into Maria’s pleasurable grasp. Gaining a little confidence, Maria started to stroke back and forth along her partner’s rather sizable member. As her stroking increased, Maria began to hear Edith pant in her ear.

The tail that had been keeping pressure on Maria’s chest slowly started to lose strength as Edith’s concentration wavered, but before it could fall away entirely Maria caught it in her free hand. Edith groaned lightly as Maria brought the sensitive end of her tail to her lips. Maria’s pace quickened to match the thrusts of her demon’s hips, as she opened her mouth to take in the last couple of inches of Edith’s tail. Edith’s head fell into the crack of Maria’s neck and let out a low moan, which sent vibrating chills down Maria’s spine. And like last night, those chills lingered in the end of her spine.

Letting out a little groan herself, Maria began to swirl her tongue around the demon’s tail, which rewarded her with another moan. Somewhere in the back of Maria’s mind she wondered if giving oral to Edith’s tail was truly that pleasurable. Not that it would be a bad or weird thing, it was just interesting to her. Like, could she make Edith come from her tail alone, or would penetrating someone with it be like using her cock?

The feeling of Edith’s hips becoming more and more erratic brought Maria’s mind back to the task at hand. Or rather in hand. And mouth.

Edith’s panting and moans were growing ever stronger as Maria diligently worked to bring her lover to orgasm. She wanted to hear Edith moan in her ear as she came. She wanted to see Edith shake and tremble. To some extent she was already getting that, as Edith’s tail started to lightly jerk and twitch. It was a bit amusing as she didn’t get to see that reaction the other night when they made love, but it was making giving her tail oral a little challenging. Though that only made her work harder to please her lover.

Suddenly Edith sucked in a breath and went very still. Maria was scared she had done something wrong or hurt Edith in some way, but before she could even stop Edith shivered all over and moaned breathlessly in her ear. Edith’s cock jumped in Maria’s hand as she came all over Maria’s stomach. Maria gasped lightly as she quickly found Edith’s cum was much warmer than even the shower, but it didn’t burn which was good.

Trying to mimic what Edith did last night, Maria did her best to slowly bring her movements down with Edith’s dying orgasm. Her demon let out one last moan as Maria let her tail fall away and a little begrudgingly let go of her cock. Maria really enjoyed making her lover come. Maybe even more than coming herself.

Edith leaned into Maria more, and Maria wrapped her arms around her demon. Soon she found Edith’s arms wrapping around her lower back.

Dreamily in the haze of post orgasmic release, Edith gently muttered, “I love you.”

It took a solid two second before both of them quickly tensed up. Edith pulled back, with a rather shocked look on her face. Her red eyes already wide in the way Maria found so adorable, and which no doubt matched the look in Maria’s eyes.

“I— I mean—  I didn’t—” Edith stuttered out as she stared back at Maria, her body fully tense.

Maria’s heart pounded in her chest as mind began working a mile a minute. She had told herself just yesterday that she wasn’t ready to use the L word. That it was too soon, and they still had so much to learn about one another. But hearing Edith say it with such pure honesty made her heart leap for joy. Suddenly she yearned not to hold back. To let her heart fly free. For fuck’s sake, they were already married and bound by one of the most ancient and powerful magics, that literally made it so they couldn’t contain what’s in their hearts from one another. So, fuck it. It may not be normal and fast, but hey, this is by far not a normal standard relationship.

Maria gave her demon the biggest smile she could, before leaning in and giving her a kiss on the lips.

“I love you, too.”

Edith’s wide-eyed shocked expression suddenly turned into the biggest dumbest happiest grin Maria had ever seen. If hearing Edith say ‘I love you’ made her heart leap, that smile made it soar.

~~~

Maria eagerly waited at the counter of the magical tech store. Honestly, it was pretty much like any other electronic store on Earth, just with a few magical flairs. Such as magic wi-fi routers that would put Nasa’s internet speeds to shame, fireplace TVs (like an actually log fire on a metal rack that apparently wouldn’t burn anything or anyone while still providing heat, that can be shifted into a television when needed). That one was really strange to Maria, especially considering if most buildings in Celesque were in a Victorian style so then they would all have fireplaces already.

There were many other gadgets and things to look at, but Maria stayed close to the tech counter. Behind the counter was a worktable, upon which a gnomish man was working on magically upgrading Maria’s phone. Apparently cell phones still weren’t a really big thing in the magical world when you could just magically send a letter, that would just pop up in front of the intended recipient no matter where they were. Though most of the younger generations had a cellphone, like Edith and most of her friends, but anyone over say two hundred didn’t really care for one. Land lines though were at least in nearly every house.

“Come on, Maria, let's give him some space while we look at laptops.”

Maria was a little hesitant to go look around knowing she had seemingly disappeared to her friends for four days, so she wanted her phone back as soon as possible. However, the gnome seemed to be rather annoyed at Maria’s constant over watch.

“Okay,” Maria said a little defeatedly.

The pair had also brought in Maria’s laptop so that they could make it work with magical wi-fi, but the gnome simply looked at them and told them it would be cheaper and better just to get a new laptop. So yay, Maria was getting a new magical laptop! Still, while Edith and her looked around at the laptops, Maria went looking at the cheapest models. She wasn’t really sure about what was considered expensive or not, considering she didn’t really understand the value of the Celesque currency, but smaller numbers still meant cheaper.

Edith quickly took Maria’s arm and pulled her towards the more expensive laptops. “You know you can get something that isn’t a brick.”

“But these are expensive. I don’t want to waste your money like that.”

“It’s no problem, Maria. Trust me, money isn’t really an issue for me. Well, I guess it wouldn’t be a problem for ‘us’ now rather.”

“Are you sure? Does your job really pay that well?”

“Yes, I’m sure, but admittedly my job doesn’t pay all too much.”

“Edith…”

“Seriously, we don’t need to worry about money, dear.”

“But you just said your job doesn’t pay that well.”

“It doesn’t, but I don’t work for the money.”

“What?”

Edith let out a little sigh, before looking around to make sure no one was eavesdropping. “I don’t need the money I get from work. I actually donate it all at the end of the year.”

“But where do you get money from?”

“My mother is a rather successful broker. She made a few rather sizable investments around five hundred years ago, and they… They really paid off. I don’t need to work for money, and I don’t need to ever worry about money. I have enough money to live a rather nice life.”

Maria took all that in for a minute. She had been rich before, thanks to Edith, then poor when her parents kicked her out, and now she was apparently rich again. Thanks to Edith. Again.

“Now I really don’t want you to think we hoard money like your crazy dragon aspiring billionaires on Earth. We just keep enough to live a good life without worry, and some extra for rainy days. The rest is donated or made into investments for community projects.”

“But… Then why do you work?”

“I… I do it to feel normal, I guess? I don’t like talking about my financial situation, even with friends. I don’t want them to think of me differently because I have money. All my friends work. Virtually everybody I know works a job. So, I got one as well.”

“Oh.” Maria paused for a second. “I understand. I was kinda the same way with my gaming friends when I lived with my family. I never talked about money or jobs when they talked about them and the hardships... But I never took it far enough to get a job. At least not until I needed one.”

Edith gave her a smile and rubbed her back lightly. “So, I guess we have an understanding about money then?”

Maria nodded. “Yep.”

“Alright. Now let's find you a laptop. And not a brick one.”

“Okay.”

It took the pair a little while to settle on a laptop. Maria still offered the cheaper option, but Edith pushed her to get something she truly wanted. In the end they picked out a decent gaming laptop because it had been a long time since Maria had been able to play games. Though Edith did offer to let Maria use her desktop for gaming as well. Still, with the laptop picked the two headed back over to the tech counter.

“Hey. Can I ask if your family's money is how you gave my family money?”

“Oh, no. I wouldn’t waste a penny on those pricks.”

“But then how did you get them money?”

“Well, it’s actually kind of funny, really. So, Mom has a—”

“Alright, all done,” the gnome said, cutting Edith off. “Here you go.” Quickly he pushed his desk chair over to the counter, handing the phone over.

“Thank you!” Maria was rather excited and nervous about what she would find when she turned on the phone. Quickly Maria turned her phone on while Edith chuckled at how absorbed Maria became. While Maria focused on the phone, Edith went about paying for everything.

As soon as Maria’s phone fully booted up, it was immediately bombarded with notification. Her phone wouldn’t stop vibrating for a solid thirty seconds and when it did, Maria could finally start to sort through all the notifications. First of many of them were happy birthday messages, but as she kept scrolling, she saw more and more worried texts and missed calls. Especially from Sammy. There were a lot from them. Just as she started to read through them all, her phone began to vibrate with a call that made her jump a little bit.

It was Sammy.

Without hesitation, Maria took the call. “Hello?”

“Oh by the gods, Maria!!!” Sammy screamed into the phone. “Areyouokay?!?! What’sgoingon? Whereareyou? Isitbecauseofwhatsgoingonwithyourfamily?” The words came out of them so fast that it all sounded like one word to Maria.

“Woah, slow down, Sammy. I can barely understand what you’re saying.” Maria heard Sammy take a couple of deep breaths to slow themselves down.

“First off, are you okay?”

“Yes I am, Sammy. There’s no need to worry.”

“Then what in the hells happened?! It was like you just disappeared off of the face of the Earth!” They weren’t wrong. “I tried messaging and calling you for days with no answer. I even sent you messages on Discord, Twitter, Facebook, that old Tumblr account! By Athena, I had to call off work to go to your apartment I was so worried. Only to find out you were evicted, which didn’t help my worrying!”

“I— It’s kind of a long story. I haven’t had phone service or internet until right now, but I’m fine. I’m—” What should she even say? What was she allowed to say? “I’m staying at my girlfriends place…”

“Girlfriend?! When the fuck did you get a girlfriend?! You never told me you had a girlfriend! Last week you said you weren’t looking for a relationship because of job stuff.”

“I— We— It’s a fairly recent event… But I guess you could say us getting together has been a long time in the making.”

“So, you’ve had a girlfriend for less than a week and now you're living with her?! And during that time, you haven’t been able to use a phone or the internet?!” Sammy sounded rather worried and Maria couldn’t really blame them for it. It really did sound sketchy when you put it like that. Not that a demon taking you from your own world isn’t sketchy enough.

“It’s a good bit more complicated than that… But yeah, that’s kinda the gist of it. Look, I promise it’s not as sketchy or bad as it sounds. I’m really okay and there’s nothing wrong.”

Sammy let out a small groan on the other end of the line that didn’t sound like they were convinced. “What’s her name and where are you?”

“Her name is Edith… Fuck I’m going to say this so wrong. Edith Tyr—”

“Τῠ́ρᾰννος,” Edith said as she walked up to Maria, having finished checking out.

Maria looked up at her demon and mouthed ‘thank you’. “It’s Edith Τῠ́ρᾰννος.”

“What? What even is that last name?”

“It’s Greek.” Ancient Greek, but still. Maria could see the gnome staring at them, as if to say get out already. Edith also took note and led her out of the store.

“Okay… Still where are you?”

“I’m…” Crap, what should she say?

“YOU DON’T KNOW WHERE YOU ARE?!?!”

“No, no. I know where I am. It’s just—” She looked up at Edith as if to ask for help.

Edith quickly replied, “Apartment 204 on the corner of Market and 16th.” Maria just looked at her and mouthed ‘what?’. “That’s where we are in the same city,” Edith said before whispering, “I’ll explain when you’re done.”

“Maria? You there?”

“I’m here sorry. I was just getting the address from Edith. It’s apartment 204 at the building on Market and 16th.”

“So, you’re still in the city?”

“Yes, I am.”

“But you didn’t have a phone or internet?”

“No. I… I kind of didn’t pay my phone bills, and Edith’s apartment doesn’t have internet yet.”

“So why didn’t you use her phone?”

“Uhh… We were actually really busy, and I honestly kind of forgot.” Maria really hoped she was doing an okay job at convincing Sammy.

Sammy didn’t respond for a few seconds, then whispered. “If you’re not okay, say ‘apple.’”

“Sammy I’m fine, okay?”

“Okay…” They still didn’t sound convinced. “Even with what’s going on with your family?”

“My family? What’s going on with them?”