The Fae’s parting words were to meet her in the woods at sunset. A long enough time to clear my head and make sure that my choices were my own. I had been ensorcelled for only a handful of minutes. Not long enough to linger more than an hour or two.
Of course, that is the dilemma. I have no doubt that the Fae could give me what I want. And, after an hour or two of clear headedness, I know that I do want it still.
The problem is the cost.
Both your words and mine do hold so true;
Indeed, I could make your body anew;
Would you consent to my generous pac;
One night of passion, is all I do ask
One night for a Fae to twist my mind however she wishes. I won’t shake it off in a few hours. I might not shake it off in a few months. There is no doubt she’ll give me what I ask, and then make me into whatever she desires I be.
Then again...do I really have that much to lose?
In some ways yes. My order is like a family to me, and for all my strangeness I honestly believe they will love me still. In other ways...my body has been gnawing at my mind and soul for half of my life. Unaware of that infliction that I might have been, I’ve still felt the symptoms my whole life. Now that I know the disease for what it is, those symptoms feel all the worse.
And would it really be so bad to give in to the Fae’s control?
My thoughts are going in circles.
There is only one solution here. One solution which will not leave me with a lifetime of regret and of wondering what if I had walked a different path.
I finish cleaning the training field, assuring all the while to the others there that I will be fine before returning to my quarters to prepare. Undercloth. Then Gambeson. Then vambraces and sabatons and a light chain vest. My head I leave uncovered. Unobstructed vision will do me more good than any protection a helmet offers.
Once fully armoured, I make my way to the armoury. Though I haven’t spoken of it to her, the quartermaster is there waiting for me. Brothers and Sisters to the end. I retrieve my sword, then head for the gate.
It’s nearly twilight.
I walk into the woods.
It doesn’t take long before I come to a clearing. Half an hour at most. I hadn’t been aiming for it. I didn’t know it was here. Heck, it might not have been before tonight.
The clearing is bedded with clover, with patches of spring flowers scattered throughout. There is a small brook along one corner, softly babbling away, and a single tree in its center, a cherry tree I think, which is covered in unseasonable blooming pink-white petals.
Last of all is a plateaued boulder, on which a thick and lush carpet of green moss grew. The top is flat, wide as a bed, and resembles a bird’s nest, only sized for a person and much, much softer.
Above it all, sitting in the uppermost branches of the Cherry Tree, is Lily of Spring. She looks down on me with a mischievous look in her eye and a satisfied grin on her lips. It is a look that might have been pleasant, had it not come from a Fae. As it is I’m torn between attraction and terror. I look up to her for a time and for her part she just keeps grinning back in response. Eventually I clear my throat.
“I am here.”
I try to sound confident, though I feel anything but. The Fae likely sees through the attempt, but if she does, she makes no indication of it. She responds with only a nod before rolling off her branch, somehow not striking any on the way down, and halting her fall perhaps a fifth of a meter from the ground. Her fall transitions from there into a bow, the motion of her lower body freezing while allowing her upper body to continue downward in a smooth motion. She rights herself with a flourish, then begins to deliberately walk towards me, her feet still firmly planted on empty air, just above the grass line.
“Shall we get started on your new, hale form? Cut to the chase on you, newly born?”
I frown.
“What about the night of passion?” I had expected the Fae to hold the deal over my head until the end. She is Fae. She will make good on her end of things. But she has no reason to think that I will make good on my end of things...Well, not unless she ensorcels me, anyway.
“Our meeting is transactional, it’s true; But duress makes passion dark moods anew.” She seems to have sensed my thoughts, because she continues with her reassurances. “Pleasure, battle, a night lost in the woods; Choice makes the passion, though force you I could.”
I take some time to consider her words, then groan with annoyance. This Fae’s rule of discourse does not make understanding her meaning very easy...then again, maybe that is the point.
Stupid Fae.
“So,” I repeat back to her. “You won’t make me do anything other than stay here for the night? And you want to give me what I want right away so that I’m not pressured to act differently?”
She smiles a little too wide and nods.
I look to the sky. Dusk has arrived.
I close my eyes and take a deep breath.
Hold it in.
Then slowly release.
“Very well. Let’s begin”
Whatever I had been expecting, it wasn’t for the Fae to start to dance. It resembles the waltz, though with no partner, circling around me in wide rotations in the air, the winds seem to pick up and flow with her movements, petals and butterflies appearing in places where her body blocks my line of sight, flying towards me, then disappearing again once they are about to touch my flesh.
The air fills with more particles, flowers, butterflies and smells. Soon it is enough to wholly block off my vision. It looks a little like what I can recall of being ensorcelled, though my mind remains unaffected by the effect, and it is not accompanied by the sounds and scents which so overwhelmed me before.
Then I feel the change. A dull tingling of my flesh, starting on the tips of my fingers and toes and increasing in intensity as it spreads across my body. My skin feels hot and heavy. my breath picks up pace. My face flushes beat red, or so it feels from the heat and throbbing not-painful pressure. My eyes must have glazed, because I can’t see anything but the most basic of details. My head consumed only by the sound of panting breaths and the sensations of the flesh.
The sensations seem to come to focus on certain places, buzzing with the anticipation of change and the manic relief that follows, before sinking into my skin, my torso, and flowing into a place in my core. A place I am unfamiliar with, but which grows warmer over time. More...pressing, somehow. Stronger and stronger and, gods, it is a lot. Not painful. But perhaps uncomfortable with the buzzing, pulsing heat which swells within. Strong and stronger.
Hotter and hotter.
Faster and faster.
I moan. Or I think I do at least. It is a sound wholly new to my lips.
The heat explodes outward. It washes over my whole body in a way of ecstatic transformation.
And then it is done.
I pant for breath, more slowly now as the visual noise around me clears.
And I look up to a grinning Fae standing over me.
And I feel a tweak from within my core, where that heat still is, cooling but not gone and all too ready to be built up once more.
“Fuck.”
Now that I know the disease for what it is, those symptoms feel all the worse.
It really do be like that.
It is darkest before the dawn, where the body prepares. Worst still is having many options and not knowing what is good for yourself. To have someone willing and able to guide one through from start to finish. Wouldn't that be a miracle?
she has it baaad. hehe, tftc.