Ashara held up the used cucumber with a pair of large forceps. With her other hand holding a magnifying glass over the gherkin, Sara stood in the living room slightly embarrassed.

“Interesting…” She closely examined the groove marks that were torn into the fruit, shredding the skin and a few centimeters of the ‘meat’, evenly turning it white up to the narrow end where Sara was gripping it. One would hate to imagine what a human phallus would look like if it endured the same treatment.

Taking a few moments to pause, put down the examination tool and jot down quick notes, the witch wanted to examine in the comfort of her ‘workshop’ as she called it, but Sara was resolute not to enter that space but still be in proximity during the observation. This cycle repeated a few times before the witch finally placed the cucumber down on a makeshift table and turned to look at her familiar, “Looks like everything is developing as planned!”

Sarakiel felt somewhat ashamed, “Twelve hells, really?” She crossed her arms and leaned against the front door, “That’s what my body’s supposed to do? I’d be fucking public enemy number one if I was let loose on a city!” With the potential of being on the receiving end not too long ago, the succubus almost swore a vow of chastity out of pure empathy.

“That’s what I told ya would happen!” The witch hopped off her stool, her rosy red cheek circles glimmering in the candlelight from what she just put in the windowsill. “Your inner teeth shred down whatever’s inside as it pushes in and out of you while your ‘vaginal walls’ suck up all the blood, semen and mana that’s discharged. Quite a thing of beauty, if you think about it!”

She would not call it ‘beauty’. She was a monster.

“Your tooth marks appear to be healthy, an even spread on each side of the poor boy.” The cucumber’s legs quit working midway through, something Sara no longer needed as she was already taking charge of the excursion herself. “Because you’re so good at draining mana, you practically sucked the mana I used to awaken the cucumber out and then delivered it back to me!”

The succubus shifted her feet, finally understanding their dynamic.

“I’d say I got around half of what I spent on the spell, so you may have taken around 40% while the remaining 10% we can consider a loss…” She continued her notetaking. “Not bad. Fairly efficient, I’d say…”

After pushing past her familiar and tossing the used cucumber out the door to be organized into compost later, the witch wiped her hands and began her trek back to her workshop.

Sarakiel sat at the foot of her bed, looking down. Her massive tits were omnipresent, but she looked past them at the floor.

Everything was different now. She knew she changed, but as she examined it closer and closer, the less human she was, despite her appearance. The slightest chance she thought she had of returning home to her wife, her home, her kingdom faded away. She was not sure what her future held for her.

“Maybe I should’ve stayed dead…”

- - - -

“Yeah, I’m surprised you didn’t ask sooner!”

The succubus could barely hold her old armor anymore.The first lights of the day that reached the end of the cavern reflected off of the polished iron. The now unfamiliar weight of the plate still held memories as she looked over one of the last remaining ties of her old life. Her shortsword and cape remained stored too, in the shed attached to the back of the witch’s cottage.

“What, did you think I sold it all?”

Sara barely paid the witch any mind as she ran her hand along the scars in the steel, able to fully recite each and every blow it endured. What was supposed to be the two finally carting the harvested fruit and vegetables into the dry storage, turned into a trip down memory lane.

Knowing the feeling, the witch sighed as she left to take the cart back around to the front to load another batch.

Tears began to well in the succubus’s eyes. Finally, proof that she once was Samuel. No one else, not even a monster implanted with the false memories would be able to tell in vivid detail the life the man before had lived, short of the man himself. He was still there.

Doubts she was afraid to vocalize eased off of her shoulders. Returning to the life he had was impossible, but at least he had lived.

It was not long until Ashara wheeled the full cart back to the shed. She found the succubus putting the baskets onto the shelves, the armor returned to its spot. With a smile, the two finished putting away the harvest.

- - - -

“Why didn’t you sell it?” Sara asked, floating horizontally above the sandstone steps. With the harvest collected, the two resumed her magic training. This time around was much easier for the succubus to grasp the concept of mana and apply it to what she wished to accomplish.

Ashara did an aerial somersault, “It wasn’t mine to sell, duh!” She picked up her dropped hat before lazily flipping again. Her cheeks shimmered a bright shade of red as she pulled off more complicated maneuvers, entirely divorced from the ground beneath her.

A wave of emotion hit Sara. “It looks like you aren’t really as bad as I thought you were…” She admitted, her own cheeks flush with color.

“Did you think I was?” The witch’s smirk made an appearance once again, “After housing you, feeding you, letting you jack off with my cucumbers? Not to mention the whole ‘reviving you’ thing?”

Sara leaned back, enjoying floating without feeling the weight of her heavy breasts for once. Her familiar's crest glowed slightly. “No? I mean…” She reflected on everything that happened already. If the false light hanging above them was anything to go by, it had not even been a week since she was revived. “Look, growing up, you hear all sorts of things about witches.”

“Ooh! Really?” Ashara leaned in on her stomach, propping her chin up with her hands and idly kicking her feet in the air.

“‘They eat children’, ‘they are twisted humans that want nothing but power’, ‘they sell their soul to devils’ amongst other things, you know?”

The witch flipped over onto her back, her straight black hair lightly brushing the ground beneath them, “All that’s true though.”

“Yeah, but…” Sara rubbed the back of her neck, “I don’t know, you’ve been nothing but nice to me.” She hated being this candid, but she hated lying more.

“Only because you’re useful to me.” Her expression was much more neutral than it usually was, “I need a familiar, and that’s you. If I let you die, then all my hard work investing in you is wasted.”

It felt weird being the emotional one in this conversation, Sara concluded. She tried idly picking through her white long hair to ease the tension a bit, “Well, thank you regardless. I know you say you’re helping me for solely practical reasons, but there’s still a bit of kindness in there somewhere…”

The two floated without a word for a few minutes, looking up at the rock dome above them as the mage light lit up their hideaway, giving the illusion of being on the surface.

“So what are those things on your cheeks?” The familiar spoke up.

It took another few seconds before the witch answered, “Magic organs.”

Instead of answers, Sara had now stumbled into more questions. She debated acting on them before Ashara continued, “I won’t say what I am, but much like how you’re not a typical succubus, I’m not exactly a typical witch…”

“Nothing really is that simple, huh?”

Sara felt at ease. Despite all the questions, circumstances, and mysteries, it was nice just to ignore all them and just idly float.

“Yeah…” the witch rolled back onto her stomach, something Sara enviably looked on in jealousy for a moment, “That’s why I try to keep things as easy as possible.”

Sara thought back to what the witch had said before: ‘when you die, you die’, ‘It’s because that’s the way it is’. The witch did try to find ways to wrap things up as succinctly as possible.

“I find that when you truly don’t know, and I mean really don’t know something, you try your best to look for complications, for things like ‘nuance’ and ‘depth’. But usually, it’s damn easy to understand. Frustratingly so. People want to feel important, so they add words and jargon to topics that intuitively are simple. Usually, they haven’t been humbled yet so they feel the need to add on all that nonsense.” She stretched her hand out towards the ground, mindlessly drawing on the loose dirt of the path, “Someone once told me they call that step before you realize how little you know ‘Mount Stupid’.”

She chuckled at the end of that.

Sara could not help but be enraptured by her calm demeanor. Ashara usually came off as childish and energetic, but it seems even the nice, quiet day drew out her true self as well.

“I hate smart people too.” Sara smiled.

- - - -

“Are you sure I have to go?” The succubus did not have much, but what little she had stood piled at the entrance to the witch’s enclave. The armor, sword and cape sat in a pile, relics of her past unsure how she would carry them out, “I don’t even have a way to defend myself!”

Ashara stood in front of her familiar, dressed in her finest clothes. Her hat bore ornate designs and various bobbles glistening in the false moonlight, hung from the wide brim, almost covering her face with their height difference. “I can’t just have my familiar lazing about my home spending every waking moment jacking off.”

Sara almost felt betrayed. The two were having a nice day, but now her only friend is kicking her out into a monster infested cavern without a weapon. “I’ve done a lot of work for you! I’m making sure to earn my keep!”

The witch never smiled once. Her expression was hard. “You’ll be fine. Monster hunters cleared down the cavern just last week, nothing should bother you on the way out.”

The succubus tried to bite her lip. The cave was one thing, but the world outside? “And what if I die, huh? What about all the work you put in?”

“Then I failed.” Ashara brandished her staff with both hands before her, the first time Sara had seen the instrument, “Don’t make me command you, succubus. I will drive you from my keep, if you remain idling here.”

“Why?” Was all she could ask, tears forming. She lost more of it day after day, but her masculinity stopped them from falling, “Give me a few more days, and then I’ll-”

“Succubus Sarakiel,” she started, “as your master, I demand you-”

She did not need to hear the rest.

Sara left the armor, the cape and the sword behind as she walked into the cavern alone.