Consequences of Change

[Vexademus]

She woke up screaming again, bolting upright and immediately gripping hold over her mouth tightly, so hard that she pulled her cheeks while digging into them on one side with nails. Panting in and out of her nostrils, tears formed in her brown eyes, swiftly spilling over already sweat soaked cheeks. Her black streaked honey mane stuck to her forehead, temples, and the back of her neck along with the oversized spider silk shirt.

It was only the second day and so the experience was still fresh. Whimpering while her eyes squeezed shut, Vexademus cried. Turning over in her canopied bed, keeping those eyes shut and balling her body as much as she could, she bounced as she cried into her clutching hands. Trembling angry hiccups shook her shoulders, those too pulling close as she wept. Nausea twisted her stomach and that want, that need writhed like wet snakes in her belly. Dark circles shown under her eyes as she had gone without rest, peaceful sleep, since last Waterday.
No letters since the last summons. No contact. No voice in her head. Nothing.
Again, she shuddered. Her human mind couldn't wrap around the trauma. Was it getting worse?

Too many things had happened. An experiment gone wrong had left her irritated. A 'ground zero' attack: by her own command, loosed upon her at close range. The following attack on her physical person just moments after. And then?
And. Then.

The summons of her mentor. And it was all consuming. The aura. The epic overdose of being wrapped within it. Her mind shredded by what she felt and witnessed. The crescendo of snarls and power and himself; a virtual goliath.

His revelation and explanation she barely remembered, couldn't bring herself to remember. She was falling! Falling through a dimension where reason didn't exist and magic was as breathable as oxygen. Where it was within and without and there was never an answer to an unasked question. All viability of existence mocked her and sung lullabies of twisted lies and angelic promises of logic. What was the difference between the two? Her brain couldn't comprehend it. Especially when swallowed into the nothingness, place devoid of anything that ever existed.

Yet that wasn't what truly haunted her. The eyes. Those eyes! Halo'd beyond a bound book. The item was insubstantial when it came to what creature stood behind it.

Vexademus sobbed briefly behind the grip. Laying in her bed, gall taste in her mouth with bitter reminder of copper flavor and mocking her while she drooled in her weeping behind that white-knuckle grasp. A gag and then her own blurry vision rolled under soaked lids while her sore body remained painful, sensitively aware that something was missing. The emptiness inside her was overwhelming. Her mind tried to call out but stopped abruptly. The spellcaster couldn't. He was no longer human. The one reliance she'd had. And it was gone.

The gemstones! A joy-filled panic set her eyes to open ablaze and she sat up. Only to fall back down with hopes dashed, body wrecked and the answer a clear negative. Again, she wailed as silently as she could. *He* might hear her.

Snot and tears mixed, a gross potion of completed grief ran onto her bed, uncared for as the woman tried to contain the sounds of her affliction. The sweat was drying sticky to her skin and making her scalp itch.

Suddenly, she jolted to silence thinking she had heard something. The caster held her breath for what seemed like an eternity while she listened, only hearing the sounds of her pounding heart, the blood rushing loudly in her ears. Like the crescendo.

Lungs shivered after she began to breathe again. She rose from her bed, shaking violently. It was a humid evening and yet, she felt cold beyond belief. It was like warmth never existed. The woman trembled hard, her teeth chattering while she tried to clean herself up, stepping to the wash basin and pouring water in the dark. A few splashes later and she was down to her knees, gagging behind a hand, nothing coming from the empty retching noises.

Shielded by her lined locks, she smoothed a hand over wet face and slowly hefted her body to stand on weak knees and even more unstable feet, exhaustion dragging her to bed where she pulled aside the rumpled covers and crawled in, once more balling up as tiny as she could.

This whole process would begin again in another two hours.

And it would last for weeks.

[Vexademus]

The tiny minutes dripped by like molasses from the tip of a branch. She laid in her canopied bed, staring at the drapery atop it. Pillowed hair sprawled out messily while she watched the dark. Was that a color there? No. Just a trick of the eyes.

The covers had been cast aside by thick thighs, petulantly kicked with a huff of impatience for...Something. What was it? The magess went over the days' events, sifting through the as grains of sand, one granule at a time. A sound. Was it a growl? No, just a trick of the ears.

After noting the care taken of her in the baths by a well-favored human bard with verdant gaze, a distorted belief about freedom, and lackadaisical ambition, a limped visit to the apothecary that warranted a surprising situation that she just walked right into, and a dinner that she merely picked at; she needed rest. Why wasn't it begging at her bedside like some whining canine? Where was the, at least semblance of peace!?

There it was again. That...emptiness. Shutting her eyes with another nettlesome sigh, she tried to wriggle for comfort. Once still, she thought it had finally come. Behind her eyes, her brain began its meander. She felt the dark first. It swallowed her up. And, for a singular moment, it was peaceful. A brilliant flash of swirling black and silver vapor and she gasped, those brown eyes shooting open. The magess was left to pant. Was that...?

Closing her eyes again, she could see it. She could see it! The sound started off a low hum, the sound of silence loud in her ears. But it was...pulsing? Was that her heart? No. It was the weaving aura. Like a fleece blanket, it began to crawl along her skin, comforting and warm at first. Then it became hotter. Little beads began to grow on her temples and upper lip, minuscule salty mist trapped within brows and hairline. Vexademus breathed deeper. It had made its way up her figure and was now somehow being drawn in through her nose and past her lips. She choked up for a moment, forcing herself to breathe the thickness slower until she became accustomed.

Oh, did it feel fantastic. A feel of something large...no, large somethings. There was more than one; skimming her flesh. Huge touches over her sensitive bruised skin. Wait, it didn't hurt? No. No pain. The spellshaper felt her body respond to these invisible seeming-hands. Uneven figure writhed, feeling unsupported by her cushioned mattress, like she was floating in the whorl of blackness, veined with silver, breathing it in and tasting it. She could taste it!

Smoothing up her spine and then returning to her ankles, the sensation packaged her; imprisoned her. She felt the magic chain her, felt restrained by delicate swathes of conjuration. She could taste the union of links and felt the bindings more inside as well. More. As she grew to anticipate the touches and providential breaths...

Vexademus hit the floor. HARD. Her eyes were open now, linear marked hair draped around her and on the floor as she tried to lift herself with sore arms. She'd fallen shoulder-first out of her bed as if she were attempting to sleepwalk. A groan escaped as she grabbed the edge of the bed and crawled back into it, soaked sleep shirt sticking to skin while she panted.

What was it...? What was missing? She licked her chapped lips, almost cracked. The memory of breath and voice floated to her. The mageling tried to will it away but it was inevitable. It would come to her again and again. She couldn't defend herself against her own memory. As far as she knew, no human could.

Punching her pillow with stained hand to mold it, she collapsed once more to try and find what rest would never come; in between the bouts of nightmares, dry heaves, and falling out of bed. Still...it was there. That hollow numbness...the strengthening feeling that she had...forgotten something? Missing something...? Already mad by others' accounts, was there deeper to go in lunacy?

And still it scratched the back of her mind. To which the woman would bear dark circles under her eyes and an almost listless distraction upon the first rays that she would face the next morning.

[Vexademus]

By the end of the day, her future concubine had gently set her into bed and she had fallen asleep with his kiss on her brow. At first, there was only her own voice whispering to him as she sank into sweet blessed oblivion, fading into twilight sleep first as her eyes shut and blackness drowned her. Warm. Comfortable. A miracle.

It seemed like it could go on for a wonderful eternity. But the sound of wings, an impossible darkness and the eyes. Those eyes! She could feel his voice swimming through her needy veins as if he were the very magic that she sought to use like the little weak addict she was. The black miasma began to lace with spidering roots of silver energy, twisting parasites worming into her flesh and licking against that itch. She heard the whisper as if she were wearing it like a tight piece of lingerie. "Vex..."

And she was open. Her mouth began to whisper imperceptibly, spilling his name syllable by delicious syllable. "In..fer...nisss..."

Vexademus's eyes opened. She was in her bed, irresistibly drawn. The thought was hard and consuming as those deft hands worked from gripping the sheets to slink over herself. Many nights had she been like this - in the early days. The magess was sure that he'd heard her even though she'd tried very hard (and believed she had succeeded) to be quiet. But this was so much more. More.

Palms and digits used to weaving archaic intricacies in somatic gestures now slithering along her still clothed body. Reaching up to the clasp, she reworked the loop to disquiet the magic that held the bodice tightly, freeing her to breathe. A few more movements and she had slipped from her cushioned down mattress, serpentine to escape her quarters. The mageling knew where she needed to go...

Wearing only now a silk corded black shift, her feet padded along the cold floor to open the door. Out she snuck like a ghost, an apparition to find what she was hungry for. The fix. Her brow had again bore the beadlets of clean sweat. The marred body soaked in titanic bruising of purples, blues, and hued reds, the scratches, lacerations, gouges, second degree burns, and bite marks surrounding small hidden apple'd breasts, of previous encounters in the last few days...and oh, the exquisite burning pain of knots formed on the surface of muscle and bone and sinew. It signaled its call for the relief of an absorption.

Tip-toe'ing along the hall, she slowed by a mirror, freezing because she had thought herself caught. A huff at her figure, mussed and blushed like some blemished whore. Vex almost spat at the image but then her expression changed from disgust to a gentle deviant smile. A rarity if ever she'd seen it herself. She reached out to touch her image, eyes lazing as she expected to find the cold surface. Instead, the mirror image reached out and took a painful hold of her wrist!

It's face; her face! distorted and hissed like a devil, speaking while spittle leapt like venom, "You allowed the death of Theron...your most prized bonding! How could you, you filthy bitch...You care nothing for your beloved servants!"

Hearing this, she thought of Gavin and and grit her teeth and shook her head. Pawns were pawns, nothing more. A property to be owned and used as seen fit; her possessions! The anger at losing them filled her with vulnerability; a feeling of invasion. She jerked her arm from the Mirror creature and suddenly stumbled into the middle of a crowd, all silent and staring at her with stoic faces, arms at their sides. Came the first of the voices from them: "Weak. Powerless. Unfit for the mantle...weak, weak, weak. Powerless!" Those voices rose higher and all seemed to be shouting and judging her, pointing at her with one raised hand, index accusing her. So many voices! The cacophonous and mixed vociferation came at her like so many arrows, piercing her.

She squeezed her eyes shut and tried to turn and run, pushing through the hallucinated crowd, shoulders bunching painfully close since her body was still suffering the effects of such rough handling. Halfway up the stairs, she stopped, the voices still following her. Hells Bells! Torture upon her enemies' pricks would be better than this! The magess scratched her hands into her hair and shook her head, tearing out half handfuls from the thick mane of shadow-tainted locks. She could scream! She'll show them!

Opening her mouth, nothing came out. Putting a hand still tangled with a slim shift of hair against her throat, she tried again. Nothing came out! Her spells! No! She rose her other hand, staring into the palm, trying to summon. Nothing. No feeling of energies. No delicious shift in the air around her. Thick volleys of salty tears blurred her vision and she turned to see what looked like a kind-faced priestess. The woman was smiling at Vexademus.

The magess stared at the cleric with accusative eyes, her mind shouting 'You did this to me...!' The woman nodded and began to laugh. The voice didn't match her with its maniacal laughter. The sound was booming, large, and bassy. The priestess was teasing her. At that moment, the spellshaper would have given anything to leap forward and tear her throat out with her own teeth, the visceral feeling of rage and pain and emptiness grew. And so she lunged...

Finding herself now on the cold hard floor that she had been trying to get to all along, she slowly rose. A pitiful semblance of her prior incarnation, she jaggedly stepped forward towards a door, her body shifting side to side as if she had no more feminine grace; only shocked penance. Wet face slimy with fluids that had rivuleted down the skin of her throat and onto her chest, her hair in messy tangles, and her only saving grace at what laid beyond the great door...Vexademus the Weak, the Murderer, the Powerless...reached out to the handle.

more...More...MORE...

[Vexademus]

And it began.

After surviving what lay beyond the door, the first week of healing had been the hardest and deepest pit the mage had ever crawled out from. In the days following, she'd been bathed like an invalid, handled with care; similar to what she had received from a creature named Lindor - what seemed like ages ago. The spellshaper had paid attendants to help her and even swallowed the kindness of a new acquaintance. When in her tower, the magess had loosed such ferocity on her torian devotee, teasing his wrath like a magnifying glass upon a gargantuan hill of fire ants.

Clawing and digging and pulling like some filthy insect, the human did what she could to make sure her mind remained tied together. Every now and then, she felt a seam rip and leak, but it was quickly shored up with seemingly ceaseless will. An objective had been set before her. By her.

The woman had looked madness in the face, the birthed delirium only a pleasant after-effect. She kindly had introduced herself to Death, but he waved her away muttering something about seizures and no time for life's games or some nonsense she didn't care to remember.

But when she called to Magic...it answered her. Every time. Its presence had been violent, powerful, and she'd been hasty trying to figure out how to dial it in or too busy restraining herself from gorging.

The affinity shown to her, singed nerves and arteries specifically for conducting the raw; Vexademus overlooked that. As did many who could wield. Tools. Craft. Nothing that she had read or heard tell spoke that it was even remotely sentient.

And armed with this new twisted curiosity, the mageling had made new plans in the vein of completing the goals.

For the love of it.

For the excitement.

To be Magic's chosen...best to start small.
And Vexademus had seeded herself in quite lovely fertile ground.