Back to the Status Quo? [M/TW: graphic violence, abuse, torture]

[Incandesa]

Three months into Lillith's little "experiment," Molk must have sensed something was amiss and called her into his grand chambers. It was a stately room with a tall throne held above the rest, the better for the demon lord to look down in his subjects. It was dark with ghostly lights offering only minimal sight. The smell of blood permeated through the air. Meekly, Lillith entered.

A smile danced on the demon lord's lips, but it was neither warm nor welcoming. "You have been lacking in your duties, slave, ever since I gave you my mask" he said, a statement not a question. Lillith flinched. "Perhaps you are not fit to keep it..."

"No!" she shouted, a little too quickly. Realizing what she had done, she awkwardly cleared her throat and tried to recompose herself. "I mean, please forgive me, my lord. I will strive to meet you expectations."

Molk leaned back as if considering her plea, but a cruel chuckle. "Yes, perhaps you need some guidance to remind you who you belong to. First, a thousand lashes with the bone tipped whips, each of your finger nails will be plucked from your fingers, and then you will be under the watch of the harpies. See to it you do not fail me again." Molk did not forgive, and Lillith noticed there was no mention of her receiving the mask again to enter the temple. In fact, it was fairly likely she would continue to be tortured under the harpies. She fought and screamed as they dragged her away.

It took a week for her torturers to finish the initial punishment Molk had assigned. Beaten and bloodied, she was tossed into a cell. Duties begin again tonight. See to it you don't die before then, jerried the harpy. The succubus went out into the field again that night with a harpy on her trail, watching for a defenseless man to seduce. Guilt panged her stomach as she approached a drunkard coming out of a tavern, but it was either fulfill this man's dark temptations or lose her life. It took effort not to retch as she whispered sweet nothings in his ear.

[Marjorie]

"Leave that one alone, hum...?" Arnel said to the drunkard, "I'd hate it if you caught some awful form of crotch rot from her." He had noticed Lilith from a distance. He had no idea what she looked like to him, just that it must have been something gorgeous and tempting that the drunkard saw. To his eyes though, she looked like she'd been beaten rather thoroughly for whatever her most recent transgressions were. Likely she had deserved it.

She didn't usually spear to be in such a sorry state, even after loosing a fight. Likely, she was hoping to feed off of him and restore herself to her former retched self.

Arnel rested his hand on the pommel of his sword. "Let him go," he said in a commanding tone. He didn't want to start a fight with her in the middle of the town, it would put others in danger. Lilith liked collateral damage, he wished to avoid it though.

[Incandesa]

A flash of hurt crossed Lillith's eyes. The man who was so kind to her in the temple, the one who taught her the scripture she so dearly studied now, was gone. In his place, was the same self-righteous jerk who had fought her for centuries. But he has every right to say that, she thought to herself. He is after all, the one who is properly following the righteous path. Unlike me.

Nervously, Lillith's eyes darted around. The harpy was nowhere to be seen, but all the same, she was watching, waiting for any slip the succubus might make. Had she been alone, she would have bid Arnel's wish. Perhaps that was exactly why the harpy had been sent. There would be blood tonight if this was not handled properly. Lillith curled her arm around her prey and began to lead him away. In a low voice, she said, "Sir Arnel, this need not become a fight. For the sake of the many, sacrifice one. He won't even die." That was a lie. She wouldn't have to take anyone if she were willing to sacrifice herself. How selfish. "Please, don't cause more harm than need be done." A tone of desperation was in her voice. She could not even meet his gaze.

[Marjorie]

Arnel paused. He stopped breathing for a moment and blinked, slowly. It was like she had cast some spell on him. For he was truly dumbfounded. He just stood there, watching Lilith lead her pray away.  That pleading tone touched something deep inside of him -- the protector. Only, for some bizarre reason, it seemed to him she was the one who needed protracting. It urged him to action, but suddenly Arnel wasn't sure what the correct action was.

She must have cast some powerful magic on him.

Right?

How could - what in the name of Ekjin?

It was alarming to Arnel, how he felt at the moment. It terrified him. "What are you playing at demon?" His voice didn't hold as much of a tone of threat as it usually would have. It did display his confusion openly though, Arnle was always poor at hiding anything.

[Incandesa]

Lillith wanted to retch the entire night, but she managed to gain enough energy to restore herself. Unfortunately, this did not seem to satisfy the harpy. "Why did you not attack the knight?" she hissed so loudly it could be heard outside. "You had him transfixed! Another victim waiting and you ignore him? A hundred lashes for you!

The succubus flinched. He wasn't spelled you old coot, just surprised. Besides, with his angel blood, nothing but dream spells would work on him. It had been one of the many reasons why Lillith had unsuccessfully failed to tempt him all these years.

Insolent back talk! Thirty more lashes and a tooth pull! cried the harpy. She grabbed Lillith by the hair and dragged her screaming. As demons, none but the spiritually aware would hear them, much less stop them. And who would stop demons from harming each other?

[Marjorie]

Arnel reacted too slowly. By the time he had the where-with-all to do anything she was gone. And he was still confused.

[Incandesa]

That night, Lillith was sent out again to haunt Arnel's dreams. As usual, she took the guise of Sister Mercy, but even in this, she had no heart. The succubus was exhausted from her continued beating, and it was all she could do to keep the glammer up. She doubted she would even stay awake herself, much less seduce the knight. It was all part of the harpies' plan, watch her fail and torture her even more.

She made the room their usual place, dark and sensual. Her body was naked on the bed with only the nun's habit on. Even that was too much, and she was barely conscious. Semi-lucid, she seemed to babble as if she were drunk, or more accurately, hit on the head. Unbeknownst to her, some of the spell faded, and much of the evidence of her torture appeared on Mercy's body before disappearing just as quickly. Gruesome whip marks that cut into her skin to draw blood. Dark bruises in odd places, her ribs, her sides, her face. Old injuries mixed in with new. Her fingers were missing their nails and bleeding. Was this what dying felt like? No. The harpies wouldn't kill their new toy just yet. This was worse- not being allowed to die.

[Marjorie]

Arnel woke with a start... or so he though. He woke into the dream that Lilith wove for him. Sister Mercy was there, naked on the bed beside him. Sense the real sister Mercy had vanished from his life, Arnle had dreamed less of her, leading him to believe it really was him own impure thoughts driving the lurid dreams.

The image of her shifted, blurred, revealing evidence of a brutal beating. He blinked. He'd never had a dream about her like this before.He turned over in the bed to face her more fully, flinging the blankets off as he did, only to discover he was naked as the day he was born also. "Sister Mercy?" there was alarm in his voice, he didn't think he was dreaming... not yet, but in that weird state between sleep and wake. How did she get into his room? Wait... no, this wasn't quite his room. Where was he?

Where were they. What in the name of Ekjin was going on?

"Sister Mercy, are... are you ok?" Holy Father above, please do not let him be the cause for her current state. He picked up the previously discarded blanket, but not to cover his modesty, but brought it to her, and covered her with it. "You are going to be ok," he said, false reassuring tone in his voice. She looked like she was dying. "I'm..." he glanced around the room... it was almost his room. His things were there. "I'm going to get my kit and get you fixed up best I can, then I will go get help."

Arnel moved across the room to where his things were, pulling on a sleep shirt that came to his knees as he went, and then rifled threw his gear until he found his mending kit and returned to her. There were a couple jars of salves in there, clean bandages, and needle and thread in there. He placed it on the bed beside her before retrieving a pitcher of water and a basin and towel from where they lived on his dresser. "This is going to hurt," he said, gently, "but I have to clean your wounds before I bind them or your wounds will fester." If that happened, with the state she was in, the infection was more likely to kill her before she had a chance to bleed out slowly.

[Incandesa]

Lillith dizzily shook her head. This was a dream; medicine wouldn't help. Didn't he know that? When he attempted to apply the salve, it simply vanished. "No. No, you have to..." She was having difficulty keep a train of thought. It was all so fuzzy. She reached up and pulled him weakly closer to her. The warmth of his skin on hers was delicious. She kept trying to move closer to him, more skin, more comfort, more ease.

The demoness looked up at his face up close. With the light coming down and his wings, he looked like a real angel. "You know, bird-boy, she said wozzily, using the teasing nickname she had preferred in their early years, "your wings are really not fair. You've already got the gold hair, the stupid-stupid cheekbones, those big muscles. How's a girl supposed to... supposed to...well it's not fair." There was a touch of color returning to her cheeks, but her overall condition was still worse for wear. Her grip on the dream plane was touchy at best. She had to tell him something, before it was too late, but what exactly, she couldn't remember.

[Marjorie]

This was... strange. What was going on? It was like he couldn't touch her, but he could feel her under his fingers. "Have to what?" he sounded distressed.

Bird-boy. He paused, visibly. Was this another dream? Another trick of that devil?

Well, he was a real angel, partly, anyway. That he looked it, was maybe, unfair. Actually, a good number of people would say so. He was also self-aware enough to know he was attractive, but not so self absorbed as to flaunt it. "Lilith?" he asked tentatively, "Is that you? What is this?"

In his other dreams about Lilith - if that's what this was - they had always been guided by his deepest, darkest desires --- even when she's forced him to her will in his dreams, there had never been anything there he didn't in some way or form want. This was... entirely different.

[Incandesa]

Lillith's eyes widened when Arnel called her by her name. It seemed like so long ago that the word had been on his lips. Her grip on the puppet loosened and Sister Mercy faded until it was just barely visible, with Lillith's face in its place. One on top of the other, it was easy to see the resemblance between demon and human. Still, the cuts and bruises did not leave their place. In fact, they seemed more gruesome with little to cover their appearance.

"This is goodbye, Arnel," she said simply, and in that moment, she knew it was true. "Don't look so glum. This is what you wanted, isn't it? She tried to smile, but it was weak and fake looking. Tears began to form in her eyes. Lillith would never forget his face for the rest of eternity. "Salvation won't... be for me ..."

[Marjorie]

Arnel was so confused. "I don't... I don't understand." None of this made an sense. His thoughts were hazy and his mind was fuzzy.

He looked alarmed.

"It could be," he said, as if the words were ripped from his throat. Some other part of him more aware than his 'couscous' thought at the moment of the greater implications of what she said. "Lilith," he urged her, "salvation could be yours if you want it. Is someone... holding you -- Forcing you?" What if he'd judged her wrong all these years. To look at the state of her... What if someone had been forcing her hand all along. "All you have to do is ask Ekjin loves all of creation." If she was about to die, or be taken away... she should know.

[Incandesa]

Another pang of guilt hit her heart- he had assumed she had been forced into her behavior. How kind of him. How naïve. Oh, how she wished she could tell him the truth.

Why not? asked a little whisper of wind. No. No, she couldn't. He would despise her more than he already did. The anger, the hurt, the frustration, all of it to be laid out in the open, to be so vulnerable. She didn't want to, but it was as if she couldn't resist the urge to do so. The demoness felt compelled by a force not her own to reveal what she had hidden deep in her heart.

Speak the truth, Daughter.

"No, Arnel, the things I have done were of my own choosing, even if they were commanded by the lord of darkness. Rape, murder, deception- command or no, I would have done them regardless and done them happily. That is the nature of demons. We know no other way, and we desire no other way." She paused for a raspy breath. The next part was harder, more painful to face, but she would do it all the same.

"So to see you refuse to fall to the temptations of other men, I was first intrigued and then obsessed. I sought to torment you to see how far you would break. A curiosity became an obsession to have you for myself. I envied your wife; I cursed her to be barren and tormented you in your dreams to feel the same as I did. Then, when I could take it no more, I killed her!" Her fist came down hard on the bed, old frustration boiling back up again. Unfortunately, this little outburst caused her fingers to bleed more. Blood spotted the blankets.

"But then, my lord Molk gave me the chance to infiltrate your temple without being harmed. I took the guise of Sister Mercy, a power that could conceal me even from you. I was to torment you with this puppet and discover a weakness in the temple. But then I found the Book of Ekjin. Though it harmed me, I became enamored with it. So I convinced you to teach me to read it." Tears began to stream her face at the memory. It was so happy. "You were so kind and gentle; the words you read were a comfort I never knew. I'm embarrassed to say I fell in love with you and your god. So much so that I fell to the one temptation no demon is allowed to have- the temptation of Ekjin. I was discovered and this is my punishment: to be tortured by the harpies for all eternity. When I return, they will never release me again for failing to torment you."

She put her hand on his cheek and pulled him into a final kiss. It was slow and sweet, unlike any kiss she had ever given, but it felt right. Then Lillith looked deep into his eyes. "If this is to be the justice for my crimes, then I'm glad I had one last chance to say goodbye to you, my Love.

[Marjorie]

"Ekjin doesn't care what you once did," Arnel said softly, "only what you do now... repent. Change. Ask forgiveness. This is all he demands, Lilith -" But as she kept talking, and it silenced him. The depth of her confession. Pain and anguish played across his features sharply.

He couldn't say it. Her death-bed confessional deserved absolute forgiveness, but he couldn't give it. He pulled bac from the kiss but not in anger or disgust, he pressed his fingers to her head, her heart, and then her lips. "Ekjin forgive you," he said softly, "Ekjin love you. Ekjin bless you and protect you. Let Him guide you."

He looked at Lilith earnestly. "I will find and free you if I can. Can you tell me where you are?"

[Incandesa]

She made a pained face and another bleeding gash appeared on her chest near her collar bone. Lillith lost much of her grip on the dream and the room around them disappeared, leaving only the bed. "I'm...I'm not sure. Wherever the Harpies keep their victims, but it's-it's too dark to see. She was looking up, but her eyes were unfocused now. As if she were looking at nothing now. In a trembling voice she said, "I'm scared, Arnel. They won't let me die. They let me get close, but they won't let me die." Her voice cracked at the end, hopeless.

[Marjorie]

It took research, and planning, and months of searching, but eventually, Arnel found a way into the dark reaches of the world. The underworld, literally, underground.  He knew he couldn't take on the greater demon she had served single-handed, and she also knew his brethren wouldn't op prove of a full scale assault to save a repenting demon.

So, here he was, duty bound to save her regardless. Even if he had to come alone. He drew his sword and slipped threw a crack in the cliff side and slunk into the deep. Walking around in the pitch dark revealed the faint golden glow of his skin and eyes.

[Incandesa]

Deeper in the caverns there were cells and holes similar to wells with bars over the top. Prisoners were strung up and left in whatever tortured state they were in until the Harpies felt like playing with them again. Occasionally, a lesser demon would come in and cauterize any life threatening wounds with a hot iron. Otherwise, prisoners would slowly and painfully heal minor wounds on their own. The screams echoed off the walls constantly. There were no skeletons though, because no one had yet been allowed the release of death.

Lillith was the one currently being tortured by the harpies. She had been their favorite for all the months she had been given to them. They loved to jeer at her. "Where's your precious Ekjin now?" "Go ahead! Save yourself! You're an angel's bitch now, right?" "Oh! You hear that? Maybe it's your pretty boy knight come to save you!" They subjected her to horrific torture: mentally, physically, emotionally.

For her own part, Lillith comforted herself by reciting scripture in her head, trying to drown out what was happening to her and take what little comfort she could get from it. She prayed to Ekjin for relief, either by rescue or release of death. Frankly, she had little hope of either, but at this point everything was in his hands and she would have to trust completely.

Spoiler

Today, however, was particularly horrific. The harpies had brought in a wild pig. "We thought you'd be lonely after your last night with that pretty boy, so we got another pig to 'play with'. We can even dress you up and have a little ceremony so it's all ok with that god you decided to betray Lord Molk for." They laughed cruelly, and Lillith fought with what little strength she had left.

[close]

[Marjorie]

The screams of the tortured cut threw Arnel like physical wounds. There was so much pain and suffering in this place, and the physical suffering was the least of it. He wanted to break the whole place to peaces and free them all, even if death was the only release he could give most of them. One of the most sorry looking beings he came across, he couldn't help but pity. He couldn't just pass them by. "Ekjin give you peace," he whispered and then cut their feeble throat. He couldn't free or save them all though, threw rescue or the relief of death. He was only one man and he had a mission, a promise to keep, a soul that repented to save.

The deeper he got into the horrific prison, the sicker he felt. It was hard for him to believe that such a place could exist. Then, a sound caught his ear. A sob and scram, he recognized her voice even in those tormented sounds. I'm coming for you Lillith, he couldn't risk giving it away by saying it out loud. But he moved with renewed energy and speed toward his goal.

[Incandesa]

Lillith was losing strength quickly. The torture, the pain, the humiliation was simply becoming too much to bare. She sagged heavily from the chains as the harpies approached her. They took off one chain from her wrist, but just as they were about to do the same for the other, a large alarms sounded and immediately the harpies went on guard. Two left to deal with the issue, while the last one stayed behind to guard the prisoner.

Feeling a bit of hope she hadn't felt in ages, Lillith summoned what little strength she had and prayed desperately to Ekjin for favor. She kicked the pig and watched it run around furious, distracting the harpy as she moved around trying to dodge it. The succubus prisoner used the time to pull at her last chain. The metal scraped against her skin, and she pulled so hard skin came off as she forced her hand through the cuff. Her scream was desperate and tired.

By the time she was free, the harpy had killed the pig, and she was now staring down a very pissed off professional killer. Lillith looked around helplessly for something, anything, but she was too weak to properly hold any weapon that might protect her.

Then, a stray passage of scripture entered her mind. Fear not the swords and arrows of darkness, but rather trust in he who rescued you from evil. For whether you must continue in purpose or are called to paradise, trust the Redeemer, Ekjin, whom you have chosen will do what is best for you. He will not abandon his precious child. At this point, she fell to her knees, and surrendered everything. She would no longer live a double minded life. She would live following Ekjin completely, even if it was only in her last moments. And so, Lillith closed her eyes and waited for whatever fate would come to her.

What she did not know was that in that moment Ekjin had finally recognized her as one of his followers, his daughter. In the darkness, her skin took on a soft, ethereal golden glow. As the harpy came up to strangle her, the killer's hand burned at the touch.

[Marjorie]

Just as the harpy's hands touched Lilith, Arnel charged forth. He glowed with the golden light of his angelic heritage, lighting up the darkness.

"Fear not!" he roared as the shining steel of his sword cut clean threw the creature with her hands around Lilith's neck, "for you are under Ekjin's protection! I am the hand that holds the sword of Ekjin." He pulled his blade back and decapitated the beast he had just run threw. Then he took to flight, cutting down her sister, her lifeless body falling to the cave floor with a thud. "I am the shield to protect the faithful."

The last harpy hissed and screeched and tore off threw the air to sound the alarm.

"Lilith," Arnel called to her, landing beside her with a whoosh of air from his beating wings. "Lilith," he touched her shoulder lightly, "we have to go now."