“K’arl has brought justice.”
Illiana heard the knight’s whisper but ignored it, entirely focused on Cinder who clutched her belly and writhed in pain.
“Hold still. Let me see the wound.” Illiana hissed through her sharp teeth. Her nostrils held the scent of seared flesh and the foul stench of sickness.
“By the fucking gods, it hurts. Aaaah,” Cinder moaned like, well, like Illiana had when she’d taken an orcish arrow to the leg. That was a real bad sign. Cinder was a tough cookie.
“Easy. Easy. Let me see,” Illiana urged. The tentacle tassels of her cloak slid down, wrapped around Cinder’s wrists and gently pulled them away from the wound. Straddling the larger woman, at least Illiana remembered her being larger than she seemed at the moment. Anyway, straddling Cinders hips, Illiana’s claws ripped open the leather armor and revealed the wound.
Black. She expected red. Red blood and exposed muscle. Not blackened flesh with foul tendrils of it invading healthy skin.
“By K’arl Justice, unhand her beast!” Barnaby declared somewhere to her side. Illiana turned her head to find him holding his hammer as if he was about to strike her. Cinder did not have time for this. She looked him straight in the eye.
“Barnaby, if you don’t get over here right now and help her, I swear I will take you back Guterrhold and throw you back into that river we fished you out of,” Illiana hissed, her tail lashing with anger.
“Illiana? What happened to you?” Confusion and distaste twisting his face.
“Nothing happened to me. I’m fine. We have to help Cinder, hand me the unicorn horn.” Illiana gestured at the spreading wound.
Barnaby’s gaze bounced between Illiana’s feline features, the tentacles that gripped Cinder’s wrists and the wound itself. Reluctantly, he knelt and set his hammer aside.
“Move out of the way. I will lay my hands upon her. We might need the horn for your affliction,” Barnaby said.
“I’m fine.” Illiana huffed as she scooted around to slide her legs beneath Cinder’s head. “Stop looking at me as if I’m a fucking insect.”
As Barnaby approached, Illiana focus on Cinder, whispering assurances as the knight carefully press his palms against her stomach.
“Aaaah!” Cinder cried out in pain. Illiana held her sweat slicked forehead and pressed Cinder’s head against her fur covered thighs.
“In the name of K’arl. Let this instrument of Justice be healed!” Barnaby declared as white light flowed from his hands. Illiana watched Cinder’s face for a reaction, but her pinched, gritted grimace didn’t relax even as the light faded.
“It didn’t work! Stop fucking around and give me the horn.” Illiana snarled.
The knight lifted his hands away. While the wound had closed, the flesh remained black.
“It is a corruption of the highest order. We need to get her to a temple.” Barnaby said.
“The closest one is days away. We don’t have time.” She thrust out her hand. “Give me the horn. You didn’t complain when I used it to help you.”
“This is far more than a simple poisoning. The druids will know it was used.” Barnaby said.
“Then we won’t give it to them. Nobody knows we have one. Do not make me list all the times Cinder has saved your life. Give me the horn.” Her claws made a gimmie gesture.
“Maybe she is no longer an instrument of K’arl’s justice?” The knight asked, but shifted his pack off his back all the same. After a moment of digging, he pulled out the horn from the center of his bed roll and placed it in Illiana’s padded palm.
Illiana sighed with relief as she felt the flow of magic within the horn. It spoke of a deep wildness and clarity. Memories of tussling with her brother in a deep thicket, rolling through endless greenery under an unbroken canopy of green.
Brother? She didn’t have a brother, well, not one that survived long enough to wrestle with. Illiana shoved the strange memory away. She didn’t have time for this. The black was spreading as she day dreamed. It had already spread its tendrils beyond the extent of the hole she’d made in Cinder’s armor.
No time for her mortar and pedestal either. Illiana bit the base of the horn, coated her teeth in a layer of hardened mana, and bit down. A chunk of horn the size of a chunky ring sized for a man’s finger snapped off. Barnaby stared at her wide eyed. Why couldn’t he just trust her? Not every alchemist had nice lab equipment, or even hands. This was simple Draconic alchemy. She chewed the horn to fine paste and then took a swing of the emulsion oil and mixed the concoction by swishing it between her teeth. It bubbled and fizzed as a painfully intense mint flavor developed.
Barnaby retreated when she shooed him out of the way and mercifully didn’t say anything when she spat the faintly glowing liquid onto the wound. The blackened flesh hissed and roiled like a liquid itself, releasing a dark gas.
“Nnnrgh!” Cinder bucked.
“Stay still!” Illiana scolded, slamming her arms down on either side of the wound.
“Hurts!” Cinder gasped.
“I’ll kiss it and make it better then.” Illiana said, smiling as the skin beneath the liquid returned to a healthy pallor, if a little pinker than usual.
“If that's what it takes.” Cinder forced a small chuckle.
Illiana bent her head to the wound and lapped at the liquid, spreading it to still blackened areas. Prying Cinder’s armor up to chase down every last tendril of darkness. One had extended so far up her chest that Illiana had to chase it between Cinder’s breasts. somewhere in this process Cinder’s small noises of pain turned into quiet gasps of pleasure.
“There’s all the surface corruption.” Illiana said as she slid up Cinder body so they there nose to nose. Cinder’s eyes, half lidded with a combination of lust and exhaustion, looked up into the bright, starlit irises that shined with eager mischief. “Now I need you to swallow the rest that I’ve got under my tongue.”
“Mmmmp,” was all Cinder said as Illiana kissed her. The woman’s jaws opened as their tongues slid against each other. Cinder’s long and slender one briefly entwined around Illiana’s before exploring the rest of Illiana. A small bit of unmixed paste was pushed into into Cinder’s mouth and Illiana broke the kiss.
“Now swallow.” Illiana instructed, while caressing Cinder cheek with a single claw before whispering. “I adore you.”
Cinder swallowed stared up at her changed friend, a mix of conflicting emotions, gratitude, arousal, fear and frustration for not seeing that move coming all made it impossible to find a word worthy of the moment.
Illiana smiled, touched her warm black nose to Cinders, gave a soft happy mew and rolled off Cinder. She stood, slipped the unicorn horn into her belt pouch.
“Okay, I’ll see about this door while you get your bearings.” She said, approaching the chained door. Despite the absence of the ghost light, it remained sealed. It might run out of juice in a century or two but she wasn’t waiting around that long. Her starself stepped out of her dissolved into a cloud of stars and attempted to slip under it. A quiet sizzle and Illiana winced. It had been worth a shot.
“Illiana,” Cinder’s voice hesitated, “Maybe you should take off that cloak.”
The wizard whirled.
“What? Why?” She asked in a high scandalized tone, the fur of her tail puffing. “If not for it, we’d all be sliced into adventurer steaks.”
“Illiana, its clearly cursed. Look at what its doing to you. Please?” Cinder plaintive tone made Illiana hold back a biting remark and look down. Her hands and the clubs of her tentacles presented themselves for inspection. They looked normal, maybe a little smaller and more dexterous than she remembered, and the tentacle clubs were definitely puny.
Perfectly functional. The voice whispered.
“I don’t see the problem.” Illiana said, nodding to the voice.
Cinder sucked a breath through her teeth. “Okay, different approach.” She walked up to Illiana and took one of her hands.
“Careful.” Barnaby warned. “The possessed can turn on you within a split second.”
“I’m not possessed!” Illiana snapped, then bared her fangs and growled at the knight.
“Easy.” Cinder spoke in the same tone she used on a spooked horse. “Do you trust me?”
Illiana stopped growling and looked into Cinder’s red eyes with a petulant pinch to her face.
“Yeah.” Illiana said.
“Okay. Then tell me what this is.” Cinder slid her fingers up Illiana’s arm and pinched a bit of fur.
“Thats my fur,” Illiana rolled her eyes, annoyance prickling through her and the agitation adding to the lashing of her tail.
“Its very pretty but… do you remember what it looked like when we all entered this place?” Cinder asked, maintaining eye contact.
“Of course, it…” The words died away as conflicting memory arose. The olive tan of her arms highlighted by the light cast by the mana she used to shatter the statue that guarded the gate. That contrasted to howling frustration of being tethered to her inanimated pelt, her stars enslaved to a foreign will.
“You had skin like mine,” Cinder insisted, “A little darker. Remember? You were human.”
“I am human!” Illiana cried out, trying to shake the conflicting memory away.
Cinder slid close, embracing her and gripping the base of Illiana’s tail.
“Do humans have tails?” Cinder asked.
“No!” Illiana said, her head suddenly hurting.
This is normal. You-we are normal. The whisper insisted.
“You didn’t have a tail twenty minutes ago. I watched it grow.” Cinder said.
“I did! It was small! You just couldn’t see it!” Memories rushed. Too many and wrong. Smooth skinned or way too big. Her soul churned, suddenly feeling all the new pieces, magic and memories that didn’t fit together.
“Why’d it grow?” Cinder asked, locking her hands together as Illiana tried to push her away.
“Mrrrowl! I don’t know! Let me go!” Illiana’s starself stepped away, instinctively preparing to glitch step.
“No!” Cinder snapped, seeing sparkles leave the cloak. Shifting her grip, Cinder clamped her mouth over Illiana’s in a forceful kiss.
Mind, soul and body froze, focused on the affection, Cinder’s first initiation of it. The starself collapsed as Illiana’s entire being focused the feeling of warm lips against hers. Even the part of her what was the whispering voice was awed.
Mate. Finally a worthy mate.
Claws relaxed, fur smoothed, and Illiana tail wrapped about the back of Cinder’s legs. As they just… were. Fingers threaded through fur, exploring. They slide up Illiana’s neck to caress her ears before Cinder pulled back.
“Its okay to not be human. I’m not entirely human myself. That’s fine, but I’d like you to take the cloak off. Just prove to me you can. You can put it right back on.” Cinder said.
A long silence. Illiana and the whisper stared into those unblinking red eyes and knew they would not be deterred.
“What if I can’t?” Illiana asked.
“Show me.” Cinder said.
Illiana looked away, sucking on one cheek. The cloak opened, revealing it to be more of a large flap of skin than a garment. It had grown down both sides of her torso, leaving only a stripe of still human skin down her center that passed through her cleavage down to her belly button. Rest of her was covered in fur the same shade of the cloak’s but with far less stars. A second pair to breast were budding below the first and her rib cage was elongated.
“Its fine… I like it.” Illiana said, not looking up.
“Is that the cloak talking? Or Illiana?” Cinder asked.
Illiana tail tip twitched. “Uuuh me. Its fine. I don’t-”
Cinder stepped forward and into Illiana’s gaze. “Look at me.”
Reluctantly, Illiana raised her head to look at Cinder’s face, ears drooping.
“Once we get back to a city, we are going to get this checked out. And in the meantime, unless you absolutely need to, no glitch switching. That’s making it worse.”
“It not-”
Cinder placed a finger across Illiana’s lips, silencing her.
“The real Illiana knows I’m making sense. The real Illiana would want to understand this before it… progresses.” Cinder said.
Mutely, Illiana nodded. That made… Logistical sense. The person in the human memories would agree. Yet there were others that were very different, a creature of almost elemental urges and whims. Those weren’t hers. Not Illiana. Cinder wanted Illiana. She needed to be Illiana for Cinder.