Autumn watched on awkwardly from the side as the cotton-pink demoness wrapped Nethlia up in a hug, evidently overjoyed at seeing her after so long. “Nethlia! You’re back!” Her short arms didn’t make it around the larger demoness’ powerful waist.
Nethlia let out a roar of happy laughter as she picked the smaller woman up in a crushing hug. “Stacy! You’re still here?! I’d have thought you’d have moved on by now!”
“Pah! You think this lot could survive without me?” the now named Stacy said. “You must be dreaming! They can’t manage the accounts on their own. Now, put me down, you big lug, and introduce me to your friend!”
“Right,” Nethlia said, placing the smaller demoness back down on her feet. She then gently grabbed a surprised Autumn by her shoulders and pulled the human girl forward. “Stacy, meet Autumn. Autumn, this is Stacy, the brightest demoness I know.”
Stacy flushed happily. “Flatterer.” Turning to Autumn, she greeted her without any apparent aversion or malice towards her human nature or roadworn state. “Hello, Miss Autumn, it’s a pleasure. Any friend of Nethlia is a friend of mine. Now, are you two here for business or pleasure?”
“Uh, business,” Autumn said, casting a look to Nethlia who nodded in agreement. “We’re looking to take on work as guards, I think? Nethlia is sponsoring me into the Guild of Adventurers later, and I have a little experience fighting, plus I have some magic I can use.”
Stacy blinked. She looked at Nethlia with conflicting emotions flashing across her face. “Oh? You’re rejoining the guild?” she asked the tall demoness. “I didn’t think you would. Not after what happened.”
A somber silence caught the former adventurer. Her face twisted in a grimace, but Nethlia mustered herself after a moment. “Neither did I, but some stuff happened back at Duskmoore, and I think it's time I came back. Actually, I do need to talk to the madam about things. Is she in?”
“Let me check.” The demonic receptionist quickly slipped back around her desk and opened a large book placed upon it, before flipping through the pages towards a daily schedule. She hummed. “It looks like she is in, and doesn’t have any appointments until later. Normally, I have to pencil you in for tomorrow, but I’m sure she’ll make an exception for you. Do you remember the way?”
Nethlia snorted. “I haven’t been away that long.”
“Just checking,” Stacy laughed. “Head on up. I’ll entertain your guest while you discuss things with the madam.”
“Wait, what?” Autumn started at being addressed. Her eyes snapped toward Nethlia, flooded with confusion. “I’m not going with you?”
“Maybe shortly,” Nethlia said, shaking her head slightly, sending her dark hair waving. “It’ll probably be best if I discuss things with her alone. Let her mull over you-know-what before she meets you. Don’t worry, the madam won’t be scared off by the likes of them.”
Off to the side, the other demoness rolled her eyes. “Keep your secrets,” Stacy pouted primly.
Nethlia gave her an apologetic look. “Sorry, Stace, but it’s some dark business. It needs to be kept close to the chest for now, although you’ll likely be told soon either by us or the madam.” Turning away, she gave Autumn a parting wave before heading towards the curtain doorway beside the desk. The pair of girls watched her go.
“What a magnificent ass,” Stacy sighed. “Don’t you agree?”
Autumn choked on her spit. Coughing, she tried to get her breath under control while the demoness beside her smirked. “That’s! I didn’t– I don’t– I wasn’t– …what?” she stuttered out with a face once more a shade akin to a lobster. “I mean, she is fit, but I wasn’t staring!”
“Sure~” Stacy drawled. Slipping back into her professional demeanor, the demoness gestured for Autumn to follow her. “You must be tired. Let’s adjourn to somewhere more comfortable than the lobby,” she said, leading the witch past the same curtained doorway that Nethlia had disappeared behind previously.
The tall demoness was nowhere in sight.
What greeted them was a long lavish hallway, decorated with multiple doors on the right-hand side, and a stairwell on the left. “This is the staff area. Normally, I wouldn’t let a guest back here, but as you’re a friend of Nethlia, and likely to be one of us soon, it’s fine. The girls’ living space is on the second floor, and the madam’s quarters and office are on the third. We have an art room, if you’re interested?"
“Wait, you think she’ll accept me?” Autumn asked. “The madam, that is?”
“I don’t see why not? You come with Nethlia’s recommendation, after all. So long as your secrets aren’t especially dangerous or harmful to the girls or our clinette, that is.”
Nervousness squirmed in Autumn’s gut. Nethlia seemed convinced that the bordello’s madam would help her, and that her troubles wouldn’t be too much for the madam to consider them as guards here. She’d just have to trust the demoness. “Oh.”
A quiet air captured the space between the pair as they leisurely walked.
“Um, so, Stacy, is that a local name? Most of the Inferni that I’ve met have had names that weren’t, um, so human sounding? Sorry if that’s insensitive or something,” Autumn asked to fill the silence, rambling slightly. “And is the madam an Inferni too? Madam Maxi…uh, Maximonva? Am I saying that right?”
Looking at her, Stacy squinted slightly as Autumn rambled. “You are,” she said. “But Maximonva is her last name. Her name is Kharzina Maximovna. It’s fine if you just call her Kharzina, the madam, or just Ma’am. Calling her by her last name or full name is far too formal. And yes, she is an Inferni.”
Autumn blinked. “Huh, interesting. Wait, what’s Nethlia’s last name? I never thought to ask.”
“She doesn’t have one,” Stacy shook her head. “I take it you haven’t been in the empire for long, or been around many Inferni?”
“No?”
The demoness huffed, coming to a halt beside a closed door. “Figures. Look, demonkin don’t just get last names like you humans or other races like to do. We need to earn one. And only the empress can award them. They’re given for deeds that are of great renown, or are of a benefit to the empire or demonkind as a whole. The madam earned hers during some political strife a long time ago in service to the empress.”
How fascinating! Autumn chewed over the strange custom. Back in medieval times, before last names became ubiquitous, only the nobility had family names, and those were handed down by blood rather than deed.
“So, children don’t inherit them,” she asked.
“No, that’d kinda defeat the purpose,” Stacy shook her head. “And to answer your first question – no, Stacy isn’t an Infernal name. It’s a human one. My mother was from across the sea, so I’m half-demon-half-human. It’s rare, but it happens,” she shrugged. “Most people don’t like humans around here, as you’ve most likely noticed, but my mother fell in love with a local and had me.”
Autumn didn’t really know what to say about that.
In the lull, the demoness reached out and opened the door beside them. As it swung inwards, the sound of soft conversation slowly cut off. Peeking inside, Autumn saw a handful of beautiful women of different races lounging in a comfortable staff breakroom, all now staring curiously at her. A slim hand touched the small of her back, and pushed her startled self stumbling into the room.
Stacy cleared her throat professionally. “Girls, this here is Autumn. She is a friend of Nethlia, who is currently talking with the madam about getting them jobs here as guards. Please take care of her, I need to return to the front desk.”
Autumn gulped as a variety of curious and excited eyes fell upon her. Before she could think to escape, Stacy, the traitor, left the room, shutting the door behind her. It clicked closed like a nail hammering into a coffin lid.
“Is Nethlia really back?”
Turning towards the silky-smooth voice that carried an approximately French-sounding accent, Autumn saw her first demi-human up close.
At first, she thought the other woman was a human like herself, but the dark-skinned beauty had a pair of long, gray-furred rabbit ears emerging from her head of dusky hair and a bob tail sprouting from above her shapely rear. She was wearing little, allowing Autumn to glimpse the velvet muscles cladding her body, along with a pair of powerful thighs capping her long legs. As she moved, her generous bust threatened to escape her tight, lacy top.
While Autumn wouldn’t learn this until later, she’d eventually find out that there were two types of beastkin – beastfolk and beastmen. The difference was mainly in who was accepted by society as civilized.
Beastfolk were those that society accepted. This group tended to include races who looked more humanoid – or elvenoid or demonoid depending on who you asked – with a few bestial traits. Traits like; animal ears, eyes, and tails, and/or light coverings of fur, and in some cases they also had animalistic genitalia. Rabbitkin like the woman before Autumn were in this category.
Beastmen, on the other hand, were those that people considered monstrous by nature. Not that this was always the case. Minotaurs, for example, looked monstrous with bodies of men and heads of bulls, thus earning them the name of beastmen, but in reality possessed a complex and stable society of warrior mountain clans. Gnolls, however, were monstrous, as they roamed the plains killing and eating all they came across.
Generally, it was safer to call someone displaying animalistic traits a beastkin, lest you risk insulting them by calling them uncivilized.
Speaking of the differences, there was another beastkin girl within the room that might’ve fit into the later category. She had downy, feathery wings in place of arms, and taloned feet that were currently nestled within a nest of pillows. The harpy’s face was alluringly human with soft lips and round eyes along with skin bronzed by the sun, but there was an unnerving, predatory sharpness to her gaze that was distinctly inhuman.
There were two more women in the room besides them; a pink-skinned demoness, and a blond-haired elf.
The lone demoness, while not as tall and broad as Nethlia, possessed proud muscles and firm hands of her own, as well as a set of impressive curling, ram-like horns. Like the others, she was clad loosely in thin clothes, although they weren’t as revealing. She gave Autumn a small smile when the witch’s eyes ghosted over her.
As for the blond-haired elf, she was slender, sylphlike, and sharp-eared. She possessed a heart-stoppingly ethereal beauty like she’d stepped right out of a fairytale. Her long ears drooped down to her slim shoulders, giving her an innocent, youthful air. Although, with how old Autumn knew elves could live, she might be the oldest one amongst them.
Most fiction spoke of elves as the supreme beauty, rivaled only by their fey ancestors, if they weren’t fey themselves. Autumn’s pounding heart and the butterflies fluttering in her stomach could attest to such an assertion.
“Hello? Anyone home?” the elf waved her hands before Autumn’s eyes, somehow crossing the space between them in a single bound. The movement did curious things to the thin elven dress cladding her svelte body.
Autumn startled back, flushing in embarrassment at having lost herself in inspecting the scantily-clad women before her. “Huh, what?”
“Nethlia? Is she back? Stacy said you were her friend?”
“Leave off the poor girl, Saph. She’s only just got here, and looks exhausted,” said the bunnykin, causing Autumn to blush and absentmindedly touch her hair. The ebony-toned woman smiled at Autumn. It did little to quell the appreciative beating of her desires, only inflamed them. “Come in and have a seat. My name is Lia Sher, and this lively one is Saphielle.”
The elf bounced in place. “Saphielle Olarel Caibella Valnelis Embersong! My friends call me Saph or Elle!”
Lia smiled at the excitable elf. “Quite. The little harpy hiding in the corner is Floriris. Don’t mind her shyness, her race is naturally timid.” Looking over, Autumn spied the harpy hurriedly ducking into her nest of blankets and pillows, leaving only her sharp eyes and a single feather peeking out. “And the Inferni is Nalaia.” Said demoness waved. “There are a few more of us around, but they are entertaining other guests at the moment.”
With the introductions out of the way, she led Autumn to sit amongst them, taking the witch’s heavy bag from her to place it on the carpeted floor with a soft clink from the jars inside. When Autumn’s back hit the soft couch cushions, she almost let out an indecorous moan as the weight of travel left her feet.
Her coat swiftly found itself free of her exhausted body and was draped over the back of the couch. She herself deposited her hat upon the couch’s corner to loom like a grim sentinel as none but her could bear its weight.
Saphielle bounced into the seat beside Autumn, looking over her prosthetic fingers curiously, while Lia sat on Autumn’s other side. She felt a little trapped, but not in a bad way. Like being wrapped in a blanket of warmth and curiosity.
“So, aside from being friends with our lovely Nethlia, what brings you our way?” Lia asked, her voice like honey.
Autumn’s heart fluttered at the attention. “Well, I’m looking to join the Adventurers’ Guild, and Nethlia said this place would be safe to stay at. N-not that I’m looking to freeload, or anything! I’m willing to work as a guard, or use some magic to help out around here.”
“Relax,” the bunnykin chuckled. “You don’t need to audition for us. I was more interested in you. Where are you from, what are your hobbies, how did you and Nethlia meet, that kind of thing.”
She couldn’t tell them where she was from, and she didn’t have many hobbies anymore, but telling them how she and Nethlia met and a bit about herself might not be so bad. “Well, if you hadn’t guessed, I’m a witch,” she said quietly. “I have a hat and a spellbook and all. Other than that, there isn’t much to tell. Sorry. As for how me and Nethlia met, it’s not a very nice story.”
“All the more reason to tell it,” Lia said. “It’s important to unburden yourself, and we make for great listeners.”
“Yeah!” Saphielle cheered. “It’s, like, our jobs, or something! Most of the time, at least.”
Autumn bit her lip, sucking on the pain. Her guilt clawed at her still, gnawing away endlessly at her heart. Despite her best judgement, her lips slowly opened as she began to speak. “Well, it all started in the Feywild–”
“Wait, you went to the Feywild?!” Saphielle exclaimed, interrupting the dark-haired witch. “Isn’t that place, like, super-duper dangerous?!”
“Hush, Saphielle!” Lia scolded the elven girl. “Let her tell her story.”
“...sorry.”
The beastkin turned to Autumn apologetically. “Carry on.”
Autumn’s lips quivered in an aborted smile. Looking at the downcast childish elf, she wasn’t certain if the outburst was honest flightiness on the elf’s part, or cultivated silliness to loosen the tension. Either way, she definitely felt more relaxed.
Into the quiet room, she wove a tall tale, speaking of the fey and their wilds, of their eternal twilight and the moon they’d trapped. She spoke of the forest titans that rose higher than even the City of Wheat and its mountain that they all sat upon. She spoke of her dance with the fey in the Court of Summer, and her flight thereafter.
Her audience listened enrapt. They gasped at the dangers, wept at her injuries, and cheered her victories. And when she told them of her meeting with Death, she whispered it like a heroic iliad, drawing them closer. The still fading marks upon her body from the dead’s hands drew noises of sympathy.
There were tears in everyone’s eyes when she finally spun the conclusion to her tale, speaking of her desperate leap across the fathomless gorge and of her subsequent meeting with Nethlia. Autumn didn’t leave out anything about the attack on the hamlet. Not of her fear or guilt nor of the evils committed that foul night.
Honestly, it felt cathartic to finally say it all out loud. To unburden herself. While she’d told this all to Nethlia before on their way to the city, this was the first time she’d done it all in order, and shared the deepest depths of her feelings.
The only things she didn’t share were her origins and any mention of her homeworld.
Autumn felt like a great weight had been lifted from her shoulders. And while the guilt still remained, it hurt a little less, gnawed a little less on her heart and soul.
“So, there you have it,” she said with eyes glittering with unshed tears. “I got those families killed. I got Orzon killed. My ignorance brought them death, and you probably shouldn’t want me to stay. I’ll just put you in danger.”
The entranced courtesans were quiet for a moment, taking the time to digest the weals and woes of her saga, as if it was a fable or heroic poem to divine great wisdom from, for all it was a real recounting of Autumn’s pain. They didn’t gainsay her guilt, nor her fear and hurt, only offered her a listening ear and comfort lacking judgement.
After this tranquil moment of peace, Lia spoke. “I won’t lie to you, dear Autumn, and say that I don’t have concerns about you staying here. I do. But we aren’t going to turn you away. It’s just not who we are, and it's not who the madam is either.”
“Are you sure?” Autumn asked, hope blooming in her chest.
“Absolutely!” Saphielle declared. “Those fey have another thing coming if they want to mess with us! We ain’t just pretty faces! Right, girls?!”
The others murmured their agreements to the elf’s bright declaration.
Tears sprang from Autumn’s eyes as she hiccuped. “T-thank y-you,” she sniffled. Thankfully, they didn’t make a big deal over her tears, letting her wipe them away in peace. “Um, c-can you…can you tell me more about the house? Nethlia said that, um, you did stuff other than just…
sex?
”
“Sure,” Lia said, running a soothing hand along Autumn’s back. The comfort was greatly appreciated by the witch. “While we do cater to the more
carnal
desires of our patrons who wish it, we offer a variety of services to entice and relax those who enjoy the house. For example, I can sing and paint, and I’m a decent hand at poetry and dancing. Saphielle can chatter on endlessly about anything, and is often invited to balls and parties as an escort.”
“And I’m great on a shopping trip!” the blond elf exclaimed proudly.
Lia smiled wryly. “Floriris is a far better singer than I.” The harpy flushed at the praise from her nest. “And Nalaia is an expert masseuse.”
The ram-horned demoness spoke for the first time since Autumn had met her. “Feel free to come to me if you need your muscles loosened," she said with a low, firm voice of pride and confidence. “You adventurer types always get the toughest knots after an adventure.”
Autumn nodded. “I will.”
“Speaking of adventure and roadweariness, it’d be best if you freshened up before meeting with the madam,” Lia suddenly said. Clapping, she stood up, gently dragging Autumn to stand with her. “It’s likely she won’t care, but never underestimate a good first impression! Come, let’s get you cleaned up!”
“Wait, what?” Autumn exclaimed as she was agilely pushed from the room. Saphielle skipped along behind the pair gleefully. Looking back, she cast a nervous look at her things. “What about my stuff?”
“Don’t worry, the girls will look after them. Now, let us show you our private baths. I’m sure you’ve never seen anything like them before!”
Autumn’s heartbeat thundered in her chest as supple arms escorted her deep into the basement of the bordello where the light grew thin and the air turned humid. Strange thoughts frolicked in her mind. She just hoped Nethlia could find her before something strange happened to her.