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Chapter Text

“Goodly knight, wouldst thou tarry by my balcony?” Such was the words that met Lady Maeve on the dawn of Second Frost; the sun had risen high only briefly, not enough to break the ice-coated courtyards and snowy terraces that dotted the Lonely Castle. Pausing there, Lady Maeve lifted her visor, strong jaw resting against the beaver of her helm and prickling at the cool air–a puff of steam from her breath wafted out, up past soft brown eyes–though, it was rebuffed by the warmth of the fireplace within the Princess’s chambers. The balcony sat only a half-height above Lady Maeve’s footing on the low walkway that ran the route of the castle’s perimeter, and the sweet smell of perfumes, teas, and aromatic bouquets from the latest suitors. Princess Astela leaned bodily onto the railing, ignoring the cold that sought purchase through the sheer fabric of her nightgown–it was not a knight’s place to gawk agape like a commoner, naturally, but the swell of breasts unspoilt by scar or toil rose, bunched together as a bouquet of redding flesh to the cold, her bodice laced loosely by lazy (or instructed) ladies-in-waiting. 

“A well-found evening to you, milady. May your humble servant assist you?” Lady Maeve bowed to the Princess, clinking and slight scrape of her breastplate against the freshly-polished plackart causing her to wince, which then brought the visor back down to the beaver with a snap. Before she could apologize for making a fool of herself to her protectee, the Princess had sang a clear, pealing laugh onto the middling breeze–behind her visor, Lady Maeve permitted a soft smile at the melody. “Why, gentle sir, methinks you lose either decorum, or the attachment of your visor! Never mind such dalliance, however; come hither–I have use of you.” 

Lady Maeve stepped forward dutifully, bowing her head in reverence of her proximity. “I grow so bored within these walls, you know? The excitement and adventure of the novellas only occupies a clever mind and swift fingers for oh so long, wouldn’t you say?” Dutifully, Lady Maeve nodded in agreement. The Princess sat, sticking her legs through the slats of the balcony to dangle them in the cool air below–pale flesh, almost porcelain, slipped from beneath the chemise and dappled in the fading light; the shape spread slightly against the ground, curved over skin with only the fairest hairs and gently folded into dainty, uncalloused feet. 

“Kneel, sir knight, that I may rest my legs ‘pon thy shoulders.” Lady Maeve, dutifully, did so.

The metal of her greave and poleyn meant no cold found purchase in the immediate, a single-legged kneel not unlike the standard of the court accompanying a bowed head, lest her eyes fall to impropriety–the wickedness of her flesh tempted that gaze, pondered what may yet be seen within the folds of fabric, or beneath–and the soft weight of a foot laid tenderly across each shoulder–one, on the stop rib of her right arm; the other, atop the guardbrace of her left. 

“Thank you, goodly knight. I find your obeisance a boon with each passing day.” Such was a high praise, for a knight from a Princess. Lady Maeve worried first that the metal would prove cold, but Astela did not react as such; behind her visor, the knight smiled once more. That the Princess would deign her not only conversation and compliment, but additionally function–duty, no less–was in itself cause for exultation. Though worked metal lay between their skin, and the contact otherwise would be execution of the knight, Lady Maeve pondered, privately, what the sensation would feel like. The soft flesh of the underfoot rubbing smooth along sculpted shoulders, toes kneading into the muscled flesh of her strength; how such sensation would arise to stroke her neck, mayhap, or… further would be sinful. It was not the place of a knight to dream of a Princess.

“Sir knight, lift your visor.” Lady Maeve did so, preparing to ascribe her flush to the cool air, but was instead struck dumb by the soles that slipped to either side of her face, ice-cold flesh tingling against the heat in her cheeks–which only increased at the contact. Unable to stop her gaze, Lady Maeve looked up in shock–in passing, she saw beneath fabric the faintest wetness of undergarment–to see Astela, smiling down at her as though she were a mildly amusing frog.

“My feet cooled, and now must warm again.” Lady Maeve nodded again, shivering behind her armor as the soles of Her Majesty rubbed soft against her cheeks. Her eyes could not leave Astela’s; in the return southward, they would surpass previous iniquity, for now she knew the stirring in the loins of the Princess to be at the least half-true–the stiffness pressing secretly against the knight’s gambeson mirrored the similar sentiment–and a particular gust of wind blew a strand of hair into the knight’s mouth, disturbing the eye contact between them.

In blinking, Lady Maeve looked down and sinned again; the dampness now held stiffness too, though (she noted with both satisfaction and embarrassment for the satisfaction) not by estimation equating her own; the glance was far too long, however, for when her eyes returned, Astela’s were sparkling with motes of starlight previously unseen.

“Ah, I believe I may remedy your disheveledness.” A foot moved from the jaw, toes curling slightly to brush the hair from Lady Maeve’s face, though when it sought to purchase around the lock, it instead pressed the biggest toe against the corner of the knight’s mouth and paused. “The strands have found purchase in your mouth, sir knight. Open it, so I may remove them.” Lady Maeve’s eyes widened the briefest amount, but it was her duty. She complied. The biggest toe poked in tentatively, furtively, brushing against her lower teeth before landing softly on the front of the knight’s tongue even as the trough between first and second toe slid gently against the edge of her mouth–the skin tasted sweet, as though the Princess had bathed in some fragrant oils upon waking. A moment, statuesque, the pair regarded each other. 

Then, the toe withdrew, stringing a piece of saliva from lowly knight to holy royal that snapped in the cool wind, both feet withdrawing fully as the Princess stood; Lady Maeve placed her visor down, permitting the widening of her eyes and fluttering breath only after she had been dismissed–by the goddess and Her saints…

Chapter Text

“Haaa-! Haaa-! Urgh…” Lady Maeve grunted into the steel of her visor with each strike, block, and parry. The sun was just rising, common for the practice of swordplay that was her regular regimen of the morn. Most knights of the Royal Order would practice, after receiving their mastery, only on every other day as a form of maintenance–but Lady Maeve was tasked with the protection of the Princess directly. 

She must not falter.

Maeve, as she sat to recover her breath after the last bout against an incorporeal foe, felt her mind wander to the previous day–the Princess, the footrest. Per her knightly oaths, sworn before the High Priestess of the Goodly Church, Lady Maeve was sworn to celibacy–such improprieties served only to distract from duty–and upon the prior eve, as she knelt to give her prayers beside her bed, Maeve had confessed her sin to the Goddess Gray.

Lady Sun, who art the one above and below and throughout, hallowed be thy name. May thy light purify, sanctify. In your honor doth I pray, doth I shed my guilt before your feet. I struggled twofold of the most heinous sort–lust, that of lust above my station. Lady Sun please forgive my impurity, wash my heart clean of evil, and carry me to Paradise upon your lovingkindness. In your Holy Name, I eternally am your servant.

Upon waking, though, the flesh remained impure. Dreams roiled in her, flashes of ecstatic sin and orgasmic damnation as though the Great Temptress herself sought purchase within the knight’s mind; the practice of the blade helped center herself from those things.

Reminded of her duty.

Puffs of steam from hot, sweat-slick skin escaped her armor, replicating the look of the automata seen in the Capital–fanciful inventions claimed to revolutionize combat, run from steam power–Lady Maeve scoffed at the proclamation. No machine could surpass the skill of a bladeswoman.

Gulping the cool breaths of air into her lungs, Maeve shifted a strand of hair that had grown stuck to her forehead in sweat; next, as she had no duties for the day beyond her standard patrol in the evening, she would bathe and tend to her chambers–the squire would care for her armor.

“Goodly knight, your bath has been drawn.” A welcome surprise, that. Many days were there when the lazy maidservants, having completed their morning duties to the Highness, would laze about in slothful ignorance of the knights–Maeve did not much complain, though, for the act of filling the tub was another exercise itself. Lifting herself upright, the knight suppressed the groan of weariness and followed the masked and robed maid into the barracks–no knight was permitted to step foot into the royal halls, save the unlikely event of attack or summons.

The building itself was simplistic, low-ceilinged, and kept perpetually hot by the low-simmered stew that sat eternally over the cookfire near the center of the bunkroom. The bathhouse connected to it was empty, though Lady Maeve inclined her head to the two present knights, Ladies Kalo and Peria; one lay in bed reading, the other polishing her sword and sneaking a glance at the shape of the maidservant’s posterior–of the knights, it was well known Peria’s penchant for observation.

The bathhouse held three wooden tubs, one filled with steaming, soapy water awaiting the knight as she sat upon a stool and waited for the maid to begin unbuckling her armor. All knew the process itself–the High Queen had mandated it, lest the worst occur and the holy knights required immediate replenishing–and cool fingers slipped into the seams of metal to detach leather buckles even as Maeve worked her hands free of the gauntlets and bracers.

With each piece of armor that was removed, the slightly sweet aroma of soap grew into contest with the acrid musk of exertion; removing the chestplate and plackart entirely once her back was free, Maeve disrobed from the gambeson and settled back as the maid moved around to undo her greaves and boots–a glance fluttered across the slick flesh, corded muscle like marble pocked with scars, old gouges and wounds from her days as an infantrywoman.

Down to her undergarments, Maeve made to stand and disrobe further, before pausing as the maid, who had knelt near her feet for the final step of the process, placed a hand on her thigh. A hand that was, Maeve now saw, far too well-manicured to be that of a lowly servant. The other paw lifted to the mask, slipping it down to reveal none other than Princess Astela herself, eyes glittering with the same trickling starlight she’d shown from the balcony. “M-M-” The knight’s words were cut short as Astela’s face drew closer to her undergarments, hands reaching up to undo the knot of fabric and pull them aside before Maeve could gather herself.

At the removal, the thickest fog of her exertion-worsened aroma radiated into the bathhouse; as Maeve sat, frozen, a tickling breath from the Princess sighing brushed across her girth, moving half-arousal to full-shafted stiffness in a matter of moments; the tip sat, throbbing with unexpected stimulus, mere inches from the quivering lip of of Crown Princess of Lilia.

The vows of a knight, especially of the Royal Order, forbid even self-pleasing. Many knights tended to disregard this notion among each other or the servants–likely why the gaze of Peria had lingered so; how she would cringe if she knew who her lust had really fallen upon–but Maeve had kept to her vows entirely.

However… another breath puffed against the head, where the slightest bead of sin sought exit from within. The Princess was ordained by the Goddess Gray, as were all of the royal family. They were the will of the Goddess made flesh. Her fealty required complete obedience, unto her death. Was it the will of the Goddess for her to deny that which was proclaimed divine? To deny an aspect of her Goddess?

Astela did not let her make that decision (As was her place, naturally), leaning forward to sniff at the musky scent that radiated from her loins, now ungirded.

By the Goddess was the only supplication she managed before Astela leaned forward further, eyes never leaving hers even as her mouth engulfed one of Maeve’s keftedes–in the bawdier sense, plums–into her mouth, pressing her nose to the grove of hair that snarled the base of Maeve’s shaft as brambles about a watchtower. 

The hitch in Maeve’s breath brought a humming giggle as the royal, sacred tongue of the Princess swirled daintily over her skin, tracing the grooves of the flesh for each spot of glistening sweat as Maeve curled her toes against the radiating, sinful delight of the flesh. Let the Princess use her for her aims–is that not the duty of a knight? Whether in battle or now, with Her head between Maeve’s legs?

Softly, the tongue and mouth retracted to the slightest inhale from the knight; sultry eyes entranced Maeve, saw the uncertainty. Astela’s face paused by her shaft, shadow of it falling across her face as a bit of drool dropped unnoticed from her lip. “Well, goodly knight? Shall you bed me, or must I command you to? I must say, the aroma you present leaves much to the appetite.”

In that moment, Lady Maeve chose the divine flesh over the sacred oath. Accepting such, she felt the dam of chastity break, dyke overflowing and bringing her to stand fully and wrench Astela upright–if she was ordered to bed the Princess, then thus would she do. Turning her, Maeve bent the pure and holy Princess over the edge of the bathtub, ignoring the squeaked surprise in favor of her duty and the roiling, animalistic feeling rising within her as she flipped up the edge of her robes and beheld the pale mounds, almost translucent and shimmering in the steam of the room. Perfect, unblemished legs tensed quick as a calloused hand struck hard, yelp only encouraging the knight further to bring a hand onto the back of Astela’s head, shove it under the water to quiet her, and work a sweat-lubricated finger into her hole as the Princess flailed her arms; drawing her head up to gasp for air, Maeve growled and put the head back under moments later alongside the second finger finding entry, sweat blooming across the knight’s body again as the mixture of duty and sinful lust–commanded lust, an insanity all itself to her vows–turned her gallantry into animality as a third finger, then a fourth found purchase while the Princess was underwater again.

Pulling her head up, Maeve grunted as she heaved a foot up onto the tub beside the bent-over Princess, using the angle to drive her girth straight into the loosened, needy hole of the Crown Princess–the lewd moan that rattled through the bathhouse was silenced only by the resubmerging of her head and a closed fist striking her shoulder, hardened knuckles glancing across supple flesh even as Maeve hilted herself into the Princess, then drew out and thrust inward again to the tune of the Princess’s own length slapping against the slats of the tub. When she came up to breathe, it was ragged, panting gasps of longing and hands that reached back to spread herself wider–how courteous. With another slap to her rear, as if driving a horse, Maeve leaned forward and dug a nail into the porcelain skin of her Highness, carving the first letter of her name into it and licking the blood clean off of her finger–if she is to deflower the Princess, then only she is to do so. 

Moaning precipitated submerging again, the thrusting becoming more and more akin to the rutting of beasts as Maeve leaned low over the delicate form beneath her, pressing her breasts against the scratched back and smearing the holiest blood across her chest as she nipped her teeth along the back of Astela’s neck, holding her in place beneath the water and allowing both of the knight’s hands to snake into the water and grope previously unspoilt breasts savagely, the strength of years of warfare making a butchery of lovemaking and a massacre of sex.

The huffing and panting lust drove Maeve closer both to madness and the peak, a swelling of both heart and girth as throbbing member pulsed in expectation, trembling moans of the Princess harmonized by the low growls and unsilenced by water as her legs shook beneath the force of Maeve’s thrusts, water vibrating in time with the impacts. A guttural howl escaped the knight one last time as her pleasure overflowed, slamming to the base and gripping Astela’s hips tightly as she loosed a torrent of decades-denied seed into the Princess, teeth on her neck turning to slavering kisses as the rage of rutting became the exhaustion of ecstasy. 

They lay like that, knight atop Princess, until both had regained their breath. Maeve came back to herself, realized her folly, and swiftly withdrew from inside the Princess, helping her upright and moving to wash her off–but a hand on her arm gave her pause. “Goodly knight… do not fret over myself. You have performed admirably in your duty–I… I shall call upon you again, after your morning exercises tomorrow. Do not tarry long to come to my chambers.” Maeve knelt, seeing from this angle the runs of spurted seed–one, dripping down the inside of her Majesty’s leg; the other that had flown from the Princess’s member down the side of the tub. A hand cupped the underside of her chin, tilting gaze upward to meet eyes once more, the marks of Maeve’s animality now scoring once-perfect flesh. “You have served well. You will continue to do so.”

When the Princess left, the knight let not a drop of her go to waste.

Chapter Text

Lady Maeve hadn’t slept. Couldn’t, really. 

Her mind was unable to forget the bathhouse, the steam, musk, the… sin. Unity of flesh, of purpose, of duty, all within the antithesis of what she devoted herself to–but was it? 

Her liege had commanded it. That was reason enough to dispel doubt.

And still, she could not sleep. No amount of prayer, of pacing, of cool water from the exterior well, could soothe her mind. Always, were those eyes… like the constellations above, drawing her in yet leagues away all the same. Her moans, the… what had come over her? Was it madness? Delirium? Had she been cursed? And the damnable need, the thing that kept her in her gambeson lest the other knights see her near-constant arousal at the perfect Princess, the sickly sweet scent of her need… the taste of her, licked like a dog from the slats of the tub she’d bent the heir to the holy throne over like some sort of–some sort of monster. 

When morning came, she skipped her exercises in favor of moving to the gilded doors of the royal estate; this was the home of Astela alone, when she forsook the Capital, and as such only a maidservant with flushed cheeks and a slight bulge to her robes greeted her, seemingly expecting her arrival. “Her Majesty will see you, now.” 

The walk was short; a miasma of warmth, almost humid, hung in the royal house that soothed the bite of the exterior chill, stopping only a door down the entryway, where the maid bowed. “Thank you.” Due to skipping her exercises (and to be presentable) Lady Maeve had not donned her armor, instead clad merely in her breeches and gambeson, both carefully washed and cleaned the night previous; through the door, a den replete with mahogany bookshelves, portraiture of nobility, and several overstuffed pieces of furniture formed geography about a central rug the width of a horse-cart–a fire crackled in the fireplace, likely the source for the warmth, and atop the rug itself lay a spread of trays bearing fruits, pastries, tea, and other niceties reserved for nobility–by a window, holding her hand out to the cold, was Princess Astela. She wore only her chemise again, form of her body almost more bewitching now that the stain of lust hung low over Maeve’s soul; the knight knelt, sound of her knee touching the floor causing bare feet to turn. 

“Ah, goodly knight. I must confess, I’m surprised by your earliness–I had presumed you to engage in your exercises first.” Now was the moment for apology. Keeping her head bowed respectfully, Maeve’s words nevertheless were apologetic and rushed, as though she wished to explain before the hammerblow. “My Lady, I am truly sorry–I don’t know what came over me, the–the way I… handled you, was–” A bolt of thunder struck her jaw, slamming Maeve to the side as blood quickly spurted from the inside of her mouth, falling back onto a hand but not resisting–this was her punishment; it would be a beating, she was no stranger to those–

“You shall speak only when you are permitted, knight. Eat.” Her foot withdrew delicately–how did she cross the room that quickly? Nevertheless, it wasn’t Maeve’s duty to question–especially when an order was issued. Swallowing back the blood in her mouth, she moved over to a two-legged kneel before the spread of food, dubiously glancing over things she’d only ever heard of, let alone eaten, before looking up at Astela, who had moved to sit across from her. Faster than she could even see, a hand slapped her across the other side of her face, not drawing blood but lighting lines of stinging pain across her cheek. “Last chance to obey.” 

Eyes watering, Maeve quickly leaned over and made to reach for an apple, though jolted forward as a foot landed on the back of her head and shoved her face-first into a pie, holding her there with a strength that she hadn’t expected the Princess to have. At first, Maeve debated resisting on the basis of sheer honor, but… she’d held Astela down in the water. This was only fair punishment, nothing more.

The knight, like a dog, forewent the use of her hands. Scooping bites of sweetened cherry pie, flaky, deliciously buttered crust up with her jaw just to clear space to breathe–the foot had not let up pressure, sound of Astela standing to place further weight on it nearly breaking Maeve’s nose against the metal pie tin. The elegant, expensive dish was ruined by the position by which she ate, but some perverse part of the knight–the same that had bent her Princess over that tub–felt the swirling thrill of how powerless she was, completely at the mercy of someone not only higher in authority, but (previously unbeknownst to Maeve) in physical strength as well. Had she… allowed Maeve to move her so? The pressure vanished, head lifting slightly so she could gulp in a breath before the same foot hooked into her mouth, pressing against the roof ot it and jerking Maeve back to the upright kneel, face smeared with sugary red syrup, flakes of crust, and globules of cherry filling that were beginning to slide down her face. 

The grin on Astela’s face was nothing short of rapturous. 

Lips pulled taut, almost straining the skin under the flex of muscle and turning heavenly features into a gash filled with blindingly white teeth far closer to sun-bleached bone than the radiance of heaven; eyes once soft and kind, at most coy, now held daggers of vicious glee at how low Maeve sank, face and hair strewn with pastry delight that turned to molten lead in her stomach as something else in the ingredients began to seep into her body; her vision fuzzed, steadied, then twisted again–but she remained still. Any movement on her part could result in biting down onto the foot of the Princess, and the years of duty drilled into Maeve would not, despite the clear wrongness of the situation, allow her to harm Astela. 

“Goodly knight… thou art a fledgling seraph.” The foot withdrew, then slammed its heel into Maeve’s face, breaking her nose and sending her tumbling back–the pain was enough to jolt her from her shock, staggering back on her hands and rear, desperately wishing she’d at least worn her armor. Astela walked leisurely towards her, stepping directly onto the trays and shattering a teacup beneath her feet–at the piercing of the shards into the sole of her perfect foot, the Princess paused to bite her lip, cheeks flushing the briefest amount before she continued, dripping blood across the neatly-arranged wafers to prowl towards the backpedalling knight.

She’d been poisoned, that was it… but it didn’t hurt, it just… made things harder to string together in her mind. Made the fumbling attempts to crawl away more difficult, made Astela’s sneering face loom like a devil in the light of the candelabras–

Her back was against the wall. 

Desperately, Maeve dug out a rosary, holding it out as a last attempt to save herself from what was clearly some kind of monster. The laugh reverberated in her ears as though echoing through miles of canyons, underground tunnels, knight’s vision turning dark at the edges as Astela towered over her, hands on her hips. “Foolish. Insulting, really.” 

Shifting a hand to her chemise, the Princess pulled it up, revealing the perfect legs, smooth skin and soft thighs leading up to her loins–the monster masquerading as her Princess, rather, placed a hand to her shaft as the smile grew warmer and Maeve’s strength ebbed still further. “Shall I respond in kind? Both to your ravaging joust yesterday, and this feeble attempt at piety I see before me? Who art thou to cast a stone, when not a day ago, you took me as a beast would to another?” Maeve’s arm, worn weak by the poison, drifted down despite her efforts; whatever this thing was to do, it…

She was urinating. Slowly, at first, dribbling down to the ground between her legs and mixing with the blood from her foot as the Princess squirmed in ecstasy either of the act or what was to come, then the flow increased, moving closer and closer to Maeve as her strength finally seemed to give, arm dropping and clattering the rosary against the ground even as the steaming stream of liquid splattered across it, and the knight’s hand. Such was the height of depravity, Maeve thought, as warmth splashed upon her loins, then traveled further, higher, soaking the front of her gambeson as it tracked the path of the stitching to finally smear against her face, sprinkling into the remnants of the pie and landing in her open mouth–the smell and taste, unlike Maeve’s own excretion, wasn’t pungent, nor acrid–it was… sweet. Not sickly sweet, but sweet like sugared tea, warm and almost… comforting. Her fear started to fade as Astela’s urine fell across her tongue, slipped into her mouth and down her throat. Why had she been afraid? It became harder to recall, or at least hold the concentration on it. 

Her vision dimmed further, but that was alright. In fact, most things were alright, Maeve came to consider. She was with her Princess. Her stomach was full of sticky-sweet pie, and her Princess was giving her a drink to wash it down. A gift from divinely ordained flesh. 

“Feeling a bit better, sir knight?” Maeve nodded sluggishly, vision opening slightly as the flow continued; she felt herself settling back into place again within her mind. The sweetness lingered on her lips as it faded, slightest frown of want mirroring the slow stiffness growing beneath her gambeson, beneath her undergarments. The fog drew back, but not fully–to a pleasant degree, as a warm blanket swaddling her mind. 

The Princess came closer into view, leaning down to press her lips against Maeve’s forehead–a warmth, the touch of an angel. Each place their skin met tingled with prickling pleasure, lingering after the kisses had moved further; Astela’s lips paused beneath Maeve’s eye, tongue lapping across the ridge of her cheekbone to indulge in the same liquid she had moments prior gifted to the knight.

“A further gift, if you wish it?” Looking up to her Princess, the starlight in her eyes became the infinite cosma, the bathed midnight rouge speckled with millions of stars that Maeve lost herself fully within even as her head bobbed. 

The Princess settled herself across Maeve’s lap, grinding herself against the knight’s girth and pursing her lips around a giggle–then, she leaned forward fully and pressed her lips to Maeve’s. The softness of her skin coupled with the thick, almost overflowing amount of saliva brought a new height to the heavenly delight; Maeve felt herself tense as she erupted within her clothing, but was occupied more by the darting tongue that slipped betwixt her lips, rubbing gently across her gums before exploring further–embracing her own tongue in the honey-like spittle of royalty–and pushing further.

Further, further, slipping into her throat, lower, causing the briefest gag before the Princess’s hand stroking her cheek stilled the lusting knight, who despite her orgasm had not lost stiffness–until she felt it curling and coiling within her stomach, filling her with a satisfaction overcome only by the effect of the spit, which drooled and bubbled from the side of her mouth as her head tilted, overcome by the hazy fog yet again.

She was not, however, overcome such that she did not witness what Astela did next. Drawing back slightly–though her tongue remained sunk into Maeve’s stomach–the Princess leaned forward, starlight eye pressing close to the knight’s, cheeks mashing together softly in the supple press of fat against fat.

Maeve then watched as, from the weeping corner of the Princess’s eye, a tear began to form. It was a strange tear, not quite clear, and holding its form as it writhed slightly, as if extricating itself. 

The knight’s vision blurred, then refocused. The tear had pulled fully from the corner of Astela’s eye, hanging on the perfect eyelashes–if it had come from Her, was it not perfect, too? Another tear pulled itself out, then another from the other eye; they began to fall onto Maeve’s face, squirming and wriggling almost like maggots… the saliva, the nectar of the Goddess, flowed heavier; her stomach began to puff somewhat from the sheer liquid–how benevolent was her Princess! The tears flowed upward, a divine miracle, and sought to join with her own eye, finding the corner of it and beginning to work their way inside.

She began to cry from the sheer joy of it, the rapture, the salvation, her Princess, the living saint; this helped the tears enter, helped them carve her anew, widen the entrance of herself so that she may weep further tears at the holy beauty before her; they pushed inward, moving within the vibrating flesh that felt more and more exultant with each drop of nectar, each coil of her Princess’s tongue within her stomach. 

Another tear was coming.

Larger, longer–far longer than the first, it had not reached the end of itself before it rolled softly onto her face, wet and warm red flesh pulsing as it groused over her skin, slipping and nearly falling before Maeve, acting on instinct, managed to lift a hand and guide it atop a finger to where it longed to go–needed to go. Her Majesty ordained it. 

The tip of it pressed against the hole; the smaller tears had stopped moving, or gotten deep enough that she could no longer feel them; it began to slip in, contracting and elongating itself to slide, so gently, into the space that the others had created for it–as was she, moving into the place the Princess had commanded for her.

As it entered her, she came again. The gasping snorts through her nose were enough to sustain her, cool fingers of her Princess stroking her cheek and easing her spasm as they became one connected by the fleshy strand of pulsing redness from one eye to the other. Like a line of fire, it would into her, through her, following the route the smaller tears had carved and lining it in heat, crawling from her eye deep, pushing to her very core; when it slipped into the space within, her vision flashed white, then black as her eyes rolled back into her head. It was in her, it… 

“Ghhuaagha… bbbrrll…” The touch of her Princess, her Goddess, soothed the nascent fear, the burbling as she felt her mind sink, deform, deflate; what was once the wide expanse was reduced, molded, improved. 

Remade into your Goddess’s image. 

Something was leaking from her nose, coppery slipping around the girth of Astela’s tongue–Maeve couldn’t care, didn’t care, wasn’t told to so why should she? She was bound by duty, so sayeth the bundling bead of heat and warmth and pleasure, pulsing waves of pleasure at the front of her skull that shocked her into another orgasm, eyes flitting back down through a murky, swimming haze to focus on her Goddess, her Starlight, just as the last bit of the tear escaped Her eye and wriggled into Maeve’s; as it entered her, the fog began to recede to the periphery again, gently, warmly, swaddling her in Duty and Her Will unlike any joy she had felt before.

Her hand cupped her jaw, tongue receding and leaving a distended stomach full of nectar as Maeve’s head fell back against the wall, pain from the blow only jiggling the bundle in her mind and making her giggle as she orgasmed again. 

“Such a strong knight! You will make a wonderful champion, won’t you, Lady Maeve?” Maeve nodded sluggishly, sucking in a breath of sweet-smelling air–aroma from Her, radiating out and subsuming her in even more heaven. “Ggyeesh, mmlady…” Astela smirked, pressing her lips to Maeve’s eye and sending a shock of more pleasure through her. “Don’t worry, sweetling. You’ll return to yourself soon enough–if each of the maidservants can, a knight as strong as you certainly will.”

Chapter Text

The moonlight is cool on her feet. The flesh is clammy, to a degree, but that had been a constant throughout Maeve’s life. The reason she notices it, though, is because the rest of her feels warm, much warmer than the simple blanket in the barracks could provide. 

She feels better in other ways, too. 

A thrum of that warmth slips and worms through her mind, flaring some neurons and skirting others; the gift of her Goddess, playing a sonata on the keys of her psyche. She feels no need to open her eyes, or move at all. The melody sends a slight chill through her, a shudder as a chord rings through her flesh like a ray of lightning then fades again. “Goodly knight?” 

Her eyes drift open. 

Resting within the gentle fog at the edges of her mind, Maeve notes the appearance of a maid, standing in front of her position stretched across a rather plush couch–the Royal House, then. 

Her temple. 

The maid curtsies upon seeing the knight’s return to consciousness. Maeve beholds her, feeling the briefest snag in her mind as eyes rove over the prim and proper servant. This is the same maid she’d spoken to the day previous–how has her stomach grown to such a size in such a short time? The melody in her mind sings a sweet note; it is not of her to know–her Goddess will tell her, should she need clarity. 

“The Princess has requested your presence in the dining hall.” 

Maeve nods slowly. The bundle of pleasure within her mind gives her a further consideration–should one not be rewarded for following the order of their Goddess?--and as she sits upright, she lays her forearm on the arm of the couch with an expectant look and four words of permission. “You have done well.” 

A flush of warmth crosses the maid’s face as she inclines her head, gleaning the intention and moving to swing a leg over the side of the couch, straddling it and placing her groin atop Maeve’s forearm. Bracing herself onto the back of the couch, she gently begins to grind herself against the knight’s skin, shifting up her skirt and promptly slathering Maeve’s arm in her arousal–she’d clearly been wet before even waking up the knight. In anticipation of performing the task set before her by their Goddess. Maeve considers her own arousal, listening to the sweet, aching gasps as they increase in volume alongside her harder and harder ruts.

It is not necessary for her to find release, sings the symphony. Her Goddess will indicate such time. So she waits, as is proper.

A bit of drool runs from the corner of the maid’s mouth, sweat beading on her forehead as the sheer volume of liquid begins to stain the front of her skirt. It runs down onto the arm of the chair as Maeve wonders whether She would have dinner set out, or if that will come after their appointment. Casting a glance around, there doesn’t appear to be a timepiece in the room, so she settles for counting the seconds alongside the puffs of need that escape the maid. Five minutes more, the knight reaches over with her other hand and shoves the maid off, watching her clatter to the ground and squirm to press her legs together–as though trying to hold back a tidal wave. 

Maeve brushes the wriggling tears of the Goddess from her slimy arm–how privileged this maid was to receive tears herself–and stands to place a shoe against the fork of the maid’s legs. The knight watches as she lets the pitiful thing buck her hips up against it as the knight wipes herself clean and straightens her attire–best to look presentable, for Her.

With time, the front of the maid’s skirt is completely soaked through, and she stops writhing against Maeve’s sole to simply lay on the ground, breathing heavy and body shaky. Maeve leans down to stroke a few strands of sweat-stuck hair from her face, smiling gently at the carrion-sweet smell of the maidservant’s breath. “Good girl.”

The maid’s vacant, rolling eyes coupled with the expression of abject exultation on her drooling, sweaty face stirs Maeve’s loins greater than the last–she feels that she must go to her Goddess.

The manor is smothered in a tranquil emptiness, as peacefully still as an abbey. The warmth remains, the air a thick lead blanket laced with honey-sweet aromas. A fly buzzes through the air, landing on Maeve’s outstretched finger and gazing up at her through its multiplicity of eyes. They contemplate each other. The winged creature has a shiny black carapace on its body, wings fluttering gently as a pair of bright red eyes stare out at her equally attentive gaze. The lower part of its head (which she presumes was what the fly used as a mouth) darts down to meet her fingers, which are still damp with the maid’s juices. 

It looks similar to a botfly, some part of her thinks to herself. 

She regards it as she passes along the corridor, following the symphony in her mind as her eyes rest, preoccupied beyond following the warm, wriggling wetness in her forehead. 

The fly tastes her skin again. It’s too small for her to feel it, of course. To her, it is what she is to her Goddess. Something mildly interesting, perhaps for a time. A momentary distraction.

It tastes her skin again.

Perhaps, by Her light, Maeve had been granted perception beyond the former breadth–had been given the touch of an angel, and thusly can be touched in return. She… feels it.

It tastes her skin again.

Almost like the most minute tongue, the softest flicker across an infinitesimal portion of her flesh. She wonders whether more flies are nearby as she comes to a stop at a cracked-open door, fly buzzing around her head once before fluttering off–a brief shadow of a chill crosses her, though she knows not why. 

Lady Maeve steps through the door–which appears to be embossed with a silver depiction of the Empress–and freezes. She had stumbled into the dining hall without paying attention, finding that the central long table had been removed. In place of it are two rows of maids–explaining their lack in the rest of the manor–arranged alternatingly face-up or face-down. They are impaled twice each by long-handled swords that hold them to a rough table-height, arms and legs able to balance on the ground even as the blades hold them in position. Blood squelches from the wounds as they shift, spilling onto their stomachs or backs and creating a vibrant crimson carpet beneath their bodies that contrasts expertly with the light-gray stone floor. 

The walls hold tapestries and paintings, mostly depicting baroque scenes splattered over with newer, abstract scatterings of blood and viscera that add a fascinating depth to the art. The portrait of the Empress cries tears of dried, cracked brown gazing down upon the hall even as the heat redoubles in fierceness. Though, Maeve is unbothered by it–some part of the heat and cloying humidity remind her of her Goddess.

Their arrangement facing either direction is to ensure that each can properly bury their face into the loins of the one ahead of them, even as the one behind them did the same in turn. The bronze chandelier is rife with black-fire candles that flicker dim light across the lines of writhing, supple flesh. Each of them are bearing trays of fruits, vegetables, meats, candies, mostly-spilled wines, and cheeses that Maeve’s eyes roam over thoughtfully as the symphony relaxes her into a hazy fog.

Then, in a corona of heavenly light, she sees Her. Her visage is an orchestra of silvery moonbeams, tinkling glass and a starlight blanket that washes over the knight with heavenly love. Her piety redoubles, expands deep within her soul at titanic, orgasmic divinity–her life for her Goddess, a thousand million times over; Maeve nearly weeps.

Sitting at the opposing end of the rows atop a carefully arranged knot of maids that approximated a chair, Astela sits, nude and slick with blood up to Her elbows, coating Her from the sternum down as She sips a cup of tea. Sated, slender fingers painted a crimson marble set it back down onto a table unlike even those Maeve now moves reverently between–towards Her.

The table is fashioned from an angel.

A winged, halo-less angel in subservience to her Goddess, kneeling with legs splayed wide and feet atop each other, a spike of forged iron running through the soles of her perfect feet and anchoring her to the ground. What appears to be the trunk of a massive, foot-wide vine shoots upward into her swollen, redly irritated sex, running slick with her juices mixed with hints of red. The vine seems to pulse and throb, sending shaking quivers through her legs and toned stomach. 

Her arms and wings do not move a muscle, lest they disturb Her plates. The arms themselves are pierced through the palms by silver meat hooks, attached to horizontal chains that run to either wall. Forged gray iron mounted onto steady bronze rings even as two silver spears stick through the down feathers and meaty flesh beneath. These serve to hold the soft, bloodstained white wings at the perfect angle to function as the wide table that Maeve, reaching the end of the walk between the two maid tables, kneels before.

There is a continuous sound of wetness and flesh against flesh, tongues and moans and the mewls of heat, muffled by the skin they themselves elicit moans from in turn. That she is granted entry into the most sacred place of her Goddess makes both Maeve and the wriggling, lovely melody within her glow with supplicant joy.

“Goodly knight. Has your rest treated you well?” The voice of her Goddess is both high and low, thrumming with omnipotent truth and profound, revelatory meaning. Each word is imprinted upon the knight’s very soul, gratefully so–to one undeserving of Her light, each is a gift beyond gifts.

“Yes, my Lady. Thank you.” In comparison, Maeve’s voice is quiet, wavering, awestruck at the being before her. Astela smiles, a vast cosma within Her eyes gleaming all the brighter in the harsh light of Her pure, porcelain teeth. Neither has paid any mind to the increasing noise from the angel between them; Maeve has not been told to do so, and Astela certainly cares not for the feelings of furniture. “I see too that you properly rewarded Miria for her delivery of my summons–good. You too are to be given a reward of your own. Come.” 

Obediently, Maeve crawls to her Goddess, taking care to avoid the angel before her. With a beckoning crook of Her finger, the knight gratefully moves between Her legs, rising to an upright kneel and, at her Goddess’s direction, Maeve’s mouth finding Her breast tentatively, then eagerly. The milk is bitter-sweet, bringing forth a warm-trickling euphoria in her stomach, which wipes away everything aside from the warm flesh in her mouth, the sweetness on her tongue, and the voice of her Goddess as it spoke with a rapturous revelation nestling in each syllable.

“You have been baptized my waters, sweetling; now unto you comes the providence of divinity--of your Goddess. Our flock grows, but yet it is not only here that is ripe for My sowing and My reaping. Go unto the ranges to the west, goodly knight. There lay caverns beneath the earth, old and infested with heretical disbelievers, those seeking to harm our faith, those seeking to harm Me.” A lance of fear pierces  every key of Maeve’s synapses.

That cannot happen. It must not happen.

Her Goddess must be kept safe.

“Go unto them. Dispense, as my tool, as the might of my judgement, and as my scouring wrath unto the nonbelievers. Slay all--save for their mistresses–and return the spoils unto me. They are angels, fallen to the wickedness of this world. Bring them to me, for they must be reminded of their glory and their purpose. As you have been, so too shall they, your sisters in faith, be.” A soft hand strokes Maeve’s head. The contents of the knight’s mind are a cool, flat pond–creating nothing, merely existing in the warp and weft of the world–seeing and reflecting the impression of Her will. Contrarily, the wriggling piece of Her love that twinges along the keys of Maeve’s psyche moves ever-faster, writhing in joy and pleasure with each weighted word. A wetness in her undergarments grows as a leaking orgasm begins. It doesn’t stop; the ecstasy from Her milk is not sharp, but rather gentle, soft and rolling like calm waves on a misty shore. Her Goddess whispers to her, softly and lovingly, reverberating in time with the melodic symphony praising her good girl, her sweetling daughter, how perfect and precious she is for her Goddess. Maeve’s eyes drift gently to shut, milk of her Mother running freely down her throat–a gift, a boon.

This is her place. She belongs here, she belongs to Her. She is Her instrument, Her holy tool. Maeve’s salvation is her obedience.

When it is rightly ordained, Maeve releases the hold of her lips from Her breast; she gazes up in adoration at her Goddess, at the very image of perfect divinity. Tears flow freely from Maeve’s eyes, wiped dry alongside the milky spittle hanging from her lip. Astela smiles down at her, a holy mother, and softly pulls Maeve upright by the jaw. Her Goddess locks eyes with Maeve. “Your soul is my soul, sweetling daughter. You are to be my first, my archangel, avenging and exacting. Your mind is my will.” Maeve nods, enveloped into the vast orbit of Astela’s eyes. Fingers press softly against her throat, nails piercing flesh in sacred agony as hot blood rolls down between the knight’s breasts, the fingers stroking, rubbing, and massaging her insides, their nails lightly drawing gashes over her. It reforms her from the weakness of her flesh, purifies and sanctifies Maeve within the love and light of Astela’s wonder.

As the fingers retract, Maeve weeps at the loss of contact with her Goddess.

The gaping wound seals, leaving the knight swaying in place as her mind attempts to process the sensation of her flesh within writhing, itching, and twisting to Astela’s will. “You shall speak if I deem it necessary; you may sing as you please, however, for I will enjoy the sound of your reverent melody.” Oh, how Maeve wishes to prostrate herself in thanks, to bow low at the feet of her Goddess though she has not been given such permission. However, the gratitude is visible within her eyes.

“Go now, sweetling. Go and cleanse yourself, then begin your journey. And recall: there are few that truly hold My word within them beyond these walls. Be on your guard both physically and Spiritually, for the Gray Devil, as a lion, walketh about in search of those whom she may ensorcel.” Maeve bows, the smell from Her heavenly musk nearly shattering her focus–the symphony calls to the door, however, and Maeve turns to depart. She is saddened that she’ll be away from Her grace, if only for a time.

But it is Her will, and Maeve’s salvation is obedience.

Chapter Text

So does she walk across the land. In the world, but not of it. Maeve is Hers, wholly and completely. A disciple of the Goddess, sent forth as Her angel unto the wicked world. Where her steps fall her Goddess walks with her. The symphony within her mind guides with surety. Out of the manor, past the walls–retrieving a horse from the stable with less than a word to the gruff, older woman that watches over the stalls before setting out. 

She has no need to carry food or water; her Goddess will watch over her.

The Royal Manor is situated within the rises and peaks of the mountains, though the road to it is well-maintained and guarded, befitting one of Her importance. Those Maeve passes do little more than bow, seeing her shining armor and crest. As she travels down towards the green plains below the mountains, the world fades from her mind. She need not concern herself with it, chides the wriggling music within her mind. Her Goddess is over all, and within her. She allows herself to rest in the growing haze of her mind, lets the slithering wetness radiate pleasure throughout her body in place of watching the road travel by. Doing so will only exhaust her mentally; far better to follow the gentle tugs of the music, of the twisting of rubbery, wriggling sanctity that her Goddess had gifted to her. That had cleared the fog and doubt from her piety.

Maeve rides until the horse needs to rest. Away from the road, she sits in the nearby trees, several rows back into the shadow. A task needs doing. Preparation. She removes her armor and blade, leaves the latter within reach as a precaution. Undoes her gambeson, lowers her breeches and undergarments. Maeve’s length has been erect constantly, exulting her Goddess with each waking moment. 

She has no need to indulge needlessly; her Goddess will decide for her.

The knight leans forward as the symphony wriggles. Finds the old path. Extrudes itself slowly, penetrating sensitive canals once dug by the wriggling tears. Maeve leans back against the trunk of the tree as the innermost parts of her skull are wound within, Her gift anchoring the vast length of itself in her even as one end, flicking like the tongue of a snake, darts from her eye. Tentatively. Tastes the air. Her throbbing girth weeps silvery-clear liquid as a hand, guided by the remaining length of the symphony, reaches up to catch the unspooled portion. The redness coiling out into her palm.

It is slick, shiny with fluid from her insides. The other hand grasps the sword, unsheathes it. Once the correct amount of the Gift has emerged, she places the edge of the blade to the wriggling connection between head and hand. Cuts.

A shock of pain transfers from the Gift unto her, but it is necessary. It is Her will.

The majority of it, which was still inside her, retracts quickly. Hides back within, wound sealing quickly even as the smaller part left outside does the same. Leaves only smears of black blood in her palm and on her face, dribbling from her eye as tears of the Sacred Mother. Maeve grasps it. Lifts the red, pulsating strand aloft with the utmost gentleness. Handles the holy image of Her with reverence.

One wriggling end hangs in the air over her leaking, beading member; this is necessary. It is preparation. She obeys the will of her Goddess. The end touches the liquid, lubricates itself. Plays along the tip of her. Maeve’s jaw grits against the sensation of Her Gift, pressing against her. Into her. The symphony ensures she does not lose herself to the fiery lances of pleasure, to the flaring sensation across her entire body as it finds purchase. As it enters her. The leaking fluid aids it further, working slowly, steadily, deeper. Preparing her. Preparing itself. 

Maeve watches as it finds a home within her again. Lower than the first, but just as important. As much of Her will as the gentle, soothing notes in her mind. She slumps back as the end of it vanishes as well, length engorged with blood and throbbing, pulsating with need and heat even moreso than before. She is prepared. Rising, the Gift settles in her plums, winds itself into place and rattles Maeve’s mind with pleasure again, though the combined music of her mind and loins stops the biological function–despite the ecstatic joy, she cannot orgasm. Not without the will of her Goddess.

She has no need for senseless lust; her Goddess will grant her release when She decides. The knight leans forward, wiping the ichor from her face and consuming it from her hand ravenously; it is a gift from her Goddess.

Maeve rises, clothes herself. Each step is a thrumming wave of heat, mind-clouding lust kept at bay only by the command of the twin melodies. She returns to the horse, finds that it has fed and drank. Resumes her journey, her mission.

The journey may hold more weight than the destination, for some. Duty finds precedence in Maeve’s mind, however. As she rides, twisting and spinning visions of Her, of flesh against flesh in the humid tension of lust–of blood–rattle through her mind. Holy exultation, orgasmic salvation, all turn through her mind in time with the symphony of Her wriggling Gift. Maeve is an angel of her Lady, the divine instrument of Her will, set forth to return those who had fallen from the sacred path. 

The burden of purpose is heavenly. 

She rides on. The plains level, mixing more with the tall trunks of the forest. Shade is more common as the path crosses into the woods, old tales and legends drifting through the gentle haze of her mind. One must not stray from Her path. The winding road travels deeper into the shadow, murk replacing sunlight more and more until the first sign of holes into the soil begins to show–this is her objective. 

Maeve dismounts, ties the horse to a nearby tree for the return journey. There is a larger hole, touches of silvery webbing not unlike the cobwebs that grow and live within the barracks, though the strands of gossamer moonlight she steps between now are far larger. Dew still glistens as she puts her hand to the hilt of her sword, boots flattening grass until they reach turned soil. It hasn’t been long enough for more grass to grow, and the hole is large enough to accommodate her horse–the knight isn’t foolish enough to try even with the haze of pleasurable fog around her mind. 

She marches on. It is her Goddess’ will. The interior of the tunnel, fading into darkness and ever-increasing strings of whitish, humidly slick cables of spider-silk brings memories of the bathhouse to the knight. Her length squirms, aching for release but knowing as the symphony in her mind knew that it is not time. Not yet.

In an instant, the fog vanishes. Icy clarity rises within Maeve; a half-choked, aching whine for the bliss is caught in her throat. Her loins are numbed, rendered incapable of feeling until she completes her duty. The reason of the shift reaches her clear perception: a chittering noise faintly echoes in the tunnel. 

Maeve draws her sword. 

The Gift of her Goddess grants her sight in the shadowy places, boughs of webbing hanging low over her head as she settles her visor over her face. Though she has been granted sight, it does not go forever; at the edges of her vision, twenty paces ahead, shadow still sweeps the cave before her. Maeve continues forward. 

The removal of pleasure, that which had been a constant since the knight’s salvation, leaves only the howling void that the symphony previously occupied with lust. She seeks something else to fill it, for Maeve understands she is not permitted to feel pleasure until her task is complete. 

The sound grows louder. Something shifts in the shadow ahead; like a bolt of lightning, she finds the replacement for missing lust. 

A figure emerges from the darkness

Taller than Maeve by two heads, stands a woman unlike any the knight has seen before. Insect-like legs bend backwards at the joint, narrow exoskeleton and dark gray carpace folding like scales up into soft, pinkish flesh at the hips, though the slightness of the frame spreads wide into two sets of powerfully broad shoulders–fluttering behind her, a pair of translucent, veined wings darts in and out of sight. The woman is covered in a mucus, sheening slime sticking between spindly, narrow fingers ending in razor-sharp claws. Her eyes are bulging, lacking pupil or iris in exchange for a singular glossy expanse of red that focuses on the knight even as the pair of antennae atop her head twitch, shifting the pale blonde hair. Between her legs, a different shine dribbles forth constantly, not quite varying in flow but ever-present as she regards the stunned knight, arms bent as a praying mantis mid-supplication. 

The feeling Maeve is given by the quick thrash of the symphony is lust, but of a kind wholly foreign to the previous. 

Maeve lunges forward. Her blade flashes in the darkness, a bolt of shining steel in shadow. A spray of milky, yellow blood finds the blade, meat of the shoulder giving as the woman screams loud enough to rattle Maeve’s head within her helm, symphony thrashing in pain as the dribbling urination increases to a spray as Maeve draws back and thrusts again. 

The penetration of a blade into flesh is akin to the hammering thrust of love. With each stab into the flesh of the insectoid monster, Maeve thinks of herself, thrusting into her Goddess in the bathhouse. Each spurt of blood is an orgasm of death, coating her slick with fluid even as piss drenches her lower half.

The woman falls, chest rent asunder by the repeated stabs–the puddle of blood and urine seeps around her as the scream stops. The symphony settles. 

The knight continues onward. 

Her steps carry her deeper into the earth. Air thickens with heat and humidity, tunnel widening as the webbing continues to expand. More insectoid demons appear, sent to righteous afterlifes with each chop and stab of Maeve’s blade. Their urination continues, some sensing her arrival and preempting it; soon she is drenched in foul-smelling liquid–liquid that produces an uncontrollable parallel to their willing expulsion. 

She maintains herself as best as she can. The pressure within her builds with each confrontation, each slain foe, each dousing of more urine. Soon, Maeve finds it difficult to maintain her posture. Her sword forms begin to lack. But she cannot remove her armor. 

Standing at an intersection of tunnels, having felled another monster and suffering a dented bracer for her preoccupation, the knight kneels in the puddle of viscera from her latest kill. She wills herself to give, to pass it so that she may better serve Her, better execute Her will. 

Warmth spreads within her gambeson, undergarments, and breeches. Runs down her legs as she stands–somehow the soiling is worse when from her own issuance. She feels it pool within her boots, but not enough to cause issue. Maeve continues onward. 

As she descends, following the sounds of insects she knows are far larger than their aboveground counterparts, the knight soon finds it easier to evacuate her bladder. More of the insectoids come, she is drenched again, and the same building pressure within her repeats itself. She learns to simply let it run free as it needs, to not distract herself with it; begins to enjoy the sensation in lieu of other arousal. 

By the time she reaches her destination, Maeve is soaked through. Both by blood and by urine. Her arms and legs ache, but the symphony cools the soreness. Guides her. 

Within a large cavern, torn like a cleave in the very earth itself, no insectoid women dare tread. The webbing is thick here, covering the walls entirely and dotted with coccooned masses. Some still struggle weakly, though the moans that escaped are not only in pain. The ground is cracked in many places, slick from the oppressive heat, blood, and other… fluids that congealed into swampy pools of effluvia worked by time into muck that clung to Maeve’s urine-stained boots. Across the cavern, at the heart of the web, sits the one she has been sent to find.

She nestles, comfortable, atop a bed made from wound spidersilk. Segmented legs twice the total length of Maeve’s body curl gently, prepared to spring, beneath an abdomen coated in fine, reddish-brown hairs large enough to comfortably outsize the horse grazing at the tunnel entrance. The abdomen moves into the upper carapace, though where the head of the massive spider would normally lie there sits the upper torso, arms, and head of a strikingly beautiful woman–not quite the glory She possesses, but angelic all the same. Her only garb over the nakedness is the rivulets of brown hair that rest over her breasts; though her face is human, she possesses an extra set of eyes–all are shut, but Maeve knows that she has noticed the knight’s arrival by the slight quiver of the rear spinneret. 

Bid by the symphony of her mind, Maeve sheathes her blade. Hearing this, the eyes flick open–doubled sclera, opening horizontally. “I see you’ve come into my parlor, goodly knight. Wherefore do you issue from?” She draws herself up to her full height, not quite enough to equal the downward gaze of the opposed woman, but proud in her duty. “I am the knight of Her Holiness, the Goddess Astela. I have been sent to return you to your rightful place at Her feet, as an angel of Her will–just as I am.” Four eyes flicker with recognition of the name; the woman does not move. “Do you think me a fool? I shall not return to one whom I worked so hard to escape.” A trickle of something, from the symphony. Lust. Maeve is prepared. She is willing–always willing, always obedient to Her. 

When the spider lunges from her web, the knight is ready.

Maeve does not draw her blade. She sidesteps the stabbing legs, reaches a hand up and slams her fist into the woman’s sex, which sits at the join point of her human torso to the arachnid body, halting the fury of limbs mid-strike and causing her to double over. Within range. 

Maeve’s other hand finds her throat even as the first hand shoves fully inside the woman, shocked mix of pain and pleasure stifled by the grip on her neck that yanks her face to the knight’s level. “I offered you kindness. What occurs now is the consequence of your actions.” All four eyes widen in fear; Maeve’s hand shoves further inside her, growing slick with the spider’s arousal as the knight sees twin fangs poking from her human mouth–venemous. Assured by the symphony within, her loins returning more and more to the state of aching need she so desperately misses, Maeve kicks the two front legs aside and forces the woman to fall even closer to her height. 

The knight yanks her buried hand free with a squelching schlloh, changing her grip from throat to jaw and shoving her fingers, wet with arousal, into the spiderwoman’s mouth. “Don’t pretend to hate this. We both know where you belong.” 

Under a gaze steelier than the blade on the knight’s hip, the woman breaks. Maeve wonders to herself at how pathetic it was to see the spider give so easily, but no matter; her duty presses onward. As the woman greedily laps her own juices from the knight’s hand, Maeve removes enough of her armor to free her urine-soaked gambeson, shifting it open and allowing her engorged member freedom; the hot air swirling due to the excited vibration of the hairy abdomen near it. 

Maeve places her hand on the back of the spider’s head. Her symphony drives her onward, the coiling Gift in her loins needing to fulfill purpose; the knight withdraws her fingers from the woman’s mouth and pulls her head down by the hair. She attempts to preempt the motion, tongue sliding across the tip of Maeve’s girth before a slight gasp as she does not insert into the wet, drooling hole. Rather, her throbbing length finds purchase higher up. 

The gasp becomes a scream when the orb in the spider’s upper right eye socket is popped like an overripe grape, holy rod of the knight slamming into her skull only once, to the hilt–the eruption ejects the wriggling Gift from her plums directly into the cranium of the spiderwoman, inside of the eye socket painted with Maeve’s expulsion even as the wet, wriggling crunch of meat and slipping redness vanishes into the skull of the spider. Maeve withdraws herself.

Shhllllht. 

The spiderwoman spasms. Receives Her Gift.

The knight inserts herself into the woman’s mouth, orgasming again as the symphony of her mind rewards her; instinctively, the spiderwoman gulps down both the ejaculation and the subsequent urine that follows greedily, cooing and nuzzling into the hand that Maeve strokes along the top of her head. Warm blood runs from the eyehole, intermixed with sweat, jism, and urine as Maeve finally locks her lips with the woman’s, both orgasming in unison as the knight’s member, still erect, finds warmth within the cunt so bruised from her hand previously. 

Entangled, the pair soon bring their symphonies into harmony. The spiderwoman has taken Her Gift, has remembered who she is and their shared duty to their Goddess. Fluids mix across them, pain and soreness forgotten in exchange for pleasure–it was Her will.

Once both have exhausted their lust, at the behest of their symphonies, the two arise. Maeve remains within the spiderwoman, Arane, who spins a harness from her spinnerets to hold the knight in place while she departs the cave. The knight’s legs wrap around her torso even as her suckling mouth finds the breast, and as Arane emerges into the rising starlight of evening, Maeve’s wriggling symphony returns her to the blessed fog; she does not hear the sound of Arane freeing the horse, nor of its subsequent flight into the wilderness. She has completed her duty; her mount will carry her home.

Chapter Text

Night falls before they return to the Manor. Maeve has spent herself near dry on the journey to Her Temple. The sweet spidermilk–rougher than Hers, but a gift all it’s own–lulls her into dreams; as well, memories. 

“Begin.” Blades draw; the cool morning silence cut by sharpened steel. Two stand across from each other. Neither is rested–earlier exertions haven’t quite soaked through the simple gambesons or breeches, but a comfortable warmth is present in the cloth. 

Two pairs of eyes regard each other. 

Student and teacher. 

No shield, no armor. Only steel against steel.

The silence breaks as a foot twists in gravel, lunges. Two steps–a slash that moves silently faster than the wind–a block. 

Steel rings like a war-bell as a spark dances through morning air. 

Backstep, reposition, lunge. A careful dance is stepped, one of precision and violence. Crafted like the corded muscles of arms, neck, and shoulders. As swift as a bolt of lightning. 

The haze of strikes ceases as abruptly as it started. The pair stand across from each other, gazing. Thinking. Calculating. Neither makes the next move. 

A single bead of sweat rolls down the nose of the student; she wrinkles it reflexively. 

The teacher lunges. 

Blades clash again; more sparks scatter into the ground at their feet, but all ceases as the teacher raises her hand. A thin line of vermillion wells on her shoulder–first blood. 

Victory.

In the shadow of the night, the sleeping knight does not see the might of which they return rightly to. Does not see the stains half-scrubbed from those recusant, nor the path that Arane makes over the wall. She has no need to worry about such things; her Goddess has not bid her to. Above, the moon and stars turn in a tapestry of unblinking eyes. Pinpricks of light in the vast emptiness. 

When she wakes, it is not in her cot. Nor is it the holiest of holy, Her temple. Maeve is warm, cradled in the loving arms of the one she saved, returned to Her glory. The knight has, throughout her gentle sleep, suckled at the breasts of Arane. She is full and happy, milky-white strand retaining connection between teat and lip as her face shifts backwards to perceive a loving expression. Three eyes fill with adoration, Mother, not so, and a gentle hand strokes her hair from her face. “My sweetling babe, how come you to the morn?” Maeve nestles close to Arane’s chest. To the warmth. 

“I rise fitfully, Lady Arane, and offer thanks for your companionship.” Soft lips press against her forehead; the gentle touch–half-scrape–of fangs within brushing her skin. “I am glad, goodly knight. One so deserving of rest as you ought properly be sated.” A hand slips down the flesh beneath the flap of her unfastened gambeson. Cool fingers graze the flesh, sense pulsing heat. “You are favored, among the fledgling court. I thank you again for reminding of my place, Lady Maeve.” Of Her Design. Mouth seeks breast again as the hand lightly circles the fold of skin about Maeve’s tip.

Both stop at the sound of a door flinging open. 

“My, ‘tis slothfulness afoot?” A radiating wave of hazy fog flows from Her form, Her presence a balm and bolster as Astela enters. Moving quick to kneel, both knight and spider gaze upon silk robes, silver embroidered with green vines adorned in purple-petaled beauty. Maeve notes that they now kneel in the ballroom, a step across the corridor from Her Temple. “Worry not, goodly knight. You performed your task well, and were entitled to reward for such effort. Are you rested?”

The praise rattles through Maeve’s soul, her very bones. A leaking flow from her length dribbles onto the stones at the very sound of Her praise, Her approval. 

Her good girl. Her knight. Her archangel. 

Maeve nods once. She does not trust her voice to contain the ocean of reverence due her Goddess. “Then, goodly knight, I have a task to set before you. It shan’t require such travel as the last, but perhaps it will be fruitful all the same.” Her footsteps approach. Bare feet fwht across the stones, coming to pause in view of Maeve’s downturned head. The perfect curve of the arch, soft and unblemished skin. A long bead of drool rolls from her lips, joins the drool from her lower head. Her mind grows hazier, difficult to think beyond Her Words. 

“Lady Arane requires a den, removed from sunlight. I bid you to inspect the defunct cistern ‘neath the rear courtyard. Determine it’s safety and entry, then return to assist her in settling in.” Maeve nods her head. Anything for Her. “Yes, Goddess.”

A hand strokes the top of her bowed head. Lightly, ever so softly threading fingernails to scratch the knight’s scalp in a sweet teasing that drives her nearly to mindlessness–but she has been given a task. The symphony wriggles within her, eager to obey. “Then rise, goodly knight, and fulfill your Duty.” 

Maeve rises. In the corridor, maid Miria awaits with her armor. Her uniform is pristine save the damp spot near her waist; her stomach protrudes further. But the maid does not struggle to redress and armor the knight, fitting plate to cloth and blade to waist with kind and gentle touch. Completed, Maeve–now whole within Her purpose–places a hand to the cheek of the maid. Dreamily, her face nuzzles softly into the touch; eyes flutter and tongue lolls in the slack mouth. Her breath smells of their Goddess. 

The knight wishes to explore that taste, the mouth of one so blessed, but she has a task before her. Instead, she strokes lightly the bulging stomach and smiles at the hitched gasp of response. Then, she moves past Miria and towards the exit. 

The courtyard is barren, unused. The primary space is on the opposing side of the manor, facing the rest of the grounds. Grass and flowerbeds are still kept befitting of Her gaze, naturally, but the paths are seldom trod. Maeve walks out to the rear railing, overlooking the cliff that the complex itself is built onto. 

A vast and sweeping expanse of unmarred mountain peaks slides down into the valley below. The river that runs through it is named

after the former Empress (her being the one who discovered it) and the gradient of green trees vanishing up to the rocky slopes catches the morning light that peeks between the mountains. Maeve, though, has her Duty to attend to. Turning her back on the mountains, the knight follows the pleasurable, pulsing direction of the symphony towards a secluded staircase set into the edge of the grassy courtyard. 

The stone is crumbling, ill-maintained, but stable. Through the journey into the earth she is unable to draw her blade, but the space soon widens considerably. Little light reaches into the tunnel, though it is enough to navigate–further brightness beckons from within. 

The air is damp within the tunnel. Maeve is unsurprised at the discovery; even if empty, the cistern once was a repository of water–mildew rises in her nostrils to replace the memory of maid Miria’s breath, of Her scent. The walls climb with mold. Her boots brush delicately aside a carpet of mushrooms with each step. A doorway made from stone awaits her. The keystone remains strong, even if the accompanying bricks sag beneath the weight of dirt and time above them. 

The cistern is lit by holes in the brickwork, the grass above threaded just enough to preclude the hole from sight. Through a mismatched grid of oblong holes, beams of light stream down like spears of sun-spun fire to impact the ground; where they land, the mildew does not spread. Where the mold had once blanketed the ground around the mushrooms, grass to trees, it now coats  the walls and weaves the ceiling together through sheer effort and longevity. The stalks and caps of the mushrooms rise taller, ever-taller, rising until waist-high about a central, humanoid, fungal growth. Arms and legs are bonded to the torso–judging from what she could see in the shadows, Maeve determines it is from lack of use–the cap of the mushroom forming a growth in place of hair that hangs low and wide-brimmed, both scalp and hat. The eyes are pure white, and watched her above a coyly upturned lip, though the figure does not move. 

The knight knows what she needs to cleanse the rot–a torch–but when she turns to leave, she discovers a solid wall of fungal growth that has sprung up, silently, in the doorway. “A knight, are you? Has the Gray Devil sent you to slay me?” Maeve’s hand finds her blade at the insult, though she does not draw it. “Such insult to my honor is a risk, Mold-Woman. Whence do you come?” 

Hands unfamiliar with distance from the central stalk separate with a gentle khrluh akin to the sound of tearing bread, sweep out to gesture to the growths around them. “I am… Malgam. Piecemeal birth from the mold and mushroom, fungus and mycelium chorus. The mildew is my breath, the spores my soul. Do you aim to slay me, my children and ancestors?” A shudder rolls through the entire room. Mushrooms shiver, the mold writhes on the walls in psychedelic patterns and shapes wholly impossible to conceive–to a degree, they transfix the knight. She contemplates escape–but loosing such a foe onto the manor would endanger her Goddess. 

Then, from the symphony. Her words. Her guiding instruction, the soft hand atop Maeve’s head. Go unto, and commune. Bring forth the Third Archangel of My holy light. Her hand softens on the hilt. “No. I seek to offer communion, and salvation.” The fungal maiden tilts her head, cap listing in a similar sway. Her eyes contemplate the knight as spores swirl in the beams of sunlight. 

“Then… commune, goodly knight.”

Maeve’s hand lowers from the blade. She steps forward, watches the mushrooms lean aside and part for her arrival even as the arms of the woman, Malgam, reach out to her. The air is thick, close to her. Hot, heavy with the swirling spores that the knight so far has held her breath instinctively against. But communion is an internal as well as external desire. “Breathe in, pilgrim of the blade. Taste the kiss of rot and be baptized in the wet tongue of decay.”

Hands, cold yet gentle, find Maeve’s cheeks. The embrace is tender, fragile; had Her Goddess so wished, she would have dispatched the woman with ease. Instead, the knight leans forward and fits her lips against the cool, wet ones opposite. The kiss is not merely contact; a tongue slips in, widens the gap of their mouths, and a puff of breath slides into Maeve’s mouth, breathed in tentatively. 

A sweet flavor–something heavy, particles grazing across her tongue and rushing to her lungs. A cough forms and builds, seeking escape but stops as a cool hand wraps around the back of the knight’s head, holds it to permit entrance of the sweetrot. The two on her face remain as the third strokes her scalp through her hair; Maeve finds both suffocation and… relief, in the continued embrace of flesh. The puff of air recedes, drawing the cloud back with it as a fourth hand gently strokes her ear, rising along the upper ridge, sliding down to the lobe, and swirling around the hole with a soft thhddhhddhhdddhhdd. The gentle rhythm softly caresses the growing sense of a lack in air. It is replaced, then, as Malgam breathes out again, gives the knight air now thick with wet sweetness, the heavy thickness of humid mildew penetrating her lungs to their deepest point–she can breathe. 

The fear abates. Tingling waves roll across her skin as the weight of the armor fades, the weight of her flesh and bones aside the languid, equally euphoric symphony massages her innermost; the finger on her ear gently probes the hole, her breaths become inversely tuned to those of the woman. She inhales, Maeve exhales; Maeve inhales, she exhales. A pleasant lack of concern washes over the knight. The finger probes her ear, cool wetness reaching in further. Her eyes drift shut to the rhythm of the breaths as a finger finds her other ear, mimicking the motions of the first in perfect synchronicity and lulling Maeve into the arms of Malgam even further. It feels… good, a sense of penetration beyond the feeling of insertion or thrusting. The cool touch is gentle, exploratory. It finds the limit of her ears’ tunnels and tests gently–the tongue swirls in her throat–and presses further, cool wetness numbing the brief spark of pain as Maeve loses herself entirely to the sense and falls, falls into a spiraling void of 

discrete, concrete nothingness. nothingness that is... everything?

or is the everything a lack thereof, the noticing of absence within an abyss?

how can seh notice what is not there? is she there? where is there? is there a location within the void aside the void itself?

the tendrils grasp, whisper, sing that she does not know but could, that they cannot know but can show her the paths and tunnels of her own mind,

itself a cascading and concatenating cosma of expansion within, without, then, now, beyond, forever and tomorrow.

she is communing with the very 

𝑬𝒂𝒓𝒕𝒉.

ｉｔ　ｃａｌｌｓ　ｔｏ　ｈｅｒ．　ｔｈｒｏｕｇｈ　ｈｅｒ．　ａｓｋｓ　ｏｆ　ｈｅｒ，　ｒｅｃｅｉｖｅｓ　ｉｎ　ｔｈｅ　ｓａｍｅ　ｉｎｓｔａｎｔ．　ｉｔ　ｉｓ　ｉｎｓｉｄｅ　ｈｅｒ，　ｏｒ，　ｓｈｅ　ｉｓ　ｉｎｓｉｄｅ　ｉｔ？　ｓｈｅ　ｃａｎ　ｓｅｅ　ｅｖｅｒｙｔｈｉｎｇ，　ｅｖｅｒｙ　ｃｈｉｒｐｉｎｇ　ｂｉｒｄ，　ｔｈｅ　ｇｒｏａｎ　ｏｆ　ｔｈｅ　ｔｒｅｅｓ　ａｓ　ｔｈｅｙ　ｓｈｉｆｔ　ｉｎ　ｅｎｄｌｅｓｓ　ｉｎｆｉｎｉｔｅｓｉｍａｌ　ｍｏｖｅｍｅｎｔｓ．　ｓｈｅ　ｃａｎ　ｓｅｅ　ｔｈｅ　ｓｉｆｔｉｎｇ　ｄｉｒｔ，　ｓｔｏｎｅｓ　ａｎｄ　ｓａｎｄ　ａｒｏｕｎｄ　ｔｈｅ　ｃｉｓｔｅｒｎ–ｉｔ　ｗａｓ　ｎｏｔ　ｈａｎｄｓ　ｔｈａｔ　ｈａｄ　ｍａｓｓａｇｅｄ　ｈｅｒ　ｅａｒｓ，　ｎｏｒ　ｆｉｎｇｅｒｓ　ｔｈａｔ　ｐｒｏｄｄｅｄ　ｆｏｒｔｈ．　

𝕚𝕥’𝕤 𝕗𝕦𝕟𝕘𝕦𝕤. 

ᶠᵘⁿᵍᵃˡ ᵍʳᵒʷᵗʰˢ ʰᵃᵈ ᵈᵉˢᶜᵉⁿᵈᵉᵈ ᶠʳᵒᵐ ᴹᵃˡᵍᵃᵐ’ˢ ˡᵒⁱⁿˢ, ʰⁱᵈᵈᵉⁿ ᵇᵉⁿᵉᵃᵗʰ ᵗʰᵉ ᶜᵘʳᵗᵃⁱⁿᵉᵈ ᵐᵒˡᵈ⁻ˢᵏⁱʳᵗ ᵃⁿᵈ ˢˡⁱᵗʰᵉʳᵉᵈ ᵃᶜʳᵒˢˢ ᴹᵃᵉᵛᵉ’ˢ ᵃʳᵐᵒʳ ᵗᵒ ᵍᵉⁿᵗˡʸ ᵖʳᵒᵈ ᵒⁱˡ⁻ˢˡⁱᶜᵏ, ᵖᵘʳᵖˡᵉ ᵃⁿᵈ ᵍʳᵉᵉⁿ ᵗᵉⁿᵈʳⁱˡˢ ⁱⁿᵗᵒ ʰᵉʳ ᵉᵃʳˢ. 

She sees them now, sees herself in incandescent bliss, wonders just how deep they go as the symphony vibrates joy into her soul, as more tendrils split from the two thicker entrants and lovingly embrace her face, mounting the hills of her cheekbones to find purchase in her nostrils–

Ｔｈｅｙ’ｒｅ　ｉｎ　ｈｅｒ　ｍｉｎｄ．

They push along synapses, coat the interiors with their rot, the oozing decay rushing her with ecstasy so great she feels orgasm reverberate through the very soil itself, to her omniscient view of her own body ravaged and spoiled to decay by the sweetrot kisses of the cistern angel. She is reborn from the violation, the squirming symphony writhing and tensing, coiling over itself and emitting its own orgasm in tune with her second, her mind filling both with the sweetrotted, phallic multiplicity and the excretion of Her guiding symphony.

They reach her innermost, her interior, filling every ounce and inch of her beyond even brain as her throat and stomach fill, overflow, become one in communion, blessed holy union of creation and decay, life and rot, she…

saw.

• The world, all that 

sı

• or will ever 

ǝq 

• all that 

sɐʍ 

• and that could

ǝq 

• the

ʍoɥ 

• of it, the 

ʎɥʍ 

of it, the howling and screaming aeons turning and twisting onto themselves as a tornado of stained glass, raking and shattering the pitted mass of her soul with a thousand thousand ecstasies of violence and torment, 

oh how she breathes the joy of agony, ancient devil spun from shadow and yoked with anguish, that maudlin orgasm of nascent and fetal divinity. and above it all, laughing and twisting and dancing and singing, is Her. 

Above it all, the gods, the humans, the monsters, the rot and life and birth and death, She stands astride the world in all of its cacophonies, writhing the mass of potentiality and instrumentality into a ringed, nobbed mount to thrust inside Herself and glut the slavish lust on the very life and soul of existence, as was Her right. 

As is Her right. 

Maeve is the tool of this ascension, she is in her miniscule usage a mechanism of delivering such greater cosmic release to Her Goddess, to Lady Astela, to the Queen of Rot and the Insectoid Allmother, Hallowed be the Blood-Cursed gradle of sightless stars and spinning suns moving horizons as shuddering winds across grass–

She returns to herself. The downy descent akin to gliding on the wings of a festering angel, though when Maeve’s senses returned the twin archangels, first and third, were both still underground. Malgam inhales the last of her gift from the knight’s lungs; the sweetrot stench pulls achingly from her lips, tongue chasing it and meeting the gentle dissuasion of the other. When they disengage, the wriggling symphony is limp, exhausted; Maeve feels the tendrils retract from her ears and nose, but their gift remains. 

Her soul, not baser flesh, feels the weight of penetration. So commands her Goddess, so shall Maeve do.