Purgatory - Public Submission - Turn 5

[[Syl]]

Deadline Oct. 19th.

[Alek]

[Public Meeting #5]

This is wonderful! The crowd gets bigger each time! If he ever learns what's going on here, Bhakti will use Stovakor as his base of operations!

"My friends, I am thrilled by how things are going!! Love has taken root here in Gont, and is spreading! Hell is turning to Love! Let me repeat that: Hell is turning to Love!!! How extraordinary is that?! The words of my Lord Bhakti shine even here! Will Hell - Hell - become paradise?? Is such a thing conceivable?? Who could have imagined such a thing! And yet, I tell you it is happening!!

"And I'm very encouraged by something else! I heard a Dragon roar! A Dragon! For those who don't know what Dragons are, they are huge, flying creatures of vast power and intelligence. And, although not all were, the ones I was personally acquainted with were champions of Love! Is this one? Well, perhaps I'm being overly optomistic, but I'm sure it is! It must be! And I'm going to find it. I will befriend it, and we will have an extraordinarily powerful ally of Love!!!

"So I'll be gone for a time. I really have no idea how long. I would imagine at least several days. If I don't find it in a few weeks, I'll return anyway. In the meantime, continue Loving all that you meet! Let your every action, your every decision, your every thought be rooted in Love! Help each other! Give each other hope! Give each other Love!!"

[Iblis]

Glaring at the seething Sky, Iblis, once proud, now uncertain,
watched the trail cut through the endless clouds
in the wake of the Dragon's turbulent passage.

At last something in this eternal Void. The inaction chafed, but now...

Sweeping forward a vaguely taloned hand, launched Bekarazu ever faithful,
along the contrail of chopped cloud visible above the rent parapet.

Then Iblis, clenching that hand above the breach,
watched stone, blackened and scorched now, grow imperfectly closed,
a crooked thumb jutting from the Citadel wall, and the open top an upturned palm.

[nameless]

Nameless, so quick of step, circled the others he encountered and came to them with no understanding of their utterances. None could speak the wisdom of the surrounding mysteries and he was with them in confusion. There was no peace to offer or be had, but which of the royalings in the realm knew of it? If any had works, they were without sense. No expression had likewise; no act promised punishment or delight. Nameless had a mind to approach them again, but it was for naught. Strangers spoke just out of recognition and clutched at the map. He retrieved it and fled ahead, eager to leave them in that distance. When a stench blinded as did the glare, he knew to where he had arrived.

[Niggle]

Still pondering lessons learned from the group she had met, and smiling wryly at her own assumptions turned on their head, Niggle strode forth once more. She desperately wanted to be able to talk to someone, to learn about where she was. And even more so, to learn more about what she was. And the man named Alek seemed to offer a beginning, so she headed off in the direction he had taken.

The road twisted on around a bend. The plain diminished; the embankments sprouting bushes and the occasional scrawny tree that offered shade from the blistering light source up above. Niggle eyed a glade off the side of the road and looked at Derlebn. The One showed no sign of discomfort. But Niggle was ready to rest, so she shifted her direction, making for the glade…

…and was stopped by a rock hard grip on her shoulder.

Her fair skin bruising under the now immobile fingers, Niggle flinched and grasped the hand to try and pull it away. Derlebn easily removed her hands tugging at his grasp, then gently touching Niggle’s chin with his free hand turned her to look back at the road. There, not 10 feet away, was a cobra. Slithering and swaying in Niggle’s direction, hood fully open and eyes slit with warning. As the shock of seeing the cobra suddenly in front of her slowly receded, Niggle felt admiration for Derlebn’s senses, and gratitude towards the One’s unexpected aid.

Niggle’s eyes slit in return as she regarded the snake. Like the strange creature she had just left, there was something different about the cobra. Sudden realization dawned on her. It was gold. Not metallic…or wait. It was metallic, but not hard. She felt that, if she were to be able to handle it, it would be soft and sinuous to her touch; just like the snakes she had handled in the past.

<what sssnakess?>

Niggle shook her head. The voices, similar to the ones the wind had carried, popped into her head. Soft and dissonant, they came from within instead of without. Then silence.

Still, she continued to eye the cobra. She saw what was so unique about it; even more so than mechanical metal constructs made by the finest smiths. It was liquid gold; gleaming, sinuous, living. Or, as alive as anything else she has seen here.

The snake’s eyes gleamed. Then flicking its tongue once in her direction, it retracted its hood to slither over to the glade…

…and wound its way slowly, seductively, up the bare leg of a man watching the encounter.

<LidércLidércLidércLidércLidércLidércLidércLidércLidércLidércLidérc>

Niggle had no idea what the voices were saying; her hunger was roaring in her ears, blending and melding, totally overwhelming those internal whispers. Derlebn’s grip lessened and she shrugged out from under it. The Sightless One smiled slightly, and gently pushed her towards the man, but Niggle barely noticed. She was caught, mesmerized in the blue black depths of the man’s eyes.

Her posture changed, becoming more seductive; more sinuous. The man glowed with an aura of energy she had not seen before, and as her white wings unknowingly spread out around her, his black ones reached forth to match their span. The aura of the man drew her closer; her hunger ached for it, yearned to consume it. Alek’s words came back to haunt her…

“Niggle! You are a succubus! Stovakor must be a terrible place for you! You should leave, so you can be rid of your pain!”

Was leaving even possible?

The yearning increased and she decided she didn’t care if she could leave. This place, this Stovakor as Alek called it, did have a means to satisfy her. It was right there in front of her. All she needed to do was reach out and feed...

This is what I crave!!!

Their wings touched, her senses reeled…

…the cobra struck.

***************************************************************
Lidérc opened his eyes slowly, and eyed the pale, white skinned, white winged creature on top of him at rest. She was sated. For now. He had fed himself on the life force of 613 females above until he was bursting, then entered Lilith’s mirror and took the staircase to this realm. If Lilith ever found out…

He couldn’t think on that. All he knew was that something had gone wrong from the moment Lily started to descend the staircase. The corps of the sons of Sammael and daughters/ardat lili of Lilith have been abuzz since Lily “disappeared.” Sammael and Lilith trailed her, yet have been unable to locate her. Yet he did it, he found her! She was starving and didn’t know who or what she was nor, and he inhaled sharply, did she know who or what he was. He was unable to truly give her what she needed, the female essences she absorbed from him were for her a poor substitute for the male essences needed to sustain her.

He glanced at the golden amulet that said Lily and the three angelic names which gleamed upon her bosom. That damned cobra! Its attack had caused him to lose consciousness while Lily fed, and she had nearly completely drained him in her greed. He had awakened with barely enough essence remaining to sustain himself; he would need to feed himself once he returned above. But as he had faded from consciousness he had seen the cobra retreat from where it had struck him, coil its way on to Lily’s unaware body while she was deep in the throes of passion, and drape itself around her neck. It flared its hood as wide as it would go, and while the combination of its venom and the demands Lily was putting on him led the blackness to take him over, Lidérc saw the damned snake solidify into Lily’s childhood amulet. He wished he knew who had given that to her as an infant. Whoever it had been was powerful indeed, to counter the intent of the equal of Adam.

Lily stirred on top of him. Would her memories be back, now that she had fed? Would she know him? Know what he had done for her?

*******************************************************************
Niggle opened her eyes. He was there. Whoever he was, he had showed her the way. But, it wasn’t enough; she needed yet more! She reached towards him, and readied herself to enter that passionate embrace yet again.

…and was pushed away.

“I am not what you need,” he said. “We are alike in our needs, yet opposite. I was overly full, yet you consumed most of what I had and already are starting to crave more.

“You must find others who are not empty of life. But their essence must be male. And the living are few and far between in this realm. And this,” he fingered the amulet around her neck, which steamed at his touch, “will not make things any easier.”

Niggle retrieved the amulet from his touch and looked at it curiously. Then smiled. It was a pretty thing, with the word “Lily” on the top and Snvi, Snsvi, and Smnglof on the other three sides. It meant nothing to her, but it appeared to have chosen her, so she would keep it.

Dropping it back down on to her chest, she looked back into the nearly black eyes of the winged man before her, and briefly saw what she thought was a flicker of emotional pain. But then they were hooded, and she felt perhaps she was mistaken.

“Why can I not draw what I need from you?” she asked.

“Neither of us has living essence of our own. What I brought with me here was culled from others and stored in me. And it was the opposite of what you need. Now I must feed as well, and need depart to satisfy my own cravings.”

Reaching forward and making a desperate embrace, she exclaimed, “Take me with you!”

He slowly disentangled himself. “I can’t. We all descend Lilith’s stairway upon becoming what we are and make our way through this realm. But, as I told Sammael and Lilith before I set you on your path, there is something different about you. Your wings alone show it. The refusal of the staircase to allow you to descend showed it. Your lost sense of self shows it. And whatever the difference is, it has made this journey more difficult for you. But you must make it on your own. I can not help you further.

“I must return above, and feed. Yet none will replace you for me. When you find your way out, I will be waiting.

“We will never be Lilith and Sammael, for he is a fallen archangel and she the equal of Adam. Yet after what we just shared, I believe by filling ourselves on the essences of others first, we will find joy in each other once you return, and not live an existence of emptiness…”

With that the incubus pulled her close, embraced her tightly, and kissed her with everything he had left. Then he let go, and flew off into the swirling miasma above.

*****************************************************************
Niggle watched the winged man disappear from her sight. What now? she wondered. She realized feedings will be few and far between, but she must continue to find meaning while she made the attempt to find her way through this realm. Brushing herself off, and putting herself to rights, she once more returned to the road, and deciding to catch up quickly with the one who first told her what she was, took to the sky in the direction she had seen Alek depart.