Chapter Text
Hazy and dappled twilit sunlight plays through the canopy of leaves, the breeze cool and sweetly scented. Somewhere beyond too bright flowers and luscious green foliage there can be heard the gentle trickle of a stream. It's so peaceful here. So far away from everything. A secret little corner of the Feywild, your own desires shaping it into a haven of tranquility. Belief is important, it can create as surely as destroy. In a realm suffused with magic, where everything is exaggerated, senses sharper, it's easy. So easy, it can make you feel like anything is possible, that you can be anything you want.
Your naked body rolls over on soft cushion moss that's coloured vivid green and yellow, all the way through to darkest purple and brown, grass and clover tickling against delicate skin. Your hand reaches towards a red and ripe apple nestled in a bed of ferns and flowers, you bite though the juicy flesh and taste its sweetness. Such a simple joy. As you savour it, another's hand reaches for the wine carafe and pale rose wine is poured into glasses carved from sparkling amethyst.
“Do you remember yet?”
You lift your gaze to your fey companion. Body as pale as alabaster, a head crowned with long and twisting black hair that floats in the air around them as if suspended in water. Their limbs are exaggerated in length and impossibly delicate looking. You know better than to be fooled by it, can feel the light touch of their magic. Beyond that, you can make out nothing more about them, no sense of their face or what kind of fey creature they might truly be. They ask you the same question every so often, though you can never remember the cadence of their voice afterwards. Of late, you've noticed that the question brings with it an increased sense of disquiet, one you are quick to push back against before it starts to reflect in your surroundings. All you know is that you don't want to remember, but not why. You want to stay here. Forever.
“You cannot.”
The flare of anger is too fast, causing the gentle breeze to gust stiffly through the trees. Leaves that had been lush green a moment ago now fall around you in a drifting shower of bright gold and blazing orange. You look down at the once bright red apple now withered and rotten, maggots crawling over the browned and slimy flesh. Tossing it away in disgust, you pick up the amethyst glass only to see it full of stinking bile. Why! What do a few more hours of respite matter?
You look towards your companion to find them completely unmoved as the once beautiful grove turns to blackened twisting vines and thorns. “Why can't I stay! Why does it matter?” You know you shout the words aloud, but the sound is robbed from you by the gusting wind.
“You cannot stay here.”
It's like breaking the surface after being underwater too long. Heart thundering, drawing in gasping breath after gasping breath. Reaching for something, anything, to anchor yourself to as your head swims violently. There's nothing. Coughing and heaving in one shuddering breath at a time, it's almost like your body has forgotten how to do it. Disorientation and panic grip you, none of your memories doing you the service of filling in the blanks. Whatever tavern you were drinking in last night needs to add a public safety warning to their homebrew, you're going to feel this hangover for the rest of the week.
Slowly, you sit up in the middle of the large bed, silken sheets of deep emerald green pooling in your lap. A lord's bed then, or some minor member of nobility? Not that you can recall a name or a face. You can only be grateful they did you the kindness of not tossing you out before sunrise. Just breathe. Slow and steady in, the same out. Your heart thuds uncomfortably, limbs shaky and weak as if you've massively overtaxed yourself or been gravely ill. As you sit and concentrate on breathing, the physical symptoms begin to settle while the anxiety in your mind only grows and you can't put a reason on why.
This isn't your first time drinking to excess, waking up in a strangers bed. But for your memories to be so stubbornly blank? Hadn't you been walking along the banks of the Chionthar? Maybe performing at a grand soirée in a vast ballroom, or even a sticky floored tavern that stinks of warm ale and sweat? It's no use. You can only guess the moonshine you overindulged in had a little extra kick, the sort that comes in the form of a total mental blackout. Some of the spirits you partook of in the Feywild could do the strangest things to a persons perception of reality and memories.
Rather than force at your uncooperative mind, you look around the room for some clues as to where you are. The bed is opulent in the extreme, a four-poster complete with canopy and tied back drapes in heavy deep green velvet. The posts aren't made of wood but dark stone that glitters with some form of calcite, exquisitely carved with geometric patterns that warp your eyes if you stare too long. Rich antique gold braid accents everything, covers and pillows, cushions and drapes. Beyond the edges of the bed is a room of strange proportions and fit for a queen. A vaulted stone ceiling of different hues, the intersections decorated with the faces of grotesque grinning creatures. The floor, granite polished to a mirror shine and inlaid with marble and bronze in more strange patterns. Macabre paintings hang from the walls, a fireplace large enough for an ogre to warm themselves at, obsidian vases filled with roses of darkest red and deepest plum.
In all your years of touring the estates of patriars either in the city or countryside, you've never seen its like. This feels darker, heavier, somehow. It stirs a sense of disquiet, the front of your head beginning to ache. As you lift a hand to rub at your eyes, you stop, staring down at it, and almost panicked whine escaping you. It's the wrong colour, the faintest texture of a reptilian-esque pattern. Long and narrow fingers that you flex as you turn your hand over, tipped with blackened nails that look thicker and curve into sharp points. Your heart is an ugly thud in your chest. This isn't you. Shouldn't be you.
I'm still asleep. I must be, your mind is quick to reason. There's no other possible explanation.
The slow injection of panic trips your heart rate higher as you pull yourself to the edge of the bed. Standing upright proves more of a challenge than it has any right to be, forcing you to make a grab for one of the corner posts as you almost topple over. Your centre of gravity feels completely off, pulling you backwards. It's pure instinct that causes you to flex the bat-like wings behind you. Wings? Adrenaline and panic fuse sickeningly as you stumble towards the dressing mirror. This isn't what you think, isn't
You stare disbelieving at your reflected image, legs giving out as you slump to the floor. One shaking hand reaches towards the silvered glass, claw tips clicking against the surface. A devil stares back at you. You are a devil. Diabolic eyes move over your reflection, the tapered ears, small curving horns, the angles of your face somehow sharper and crueller. Those wings pulling at your back are held unevenly and a small, almost hysterical, laugh bubbles past your lips as you carefully pick up the end of your spade tail like it might bite you.
This isn't.... I wasn't.... There's not a single sign of the mortal human you know you used to be. I need to wake up. I need to wake up. I need The solace of the Feywild is a fast-fading memory and all you want to do is go back. To sleep and when you wake up again everything will be as it should be. It's a wish that holds no comfort. Is this what the fey creature meant when they kept asking if you remember? This really feels like something you should remember, something that would be impossible to forget. Only there's no one else here, no one to ask.
Pulling yourself onto feet that bear their own sets of short talons, spurs that extend from the backs of your ankles, you rush over to the narrow windows. Beyond the glass and bronze leading is an alien world. A sky of crimson smudged with smoke rising from innumerable locations, closely packed buildings that stretch to the horizon in ever growing concentric rings. You don't know this place, but you know the smell and the heat, the ash on the wind. It helps to stop the panic from overwhelming you, that something at least seems familiar, lingering on the edges of your mind. You just need to find the answer. Or to wake up.
Your gaze is drawn back to the dressing mirror, it's reflective surface taunting you as much as the bronze devils that chase each other around the frame. Anxiety simmers as you take one slow step towards it and then another until you once again see the thing you are; a she-devil. Pushing the narrow straps of your shift off your shoulders, the silky material pooling around your feet as you look your new self over. Your hand lifts to run shaky fingertips over the bumpy ridges of cartilage under the skin of your décolletage, the ones that mirror the curve of your hips. Turning slightly, you see the thick base of your tail extending out from your lower back, hanging as limp as your wings. It's so surreal, so alien, like you're hallucinating. Still dreaming. How could this even happen? Why did it happen? You sigh, eyes boring into your reflection and finding no answers.
“Ar, such a refreshing sight.”
You startle, grabbing the shift up off the floor to cover yourself and stare out towards a curtained balcony . A devil, one that looks frustratingly familiar and is dressed in an..., unsettling manner. They're cruelly handsome, stepping towards you with a confident swagger, bright eyes boring through you.
“There's really no call to be so prudish, you've nothing I haven't seen and tasted countless times over. Though I wonder how you'll taste now,” they purr smoothly, that stare stripping you bare despite the shift.
You take a step back. “Who are you?” It's a face you know, but it, like the voice, are ever so slightly off. They aren't who they pretend to be, you're sure of it without knowing why. What their words elude to is something you don't know how to take, or even if they're the truth.
Sensual lips curve into a smile. “He'll be very cross with me if I tell you, but if you can keep a secret just between us.” They step in close to whisper in your ear. “Haarlep,” they breath, the tip of their tongue flicking against the shell.
You gasp as if stung, flinching backwards and almost tripping over your tail. “What kind of devil are you?” You manage to ask, voice shaky as your legs as unnatural lusts wake in you.
They laugh. “Devil? I'm no devil. I'm a demon, an incubus. You do remember what one of those are? I'm sure your body does.” The lewd words are punctuated with the slow down and up of their eyes.
“You know me?” How is that even possible?
“I know you're a naughty little mouse,” they say, walking a slow circle around you, eyes bright pools of lava. You mirror their steps, not allowing them to peek at your nude back. One crooked finger pulls at the shift you clutch to yourself. “I can teach you how to enjoy your new body, it's no hardship.”
“I'd rather not,” you state firmly despite the tremor in your body, some faint sense of half remembered ecstasy.
“Well, when you change your mind, I'll be happy to oblige all and any desires you have,” they hum with a little disappointment and step away.
It's like a thick blanket is suddenly lifted off you and you can breath again. “Would you mind...,” you trail off with a pointed look.
Haarlep tilts their head. “Mind what?”
Your gaze hardens. “I'd like to dress.”
Lava bright eyes blink at you and then they laugh loudly. “Fine, fine.”
You wait until they turn their back and you quickly step back into the shift, then your eyes meet theirs in the dressing mirror and you scowl as they laugh again. “Why are you here?” You demand to cover your embarrassment.
“I'm a houseguest, same as you. Only I don't get to leave.” The incubus saunters over to the bed and makes themselves comfortable on it.
Keeping a wary eye on them, you walk over to an armchair of dark wood and deep green velvet, sitting down proving more of a challenge when there are wings and a tail to take into account. The hearth next to you is cold and bare and you can't help but wish a fire burned within. “Who is this other person you spoke of, the one that would be angry with you for talking to me?” If they're done trying to seduce you, maybe you can get some sense of where you are, what's going on.
“He's the Master of the House,” Haarlep answers grandly, lounging back against the headboard and watching you intently.
You wet your lips, the sense of a memory itching at the back of your mind. “Is he the reason I'm like this?” A devil.
The incubus chuckles, low and endlessly amused. “No, and it torments him.”
“Then who ”
Haarlep wags a finger at you. “No more questions, it's very naughty of you to keep expecting answers for free. If you come here and lay down next to me, maybe I'll indulge your curiosity.”
You press your lips together and you glare into the cold hearth. If you choose to believe this demon then they know you, intimately. Which doesn't count for much when they profess to be an incubus. It's all there, in the deep shadows of your mind. You're no stranger to spending time with the denizens of other realms, in some ways you've always preferred their company. You take a breath, rubbing the front of your head and feeling the deep throb of a tension headache stirring.
“Was it a séance?” Patriars do like to play with the forbidden. An incubus conjured up for a saucy game that got out of hand? “Did some fool summon you and....” This was the price?
The incubus tuts. “You'll be far more comfortable laying here, with me. Then you can ask all the questions you like while I lavish pleasure you can scarce imagine.”
You're not going to get anything more from them, not unless you want to give into their softly spoken demands. Instead, you get back to your feet, finding your balance easier this time and wander over to the rooms only door. All the while feeling Haarlep's eyes on you. The dark wood is precisely carved in more eye-warping patterns, banded in shining bronze.
“Are you sure you want to leave?” Haarlep asks, a note of playfulness in their voice.
Your hand pauses on the bronze handle and you look back over your shoulder. “Did you stay here while I slept?” Why you ask the question, you don't know.
Haarlep sits forward, sensual lips curling into a knowing and mischievous smile. “Does the thought of someone watching you sleep excite you?” They hum. “I wasn't here all the time. I dropped in and out over the years.” That smile widens.
Your blood chills and your mind trips over itself. “What?”
“Nine in total, a little over. It's nothing to worry about, what's a few years napping to a devil with eternity?” They shrug.
Nine. Years. It's like being told you've lost half your life in the blink of an eye.
Adrenaline and panic surge back through your body and you're pushing through the door before your mind catches up, Haarlep's taunting laughter echoing after you. I'm still asleep. Please, let me still be sleeping. Bad wine that's soured your dreams, a fever, hallucination and delusion. You run through cyclopean corridors, hoping with every turn, every set of stairs, that you'll find the end. A door. An exit. You'll wake up, promise yourself you'll never drink whatever moonshine it was again and nurse the hangover for a week.
Your wings flex to keep you balanced when you almost lose your footing on a wide flight of stars. At the bottom you see devils or demons, you don't know. Some humanoid, others disturbingly insectoid or so grotesquely deformed you know you'll never be able to wipe the image from your mind. Their eyes follow you, unreadable, unknowable. Some towering over you while other crawl on the ground. You stumble back from an amorphous blob of bloody flesh as it reaches for you, only for it to somehow shriek in agony as a massive fiend behind it lashes out with a barbed whip.
Wake up. Wake up!
Another devil tries to reach for you and you twist away, falling into a set of arched bronze doors that rise dozens of meters into the air. They should be impossible for you to move, but they yield with ease at your fumbling touch.
Beyond is a throne room so vast your eyes can't take it all in, nevermind your brain process it. Stone and marble and shining bronze. Fire pits and the acrid scents of burnt hair and worse. One devil notices you, then more, each standing aside as you stumble down the central walkway.
Orders are harshly barked. It's not the common parlance of the mortal realm, it's Infernal, and yet somehow you understand every word that's said. Orders to leave. Now. Directed at you? Those devils around you obey without question, moving back towards the massive arched doors. The room empties quicker than you thought possible, those doors drawn closed with a deep metallic thud and heavy silence descends save for the low roar of the fire pits. You take a deep breath, trying to find an ounce of control, of rationale, as you stand there shaking. You can feel the dread Infernal presence behind you. Something unfathomably powerful. Something you know. Another shuddering breath and you turn around.
The fiend towers over you, at least twelve feet or more in height. A fire blackened exoskeleton curves around scarlet flesh that burns with a molten hellfire core. Elongated limbs of hard-packed muscle protected by the same blackened bone. A sashed belt of maroon and slate grey, shining bronze chains and diabolic skulls. Giant and spiny bat-like wings flex, tipped with lethal spurs, a barbed tail that sways as the fiend walks towards you. It's face.... By all the Hells, you know it. You've seen it before. A sultry summer night, wine and blood, heat and sweat as your bodies move together.
Your mind whites out, then image after image layers over each other as you remember. Your eyes roll, no longer seeing the fiend, lost to memories that play out with a lash of heat and betrayal, spiraling plots and games, the push and pull of a union you always knew would be the death of you.
And then it stops. Leaving you shaking and overwhelmed, a heap on the floor at the fiends clawed feet. It lowers itself to kneel close to your side and you can feel the heat pouring off its body, how your flesh feels like it's starting to bubble and peel. You stare up into three eyes split between a mind-warping amalgamation of three muzzled heads. A twisting and spiny halo of bone crowning them. You lift a hand knowing full well that you shouldn't, that it's going to do more than burn you. Flesh hisses and blackens as you touch the side of one muzzle, looking into those bright unblinking eyes.
“Raphael.” Then the world grows black and your last lingering thought is a wish to finally wake up.