Okay, so. Last year, I wrote something for NANO. This was what I had so far. I like it enough to try and pick up where I left off last year for this November.
PLEASE readses! It's full of smut. Delicious smut.
SARAH ZAHD'S
ONE THOUSAND AND ONE NIGHTMARES
Within every man lies a dream, waiting to be born on wings of light and hope, soaring for the sky and everything beyond; within every dream lies a man, waiting to be born into the world with the wings of an angel, capable of pulling him to Heaven if only he repents.
But within every man lies a thousand nightmares.
PROLOGUE
The King was rich.
Now, you might imagine this to be one of those pointlessly obvious statements, but the King was rich in the way that the sun is hot, or the oceans are wet; it is a mockery of the truth so insufficient as to be laughable. The King was rich in -all- ways - wit, handsomeness, charm, composure, determination, as well as the more common varieties involving land and money and many wives and sons. The King was even rich in names, being known as Voryirn Danaad bad Simiralle Dis-Narath'yaan Pravnuk Aleksandivaar Annansyariik to the scribes, King Voryirn to his courtiers and Danaad to his mother, god rest her soul in Heaven.
In only one way was the King poor, and that was the way of love.
******
"My twenty-sixth son," Danaad smiled, pleased at the production of another healthy heir, and the survival of his second wife, one of his favorites. There were thirteen wives in his harem, the lucky thirteen; this was the third child this wife had borne him, all of them sons, all of them beautiful just like their father. Only were the royal line born with black eyes, speaking to those who knew of the inhuman blood lurking in their veins, their very birthright to rule over the Earth Commonwealth of Continents. Danaad was the seventeenth King of this monarchy, which held the planet Earth in peaceful, content society. His will was his word; his word was law, and his law was absolute.
While Miranda slept, exhausted from the trial of producing the little bundle in Danaad's arms, the tiny boy kept his own counsel, not crying as babies should, shirking his first obligation. Danaad found himself intruiged by the way those black eyes followed him, and smiled, stroking the ebony curls that sprang forth with such profusion. It was surely a miracle of the royal blood, that any baby could be born with so much hair. It was proving a dilemma to name the child, though, so he was taking the boy to the altar, to ask the Book what his name should be.
There had been Kings more faithful, and kings less faithful than Danaad; he strove to be a good person, and to do right by his subjects, and his faith lay in the idea that if he truly did those things well, that he would be guaranteed a peaceful afterlife, or perhaps reincarnation, and not punishment for being wicked and careless with his most precious gift, life and the ability to help others. Other than that, he would have been happy worshipping any god, believing in any sort of Heaven, for his faith lay not in the names of things but in the actions a man took to uphold his beliefs. But even if the Book did not rule his every thought and idea, he had always found it an excellent source of inspiration. Thirty of his thirty-two children had been named from the Book, in moments much like these. This was, however, the first of his children who stared at him expectantly, silent and patient, as though waiting to give approval of whatever Danaad selected.
The King shook his head. Surely, no wholly human baby was born with milk-pale skin, or perfect, delicate features instead of the round, smashed look. But even few of his children, blessed with the royal blood, had seemed so very ethereal, as though they were less human than they were anything else. And he'd thought that NO baby, no matter what kind or what strange blood, was so attentive so early. Shaking his head, he turned to the podium on which the Book rested. "Tell me your name," he murmured to the infant. "Tell me his name, God, that I may call him as you have called him," Danaad called to the stained glass above him, depicting a sleeping, black-haired child with a halo. He flipped the book, not watching where his finger fell. Sometimes this took three or four tries to find an actual name, but so far it had been a good method; he'd never landed on a boy's name when looking for a girl's, and vice versa.
Now, though, he had to question himself, glancing down at the page. He had not quite flipped very far into the Book, and his finger rested on a name that was, quite frankly, anathema. Frowning, he glanced at the infant, and was shocked to see the tiny boy smiling at him, toothless mouth open.
"I will not call my son as a woman's name," he protested to the empty air, which was eerily cold and chill. He was steeling himself to flip again when the Book lit with a blinding white light. Giving a cry, he stumbled back, shielding his child with his body as a whispering, slinky voice filled the room.
"You have been given as many sons as you are to have," it purred, too low to be female, too seductive to be male. "You will raise this boy as though he was woman, and let no one ever know otherwise. Call him as we have called him! This is our demand of you, of our blood."
Shaking, Danaad huddled around the infant, who had still not let out a peep. The light slowly melted to nothing, and he was left trembling, the Book still open to the very page he had found. Swallowing, he straightened, checking on the baby, and looked again at the letters, which were in blood red now but had been black before.
Lilith.
TWELVE YEARS LATER
The year was nine hundred and ninety nine. Almost a millenium had passed since the Great Cataclysm that had left Earth and its many warring countries in ruins. Almost a millenium had passed since the first King had risen from the ashes to gather together all the nations of the world into the Commonwealth; all that time and his memory was still held revered, his statue constantly polished and checked for cracks where it stood in front of the Palace.
The current King, not as young as he once was but still just as handsome, was planning a masquerade ball. Many whispers abounded about him; all of his wives were dead, stricken down one by one in childbirth until even the youngest was drowned in her own blood. Of the thirteen deadly children, only two had survived, both girls. In his grief and horror at the idea of damning any more women to death, a madness grew within him; he took a new bride every night, and had her put to death in the morning, not wishing her to grow with his child and then die, not wishing to care for her before she went on to her reward. His thirty-four children avoided him, for most of his brides were not much older than his youngest daughters, who were twelve, twelve, and eleven now. The marrying age was thirteen, for boys and for girls, and only the King's daughters were spared being required to wed at that age, lest they become property of the church.
The brides that came to him would often weep; rumor had it that he deflowered them only in the dark, and refused to see them in the morning before they were beheaded. The King was well descended into his madness, and his eldest son, the crown prince Aarin, was twenty years old and already running most of the Kingdom. Aarin had all of the virtue and steadfastness that had once been his father's, but unlike the once-great Danaad he had a weakness: his sisters.
To say that the princesses were spoiled would have been a positively massive understatement. Where most females were not allowed to be educated, the princesses all knew to read, write, and figure; they were required to know the way of dagger and bow, to be able to protect their own virtue, and they all knew to cook, sew, embroider and weave in the way of all proper ladies. They had their own horses, their own servants, and most important, they were free to do as they pleased, as long as they did not jeopardize the royal pride - which is to say, they were free to do very little, but what they could do, they enjoyed with vigor and fire, especially the freedom to choose their own husbands. Their father, so far descended into madness, had simply said that they would never have to die by childbirth if they did not choose to; in their combined cleverness, they fought that it meant they would not be made to -wed- if they did not choose to, since how could any married woman refuse to bear a child by her husband?
Of the nine daughters, one appreciated this most, for if she had been made to wed, some very well-kept secrets would be made known very, very quickly. Lilith was twelve, about to turn thirteen on the new year. It was believed that this was a good omen, for her to reach the age of adulthood on the eve of the new millenium. Lilith had her doubts.
Of her sisters, Lilith was the prettiest, the daintiest, and the flattest. Even her younger two sisters had already blossomed, but she had not even begun to. It was a great mystery that, with Danaad gone insane, only Lilith herself knew the answer to. Some whispered that she was so cursed with knowledge, that there was too much behind her dark eyes for adulthood to find her yet. Still others murmured that she was holy; touched with divine fire, and genderless completely. When Lilith heard this, she would laugh to herself. If only, if only.
Soon, someone else would know the truth.
FIRST NIGHT
"I don't -want- to die!" Alissya sobbed, clinging to the stoic guard outside the great hall where a wedding was held each evening. Her wheat-blonde hair had been curled atop her head; her deep brown eyes brimmed with tears. The traditional emerald wedding gown clung to her frail figure, and the white veil covered her wet face. The veil was one of the only things that the guard was grateful for in this moment; it made her just another sacrifice, let him file her voice down with all the others. Silently, he pushed her, gentle but firm, into the King's chambers. He held the door shut, and tuned out any screaming.
Just like the night before.
***
The room was dark, and smelled of sweet jasmine incense. There was a huge bed she could dimly see, the silk rug covered with many pillows. Stumbling over one, Alissya almost fell on her face, but caught herself at the last minute, straightening to squint at the bed. Heart hammering with fear, she swallowed hard. The voice that came out of the darkness made her jump; the lamp that was lit a moment later made her cry out and shield her eyes. It illuminated the most beautiful man she had ever seen.
The King was tall, almost seven feet, and his curly black hair nearly reached the ground. He always dressed in black, stark collared shirt and straight-legged pants. His outfit clung to the long, lean lines of his body; the dark eyes that consumed all they looked at were set in a porcelain face. And now, he was smiling, gaze mindless with the hunger brought on by his madness.
Alissya did the only thing she could do. Throwing herself at his feet, she cried out, "Please, oh marvelous King; please do not kill me. I am barren - I will never become pregnant. I will be your faithful wife, if only you will let me live to tomorrow night, to see you marry your next bride."
The King's smile had vanished. Now he was staring at the wisp of a girl on the floor in front of him. "What sorcery is this?" he demanded, reaching down to haul her up by her arm. She bit back her cry of pain at his roughness.
"No sorcery, your supreme Majesty," Alissya protested. "The curse of drought. I was born without the womb to make a child, as punishment to my mother for not marrying my father before conceiving me. I can never bear any children." Daring to look up at him, she swallowed hard. That beautiful face was unreadable and like stone.
"We are already married," Danaad said slowly, frowning at her. "It is my duty as a husband to take you to my bed. If it proves that you have lied to save your skin, I will kill you, and have your entire family slaughtered to the last man, woman, child and goat. If you fail me as a wife, I will simply have you beheaded." His grip on her arm had not loosened. Relentless, he hauled her toward the oversized bed, whose quilts, the lamp now revealed, were a dark red; the pillows were many, and purple. That was one of the last coherent thoughts she had, as he threw her to the bed and tore off the beautiful wedding gown. No more tears left her, as he moved her like a doll and tore at her center, taking her virtue ruthlessly. The pain simply drew her within herself, into a dream of a happier marriage, one involving Love.
~~~~~~~
FIRST DREAM ~
Alissya
THE TALE OF MIRNAD AND THE SEA
There once was a lonely young fisherman, who lived with his family on the cliffs overlooking the Scarlet Sea. They had lived there for six generations, and Mirnad was the first to want to leave, which he found a great shame. Instead he threw himself into fishing, taking his own tiny boat out alone every chance he got; his monumental catches prevented anyone from complaining about this behavior.
Mirnad was sixteen when he heard the song.
Out past the sheltering spur of the bay, the water got very deep very quickly. However, if one followed the coast, where the fishing was not so good, there was a place where the ocean was split by land, where a river poured into the water and made the pulling current that was so dangerous further out. In the middle of that river was a vast, soggy delta. Getting there was highly dangerous, but Mirnad sailed as though he was an extension of the ocean, for in that swampy, brackish vastness was one of the best delicacies he could bring back - eel.
It was a summer day like any other; he had cast his net and anchored, and lain back on his deck to sun himself in the nude. Something, however, woke him.
At first he thought it was flute music, and he was at a wedding, but even at weddings no one played music -that- beautiful. Shaking sleep off slowly, Mirnad opened his eyes and lifted his head. No flute really sounded like that, either. It was.... it was someone singing. Pure, wordless, and skirling like a wild thing more than a song, but oh, it was beautiful. Mirnad had to know where it was coming from, what beautiful creature was singing.
The young human did not have far to look, for there, perched on the bow of his little boat, was a beautiful siren.
The siren was small and slim, with knowing blue eyes, cat-slanted and almond shaped; the fiery red hair stood haloed against the setting sun. The siren was also completely naked, which made it almost impossible for Mirnad to ignore the fact that the siren happened to be completely male. He's too pretty to be a boy, he found himself thinking, then shook his head and scrambled to his feet.
"What are you doing on my ship?" he demanded, in a voice that rather shook. Anxiety filled him as the beautiful man slid onto the deck on silent feet.
"What are you doing in my fens?" the siren retorted, putting hands on his hips. Mirnad blinked at him, so surprised that he blurted out the truth without thinking.
"I'm catching eels. Good eating," Mirnad muttered, trying to make himself sound gruff and manly.
Laughing, the siren shook his head. "Well, you can't eat nearly as many as you take." He prowled closer, swaying like the waves with each step, as though even being on a bobbing ship was too much like land for his legs. "But I've decided that I know how you can pay me for them."
Stunned, Mirnad could only stare at the siren, brain unable to process what he had said until he felt little wet hands at his waist. "Whoa! No, no, no, don't do that," he babbled hastily. "I, uh. I don't like boys." This was at least partly a lie; he at least thought he wasn't, but faced with a creature like this, he could not help but be attracted.
"I'm not a boy. I'm a siren. You just see my male aspect because that's your desire." Smiling, the siren spread his hands in the air. "It is hardly my doing. My name is Orion."
Shaking his head again, Mirnad tried to take another step back, but found his spine against the mast. "I don't desire any aspect of you," he protested, but the siren came closer, to touch him again, to explore all of that lovely, tanned skin.
Orion merely smiled. "You have taken many of my eels. I am collecting repayment for those eels. This will be the best thing you have ever felt, if you relax and enjoy."
"I don't want to enjoy!" Mirnad yelped, batting at the hands that slid up his chest. "I don't want to - to be used like a woman!"
That earned a momentary pause from the siren. Mirnad frowned when he realized that Orion was laughing. "What is so damned funny?" he demanded.
"You will be the one using, eel-thief," Orion purred, and pulled Mirnad down to the deck of the ship, to take what was owed to him in a way that was very satisfactory to the both of them.
~~~~~~
Alissya's vision was broken by the sudden realization that the air around her was cold; no one was touching her anymore. The ache was a dull one, and she whimpered, curling in on herself; apparently the King had gone to his sleeping chamber, and meant to leave her here for the night.
Pulling the blanket over herself, she tried to go back to sleep, pain or not, and soon the blissful darkness swallowed her down again.
*******
The sun had long since set. Thousands of stars glittered overhead, like water droplets on an infinite indigo path. Sighing, Lilith stretched out on the divan he had dragged onto the balcony. Alone, late at night, when there was no one to see him, he was free to be himself. All day long, in long skirts and corset, he felt very much the part of the faithful daughter. Now, though, with no one but a winking sliver moon to know, he had taken off the corset, everything but his long nightgown. The thin cotton was no barrier to the sweet breeze drifting in off the sea. Truly relaxed, he let out a contented sigh.
Since the day he had been born, his father had declared him a female child, and treated him as such. His mother had been his sole nurse in those early years, and, taught independence at an early age, had no body servants, even as a young princess. His dedication to scholarly arts and to interpretation of the Book had earned him something of a repuation of someone completely above all physical needs; the Lilith everyone knew was a studious, serious girl who never flirted, fasted to maintain a figure (not that she had to, with that secretly male metabolism and hunger) or worried about how to do her hair. She was the best at embroidery, at riding, and she knew the whole Book front to back, and many, many other books as well. Her sisters whispered that her piety was what did her in. All that devotion to such boring abstinence from all the fun things kept her blossomless.
Lilith never did anything to discourage these rumors. In fact, she did her best to help them along. The more mystery that shrouded her, and the less anyone else liked to dig into her little mystery, the better. Truthfully, she could not have cared less about the religion in the Book; it was a good cover, and a good thing to know, so she could wield it against others. Her favorite part was the one about her - Lilith, the queen of darkness. Why her mother would give her such a name, she had never known; her mother had died giving birth to her youngest sister barely three years after Lilith had been born. There were many mysteries in this one young man masquerading as a woman, most of which he didn't know the answers to himself.
Now, though, he could ignore all of that just a little longer. The moon never told his secrets, and he had told her many of them indeed. He wasn't in the mood to talk tonight, though, and simply stretched out over the soft suede of the cushion, relishing the cool air to wash away the day's heat.
Suddenly, down below, a great ruckus caught his attention. The breaking of glass and drunken laughter was loudest; Lilith frowned, glancing below. Those folks from up north, visiting one of his brothers for the social season, were quite rowdy. Perhaps it was because of their animalistic nature. For his part, when he had first seen the foreigners, Lilith had been both fascinated and horrified. The magic of Fallout, that had turned his greatest ancestors to things better than humans, the blood that made them royalty, had many forms. For those here in the capitol, at the center of the world on a river still known as the Nile, that magic took the form of the royal line, blessed with the strangeness of a power greater than themselves. For the northerners, it was far more widespread; not only their nobles possessed it, but the whole of their people. It was said that the family Simiralle was the only one so blessed, and that was why they were the Royal family, but when Lilith had seen the northerners he had quite wondered. For, where Lilith and his family were simply a little strange, they were VERY strange.
As beautiful as the royal family, but paler, every last one of the northerners, to a man, had fur. Not in the sense that most creatures with fur have fur, but in a far less natural seeming sense: their ears sat atop their heads, triangular and furred, and tails followed the lines of each tattooed spine. Whatever blood that blessed the royals had to have been reptilian in nature; that which graced these lovely, raucous things was that of the cat. Lilith longed to get closer, to see if their whiskers and slightly more pointed shape of face really was all that different, to see if they had retractible claws like the pampered pets he kept, but he knew better; the northerners were untrustworthy, and more importantly, here on behalf of his brother Jaavi. This particular brother was known as a layabout and a time waster; never having done a day's work or study in his life, he lived to drink and womanize. That was the -last- part of his family Lilith wanted to associate with. Not only did he have no desire for that kind of partying, but it would have ruined his carefully crafted facade.
Little did he know that the party loving northerners would be the ruin of him, no matter how careful he was.
**********
The party was just getting started. One of the many lovelies he had brought with was on his lap; her sister was on the lap of his new friend, the Prince Jaavi. It was, as Kane reflected, a good time to come to the Capitol. He had traveled here with his entourage of high-priced pretties, a sort of traveling caravan of payable fun, but when he had met the royals he had been very intruiged. It was something of a secret, one that Kane kept well hidden this far south, that he was of noble blood, but apparently like could sniff out like, for Jaavi had known him from the start as one of the far-flung noble families distributed across each continent to keep order when the King's word was too far away to be easily enforced. Kane was all of northern blood, though, and it was his furred ears that had first drawn Jaavi's attention. Well, really, it was the furred ears of his women, and their fluffy tails, and soft curves and fluttering scarves... Jaavi was an easy man to manipulate, for which Kane was very grateful. He had so far taken at face value the idea that Kane rented out his harem, a thing nearly unheard of in such a proper place as this. The truth was, his harem or not, Kane had no interest in the pretty redhead pressed against him, and especially no real interest in the softness of the parts of her that were pressed against him firmest. It was nothing to be ashamed of up north, but down here the view was not so permissive, so he kept his peace, and kept his lusts quiet on this trip. Ostensibly he was here to make some money, have some fun, that sort of thing, but truly he had come to check on the state of things. His father had sent him, worried about the King's mental health, or obvious lack thereof. And from what he had seen so far, with the new millenium about to make its impact on the world, Kane was glad he was here to see everything as it happened.
However, once the Prince had imbibed enough alcohol to fall quite asleep, Kane nudged the girl off his lap gently. At his nod his lovelies - those not rented out for the night - went about gathering up their things. As he watched, a strange and wonderful scent tickled his nose. With whiskers quivering he looked around. The smell he was picking up on was that of... a sweet, innocent young male, ripening but not yet plucked. Licking his lips, he smiled. One of the girls noticed that smile, and covered her mouth with her hand.
"Carry on without me, ladies, and then head on back to the wagon," Kane said lazily, making a show of stretching. Unlike the southerners with their plain, all-concealing clothes, Kane wore mostly animal hides, eschewing fabric as too much of a pain. Each of his tattoos, spreading over his back and down his arms, was plainly visible, and he had seen many of the local women staring at him appreciatively, for his muscles were well earned and well kept. They served him well, too, as he padded silently through the garden, following the scent. He had been getting bits of this particular scent since he had arrived, but had never been able to place it. Now, though, now he was going to find its source and... well. Kane had his plans.
Climbing up the trellis was simple. Ridiculously simple, for one so agile and capable. Hand over hand he swarmed up past the jasmine blooms, nose quivering. He paused to peek through the pillars that made up the balcony's edge, but he could see nothing more than a pale hand dangling from a low couch. His mind was made up. That was the source of the smell, no denying it. Leaping up easily, he perched on the edge of the balcony, and was stunned at what he saw.
One of the royal princesses was draped over that low couch in nothing more than her nightgown, a thin, drifting thing that the wind had tugged up long, shapely legs. The pitch-black curls that pillowed under the porcelain cheek said it as surely as did her ethereal beauty. Kane could hardly keep his jaw from hitting his chest. This little slip of a princess was in fact a prince? He had wondered briefly, seeing her at a distance, if she was somehow younger than her other sisters, to be so childlike in body still, but the scent had distracted him. Well. That was two mysteries solved. And a solution offered.
Smiling, Kane slid down off the edge of the balcony, and prowled closer, ears perked. If this little thing was pretending to be a girl, then surely there would be those who would love to know he was not. And that was just the leverage Kane would need to get what HE wanted from this beautiful little 'princess'.
************
Something was wrong.
Lilith blinked, trying to shake sleep from his fuzzy head. He had not meant to fall asleep on the balcony; had he been discovered....
Suddenly he realized it was too late.
The figure above the bed was strange to him, and for a moment he thought it might have been some kind of specter, for the strangeness of its dress. Then his fogged eyes took a second look, and he saw a bare-chested man, tattooed and lean; he followed that fair skin upward, some little voice inside marveling at the sight of freckles and pierced nipples, to a sharp-chinned, feline face. The stranger was handsome, and haloed with golden blonde hair, the same gold that graced the big fluffy ears that poked out of that hair. Lilith had time to register strikingly blue cat slitted eyes before the smirk filled his sight, and lead filled his belly. There was no hiding what he was up here, like this, and he sat up fast, yanking at his nightgown to try and hide himself better.
"What are you doing here? How dare you invade a princess' quarters!" Lilith said, trying to sound threatening, but the blonde cat man only laughed.
"That seems rather impossible, princess," he said mockingly, sauntering closer to reach out. Lilith jumped when that hand touched his cheek; the nails were sharp but not claws, some detached part of him mused. "Or is there another princess here?"
Those words chilled Lilith to the bone. There was no more hiding. Swallowing hard, he shut his eyes. "Please - you mustn't..."
"Oh, I'm very good at keeping secrets," Kane assured him, threading fingers into Lilith's hair and leaning closer to get a better smell of the boy. His rising fear and panic only made him sweeter to Kane's nose. "As long as I have a reason to."
At first Lilith did not understand, but as he leaned back and saw the light in those brilliant blue eyes, knowledge dawned within him. He had heard stories of men who liked men, and it was one of those horror type tales that was spread with no real sincerity... or so he had thought.
"A man should not lie with a man in woman's bed," he protested weakly, and flinched when the stranger laughed.
"Ah, but a man is more than encouraged to lie with a woman in woman's bed," Kane countered, and kissed him, hard. "Unless you would like me to prove for many to see that you are NOT a woman..."
Lilith did not fight his kiss.
****
Kane was pleased with his discovery. The beautiful prince he had discovered up here, asleep and waiting to be claimed, was submitting to his wishes. If he had thought the boy even knew how to kiss, he might have hoped that the kiss be returned; as it was he was content to educate the boy, tongue sliding past reluctant lips. "Enjoy this," Kane purred, tail swaying. "I won't hurt you. In fact, it will be a whole lot of fun." Strong hands slid down Lilith's back, under his hair. Lilith could feel the warmth of his skin even through his nightgown, and he shivered, pulling away from that kiss. The blush on his face was visible even in the starlight.
"I can hardly enjoy something so - so illicit," the prince in disguise whispered. Kane only laughed.
"It's only illicit if you say it is. Sides, since you're such a sweet little virgin - don't ask, I can tell these things, princess.... I think I could be persuaded to take this slow. Just so I don't break your little mind. But you'd better do what I say, or your secret WILL come out, understand? I won't fuck you now, but I will most definitely fuck you soon." The look on that pointed, feline face was a hungry, possessive one; Kane had not yet let go of Lilith's hair. It was all the young prince could do to keep his composure. The very idea of... any kind of 'fucking' filled him with anxious dread. But there was little he could do about it.
Observing his prey, Kane smiled to himself. Oh, yes, this was useful. Keep the boy frightened of sex, and he would trade anything instead of that supposedly feminine virtue of his.... like vital knowledge about his family. And he could slowly, gradually blackmail the boy into sleeping with him anyway. Watching Lilith avoid his gaze, flushed and unsure, he knew that this would be a fun game to play indeed.
"What, no retort? That's good. You should be a good boy for me," Kane chuckled, and stroked his hair. "What's your name, pretty princess?"
Lilith winced, but did not pull away. "...My name is Lilith," he said quietly, ignoring the laughter that followed.
"A girl's name too? God, does your own FAMILY know you're not a girl?" Kane snorted. The silence and stiffness of the boy answered -that- question for him. "...Oh, how wonderful. It'll be our special, private little secret then, won't it? I'm Kane, by the way. Just so you know who your master is," he added, mostly just to see the pretty prince flinch again.
Oh, yes, this would be a fun game indeed. Reluctantly letting go of that soft, soft hair, Kane stood back. "Well. I think the foundations of our relationship are firmly enough set, hmm? Meet me here tomorrow night at sundown. Bring some date wine, and tell no one of this engagement, my dear." Smirking, he went back to the balcony's edge. "I'll see you tomorrow, oh princess mine."
Lilith watched him go over the edge, and only once he was gone could he bring himself to move. Woodenly he rose, stumbling inside and shutting the glass doors with shaking hands. There was no strength in him to pull the divan inside as he came in; he barely made it to the bed before he collapsed onto his pillows.
For the first time in his or her life, Lilith cried.
FIRST DAWN
The sun rose slowly, as though struggling to rise through many layers of oil, or perhaps even sand. The sky turned lighter bit by bit, fighting the night away, finally turning colors in the east. The few clouds went from dark blue to lighter blue to pale yellow and then blazing crimson and to yellow again as the sun breached the horizon, drifting upward into the lightening sky like a barge floating untended down the river, to where it would bob into the sea.
Alissya watched all of this with a surprising sense of peace. She was not afraid of her death now, waiting for the executioner to come take her away. She was not afraid of the King, of being a bride for a night and a wife never; she was not afraid of the god that she would meet in the great beyond. She was too busy thinking to really process the passage of time, and so when she realized that the sun was fully in the sky and no one had come for her yet, she began to hope that what the King had said the night before would hold true, that she WOULD be his wife as well as his bride.
It was this thought that propelled her out of the wedding bed. It was this thought that kept her from looking back at the stain, or from hesitating to wrap the sheet around herself. As the King's sole wife, she was Queen - a name, not really a title, certainly no real power, but what little power she commanded, she felt as she stepped out of that room. The guard there, who had seen only her veil the night before, could only stare at the beautiful woman that was standing there.
"I wish my own suite of rooms, as befits a Queen, and a bath that befits the very god above us," she said commandingly. For a moment the guard gawked at her, and then he snapped to attention.
"As your majesty commands!" he said, his high pitched tone belying his shock, and scrambled to do her bidding. In the twelve years he'd had this post, never not ONCE had he seen a girl come OUT of that room of her own will. Usually the executioner had to drag them out. He had been wondering where the executioner was, actually, it was getting quite late for a dawn beheading, when.... well.
As he ran to summon servants for her, he could only wonder... had the King come back from his madness at last?
*****
The suite that they took her to was lavish and oversized. The carpet was thick and violet, the bedsheets were blue and the tile in the bath was ivory white. The water in the bath was hot and plentiful, which was perhaps the greatest luxury a girl could ask for. From a minor noble family, her days of bathing had been warm, but never in a pool like this one, suitable for a dozen people of chilly relation at least. The ointments and soaps offered her were the sweetest she had ever smelled in her life, and the towels the softest. There were three women servants to wash her hair, her hands, to dry her and to perfume her, to style her hair and dress her in beautiful, expensive silken clothing.
Through all of this Alissya sat quiet, thinking. There had been little hope or chance for proper planning, before she had been married, and now that she was wife two days in a row, she could only wonder. If a mad king kept on taking a new wife each night and killing her, as she expected he would, he need never touch her again. That suited her just fine. It also gave her the time and the freedom to get herself settled and situated; any Queen should know all the secrets of her people.
She started with her servants. Focusing on the pretty girl painting her nails, she smiled. "What's your name?" Alissya asked gently. From the stunned expressions the girls exchanged she knew she had been right. Be nice to the servants, who were considered invisible but certainly saw very much, and soon she would learn much of what they knew.
"My name is Sandra," the girl answered, awed. Smiling, the Queen touched her arm lightly.
"That is a lovely name. How long have you worked in the palace?"
"My - my whole life, your majesty,'" Sandra replied, floored. "Is there a reason your highness wanted to know?"
"I just think I should know the names of my closest body servants. I am not familiar with palace life; I will need help to know what to say and whom to trust. I am hoping that the three of you can help me in such delicate areas," Alissya whispered, a bit conspiratorially. "Many people disregard what your eyes might see, but I know that you remember all that you see, where others think you incapable of remembering anything at all."
With those words, the servant girls were under her spell, and slowly, her effect spread. Before the day was out she had visited the kitchens, the stables, and the actual servants' quarters to make new friends. Rumors spread like wildfire about the queen and whatever magical powers she must have had; most people were so stunned by her very existence past dawn that anything she did or said could be believed. By noon she was the god come to earth, the moon come to earth, a witch, a changeling, a djinni, a succubus, and the avatar of the god, depending on whom one asked.
As she settled down to the lavish lunch they brought her, Alissya smiled. This was not quite what she had had in mind but nonetheless it suited her. She had no great ambitions of yet, no far reaching plans, but she had ideas, and ideas were the fuel that made ambitions great. She smiled at and thanked each and every servant who came to her that day, and it took almost forty of them to serve her lunch, just because so many of the palace staff wanted an excuse to meet her. After she had eaten, she rose from her chair with a smile.
"Please, tell everyone that a new time has come. I have convinced the King to spare my life in hopes of moving the world forward in a new direction for everyone. I am willing to listen to anything you have to say, in secret if you are fearful of retribution. I may be Queen, I may be royalty by marriage and noble by blood but we are all members of the Commonwealth; we are all people, we are all human, and I want you all to know that things can be changed for the better, if only you help me to achieve the dreams that we can set forth."
Smiling, she spread her hands as, one by one, they rushed forward to kiss her knuckles.
A plan was beginning to form behind her lovely brown eyes, a plan that would change the world forever and give a woman the power of the Throne. That plan was like a soap bubble, one she dared not look directly at lest it pop, but it was there nonetheless, and as she watched the servants crowd forward to touch the seeming miracle before them, the plan unfolded a little more, and grew there in the back of her mind.
Somewhere inside, a little voice was laughing.
****
The morning had been nothing more than a surreal blur.
From the moment Lilith had gotten out of bed, he had not quite been able to focus on anything that happened. Breakfast had been eaten mechanically, without any thought for taste or enjoyment; and it did not go unnoticed that someone as well known for her attention to detail as Lilith was going around in mismatched clothing. Whispers abounded instantly, as of course these things do, springing from the aether like devils to plague the virtuous, following her like serpents in the wake of a boat, sneaky and surreptitious.
She found herself completely bereft of the desire to eat again at lunch time, and instead retreated to her room. There she took her copy of the Book onto her bed, and opened it to her favorite part. The life affirming act of reading her namesake's story always helped her remember her balance in life.
****
The Story of Lilith In the Garden
or,
How the Godly Being Made the First Man and Woman in His Image
A very, very long time ago, but after the Start of Time chronicled in JAANASIITH
When the Godly Being made the heavens and the Earth
Seeing fit in His infinite Wisdom
He blessed it with LIFE
and with FREE WILL.
The emptiness before the Godly being made light
And sound and Earth and Sky
Was blank
A Slate for the writing
However
The Godly being grew tired of always knowing what would
Or could be
Written next.
And when He
in His infinite Wisdom
Gifted the new born Earth
With His light
And with his LOVE
First He made of Two
Two like of specie and soul
One of Woman
One of Man
These He called as He wished they be called
The man Aadan
And the woman
Lilith.
****
Lilith always had to wonder, reading her mother's old Book, why her name was in red ink anywhere it was written. She had tried asking her Father once but he had gone into a screaming fit and nearly thrown a vase at her head, the nearly only being because she ducked.
****
The Complaint in the Garden
or
How Lilith Grew to KNOW
As the Godly incandescent
in His Wisdom did so make
And His likeness did so take
in giving LIFE did give so too
Wisdom
Man
Not made for Wisdom
Did not notice
Aadan too busy counting and categorizing
All he saw
As was his biological imperative
As the Man.
Woman
Made For, of, and By Wisdom
Took all that the Godly gave into her
And she opened her Eye
And she SAW.
Wishing to keep true knowledge from His creations
He gathered it
Into the wood of a single tree
But it was much too late
For what was seen could not be forgotten.
Lilith
Asking why, why not, why ever
Roused the ire of the Godly star
And He did throw her from the Garden
To wander forever alone in Shadow.
****
Sighing, Lilith stopped there, planting her chin in her hand. To know, to know, to know, ever her curse. She couldn't wonder if maybe the first Lilith had been hiding a secret like hers. Maybe that would explain why she had never borne children once cast out. Unless she had, and it was simply not something anyone ever thought about, since there were enough nightmares to be had already and no one was really asking for more.
Eyes drawn down the page, Lilith frowned. She had somehow missed this before.
***
The Tale of the Second Woman
or
How the Godly light made of Man a Companion
Soon enough
Man alone in the Garden
Begged the Godly light
for a relief like that which
his other half had given.
The Godly light in its Grace
Took one side of Aadan and fashioned it in to
A Woman
More pliable than the previous.
The Godly light told to Aadan
'This is your succor
This is your wife
Shall she ever lead to Wisdom
That you will be thrown from the Gardens.
Eat not of the Tree.'
And this He told too to Avya
Made of Aadan.
Woman's nature pulled and saw
pulled Avya unresisting
No seduction there then took
The Woman's only wish
For to see the Truth as told
As forbidden was her wish.
What secret so great need be forbidden
said Woman
And ate the tree.
And she Knew.
She brought herself to Aadan
and Kissed him
to share with him the Tree
It flowed through them
In from her lips to his
Spreading through stomach and Blood
And they Knew.
Eyes opened they saw
In color
Knowing the way of everything
How it was made, how it would end
They looked at the sky and saw the seasons
Saw the cold of winter coming
With the prescience of Godly light
And took the hides of their prey
to make into clothing to put around themselves
When the snow fell.
The Godly light
Filled with fury
Banished them from the Garden
Forever to wander alone in Shadow.
***
Frowning, Lilith could only wonder. How had any humans lived at all, if this was really true? Or maybe the Garden really was Heaven, and to be cast to wander alone meant to have your soul trapped into a mortal, feeling body that was thrown down to suffer and strive and suffer for striving. Sighing, she shut the Book. It hadn't really helped. The true problem was still there, and she was still just a boy pretending, not the true First Woman.
Obviously.
What to do about Kane? It was a topic that plagued his mind. Lilith fidgeted and chewed his lip. The very idea of submitting to his perverse wishes was so unnerving that he found himself wondering if he wasn't more horrified because he was somewhat interested. He had always suspected that his complete lack of attraction to females was simply a result of his deranged upbringing. Was he also cursed to love as a woman is loved? Or to not even love at all, but be used as a playing piece in some horrible political game.
These thoughts would get him nowhere, and he sighed again, shaking his head to rid himself of their insidious whispers. If that was so, there was nothing he could do about it, and even if he was attracted he would drag things out at long as he could, to make sure that Kane was serious about not giving away his true nature.
Frowning, he fiddled with a lock of his hair. All these complicated thoughts had eclipsed his usual desperate daily need for a bath. Getting a good one was difficult, considering his situation, so he had begged a bathing room in his own suite, for religious purification he had said.
Pulling himself off the bed, he trudged toward the bathing room. For the first time in a long time he had not been cautious this morning in hiding his masculine essence. Tugging at the laces of his corset, he plucked insistently, until the knots gave way, and heaved a sigh of relief to loosen it. Spending so much of his time in one was giving him a tiny girlish waist and hips, he noted with dismay in the reflection from the massive mirror he had begged for. It was his one true vanity and luxury but at times being a girl all the time was so confusing that he had to spend hours staring at himself naked just to remember that yes, he really was a he, not a she, and there was the proof.
Tugging off his shirt, he made sure the door was closed, and turned on the water full blast; the basin was large enough for two, and would take some time to fill up. The water steamed as it hit the porcelain. Lilith sighed blissfully. The King who had gone to so much trouble to fit the Palace with such amenities had been brilliant indeed.
Catching sight of himself once more in the mirror, he frowned. Could hardly wash his hair without brushing it. Sighing, he tugged the door open again and slipped out, sneaking across his room to quickly retrieve the brush from the top of his vanity, with all his makeup and perfumes. Retreating to the safety of his bathing room, he sighed, shutting the door once more.
As he stepped in front of the mirror again, he smiled wryly, and pulled off his skirts and panties. Yes. Still truly a boy. Well, a man, really, or so he hoped, and soon, or else he might have to pretend to be a girl for the rest of his life.
Startled, Lilith stared at the mirror, sure that that thought must have come from the reflection, because it was certainly new to him. He had never imagined anything BUT living as a girl for the rest of his life. But the idea of impending adulthood had him realizing that he would change into a man, not a girl, and the ruse would be much, much harder to retain. Biting his lip, he frowned at the mirror. "Really, thinking such silly things. Lilith, you should be ashamed of yourself." Lifting the brush, he pulled his hair over one shoulder, luxuriating in the softness of it against his skin, and, starting at the bottom, began to brush it out. Princesses were expected to never cut their hair, and so it took many more than one hundred strokes, for it reached to his knees. He caught himself humming as he pulled the brush along - ivory and boar-bristle, the best money could buy, with a cameo of a lily on the back - a present for one Kanna-ka's night - and had to wonder at the state he was in. Surely one little kiss - well, several kisses - shouldn't be nearly so distracting. And not even very good kisses, at that.
Well, actually, how was he to know? Something inside told him with confidence that oh, those had been the best kisses, the kind that say a thousand things but foremost you are mine, but he ignored it. How ridiculous was the very idea.
But standing in front of that mirror, it was hard to lie to himself, for he was blushing.
Shaking away all such ridiculous thoughts, he put the brush aside, hair gleaming and perfectly in order - at least until he let go of it. Such was the nature of curls, and it was not his way to be vexed by this; then again, he was not really a woman, and such concerns were those of women more than they were of men. The basin was to the appropriate level; he turned the knob and sighed at the steam that filled the room. No oils or bubbles went in the water, just Lilith himself, basking in the heat and the sensation of melting from the inside out.
He took his time to soak in the water. This really was his favorite part of the day. Finally, though, he sat up, and pulled the plug. Setting it aside on its chain, he rose to his feet, to flip the switch that would bring the water overhead. Still steaming hot, it streamed over his head and down his body. Almost moaning in relief, Lilith washed his hair slowly, lazily, and when he was done doing it, he did it again. The scalding water sluiced down, and he shivered, the parts of him not under the flow cold by comparison. He rinsed thoroughly, and sighed again, this time in contentment. He had an array of treatments for his hair, his only womanly vanity, and he used his favorite next. All in all it took him nearly an hour just for his hair, and then to wash the rest of him. By the time he filled the basin for one last soak, the water was not quite steaming anymore. Lilith didn't care. With a blissful smile he settled into the water.
By no means had he intended to fall asleep.
~~~~~~~
SECOND DREAM
Lilith
DOING a FILTHY PLEASURE is; and SHORT
In the dream Lilith was in his bed, half asleep. He knew right away it was a dream, because that abominable northerner Kane was in his bed next to him. His dreaming self woke quickly.
"...What are you doing in my bed?" he demanded, dismayed to realize he was naked under the sheet.
"Only what you -want- me to be doing in your bed," Kane purred, and pulled him close for a searing kiss, swallowing Lilith's whimpers. The boy was stiff at first, but relaxed eventually, and even tried to kiss back once the heat of Kane's lust had infected and infested him. Very pleased by this, Kane bore him down to the bed, and his kisses traveled from Lilith's lips to his throat, which earned him even more pathetic noises. Some prince or princess, really. Then again, this was Lilith's dream, and Lilith's desire. So who knew what was going on?
Slowly and yet with a speed that overwhelmed Lilith enough that he forgot he was alive, much less dreaming, he felt Kane's hands slide down his naked body, and heard a moan come from his lips with the disconnected distance of ears that did not truly wish to hear. Warring with himself the entire time, he was hopelessly lost long before Kane's hand actually touched the center of his need.
`~`~`~~~
The moment Lilith's climax reached him he awoke in the tub with a cry, splashing water over the sides.
Panting heavily, he clutched at the edges of the porcelain basin, eyes wide. What in the name of the holiest light was THAT? What kind of horrible nightmare was that? And why him? Why any kind of perverted dream about that - that scoundrel who had had the gall to try and blackmail him. Who was blackmailing him, Lilith had to admit. Still, it was somehow deeply affecting to know that someone knew him as a man, and was attracted to him. It went against everything he had been raised to believe.
With a groan, he hauled himself up out of the tub, grimacing expressively at the .... residue he left in the water. Pulling the plug once more, he rinsed fervently, and thoroughly scrubbed all over again, feeling naughty, and a bit racy, or what was that word - sexy, was it not? How insane this all was. One meeting, one man with - with a tail instead of a conscience, was all it took to make him into a slavering, mindless, idiotic typical teenaged boy whose life was ruled by his nether appendage?
Groaning, he ran a hand over his wet hair, slicking the water out of it as he climbed out and reached for a towel. Wrapping it around the long mess of his hair, he snatched another to put around his body, and fled the bathing room, not looking back, where his reflection in the mirror was staring after him with a wicked smile.
********
CONTINUED IN THE NEXT POST!
PLEASE readses! It's full of smut. Delicious smut.
SARAH ZAHD'S
ONE THOUSAND AND ONE NIGHTMARES
Within every man lies a dream, waiting to be born on wings of light and hope, soaring for the sky and everything beyond; within every dream lies a man, waiting to be born into the world with the wings of an angel, capable of pulling him to Heaven if only he repents.
But within every man lies a thousand nightmares.
PROLOGUE
The King was rich.
Now, you might imagine this to be one of those pointlessly obvious statements, but the King was rich in the way that the sun is hot, or the oceans are wet; it is a mockery of the truth so insufficient as to be laughable. The King was rich in -all- ways - wit, handsomeness, charm, composure, determination, as well as the more common varieties involving land and money and many wives and sons. The King was even rich in names, being known as Voryirn Danaad bad Simiralle Dis-Narath'yaan Pravnuk Aleksandivaar Annansyariik to the scribes, King Voryirn to his courtiers and Danaad to his mother, god rest her soul in Heaven.
In only one way was the King poor, and that was the way of love.
******
"My twenty-sixth son," Danaad smiled, pleased at the production of another healthy heir, and the survival of his second wife, one of his favorites. There were thirteen wives in his harem, the lucky thirteen; this was the third child this wife had borne him, all of them sons, all of them beautiful just like their father. Only were the royal line born with black eyes, speaking to those who knew of the inhuman blood lurking in their veins, their very birthright to rule over the Earth Commonwealth of Continents. Danaad was the seventeenth King of this monarchy, which held the planet Earth in peaceful, content society. His will was his word; his word was law, and his law was absolute.
While Miranda slept, exhausted from the trial of producing the little bundle in Danaad's arms, the tiny boy kept his own counsel, not crying as babies should, shirking his first obligation. Danaad found himself intruiged by the way those black eyes followed him, and smiled, stroking the ebony curls that sprang forth with such profusion. It was surely a miracle of the royal blood, that any baby could be born with so much hair. It was proving a dilemma to name the child, though, so he was taking the boy to the altar, to ask the Book what his name should be.
There had been Kings more faithful, and kings less faithful than Danaad; he strove to be a good person, and to do right by his subjects, and his faith lay in the idea that if he truly did those things well, that he would be guaranteed a peaceful afterlife, or perhaps reincarnation, and not punishment for being wicked and careless with his most precious gift, life and the ability to help others. Other than that, he would have been happy worshipping any god, believing in any sort of Heaven, for his faith lay not in the names of things but in the actions a man took to uphold his beliefs. But even if the Book did not rule his every thought and idea, he had always found it an excellent source of inspiration. Thirty of his thirty-two children had been named from the Book, in moments much like these. This was, however, the first of his children who stared at him expectantly, silent and patient, as though waiting to give approval of whatever Danaad selected.
The King shook his head. Surely, no wholly human baby was born with milk-pale skin, or perfect, delicate features instead of the round, smashed look. But even few of his children, blessed with the royal blood, had seemed so very ethereal, as though they were less human than they were anything else. And he'd thought that NO baby, no matter what kind or what strange blood, was so attentive so early. Shaking his head, he turned to the podium on which the Book rested. "Tell me your name," he murmured to the infant. "Tell me his name, God, that I may call him as you have called him," Danaad called to the stained glass above him, depicting a sleeping, black-haired child with a halo. He flipped the book, not watching where his finger fell. Sometimes this took three or four tries to find an actual name, but so far it had been a good method; he'd never landed on a boy's name when looking for a girl's, and vice versa.
Now, though, he had to question himself, glancing down at the page. He had not quite flipped very far into the Book, and his finger rested on a name that was, quite frankly, anathema. Frowning, he glanced at the infant, and was shocked to see the tiny boy smiling at him, toothless mouth open.
"I will not call my son as a woman's name," he protested to the empty air, which was eerily cold and chill. He was steeling himself to flip again when the Book lit with a blinding white light. Giving a cry, he stumbled back, shielding his child with his body as a whispering, slinky voice filled the room.
"You have been given as many sons as you are to have," it purred, too low to be female, too seductive to be male. "You will raise this boy as though he was woman, and let no one ever know otherwise. Call him as we have called him! This is our demand of you, of our blood."
Shaking, Danaad huddled around the infant, who had still not let out a peep. The light slowly melted to nothing, and he was left trembling, the Book still open to the very page he had found. Swallowing, he straightened, checking on the baby, and looked again at the letters, which were in blood red now but had been black before.
Lilith.
TWELVE YEARS LATER
The year was nine hundred and ninety nine. Almost a millenium had passed since the Great Cataclysm that had left Earth and its many warring countries in ruins. Almost a millenium had passed since the first King had risen from the ashes to gather together all the nations of the world into the Commonwealth; all that time and his memory was still held revered, his statue constantly polished and checked for cracks where it stood in front of the Palace.
The current King, not as young as he once was but still just as handsome, was planning a masquerade ball. Many whispers abounded about him; all of his wives were dead, stricken down one by one in childbirth until even the youngest was drowned in her own blood. Of the thirteen deadly children, only two had survived, both girls. In his grief and horror at the idea of damning any more women to death, a madness grew within him; he took a new bride every night, and had her put to death in the morning, not wishing her to grow with his child and then die, not wishing to care for her before she went on to her reward. His thirty-four children avoided him, for most of his brides were not much older than his youngest daughters, who were twelve, twelve, and eleven now. The marrying age was thirteen, for boys and for girls, and only the King's daughters were spared being required to wed at that age, lest they become property of the church.
The brides that came to him would often weep; rumor had it that he deflowered them only in the dark, and refused to see them in the morning before they were beheaded. The King was well descended into his madness, and his eldest son, the crown prince Aarin, was twenty years old and already running most of the Kingdom. Aarin had all of the virtue and steadfastness that had once been his father's, but unlike the once-great Danaad he had a weakness: his sisters.
To say that the princesses were spoiled would have been a positively massive understatement. Where most females were not allowed to be educated, the princesses all knew to read, write, and figure; they were required to know the way of dagger and bow, to be able to protect their own virtue, and they all knew to cook, sew, embroider and weave in the way of all proper ladies. They had their own horses, their own servants, and most important, they were free to do as they pleased, as long as they did not jeopardize the royal pride - which is to say, they were free to do very little, but what they could do, they enjoyed with vigor and fire, especially the freedom to choose their own husbands. Their father, so far descended into madness, had simply said that they would never have to die by childbirth if they did not choose to; in their combined cleverness, they fought that it meant they would not be made to -wed- if they did not choose to, since how could any married woman refuse to bear a child by her husband?
Of the nine daughters, one appreciated this most, for if she had been made to wed, some very well-kept secrets would be made known very, very quickly. Lilith was twelve, about to turn thirteen on the new year. It was believed that this was a good omen, for her to reach the age of adulthood on the eve of the new millenium. Lilith had her doubts.
Of her sisters, Lilith was the prettiest, the daintiest, and the flattest. Even her younger two sisters had already blossomed, but she had not even begun to. It was a great mystery that, with Danaad gone insane, only Lilith herself knew the answer to. Some whispered that she was so cursed with knowledge, that there was too much behind her dark eyes for adulthood to find her yet. Still others murmured that she was holy; touched with divine fire, and genderless completely. When Lilith heard this, she would laugh to herself. If only, if only.
Soon, someone else would know the truth.
FIRST NIGHT
"I don't -want- to die!" Alissya sobbed, clinging to the stoic guard outside the great hall where a wedding was held each evening. Her wheat-blonde hair had been curled atop her head; her deep brown eyes brimmed with tears. The traditional emerald wedding gown clung to her frail figure, and the white veil covered her wet face. The veil was one of the only things that the guard was grateful for in this moment; it made her just another sacrifice, let him file her voice down with all the others. Silently, he pushed her, gentle but firm, into the King's chambers. He held the door shut, and tuned out any screaming.
Just like the night before.
***
The room was dark, and smelled of sweet jasmine incense. There was a huge bed she could dimly see, the silk rug covered with many pillows. Stumbling over one, Alissya almost fell on her face, but caught herself at the last minute, straightening to squint at the bed. Heart hammering with fear, she swallowed hard. The voice that came out of the darkness made her jump; the lamp that was lit a moment later made her cry out and shield her eyes. It illuminated the most beautiful man she had ever seen.
The King was tall, almost seven feet, and his curly black hair nearly reached the ground. He always dressed in black, stark collared shirt and straight-legged pants. His outfit clung to the long, lean lines of his body; the dark eyes that consumed all they looked at were set in a porcelain face. And now, he was smiling, gaze mindless with the hunger brought on by his madness.
Alissya did the only thing she could do. Throwing herself at his feet, she cried out, "Please, oh marvelous King; please do not kill me. I am barren - I will never become pregnant. I will be your faithful wife, if only you will let me live to tomorrow night, to see you marry your next bride."
The King's smile had vanished. Now he was staring at the wisp of a girl on the floor in front of him. "What sorcery is this?" he demanded, reaching down to haul her up by her arm. She bit back her cry of pain at his roughness.
"No sorcery, your supreme Majesty," Alissya protested. "The curse of drought. I was born without the womb to make a child, as punishment to my mother for not marrying my father before conceiving me. I can never bear any children." Daring to look up at him, she swallowed hard. That beautiful face was unreadable and like stone.
"We are already married," Danaad said slowly, frowning at her. "It is my duty as a husband to take you to my bed. If it proves that you have lied to save your skin, I will kill you, and have your entire family slaughtered to the last man, woman, child and goat. If you fail me as a wife, I will simply have you beheaded." His grip on her arm had not loosened. Relentless, he hauled her toward the oversized bed, whose quilts, the lamp now revealed, were a dark red; the pillows were many, and purple. That was one of the last coherent thoughts she had, as he threw her to the bed and tore off the beautiful wedding gown. No more tears left her, as he moved her like a doll and tore at her center, taking her virtue ruthlessly. The pain simply drew her within herself, into a dream of a happier marriage, one involving Love.
~~~~~~~
FIRST DREAM ~
Alissya
THE TALE OF MIRNAD AND THE SEA
There once was a lonely young fisherman, who lived with his family on the cliffs overlooking the Scarlet Sea. They had lived there for six generations, and Mirnad was the first to want to leave, which he found a great shame. Instead he threw himself into fishing, taking his own tiny boat out alone every chance he got; his monumental catches prevented anyone from complaining about this behavior.
Mirnad was sixteen when he heard the song.
Out past the sheltering spur of the bay, the water got very deep very quickly. However, if one followed the coast, where the fishing was not so good, there was a place where the ocean was split by land, where a river poured into the water and made the pulling current that was so dangerous further out. In the middle of that river was a vast, soggy delta. Getting there was highly dangerous, but Mirnad sailed as though he was an extension of the ocean, for in that swampy, brackish vastness was one of the best delicacies he could bring back - eel.
It was a summer day like any other; he had cast his net and anchored, and lain back on his deck to sun himself in the nude. Something, however, woke him.
At first he thought it was flute music, and he was at a wedding, but even at weddings no one played music -that- beautiful. Shaking sleep off slowly, Mirnad opened his eyes and lifted his head. No flute really sounded like that, either. It was.... it was someone singing. Pure, wordless, and skirling like a wild thing more than a song, but oh, it was beautiful. Mirnad had to know where it was coming from, what beautiful creature was singing.
The young human did not have far to look, for there, perched on the bow of his little boat, was a beautiful siren.
The siren was small and slim, with knowing blue eyes, cat-slanted and almond shaped; the fiery red hair stood haloed against the setting sun. The siren was also completely naked, which made it almost impossible for Mirnad to ignore the fact that the siren happened to be completely male. He's too pretty to be a boy, he found himself thinking, then shook his head and scrambled to his feet.
"What are you doing on my ship?" he demanded, in a voice that rather shook. Anxiety filled him as the beautiful man slid onto the deck on silent feet.
"What are you doing in my fens?" the siren retorted, putting hands on his hips. Mirnad blinked at him, so surprised that he blurted out the truth without thinking.
"I'm catching eels. Good eating," Mirnad muttered, trying to make himself sound gruff and manly.
Laughing, the siren shook his head. "Well, you can't eat nearly as many as you take." He prowled closer, swaying like the waves with each step, as though even being on a bobbing ship was too much like land for his legs. "But I've decided that I know how you can pay me for them."
Stunned, Mirnad could only stare at the siren, brain unable to process what he had said until he felt little wet hands at his waist. "Whoa! No, no, no, don't do that," he babbled hastily. "I, uh. I don't like boys." This was at least partly a lie; he at least thought he wasn't, but faced with a creature like this, he could not help but be attracted.
"I'm not a boy. I'm a siren. You just see my male aspect because that's your desire." Smiling, the siren spread his hands in the air. "It is hardly my doing. My name is Orion."
Shaking his head again, Mirnad tried to take another step back, but found his spine against the mast. "I don't desire any aspect of you," he protested, but the siren came closer, to touch him again, to explore all of that lovely, tanned skin.
Orion merely smiled. "You have taken many of my eels. I am collecting repayment for those eels. This will be the best thing you have ever felt, if you relax and enjoy."
"I don't want to enjoy!" Mirnad yelped, batting at the hands that slid up his chest. "I don't want to - to be used like a woman!"
That earned a momentary pause from the siren. Mirnad frowned when he realized that Orion was laughing. "What is so damned funny?" he demanded.
"You will be the one using, eel-thief," Orion purred, and pulled Mirnad down to the deck of the ship, to take what was owed to him in a way that was very satisfactory to the both of them.
~~~~~~
Alissya's vision was broken by the sudden realization that the air around her was cold; no one was touching her anymore. The ache was a dull one, and she whimpered, curling in on herself; apparently the King had gone to his sleeping chamber, and meant to leave her here for the night.
Pulling the blanket over herself, she tried to go back to sleep, pain or not, and soon the blissful darkness swallowed her down again.
*******
The sun had long since set. Thousands of stars glittered overhead, like water droplets on an infinite indigo path. Sighing, Lilith stretched out on the divan he had dragged onto the balcony. Alone, late at night, when there was no one to see him, he was free to be himself. All day long, in long skirts and corset, he felt very much the part of the faithful daughter. Now, though, with no one but a winking sliver moon to know, he had taken off the corset, everything but his long nightgown. The thin cotton was no barrier to the sweet breeze drifting in off the sea. Truly relaxed, he let out a contented sigh.
Since the day he had been born, his father had declared him a female child, and treated him as such. His mother had been his sole nurse in those early years, and, taught independence at an early age, had no body servants, even as a young princess. His dedication to scholarly arts and to interpretation of the Book had earned him something of a repuation of someone completely above all physical needs; the Lilith everyone knew was a studious, serious girl who never flirted, fasted to maintain a figure (not that she had to, with that secretly male metabolism and hunger) or worried about how to do her hair. She was the best at embroidery, at riding, and she knew the whole Book front to back, and many, many other books as well. Her sisters whispered that her piety was what did her in. All that devotion to such boring abstinence from all the fun things kept her blossomless.
Lilith never did anything to discourage these rumors. In fact, she did her best to help them along. The more mystery that shrouded her, and the less anyone else liked to dig into her little mystery, the better. Truthfully, she could not have cared less about the religion in the Book; it was a good cover, and a good thing to know, so she could wield it against others. Her favorite part was the one about her - Lilith, the queen of darkness. Why her mother would give her such a name, she had never known; her mother had died giving birth to her youngest sister barely three years after Lilith had been born. There were many mysteries in this one young man masquerading as a woman, most of which he didn't know the answers to himself.
Now, though, he could ignore all of that just a little longer. The moon never told his secrets, and he had told her many of them indeed. He wasn't in the mood to talk tonight, though, and simply stretched out over the soft suede of the cushion, relishing the cool air to wash away the day's heat.
Suddenly, down below, a great ruckus caught his attention. The breaking of glass and drunken laughter was loudest; Lilith frowned, glancing below. Those folks from up north, visiting one of his brothers for the social season, were quite rowdy. Perhaps it was because of their animalistic nature. For his part, when he had first seen the foreigners, Lilith had been both fascinated and horrified. The magic of Fallout, that had turned his greatest ancestors to things better than humans, the blood that made them royalty, had many forms. For those here in the capitol, at the center of the world on a river still known as the Nile, that magic took the form of the royal line, blessed with the strangeness of a power greater than themselves. For the northerners, it was far more widespread; not only their nobles possessed it, but the whole of their people. It was said that the family Simiralle was the only one so blessed, and that was why they were the Royal family, but when Lilith had seen the northerners he had quite wondered. For, where Lilith and his family were simply a little strange, they were VERY strange.
As beautiful as the royal family, but paler, every last one of the northerners, to a man, had fur. Not in the sense that most creatures with fur have fur, but in a far less natural seeming sense: their ears sat atop their heads, triangular and furred, and tails followed the lines of each tattooed spine. Whatever blood that blessed the royals had to have been reptilian in nature; that which graced these lovely, raucous things was that of the cat. Lilith longed to get closer, to see if their whiskers and slightly more pointed shape of face really was all that different, to see if they had retractible claws like the pampered pets he kept, but he knew better; the northerners were untrustworthy, and more importantly, here on behalf of his brother Jaavi. This particular brother was known as a layabout and a time waster; never having done a day's work or study in his life, he lived to drink and womanize. That was the -last- part of his family Lilith wanted to associate with. Not only did he have no desire for that kind of partying, but it would have ruined his carefully crafted facade.
Little did he know that the party loving northerners would be the ruin of him, no matter how careful he was.
**********
The party was just getting started. One of the many lovelies he had brought with was on his lap; her sister was on the lap of his new friend, the Prince Jaavi. It was, as Kane reflected, a good time to come to the Capitol. He had traveled here with his entourage of high-priced pretties, a sort of traveling caravan of payable fun, but when he had met the royals he had been very intruiged. It was something of a secret, one that Kane kept well hidden this far south, that he was of noble blood, but apparently like could sniff out like, for Jaavi had known him from the start as one of the far-flung noble families distributed across each continent to keep order when the King's word was too far away to be easily enforced. Kane was all of northern blood, though, and it was his furred ears that had first drawn Jaavi's attention. Well, really, it was the furred ears of his women, and their fluffy tails, and soft curves and fluttering scarves... Jaavi was an easy man to manipulate, for which Kane was very grateful. He had so far taken at face value the idea that Kane rented out his harem, a thing nearly unheard of in such a proper place as this. The truth was, his harem or not, Kane had no interest in the pretty redhead pressed against him, and especially no real interest in the softness of the parts of her that were pressed against him firmest. It was nothing to be ashamed of up north, but down here the view was not so permissive, so he kept his peace, and kept his lusts quiet on this trip. Ostensibly he was here to make some money, have some fun, that sort of thing, but truly he had come to check on the state of things. His father had sent him, worried about the King's mental health, or obvious lack thereof. And from what he had seen so far, with the new millenium about to make its impact on the world, Kane was glad he was here to see everything as it happened.
However, once the Prince had imbibed enough alcohol to fall quite asleep, Kane nudged the girl off his lap gently. At his nod his lovelies - those not rented out for the night - went about gathering up their things. As he watched, a strange and wonderful scent tickled his nose. With whiskers quivering he looked around. The smell he was picking up on was that of... a sweet, innocent young male, ripening but not yet plucked. Licking his lips, he smiled. One of the girls noticed that smile, and covered her mouth with her hand.
"Carry on without me, ladies, and then head on back to the wagon," Kane said lazily, making a show of stretching. Unlike the southerners with their plain, all-concealing clothes, Kane wore mostly animal hides, eschewing fabric as too much of a pain. Each of his tattoos, spreading over his back and down his arms, was plainly visible, and he had seen many of the local women staring at him appreciatively, for his muscles were well earned and well kept. They served him well, too, as he padded silently through the garden, following the scent. He had been getting bits of this particular scent since he had arrived, but had never been able to place it. Now, though, now he was going to find its source and... well. Kane had his plans.
Climbing up the trellis was simple. Ridiculously simple, for one so agile and capable. Hand over hand he swarmed up past the jasmine blooms, nose quivering. He paused to peek through the pillars that made up the balcony's edge, but he could see nothing more than a pale hand dangling from a low couch. His mind was made up. That was the source of the smell, no denying it. Leaping up easily, he perched on the edge of the balcony, and was stunned at what he saw.
One of the royal princesses was draped over that low couch in nothing more than her nightgown, a thin, drifting thing that the wind had tugged up long, shapely legs. The pitch-black curls that pillowed under the porcelain cheek said it as surely as did her ethereal beauty. Kane could hardly keep his jaw from hitting his chest. This little slip of a princess was in fact a prince? He had wondered briefly, seeing her at a distance, if she was somehow younger than her other sisters, to be so childlike in body still, but the scent had distracted him. Well. That was two mysteries solved. And a solution offered.
Smiling, Kane slid down off the edge of the balcony, and prowled closer, ears perked. If this little thing was pretending to be a girl, then surely there would be those who would love to know he was not. And that was just the leverage Kane would need to get what HE wanted from this beautiful little 'princess'.
************
Something was wrong.
Lilith blinked, trying to shake sleep from his fuzzy head. He had not meant to fall asleep on the balcony; had he been discovered....
Suddenly he realized it was too late.
The figure above the bed was strange to him, and for a moment he thought it might have been some kind of specter, for the strangeness of its dress. Then his fogged eyes took a second look, and he saw a bare-chested man, tattooed and lean; he followed that fair skin upward, some little voice inside marveling at the sight of freckles and pierced nipples, to a sharp-chinned, feline face. The stranger was handsome, and haloed with golden blonde hair, the same gold that graced the big fluffy ears that poked out of that hair. Lilith had time to register strikingly blue cat slitted eyes before the smirk filled his sight, and lead filled his belly. There was no hiding what he was up here, like this, and he sat up fast, yanking at his nightgown to try and hide himself better.
"What are you doing here? How dare you invade a princess' quarters!" Lilith said, trying to sound threatening, but the blonde cat man only laughed.
"That seems rather impossible, princess," he said mockingly, sauntering closer to reach out. Lilith jumped when that hand touched his cheek; the nails were sharp but not claws, some detached part of him mused. "Or is there another princess here?"
Those words chilled Lilith to the bone. There was no more hiding. Swallowing hard, he shut his eyes. "Please - you mustn't..."
"Oh, I'm very good at keeping secrets," Kane assured him, threading fingers into Lilith's hair and leaning closer to get a better smell of the boy. His rising fear and panic only made him sweeter to Kane's nose. "As long as I have a reason to."
At first Lilith did not understand, but as he leaned back and saw the light in those brilliant blue eyes, knowledge dawned within him. He had heard stories of men who liked men, and it was one of those horror type tales that was spread with no real sincerity... or so he had thought.
"A man should not lie with a man in woman's bed," he protested weakly, and flinched when the stranger laughed.
"Ah, but a man is more than encouraged to lie with a woman in woman's bed," Kane countered, and kissed him, hard. "Unless you would like me to prove for many to see that you are NOT a woman..."
Lilith did not fight his kiss.
****
Kane was pleased with his discovery. The beautiful prince he had discovered up here, asleep and waiting to be claimed, was submitting to his wishes. If he had thought the boy even knew how to kiss, he might have hoped that the kiss be returned; as it was he was content to educate the boy, tongue sliding past reluctant lips. "Enjoy this," Kane purred, tail swaying. "I won't hurt you. In fact, it will be a whole lot of fun." Strong hands slid down Lilith's back, under his hair. Lilith could feel the warmth of his skin even through his nightgown, and he shivered, pulling away from that kiss. The blush on his face was visible even in the starlight.
"I can hardly enjoy something so - so illicit," the prince in disguise whispered. Kane only laughed.
"It's only illicit if you say it is. Sides, since you're such a sweet little virgin - don't ask, I can tell these things, princess.... I think I could be persuaded to take this slow. Just so I don't break your little mind. But you'd better do what I say, or your secret WILL come out, understand? I won't fuck you now, but I will most definitely fuck you soon." The look on that pointed, feline face was a hungry, possessive one; Kane had not yet let go of Lilith's hair. It was all the young prince could do to keep his composure. The very idea of... any kind of 'fucking' filled him with anxious dread. But there was little he could do about it.
Observing his prey, Kane smiled to himself. Oh, yes, this was useful. Keep the boy frightened of sex, and he would trade anything instead of that supposedly feminine virtue of his.... like vital knowledge about his family. And he could slowly, gradually blackmail the boy into sleeping with him anyway. Watching Lilith avoid his gaze, flushed and unsure, he knew that this would be a fun game to play indeed.
"What, no retort? That's good. You should be a good boy for me," Kane chuckled, and stroked his hair. "What's your name, pretty princess?"
Lilith winced, but did not pull away. "...My name is Lilith," he said quietly, ignoring the laughter that followed.
"A girl's name too? God, does your own FAMILY know you're not a girl?" Kane snorted. The silence and stiffness of the boy answered -that- question for him. "...Oh, how wonderful. It'll be our special, private little secret then, won't it? I'm Kane, by the way. Just so you know who your master is," he added, mostly just to see the pretty prince flinch again.
Oh, yes, this would be a fun game indeed. Reluctantly letting go of that soft, soft hair, Kane stood back. "Well. I think the foundations of our relationship are firmly enough set, hmm? Meet me here tomorrow night at sundown. Bring some date wine, and tell no one of this engagement, my dear." Smirking, he went back to the balcony's edge. "I'll see you tomorrow, oh princess mine."
Lilith watched him go over the edge, and only once he was gone could he bring himself to move. Woodenly he rose, stumbling inside and shutting the glass doors with shaking hands. There was no strength in him to pull the divan inside as he came in; he barely made it to the bed before he collapsed onto his pillows.
For the first time in his or her life, Lilith cried.
FIRST DAWN
The sun rose slowly, as though struggling to rise through many layers of oil, or perhaps even sand. The sky turned lighter bit by bit, fighting the night away, finally turning colors in the east. The few clouds went from dark blue to lighter blue to pale yellow and then blazing crimson and to yellow again as the sun breached the horizon, drifting upward into the lightening sky like a barge floating untended down the river, to where it would bob into the sea.
Alissya watched all of this with a surprising sense of peace. She was not afraid of her death now, waiting for the executioner to come take her away. She was not afraid of the King, of being a bride for a night and a wife never; she was not afraid of the god that she would meet in the great beyond. She was too busy thinking to really process the passage of time, and so when she realized that the sun was fully in the sky and no one had come for her yet, she began to hope that what the King had said the night before would hold true, that she WOULD be his wife as well as his bride.
It was this thought that propelled her out of the wedding bed. It was this thought that kept her from looking back at the stain, or from hesitating to wrap the sheet around herself. As the King's sole wife, she was Queen - a name, not really a title, certainly no real power, but what little power she commanded, she felt as she stepped out of that room. The guard there, who had seen only her veil the night before, could only stare at the beautiful woman that was standing there.
"I wish my own suite of rooms, as befits a Queen, and a bath that befits the very god above us," she said commandingly. For a moment the guard gawked at her, and then he snapped to attention.
"As your majesty commands!" he said, his high pitched tone belying his shock, and scrambled to do her bidding. In the twelve years he'd had this post, never not ONCE had he seen a girl come OUT of that room of her own will. Usually the executioner had to drag them out. He had been wondering where the executioner was, actually, it was getting quite late for a dawn beheading, when.... well.
As he ran to summon servants for her, he could only wonder... had the King come back from his madness at last?
*****
The suite that they took her to was lavish and oversized. The carpet was thick and violet, the bedsheets were blue and the tile in the bath was ivory white. The water in the bath was hot and plentiful, which was perhaps the greatest luxury a girl could ask for. From a minor noble family, her days of bathing had been warm, but never in a pool like this one, suitable for a dozen people of chilly relation at least. The ointments and soaps offered her were the sweetest she had ever smelled in her life, and the towels the softest. There were three women servants to wash her hair, her hands, to dry her and to perfume her, to style her hair and dress her in beautiful, expensive silken clothing.
Through all of this Alissya sat quiet, thinking. There had been little hope or chance for proper planning, before she had been married, and now that she was wife two days in a row, she could only wonder. If a mad king kept on taking a new wife each night and killing her, as she expected he would, he need never touch her again. That suited her just fine. It also gave her the time and the freedom to get herself settled and situated; any Queen should know all the secrets of her people.
She started with her servants. Focusing on the pretty girl painting her nails, she smiled. "What's your name?" Alissya asked gently. From the stunned expressions the girls exchanged she knew she had been right. Be nice to the servants, who were considered invisible but certainly saw very much, and soon she would learn much of what they knew.
"My name is Sandra," the girl answered, awed. Smiling, the Queen touched her arm lightly.
"That is a lovely name. How long have you worked in the palace?"
"My - my whole life, your majesty,'" Sandra replied, floored. "Is there a reason your highness wanted to know?"
"I just think I should know the names of my closest body servants. I am not familiar with palace life; I will need help to know what to say and whom to trust. I am hoping that the three of you can help me in such delicate areas," Alissya whispered, a bit conspiratorially. "Many people disregard what your eyes might see, but I know that you remember all that you see, where others think you incapable of remembering anything at all."
With those words, the servant girls were under her spell, and slowly, her effect spread. Before the day was out she had visited the kitchens, the stables, and the actual servants' quarters to make new friends. Rumors spread like wildfire about the queen and whatever magical powers she must have had; most people were so stunned by her very existence past dawn that anything she did or said could be believed. By noon she was the god come to earth, the moon come to earth, a witch, a changeling, a djinni, a succubus, and the avatar of the god, depending on whom one asked.
As she settled down to the lavish lunch they brought her, Alissya smiled. This was not quite what she had had in mind but nonetheless it suited her. She had no great ambitions of yet, no far reaching plans, but she had ideas, and ideas were the fuel that made ambitions great. She smiled at and thanked each and every servant who came to her that day, and it took almost forty of them to serve her lunch, just because so many of the palace staff wanted an excuse to meet her. After she had eaten, she rose from her chair with a smile.
"Please, tell everyone that a new time has come. I have convinced the King to spare my life in hopes of moving the world forward in a new direction for everyone. I am willing to listen to anything you have to say, in secret if you are fearful of retribution. I may be Queen, I may be royalty by marriage and noble by blood but we are all members of the Commonwealth; we are all people, we are all human, and I want you all to know that things can be changed for the better, if only you help me to achieve the dreams that we can set forth."
Smiling, she spread her hands as, one by one, they rushed forward to kiss her knuckles.
A plan was beginning to form behind her lovely brown eyes, a plan that would change the world forever and give a woman the power of the Throne. That plan was like a soap bubble, one she dared not look directly at lest it pop, but it was there nonetheless, and as she watched the servants crowd forward to touch the seeming miracle before them, the plan unfolded a little more, and grew there in the back of her mind.
Somewhere inside, a little voice was laughing.
****
The morning had been nothing more than a surreal blur.
From the moment Lilith had gotten out of bed, he had not quite been able to focus on anything that happened. Breakfast had been eaten mechanically, without any thought for taste or enjoyment; and it did not go unnoticed that someone as well known for her attention to detail as Lilith was going around in mismatched clothing. Whispers abounded instantly, as of course these things do, springing from the aether like devils to plague the virtuous, following her like serpents in the wake of a boat, sneaky and surreptitious.
She found herself completely bereft of the desire to eat again at lunch time, and instead retreated to her room. There she took her copy of the Book onto her bed, and opened it to her favorite part. The life affirming act of reading her namesake's story always helped her remember her balance in life.
****
The Story of Lilith In the Garden
or,
How the Godly Being Made the First Man and Woman in His Image
A very, very long time ago, but after the Start of Time chronicled in JAANASIITH
When the Godly Being made the heavens and the Earth
Seeing fit in His infinite Wisdom
He blessed it with LIFE
and with FREE WILL.
The emptiness before the Godly being made light
And sound and Earth and Sky
Was blank
A Slate for the writing
However
The Godly being grew tired of always knowing what would
Or could be
Written next.
And when He
in His infinite Wisdom
Gifted the new born Earth
With His light
And with his LOVE
First He made of Two
Two like of specie and soul
One of Woman
One of Man
These He called as He wished they be called
The man Aadan
And the woman
Lilith.
****
Lilith always had to wonder, reading her mother's old Book, why her name was in red ink anywhere it was written. She had tried asking her Father once but he had gone into a screaming fit and nearly thrown a vase at her head, the nearly only being because she ducked.
****
The Complaint in the Garden
or
How Lilith Grew to KNOW
As the Godly incandescent
in His Wisdom did so make
And His likeness did so take
in giving LIFE did give so too
Wisdom
Man
Not made for Wisdom
Did not notice
Aadan too busy counting and categorizing
All he saw
As was his biological imperative
As the Man.
Woman
Made For, of, and By Wisdom
Took all that the Godly gave into her
And she opened her Eye
And she SAW.
Wishing to keep true knowledge from His creations
He gathered it
Into the wood of a single tree
But it was much too late
For what was seen could not be forgotten.
Lilith
Asking why, why not, why ever
Roused the ire of the Godly star
And He did throw her from the Garden
To wander forever alone in Shadow.
****
Sighing, Lilith stopped there, planting her chin in her hand. To know, to know, to know, ever her curse. She couldn't wonder if maybe the first Lilith had been hiding a secret like hers. Maybe that would explain why she had never borne children once cast out. Unless she had, and it was simply not something anyone ever thought about, since there were enough nightmares to be had already and no one was really asking for more.
Eyes drawn down the page, Lilith frowned. She had somehow missed this before.
***
The Tale of the Second Woman
or
How the Godly light made of Man a Companion
Soon enough
Man alone in the Garden
Begged the Godly light
for a relief like that which
his other half had given.
The Godly light in its Grace
Took one side of Aadan and fashioned it in to
A Woman
More pliable than the previous.
The Godly light told to Aadan
'This is your succor
This is your wife
Shall she ever lead to Wisdom
That you will be thrown from the Gardens.
Eat not of the Tree.'
And this He told too to Avya
Made of Aadan.
Woman's nature pulled and saw
pulled Avya unresisting
No seduction there then took
The Woman's only wish
For to see the Truth as told
As forbidden was her wish.
What secret so great need be forbidden
said Woman
And ate the tree.
And she Knew.
She brought herself to Aadan
and Kissed him
to share with him the Tree
It flowed through them
In from her lips to his
Spreading through stomach and Blood
And they Knew.
Eyes opened they saw
In color
Knowing the way of everything
How it was made, how it would end
They looked at the sky and saw the seasons
Saw the cold of winter coming
With the prescience of Godly light
And took the hides of their prey
to make into clothing to put around themselves
When the snow fell.
The Godly light
Filled with fury
Banished them from the Garden
Forever to wander alone in Shadow.
***
Frowning, Lilith could only wonder. How had any humans lived at all, if this was really true? Or maybe the Garden really was Heaven, and to be cast to wander alone meant to have your soul trapped into a mortal, feeling body that was thrown down to suffer and strive and suffer for striving. Sighing, she shut the Book. It hadn't really helped. The true problem was still there, and she was still just a boy pretending, not the true First Woman.
Obviously.
What to do about Kane? It was a topic that plagued his mind. Lilith fidgeted and chewed his lip. The very idea of submitting to his perverse wishes was so unnerving that he found himself wondering if he wasn't more horrified because he was somewhat interested. He had always suspected that his complete lack of attraction to females was simply a result of his deranged upbringing. Was he also cursed to love as a woman is loved? Or to not even love at all, but be used as a playing piece in some horrible political game.
These thoughts would get him nowhere, and he sighed again, shaking his head to rid himself of their insidious whispers. If that was so, there was nothing he could do about it, and even if he was attracted he would drag things out at long as he could, to make sure that Kane was serious about not giving away his true nature.
Frowning, he fiddled with a lock of his hair. All these complicated thoughts had eclipsed his usual desperate daily need for a bath. Getting a good one was difficult, considering his situation, so he had begged a bathing room in his own suite, for religious purification he had said.
Pulling himself off the bed, he trudged toward the bathing room. For the first time in a long time he had not been cautious this morning in hiding his masculine essence. Tugging at the laces of his corset, he plucked insistently, until the knots gave way, and heaved a sigh of relief to loosen it. Spending so much of his time in one was giving him a tiny girlish waist and hips, he noted with dismay in the reflection from the massive mirror he had begged for. It was his one true vanity and luxury but at times being a girl all the time was so confusing that he had to spend hours staring at himself naked just to remember that yes, he really was a he, not a she, and there was the proof.
Tugging off his shirt, he made sure the door was closed, and turned on the water full blast; the basin was large enough for two, and would take some time to fill up. The water steamed as it hit the porcelain. Lilith sighed blissfully. The King who had gone to so much trouble to fit the Palace with such amenities had been brilliant indeed.
Catching sight of himself once more in the mirror, he frowned. Could hardly wash his hair without brushing it. Sighing, he tugged the door open again and slipped out, sneaking across his room to quickly retrieve the brush from the top of his vanity, with all his makeup and perfumes. Retreating to the safety of his bathing room, he sighed, shutting the door once more.
As he stepped in front of the mirror again, he smiled wryly, and pulled off his skirts and panties. Yes. Still truly a boy. Well, a man, really, or so he hoped, and soon, or else he might have to pretend to be a girl for the rest of his life.
Startled, Lilith stared at the mirror, sure that that thought must have come from the reflection, because it was certainly new to him. He had never imagined anything BUT living as a girl for the rest of his life. But the idea of impending adulthood had him realizing that he would change into a man, not a girl, and the ruse would be much, much harder to retain. Biting his lip, he frowned at the mirror. "Really, thinking such silly things. Lilith, you should be ashamed of yourself." Lifting the brush, he pulled his hair over one shoulder, luxuriating in the softness of it against his skin, and, starting at the bottom, began to brush it out. Princesses were expected to never cut their hair, and so it took many more than one hundred strokes, for it reached to his knees. He caught himself humming as he pulled the brush along - ivory and boar-bristle, the best money could buy, with a cameo of a lily on the back - a present for one Kanna-ka's night - and had to wonder at the state he was in. Surely one little kiss - well, several kisses - shouldn't be nearly so distracting. And not even very good kisses, at that.
Well, actually, how was he to know? Something inside told him with confidence that oh, those had been the best kisses, the kind that say a thousand things but foremost you are mine, but he ignored it. How ridiculous was the very idea.
But standing in front of that mirror, it was hard to lie to himself, for he was blushing.
Shaking away all such ridiculous thoughts, he put the brush aside, hair gleaming and perfectly in order - at least until he let go of it. Such was the nature of curls, and it was not his way to be vexed by this; then again, he was not really a woman, and such concerns were those of women more than they were of men. The basin was to the appropriate level; he turned the knob and sighed at the steam that filled the room. No oils or bubbles went in the water, just Lilith himself, basking in the heat and the sensation of melting from the inside out.
He took his time to soak in the water. This really was his favorite part of the day. Finally, though, he sat up, and pulled the plug. Setting it aside on its chain, he rose to his feet, to flip the switch that would bring the water overhead. Still steaming hot, it streamed over his head and down his body. Almost moaning in relief, Lilith washed his hair slowly, lazily, and when he was done doing it, he did it again. The scalding water sluiced down, and he shivered, the parts of him not under the flow cold by comparison. He rinsed thoroughly, and sighed again, this time in contentment. He had an array of treatments for his hair, his only womanly vanity, and he used his favorite next. All in all it took him nearly an hour just for his hair, and then to wash the rest of him. By the time he filled the basin for one last soak, the water was not quite steaming anymore. Lilith didn't care. With a blissful smile he settled into the water.
By no means had he intended to fall asleep.
~~~~~~~
SECOND DREAM
Lilith
DOING a FILTHY PLEASURE is; and SHORT
In the dream Lilith was in his bed, half asleep. He knew right away it was a dream, because that abominable northerner Kane was in his bed next to him. His dreaming self woke quickly.
"...What are you doing in my bed?" he demanded, dismayed to realize he was naked under the sheet.
"Only what you -want- me to be doing in your bed," Kane purred, and pulled him close for a searing kiss, swallowing Lilith's whimpers. The boy was stiff at first, but relaxed eventually, and even tried to kiss back once the heat of Kane's lust had infected and infested him. Very pleased by this, Kane bore him down to the bed, and his kisses traveled from Lilith's lips to his throat, which earned him even more pathetic noises. Some prince or princess, really. Then again, this was Lilith's dream, and Lilith's desire. So who knew what was going on?
Slowly and yet with a speed that overwhelmed Lilith enough that he forgot he was alive, much less dreaming, he felt Kane's hands slide down his naked body, and heard a moan come from his lips with the disconnected distance of ears that did not truly wish to hear. Warring with himself the entire time, he was hopelessly lost long before Kane's hand actually touched the center of his need.
`~`~`~~~
The moment Lilith's climax reached him he awoke in the tub with a cry, splashing water over the sides.
Panting heavily, he clutched at the edges of the porcelain basin, eyes wide. What in the name of the holiest light was THAT? What kind of horrible nightmare was that? And why him? Why any kind of perverted dream about that - that scoundrel who had had the gall to try and blackmail him. Who was blackmailing him, Lilith had to admit. Still, it was somehow deeply affecting to know that someone knew him as a man, and was attracted to him. It went against everything he had been raised to believe.
With a groan, he hauled himself up out of the tub, grimacing expressively at the .... residue he left in the water. Pulling the plug once more, he rinsed fervently, and thoroughly scrubbed all over again, feeling naughty, and a bit racy, or what was that word - sexy, was it not? How insane this all was. One meeting, one man with - with a tail instead of a conscience, was all it took to make him into a slavering, mindless, idiotic typical teenaged boy whose life was ruled by his nether appendage?
Groaning, he ran a hand over his wet hair, slicking the water out of it as he climbed out and reached for a towel. Wrapping it around the long mess of his hair, he snatched another to put around his body, and fled the bathing room, not looking back, where his reflection in the mirror was staring after him with a wicked smile.
********
CONTINUED IN THE NEXT POST!