“Please, Nightshadow…Lucy…if you’re in there, please, I don’t want this,” zi begged through the waves of pleasure and shame. Zi knew zi was lying, and Nightshadow did as well. Zir mind was an open book to her, and zi no longer resented that fact.
“You’ve always wanted this,” Nightshadow’s many voices replied as her head twisted around so that her eyes could glare down on zir. “We’ve watched you,” the voices mocked, “all of your life. You may deny your fantasies, but you cannot hide them from us. You wanted this abuse, this humiliation, this loss of what power you had. Wanted it more than acceptance and tolerance. You enjoyed the mockery and flaunted your oddities hoping to get beaten down for them because that’s what you enjoy. That is why this,” she took zir cock in her hands and shook it, “would not stiffen for either sex. You do not crave the flesh. Your desire lay in domination. Domination by one that can see how low and weak you truly are. As we can, as the vessel can now.”
“You lie,” Silvanth challenged halfheartedly but Nightshadow merely laughed.
“I’ll prove it to you,” her head cranked back around, and her body rose to take the cock zi knew she now owned. Silvanth attempted to resist the penetration of zir final coven sister, but the roots would not allow zir hips to be still. They pumped zir ass and forced zir cock to fuck Nightshadow. She watched zir with her unnaturally twisted neck until zi finally gave up the pretense of resistance. As the thought solidified in zir mind that zi belonged to her, Nightshadow’s neck returned to its natural position. Silvanth would not be granted the sight of her pleasure as zi claimed zir. Nightshadow cared nothing for Silvanth now. The ancients were lost in the pleasure, thankful for Panathea’s wisdom, and the woman herself had lost all respect for the person she’d called her leader. She had seen zir through the window of her eyes and realized the truth as the ancients knew it. Zi was no leader, zi had no will to resist and stop what was happening to zir coven sisters. Silvanth was exposed to her. A pitiful fool good for nothing more than pleasing others and she swore that when she was free she’d never let zir give in to pride again.
“You are a goddess,” Silvanth muttered over and over as the power built inside of zir, but Nightshadow cared nothing for the fantasies zi built up to cope with what he’d become.
“You are a worm,” she moaned as zir cock filled her, “isn’t that what you dreamed they’d call you? Isn’t that why you never valued the acceptance of your sisters? You didn’t want respect. You didn’t want to metamorphose into some butterfly. You wanted this, to be transformed into the lowly object you are now. You wanted to serve. Of course, you dared imagine that the ancients would want your service, but you are not worthy of such an author. This vessel, this skinny mortal girl, she will be your goddess. That is the best you can ever hope for puny worm.”
“Yes,” Silvanth cried in surrender as the most intense of zir orgasms built. I understand.”
“Then know,” Nightshadow moaned as the vessel was brought to new heights of corporeal ecstasy, “that your wish has been granted. All wishes are granted, and your payment for our gifts is…accepted.” Nightshadow’s body went rigid as Silvanth surrendered zir final orgasm to the abuse. The voices cried out in exultation, and the energies swirled through the circle like a great wind. The wards vanished as the trees healed and Silvanth cried out, feeling defeat and triumph in equal measure. When the storm passed the roots had receded and Nightshadow lay unconscious but breathing in Silvanth’s arms. Zi could not fathom what had happened. As Nightshadow dozed against zir, zi took stock, trying to remember everything that had transpired, but there was time missing from zir memory. As Silvanth looked around, zi realized that the sun was now cresting the tree tops. Had they really gone at it for hours, or had zi been knocked out just as Nightshadow had? The pleasure had certainly been intense, it was possible, but what about the others? Nightshadow zi had accounted for, but what of Panathea and Moonbane?
Silvanth’s panic grew as zi scanned the clearing as best zi could without waking Nightshadow. Zi didn’t dare disturb her if the power still filled her form, but something was terribly wrong here. Panathea and Moonbane were gone. The clearing was empty. No, that wasn’t quite true. Nightshadow was there, and the fire pit with its embers still warm. There was something else as well but Silvanth’s mind recoiled from the realization until all other possibilities were exhausted. Finally, zi had to accept what zir senses told zir. There was a tree in the clearing. One that had not been there before.
Chapter 9
When the world faded back into focus, Nightshadow found herself alone and naked. She was on the ground, but she found that it did not have its usual effect. The whispers were silent. All she heard were the birds singing in the morning sunlight, the trees swaying in the wind, and the gentle wailing of her friend. In the center of the clearing, a gnarled tree had appeared. A strange species of the sort that sees two halves wind together and merge this tree had the strangest of trunks. It resembled, Nightshadow thought, two lovers in an embrace. Below it, Silvanth was on zir knees, hugging zir head and sobbing.
“Silv…anth?” Nightshadow asked, confused.
“Trevor,” the sorrowful moan with which zi said it broke her heart, “I’m just Trevor.”
“Trevor,” Nightshadow couldn’t believe it. Silvanth hated that name, “Trevor, where are Moonbane and Panathea?” Silvanth couldn’t handle hearing the names. Zi began weeping again as one hand rose to press its palm against the tree.
“Right here,” Silvanth’s voice sounded so broken and horrified. When zir hand fell away, Nightshadow saw the strangest knot in the tree’s odd trunk. It looked almost like a heart with a crescent moon inside of it. She approached cautiously, unsure of what to make of the strange sight. The last thing she remembered was her friends telling her she was safe, but now, two of them were missing, and Silvanth was a wreck. What had happened in the time she was missing? Perhaps, she reasoned as her thoughts swirled towards panic, the whispers could offer some explanation. Something must have happened involving them after all. That was why she’d knelt in the first place. That was…
Memories burst into her mind in incoherent flashes and her sanity recoiled from them instinctively. She needed answers. Tentatively, she reached her hand towards the odd knot on the tree, but Silvanth’s hand grabbed her wrist.
“Ow, you’re hurting me!” She yelped. Silvanth withdrew zir hand as though it had been struck and pulled zirself tighter into a ball.
“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry please don’t…you just…you can’t…not again.” Zi was rambling, bruised and absolutely terrified. She’d never dreamed she’d see her once confident mentor in such a state. Zir hair even seemed a touch lighter as if it were turning white. What, by all the gods and goddesses, had happened when she’d opened herself to the whispers?
“I have to know what happened,” she said as much to herself as to zir. Her hand stretched out and tentatively touched the knot in the tree. A current went through her, but it was different than before. It wasn’t the whispers amplifying into voices but something more emotional. Suddenly the random images from her memory began to coalesce into something more coherent. She began to make sense of what she was seeing, and Silvanth’s behavior made all the more sense.
The missing time flooding through her seemed to form a sort of tunnel, and she found herself tumbling into it. She fell head over heels inside her mind as her body simply went rigid against the tree. If Silvanth reacted to this, she was totally unaware of it. There was nothing of her physical form wherever she was going, and the sensations of that state were all too eerily familiar. Finally, she landed (or at least that was the closest description of the sensation she could imagine) and found herself in darkness.
She had the sense of being in a room, but it didn’t exist in any physical sense and she was certainly not alone. The whispers were back, everywhere at once but indistinct once more, and there was a glow. She hesitated when she spotted it, small at first but growing st
eadily as she watched, but she felt no fear as it got larger and closer. In a strange way, it reminded her of light through a doorway, and there seemed to be something moving in that light. The glow brightened and then split resolving finally into the ethereal, naked forms of her missing friends.
“You look so confused,” Panathea said sympathetically.
“She looks like she might piss herself,” Moonbane joked. At least, Nightshadow latched onto the comforting thought, she hadn’t lost her sense of humor.
“Oh hush,” Panathea rebuked her, “Nightshadow do you remember now? Do you remember what happened?” She did. She remembered the force that invaded her body. She remembered its lectures and lessons. She remembered how her desires had intoxicated it and she remembered what happened to her friends.
“Y-you, oh gods n.,” At last she understood why Silvanth had been weeping.
“Cut that out,” Moonbane said with a cocky smile, “I don’t want to be watered by your salty tears.”
“You’re a tree,” Nightshadow lamented at the insane impossibility of it.
“We wished that our moment of passion would never end,” Panathea explained, “now it never will. Our bodies are locked forever in their embrace, and our spirits are here among the ancients.”
“Not quite the wedding I pictured,” Moonbane continued her joking though there was a contentedness in her tone, “but it beats Vegas.”
“I’m so sorry,” Nightshadow whimpered, “I had no idea that…”
“None of us did,” Panathea said calmly, “but we do now. The coven was no more than a club, Nightshadow, but it managed something that hasn’t been accomplished for an age. It broke through the barrier and touched the true energies of the Earth.”
“Thanks to you,” Moonbane continued, “and that, I have to tell you, is why you are now charged with the responsibility of carrying on the message.”
“The message?” Nightshadow was clinging to sanity by a thread as the glowing forms smiled down on her.
“Nature is more than alive,” Panathea explained, “it is filled with spiritual energies. It connects us to something so much greater than ourselves. This is why it should be honored not ignored.”
“We were punished,” Moonbane added, “for failing to recognize the gifts we were given. Insight, sisterhood, acceptance. And for damaging the great beings which gave us these gifts. You must teach others not to make such mistakes. You must reform the coven and show them what we’ve become.”
“What you’ve…you aren’t angry?” Nightshadow’s mind was whirling with what she’d been told, and she couldn’t help but spit out the questions lest they tear her apart.
“I’m not,” Panathea said as her eyes fell lovingly on Moonbane.
“I couldn’t be happier,” Moonbane added looking back at her.
“What about Silvanth?” Nightshadow demanded, “zi is a wreck. Why not come to zir first? Why couldn’t zi be your…whatever it is?”
“Tree messiah?” Moonbane chuckled but the whispers did not approve, and her smile faded to a more serious expression.
“You are the messenger,” Panathea said patiently, “you were born for this task. Fate set it in your path long ago just as it set Moonbane in mine.”
“And Silvanth?” Nightshadow pressed.
“Silvanth was playing with forces zi didn’t understand,” Panathea said. “None of the real power came from zir because zi didn’t want power. Zi simply wanted to provoke it.”
“I totally should have called zir pervy inclinations,” Moonbane continued, “zi was always too put together. There had to be a screw loose somewhere.”
“Zi wanted to be special, but deep down zi also wanted to be used. The ancients could have flowed into zir as they did you, but they didn’t want to because they are power and Silvanth’s nature, hidden though it was, was unsuited to hosting them.”
“Good thing too,” Moonbane huffed, “zi is a big old ball of ego and self-loathing…”
“Not anymore,” Panathea giggled, “Nightshadow saw to that.”
“Still,” Moonbane continued, “could you imagine what would have happened had all that power been influenced by zir insecurities?”
“I’d rather not,” Panathea confessed.
“Zi would have been a damn nightmare,” Moonbane scoffed.
“You, on the other hand,” Panathea smiled at Nightshadow, “were pure. You simply wanted to be with your friends and to understand your gifts.”
“Not that pure,” Moonbane added with a saucy smile, “she also harbored secret lusts that made the night extra fun.”
“Oh, I’m not complaining,” Panathea replied.
“I did want to be with my friends but…” Nightshadow couldn’t even finish the thought.
“Hey, hey now,” Panathea said soothingly, “we aren’t going away. Here we will never age, never die and we’ll always be together,” she paused to look at Moonbane with such love that her very aura shone brighter.
“And you’ll join us, someday,” Moonbane added, “when you’re ready.”
“The ancients need mortals, however,” Panathea went on, “physical beings to help them connect with those aspects of nature that exist on the corporeal plane. Last night you introduced them to new pleasures and, to put it bluntly, they want more. You will be charged with providing them the vessels they’ll need to indulge.” Panathea seemed almost proud of her.
“How?” Nightshadow wept now. Like Silvanth she couldn’t fathom the magnitude of what had befallen her.
“You will form your own coven,” Moonbane repeated, “and teach them the wisdom that we will pass on to you from the ancients. Each year, during this special time, you will return to this place and offer your bodies so that the ancients can experience mortality. In exchange, you will be granted further insights and power. That’s the deal. Don’t refuse it.” Moonbane said it in her usual half-joking manner but Nightshadow could sense the buried warning. The ancients were not accustomed to deals. This was their first and so they delivered it as an ultimatum.
“Until one day when I’ll…” Nightshadow looked at her friends. They were beautiful, serene, but they were also beyond her comprehension.
“One day you will join us as a spirit and be able to commune with the ancients directly,” Panathea confirmed. “Don’t worry. You’ll love it.”
“For now, you’ll just have to make do with Halloween orgies and coven leadership,” Moonbane, still blunt even in this state, explained.
“And don’t forsake Silvanth,” Panathea added with a laugh, “Zi may not be worthy of a coven, but zi has zir uses. Every witch needs a familiar, after all.”
“Zi is…going to turn into a cat?” Nightshadow asked in wonder.
“No, idiot, you’re going to make zir your little gimp slave,” Moonbane explained with a chuckle, “put that cock to use. It’s what zi wants after all. The ancients heard zir wish for it, and so did you.” Nightshadow nodded. She felt a flutter as she remembered hearing Silvanth’s thoughts while zi admired her body. The ancients had given her access to zir mind, and she knew what zi had wished for in zir heart of hearts. Moonbane seemed to have the same access to her mind now. She nodded as the thoughts formed in Nightshadow’s mind. “Fate has decided to grant zir that wish.”
“Wait,” Nightshadow begged, “I don’t understand how I’m supposed to do any of this. I mean, how am I even going to explain what happened to you?” Retreating from the embarrassing memory of reading Silvanth’s thoughts as zi dreamed of kissing her feet she moved instead to the practicalities of her friends becoming a tree.
“At first you will tell them that we ran off to elope,” Moonbane explained, “but soon their memories of us will fade. It’s a side effect of what we’ve become. No one will know about us in the end, aside from you and Silvanth.”
“How,” Nightshadow cried out in frustration, “I don’t understand how any of this is supposed to work.” It was as much an ex
pression of frustration as anything. Nothing in the magic, and ritual she’d studied had prepared her for this. It was too advanced, too inhuman for her to wrap her mind around.
“Fear not,” Panathea said. “We’re going to explain everything before you go.” Nightshadow laughed bitterly.
“By the time I understand even a tenth of this,” she said, “my body will have starved to death and started to rot.”
“No, it won’t,” Moonbane said with a cocky wink.
“Time doesn’t exist here,” Panathea explained, “we can take as long as we want, and it will seem as though only a moment had passed since you touched…”
“Her tree butt,” Moonbane laughed and Panathea rolled her eyes.
“Yes, an eternity with my love here,” Panathea joked, “truly a wonderful gift.
Silvanth collected zirself enough to climb to zir feet as Nightshadow’s body stiffened against the tree. Zi shook Nightshadow but could not wake her. Zi could not even pull her hand from the tree. For a brief, horrible moment, she seemed stuck in place as though she’d become part of the horrible wooden growth. Tears threatened to overwhelm zir again, and zi had the mad thought of finding zir lighter to burn the tree down when Nightshadow blinked and stepped back. When her eyes focused, Silvanth fell to zir knees before her. Nightshadow didn’t stop zir. She simply placed a hand on zir head and spoke in a voice that seemed older but singular.
“Fear not little one,” she said smiling slightly, “it’s just me.”
“You’re alright?” Silvanth quivered against her foot as zi asked.
“Better,” she replied, “I now know what they want of us.”
“Moonbane and Panathea?” She let the brief hope bloom in zir but she knew she’d have to crush it. Part of her felt a pang of guilt at that but there was a joy in it as well. It would be the first of many little cruelties that she’d visit on her pet in the years to come.
Whispers of the Past Page 7
