6 comments/  15727 views/  9 favorites

The Light Within Ch. 01

By: arkadys_lyric



I want to thank everyone who was kind enough to encourage me to keep writing. I have a very difficult time sharing my stories with the public and I admire anyone with the courage to do so. The Light Within is the final installment of Jayn and Perikos' story and if you've stuck around this long, then I'm truly flattered. I've had a difficult year and so the writing has come very slowly but I personally feel satisfied with the conclusion and I hope anyone out there still interested is satisfied too.





We were lucky to have found a cave to hide in while the Kragosi ships were overhead. Yesterday, Perikos, Shadow and I had discovered that just because they were forbidden by the reigning King to use UV search lights to find us didn't mean they wouldn't use infrared sensors to determine a human heat signature. Perikos had gathered Shadow and I up and moved with a kind of lightening rapidity even I hadn't thought him capable of and now here we waited. Sixty kilometers or so by Shadow's estimations from the compounds we escaped from, where our nascent rebellion against the corrupt, cannibalistic government of this planet met a sticky end, we hunkered down and waited for the wail of Kragosi engines to die down.

"The stitches are poorly done and have likely caused infection. To make matters worse, they seem to have torn," I heard Perikos' melody, soft and rich if slightly uneasy. 

There was nothing to do but wait till to mercenary ships gave up searching. Perikos had me lean back against something rather soft that I thought might be some kind of massive fungus. He had set a splint against my broken right wrist and bound it with a small bit of vine he had managed to scrounge. It was only when I complained about my ear feeling hot and wet again that Perikos had eased me down onto my back, and I felt rather than saw several long, thin tendrils drift tentatively towards my injured ear.

"How did you say you sustained this injury?" Perikos asked.

"One of the assholes in charge of my interrogations thought it would be more interesting to nail my ear to the wall than bother wasting the rope," I said, knowing it would piss Perikos off. Then again, it was the truth and it made me feel relatively badass, especially considering I wasn't actually conscious at the time, and since I was feeling pretty low on badassery as of late, I let Perikos shake in furious indignation on my behalf for a moment.

He touched it gently and all pretensions of my toughness evaporated instantly as I moaned. Definitely it was infected. Whimpering was more in keeping with how I'd actually been feeling lately, what with the terrible soreness from Perikos and Shadow milking me for all I was worth energy-wise to bolster our escape. Not to mention the stiffness, the beatings from my interrogators, my broken wrist and sprained ankle, plus the extra gravity that slowed me down already, to say nothing of my torn, infected ear or the multiple head injuries I'd sustained this week alone. I was lucky I remembered who I was and why I was here.

Perikos held my jaw gently with his tendrils and turned my head to get better access to my ear. "First the remains of the stitches must come out, I think. Then it must be drained. Then we must stitch it anew."

None of that sounded pleasant and I was particularly unenthused about the draining part. Perikos lifted up my head a moment and I felt something soften as he pressed me down against it again. He had turned some part of his body into a pillow and now held my head firmly down against it.

"Exhale and count to five." I heard his song, soothing and measured.

I exhaled deeply and tried to concentrate on the number one but all at once was consumed by a sharp, fast ripping feeling and then my ear, neck and shoulder felt wet again.

"What happened to counting to five?" I grunted, trying to stay perfectly still in spite of the bleeding infection attached to my head.

"I was diverting your attention and it worked," said Perikos softly, and I felt several thin, light touches on the shell of my ear. "It is certainly infected. Hold very still please, Little Shade." 

Not that I could have moved, the way he was holding me down. I took a deep breath and something very sharp, so fine I wouldn't have felt it at all had the skin not been infected, made a small incision near the top of my ear. Then, before I could anticipate it, there was a sensation that began as pressure and culminated in lancing, gut wrenching pain. I moaned through clenched teeth but I couldn't help thinking of Shadow, who must have been watching the proceedings from outside what little radius I could see. He had sustained some pretty dire injuries and was far from fine but he wasn't making a big production out of every minor hurt or scrape. Then again, I never signed up to be a professional soldier. I was a self-professed wimp.

"The worst is over," Perikos reported after another moment of me trying not to embarrass myself. "I just need to close the wound."

I took another deep breath. Stitches weren't that common on Ferox 4 unless something real bad happened to you. Our closest neighbor got mauled by a feral mygvere when I was eleven and had to get stitches but mostly if you got hurt you just took some painkillers and glued the skin together and that was that. Sometimes it would get infected but there were always antibiotics. Except here were there was just Dr. Perikos.

I felt something very thin and quite warm press into the skin of my ear and then felt an odd sensation of pressure and pulling and then felt the light prickling again. I felt ten more after that and held completely still. I was not interested in having to go through this again.

"Your wound is closed," Perikos said finally after another moment or so of inspection.

"Do you really think it's wise, using your body in that way?" At first I thought Shadow was talking to me, judging by his cold tone. I turned to snipe back some caustic reply even though I didn't know what he was referring to but then Perikos replied to him as he helped me sit up.

"I do not see why not. How I can assure it was sterile?" his music was light, buoyant and I felt nearly the whole of his attention on me.

"Yet you diminish yourself," Shadow sounded deeply unimpressed.

"Hardly," Perikos replied. "How are you feeling, Jayn? Are you in pain? Are you dizzy? Nauseated? You do not have a fever – "

"What?" I frowned, trying to find Shadow's form in the dark as if by locating him I could discern his objection. It didn't sound like he was just being regular old stick-in-the-mud Shadow but then what did I know?

"Besides that, what of the long-term affects?" Shadow continued, ignoring me entirely "Will it die? Will it bond to her? What if her body cannot accept it?"

"Jayn's body accepts everything I do to it," replied Perikos, sounding more like a smug teenager than the former leader of a major rebellion. Not that he was wrong but I had a sinking feeling I was missing something important.

"What are you both talking about?" I used Perikos' tendrils to steady myself as I rose to my feet.

Perikos started to say "nothing" just as Shadow began to speak over him. "You take a great deal for granted, Human. How do you suppose he closed the wound?"

"Stitches," I replied, feeling stupid for missing whatever was so obvious.

"Using what, exactly?" Shadow replied, his tune both triumphant and reproachful.

I reached up to feel my ear, which had been torn almost all the way through. It was now held tightly closed by something that felt for all the world like very fine silk thread. "What did you use?" I turned to Perikos, frowning.

Before Perikos could reply or maybe blow off the question, Shadow replied, "a piece of himself."

"What? How is that supposed to work?" I looked back and forth between Shadow and Perikos, unsure if I just wasn't in on the joke.

"I used a very small piece of myself to bind it." Perikos didn't sound ashamed in admitting it so maybe Shadow was just being a twerp.

"What he means to say is he tore a small piece of himself away, effectively killing it and used to seal an open wound on your body without a thought given to the complications or how it might affect or diminish him."

"It could not continue to bleed or Jayn would have been weakened and so would we all. I can assure its strength and sterility and no satisfactory alternative presented itself." Perikos sang back at Shadow, though I could feel his attention on me. "You endured the pain well," he told me, which I supposed was his way of telling me he was grateful I never started screaming and flailing, which was only partially true because I had been a bit of a crybaby since we escaped, between my wrist and the rest of it. Or maybe I just felt like a crybaby next to Shadow, who had been doing the whole stoic injured General thing well enough to put me in my place.

I slumped against the wall next to me. Now that I was standing I felt dizzy and felt my heart pounding but maybe it was just all the pent-up adrenaline I had built trying to stay perfectly still while Perikos poked holes in my infected skin. I closed my eyes, counted slowly to ten and wobbled over to where I heard Shadow's music come from. It was too dark to see him but I could feel him as I approached. His presence felt smaller, colder and I could tell he was irritable and probably lonely. After all, Perikos and I had been acting pretty couple-y and while I wasn't going to complain about Perikos prioritizing my health and comfort, we didn't need to work Shadow back into the funk he was in about me before I got captured by those Loyalists.

"Hey, how are you feeling?" I kept my voice softer and spoke gently. Too gently. I forgot who I was talking to.

"I do not appreciate your condescension. I am as unwell now as I was several hours ago when you last bothered to inquire." Shadow hissed like a cymbal. 

I turned and looked at Perikos as though hoping to read his body language or discern some clue as to what I should do. Unhelpfully, Perikos looked just as like a tentacled mass of inky blackness like he always did. I looked back at Shadow, who I was close enough now to see. He was small enough to hold in my arms, and while I never thought he looked robust, per se, any hint of luster or strength seemed to be sapped. He could have been an artistically rendered lump of charcoal.

"Look, we need to do something about this before we move on. You need enough energy to be able to heal yourself." 

"I do not see how that is possible and at any rate I am well enough not to burden you very greatly. Do not trouble yourselves," Shadow's tune was more of a bitter grumble.

What we were all carefully not saying was that we all knew how easy it was for him to feed well enough that he could heal himself. And we were about as eager to actually say it as we were to engage in it. Perikos and Shadow fed of fear and pleasure and apparently I was pretty easy to please. Humans apparently achieved emotional heights completely unknown to creatures on this planet. To feed at all they had to consume living beings capable of at least some emotion. After their population expanded so that they killed all or nearly all the lower lifeforms, they turned on each other. Death by having your friends and neighbors feast on your still living corpse became de rigueur until Shadow taught Perikos that such things were really awful and barbaric, and those lessons resonated with enough people to form a rebellion against the current Leader or King or whatever. The King committed more atrocities and Perikos actually killed him, so legally he should have taken over and reformed the planet. Well, the best laid plans of aliens and men oft go awry, so instead of a weird take on socialism, Perikos was captured, subdued and sent to Kragosa, an awful, maximum security prison planet outside Union law. That's where I met him and he helped each other away, and since humans weren't supposed to be there and anyone who was there was never supposed to escape, that made us both outlaws. I didn't really have anything to go home to, so I joined Perikos. The theory was (at least until pretty much the entire rebel army got squashed yesterday) that Perikos' new regime meant everyone ate off everyone, just a little, kind of on the honor system. 

Assuming these creatures were at all like humans meant this certainly wouldn't work, but it beat the hell out of starving horribly or cannibalizing every guy that looked at you funny. And hey, Perikos' rebels had wasted away rather than do harm to their fellows, so maybe it really could work. To feed emotions off one of their fellow creatures was apparently to tap into a finite supply of emotion and energy. By contrast, little ol' human me couldn't stop producing emotion surplus if I tried. The long and short of it was that it seemed I was Perikos' trump card, his lifetime supply that no one else had access to. On the negative side, the Loyalists who fought against the rebellion had no scruples when it came to devouring any and all of their fellows to do battle against us. There was something to be said for engaging them and then retreating and repeating it all until they depleted their numbers badly, but that was probably my alien point of view talking. Yesterday we escaped their prison, and Shadow, Perikos and the dying rebel army took out a fair few. They seemed to have a better sense of what they were dealing with because probably they had sent out kill squads and they had definitely put the Kragosi guards on retainer to recapture us. The downside of that was that while Shadow and Perikos could likely protect me against Loyalist kill squads so long as I kept pumping out "emotion", Kragosi guards had been authorized to use intra-red and UV light to recapture us and while that didn't bother me too much, Shadow and Perikos were a bit allergic. Like, shrivel up and die allergic. Which is why we were hiding till their ships got tired of searching.

None of this was much help to Shadow. Like I said, there were two ways for them to feed: fear or sex. Fear was bad because I wasn't particularly interested in soliciting an alien creature who didn't much like me to provoke enough terror that it could heal the worst of its injuries. As for sex, Shadow and I had done it once but the circumstances were a little different. I had been captured and bound so I couldn't stop it; Perikos was not around and was in dire straits and we did it to strengthen Shadow so he could help me save Perikos. I had really disliked it and would almost classify it as rape. Did I mention I was tied up at the time? Not to mention Perikos was here now and he was the jealous type. Possibly weirder was the knowledge we all shared when we embarked on the idea of overthrowing the King at the capital that if Shadow and Perikos were going to stay strong enough to make this worth their attempt, I was going to be putting out. We all knew it but none of us knew how to proceed.

I glanced back at Perikos again and reached out to touch him. One tentacle coiled around my unbroken wrist to wind its way between my splayed fingers.

"Now what?' I asked him silently, hoping he could read thoughts. "How do I help him and still keep some parts of myself off limits? What are the new rules? Help me."

Perikos continued to hold my hand a moment, and stroked my tangled hair, pulling it away from my face and holding it there, in a ponytail. I felt something thin and feather light press itself against my uninjured ear and it tickled me but then I heard Perikos' soft, whispered melody. "Do not worry, Little Shade. I will help. Do not concern yourself with the politics of this – you are first and foremost mine. I will set boundaries for you and I will make sure my Second has what he needs. As with any other manner of feeding, relax and trust my judgment."

That wasn't exactly what I wanted to hear. Once again, what I wanted didn't matter. Why should it be up to me, it's only my body, right? 

I felt pressure on my shoulders as Perikos pushed me downwards. I tried to turn my head, but he held my hair behind me and I had very little range of motion, like being on a very short leash. I took the hint and knelt. I probably would have sat down entirely but Perikos kept me on my knees as he held me by my shoulders and waist. He then held my arms just above my elbows, squeezing them together until I had to thrust my chest forward. His grip on my hair tightened and he forced my chin up before a thick, cool tendril slid over my eyes and it got even darker than it had already been. I knelt, restrained and blinded in total stillness for a moment before I felt Perikos' tendril snake between my legs from behind. Hooray, I thought, since I had never been one for teasing or anticipation. Perikos' tendril circled my swollen nether lips and then patted them gently.

"So perfect. All need do is hold you in some position of supplication and your body responds." The tendril pinched my labia together over my already wet hole and I ground down against him, moaning for something more substantial. "Shadow, come here please."

I stopped grinding and felt my insides ice over. What Perikos made my body do and how Shadow made me feel were totally different things. Not to mention Shadow didn't know what to do with a human female body. I wriggled a little in attempt to communicate my reservations and Perikos pinched me together more firmly.

"I have no desire of it and it has no desire of me," replied a cold, hollow tune. I had been demoted back to "it".

"Jayn eagerly anticipates your participation. Feel it for yourself. Her arousal fills this tiny space." I assume Perikos meant the cave and as for anticipating Shadow's participation, maybe I was just a freak like that. To want something I knew I didn't.

"Then I will content myself with proximity. It is yours, it does not want me." Shadow's voice rang again in the blackness.

I felt one of Perikos' strong, thick tendrils trace a long, tender line along my jaw and down my neck to between my naked breasts. "Even if that were true, I am responsible for decisions about Jayn's body in matters of feeding. What she says she wants is not important because her body swells and pants for intrusion. She prefers to have no control."

A little moan escaped my lips before I could stop it. Perikos was right of course, we'd hashed that out long ago. And yes, I wanted the fear of what Shadow would do because even if it didn't feel good, Perikos would control every moment of it. And I wasn't getting out of it, either.

When Shadow replied, his song sounded weaker, thicker. "I do not need – "

"With all due respect to you, My Second, I order you to satisfy yourself now, before we must leave. You will take what you need this time and in any future instance I request and never deny yourself at the cost of our success. You are my Second and Jayn is my Partner but she knows I require obedience from her in this matter, as I require it from you. Do as I ask or we will forfeit this endeavor we have set ourselves on for we cannot win if you do not heed me as she does."

Calling Shadow's pride into question was something only Perikos could do and get away with, but even blinded as I was, I sensed something physical shift in the room. Had Shadow moved?

"Thank you," Perikos said quietly and I doubted he was talking to since I hadn't moved or spoken. "The first thing you must know of is her mouth."

I felt my body stiffen.

"Please open, Little Shade."

I had to, of course, but I steeled myself to do it. 


The Light Within Ch. 01



"This is the organ that receives her food and that she uses to speak. To penetrate it is to arouse two and sometimes three different aspects of her pleasure centers. The first is to stifle noises or speech to intensify her feelings of helplessness. The second is to cause some degree of humiliation, since it implies that the only method she has of communicating is better served by ignoring her wishes. The third is really an extension of the second, since complete penetration of her mouth and throat can cut off her air supply, which is vital to her health. Short interruptions are allowable, since they force her to experience helplessness and dependence and remind her of her weakness but if you do so you must be careful to monitor her heart rate and consciousness or else you could hurt or even kill her."

I felt really dizzy now. This was a bad idea, very bad. I felt something thin and slightly damp press against my teeth and let out a little squeak.

"She uses those to feed," Perikos told Shadow, who was presumably touching my teeth. "If you push past those you will feel the wetness and softness of her mouth, which is a reasonable facsimile of a sex organ I believe you are already acquainted with."

Shadow's slender but incredibly dense tentacle pushed past my teeth and into my mouth. He ran it over the roof of my mouth and my gums and traced the back of my throat, though he seemed particularly interested in my tongue.

"When she is very pleased she will often run it up and down whatever she can reach," Perikos answered Shadow's unasked question and made me blush horribly all in one fell swoop.

Shadow's clammy tendril wound itself around my tongue while Perikos held me still. Shadow tightened his grip so I couldn't pull my tongue away. I squirmed and tried to focus on my breathing, which is a lot harder now I was quite literally tongue-tied. Shadow waited until my breathing had stabilized and then released my tongue in search of better prospects. I had the sense he wasn't content unless I was on the verge of crying uncle.

He poked and prodded at the insides of my cheeks, making the skin distend. He slithered like a snake to the back of my throat over my tongue and triggered my gag reflex, something Perikos was very good at avoiding. I choked on the tentacle in my throat but stopped myself from coughing.

"Yes, I usually avoid that if I can because it does not feel particularly pleasant as you have no doubt noticed, but it can be used to great effect to remind her of her helplessness and at any rate, if her mouth and throat are sufficiently penetrated, sometimes it is unavoidable."

My pussy lips throbbed and hummed at Perikos' words but still the only thing touching me south of my mouth was Perikos' teasing tentacle that held my pussy lips together.

"Moving back and forth inside of her mouth as you doubtlessly intuited when you were both alone in the cave creates a similar sensation of pleasure in Jayn," Perikos' tendrils stroked my jaw and neck again and Shadow began to thrust, slowly and tentatively at first and then with lust bordering on aggression. I opened my mouth as widely as I could to lessen the impact.

"You can feel her joy, can you not?" Perikos asked Shadow after several moments of silence besides my grunts and moans. "Her thrill in being controlled, filled and used? But take care because her joy in these things is connected to her affection and trust. If you lose her trust then she will not relax enough rise to new heights. You may elicit fear but you will never properly elicit arousal."

Shadow triggered my gag reflex twice more and had we been alone, Perikos was right, I would have hated it. But instead Perikos held me perfectly still and allowed himself to know everything I was feeling while he coached Shadow as to the right way to...use me. I moaned around Shadow's shaft again.

"Now push past the back of her mouth to her throat. Deeper. Doing so will force her to swallow you but never give her too much. Gauge her reaction precisely and always retract yourself or provide her with air if you plan to remain there."

I couldn't help but shake and thrash a little as Shadow pushed into my throat and held himself there for a moment. He pulled himself free so I could suck air into my lungs and then without warning he plunged himself slightly deeper and held himself there for several long seconds. He pulled out and waited for me to catch my breath before plummeting back in over and over.

"You are doing well, Little Shade," Perikos whispered to me and though I was certain Shadow could hear I didn't care. Shadow's tentacle slid down my throat again. "It is not easy to be used as you are, and although you delight in it, it must not be easy to be outnumbered, held down and thoroughly controlled." Shadow allowed me to breathe for the count of five before plugging my throat again. "How are you feeling, Second?"

Considering I was the one choking on a phallus, I didn't appreciate Shadow's right to an opinion. A moment later I heard a cool, vibrant refrain that I didn't immediately realize was Shadow's. "Very well. I am largely renewed."

"Excellent," Perikos' warmth crashed into me and I longed to feel him inside me in spite of my soreness. "Then please withdraw yourself so we may soon be on our way. I believe the ships have gone, I can no longer sense them."

Shadow pulled himself from my throat with an odd sort of sucking sound and Perikos lifted my blindfold and allowed me to sink to the ground as he released my swollen pussy lips and my arms.

"Wait! Wait, what the hell was that?" I had been hovering on the edge for nearly a minute and suddenly they were done? "What happened to my pleasure?"

"You felt a great deal of pleasure, Little Shade. I do not understand." The only problem was that he understood exactly why I felt slighted.

"You know what I mean! You're using me, you're teasing me and then you're just packing up and pretending I'm being demanding. You get food, I get climaxes. That was the deal."

Perikos scooped me up in his darkness as Shadow moved to check the cave entrance for signs of the Kragosi ships. "Actually, any semblance of a deal we had was one where I fed on you in a manner I specified and I would protect you. I have realized that waiting until I am famished and glutting myself is a danger to your wellbeing – "

"No it isn't!"

" – since I fear what will happen if I take too much – "

"Nothing will happen!"

" – so my Second and I will implement a new plan. We will feed off you in small doses. Out here there is no way of knowing when we will have cover, when we might next rest and so the best solution is to feed off you by keeping you constantly aroused."

"WHAT?"

"By stimulating you frequently and restricting your release, we may not only feed but maintain greater control over ourselves." Perikos sounded warm, pleased with himself even. My head was reeling and I felt furious.

"Do you even know what that does to a person? That's like torture! Do you want me to go crazy?"

"Of course not," he replied as Shadow turned back from the entrance with his report. "We are not abandoning you and denying you entirely. We will monitor your current state and adjust our actions according." I felt something thin and flat slip between my thighs to pull and tweak at my clit before withdrawing its attention. I moaned and grabbed the tendril as it hovered over the crease between my thighs, pushing it away. 

"If you're not gonna help me out, don't tease. I can't take it."

Shadow's cool, logical tones rang out over the cavern but at least he didn't sound as bitter as before. "I cannot detect any airborne craft in this area. My recommendations are that we head northwest for one hundred and thirty-two kilometers where we briefly rest, which will provide the Human an opportunity to drink. From there we can set a new course."

"Excellent. Lead on, Second," Perikos replied before turning his attention on me. "Of course we will 'tease' you and you can and will take it, Jaynling." He arranged my body so that if he were person-shaped I would be piggyback riding. He wound several spools of blackness around my hips and waist and I felt something tiny and irregular brush against my clit, sending waves of ecstasy through me. I rubbed myself against him and I couldn't find it – he was infuriatingly smooth. Perikos' music sounded like bells. "Don't worry, Sweet Shade, you have at least three hours to try to find it again."



The Light Within Ch. 02



I was panting like a bitch in heat. I was grinding and humping against Perikos' mass as he carried me I knew not where. Had I been in my right mind I would have asked, but Perikos and Shadow seemed hellbent on ruining what shreds of dignity I had left. Something brushed my clit again, too fleeting to do more than raise my ire to the bursting point. I did not sign up for torment, thank you very much.

Perikos slowed his pace and stopped in front of what might have been an ocean, judging just by the shear expanse of it. I could barely make it out in the darkness except for the way it reflected the starlight on its obsidian surface. 

I twisted and squirmed and maybe Perikos got the message or maybe he was just playing with me now, trying to get me riled up, but he all but dropped me onto the soft black sandy shore.

"Okay, Perikos. We have to talk." I straightened myself up and brushed the sand off my ass and thighs. "This new scheme you and he worked out? It's not happening. It's done, it's over. Chalk it up to a failed experiment."

I couldn't tell what he was feeling, either because he didn't know himself or he was getting better at hiding it. His tone was even, careful. "You may as well drink and bathe when you have the chance, Jayn. The opportunity may not present itself again any time soon."

"Look," I jabbed a finger at his mass, making sure to locate Shadow and direct some of my anger at him too, "I am not messing around. I will do all kinds of crazy, unbelievable, freaky things for you! I won't even complain! But you're talking physical, psychological torture! You make the rules for your people but you don't make them for me, got it? I'm a free agent! I came here because I wanted to, and I'm still here because I still want to be here! Don't fuck with me, either of you! Being here - being me - is hard enough without you making it that much harder!"

With that I tossed my sweaty, greasy hair, turned on heel and walked into the water. It was chilly but not totally unpleasant. I drank greedily from the fresh water, giving them both a moment to digest my ultimatum. And they had better think about it because I meant business, I reminded myself as I dipped my head beneath the water to scrub my scalp. Actually, I thought I was to be commended for my decorum. I mean, sure, they had to know I was serious so a small tantrum might be justified, but I had waited to give it to them until we were stopped at our next location. I had spent three and a half hours bottling up my rage and indignation and the way I saw it, if the worst they got from me was a strongly worded warning, I ought to have been congratulated for my restraint.

I finished cleaning myself, or at least rinsing myself. I massaged the silty black sand into arms and legs in the hopes of rubbing off dead skin in lieu of any actual soap. I turned to the shore and saw Perikos and Shadow next to one another, probably communicating. Probably Shadow was trying to have me flayed alive and Perikos was explaining to him that I wasn't...I don't know, livestock, or whatever.

"So," I said, returning to the shore. It wasn't a question; more of a prompting for an apology than anything. Then I felt it hit me.

I was on my back in water a few centimeters deep. Perikos' huge black shape pinned me to the shore, tendrils on my wrists and ankles. I saw Shadow move behind me and felt him touch my right ankle. It was frightening and oddly reassuring at once. It meant whatever was going to happen, they both wanted in on it.

"Jayn," Perikos' voice wrenched my attention back at him. "I wish we had the luxury of enjoying these battles of will between us. I imagine the excitement of allowing my future subjects to be near us as I use you in ways you have never experienced. I would be thrilled to take you somewhere secluded and remote and give you a head start before the chase would begin. Do you remember, Jayn? Like we did on the ship?" He paused a moment, maybe waiting for my reply but I could already tell I wouldn't like where this was going. 

"If you remember the ship, Jayn, then you will remember that you promised me obedience. You took the adornment I made just for you and you vowed to abide my decisions."

"Well, I didn't know then how wrong your decisions could be!"

Perikos was silent for a moment again. When he sang again, his tone was once again even, precise. "I have, of course, lamented the mistakes I have made. The ones I have made that have hurt my people and the ones that have hurt you. I take complete responsibility for everything that has happened to you that I could have prevented. Naturally that inspires much regret on my part, though I can hardly be effective if I dwell on regrets rather than positive action." I felt a slender tendril trace the line of my jaw.

"Little Shade, you have given me so much but have refused to willingly give me the only thing I have asked for from you. Obedience."

"But –"

"For you to obey me, you must trust me. You claim to have great affection, great 'love', for me and yet you do not trust me?"

I squirmed under him uncomfortably. "Well...let's just say I don't think you're perfect."

I heard a sound like bells tinkling. "No, nor are you. You are fragile and have many personal needs. You are demanding and insubordinate. You are emotional, loud, unreasonable and disobedient. If I thought there would be a point I would punish you but I cannot treat you as I would one of my kind. You are what you are and I accept it. In fact, it is partly due to your contrary nature that you are so pleasurable to arouse. You do not accept yourself anymore than you do me. But that will change today."

I felt an invisible storm brewing between us and Shadow was an eager spectator.

"You may always grumble and protest, you may always struggle and bargain and plead but know this, Little Shade: you are mine. Everything you say or do, every hunger or fear you feel, everything you are here is my responsibility. You are not, as you say, a 'free agent.' You made several decisions for yourself because I allowed you the freedom to make them. I am not above forcing you, not after what happened with the Loyalists. You eat and sleep and breathe and live because of me."

I tried to turn my head away, but Perikos held my chin in place.

"That is not a threat or a conceit, Little Shade, just a fact. I do not want you so I can use you or torture you or whatever foolish accusation you have leveled against me. The Loyalists spoke of the possibility or cloning or breeding humans. They cannot with their current technological limits, but I tell you this because you have to trust my motives. I want you to safe and happy. You will be safe if I can overthrow the King at his encampment. And you will be happy if you will let go and realize your place here."

"And what is that?" I asked, my voice betraying my internal battle between umbrage and affection.

"I told you, Jayn. You are utterly and entirely mine. My Second obeys my wishes and feeds on you because I request it. In terms of our shared mutual affection, you are my Partner, my Companion but our places here are very different. I am your keeper, your...owner, for want of a more precise term. You are my most precious possession."

"I'm a person, not a thing," I couldn't keep the growl out of my voice. 

"I have never had affection for 'things'," Perikos' tune was warm but serious. "Indeed, you are more valuable to me personally than any member of my kind has been. Were it possible or desirable, I would mate with you properly but of course it is neither those things and so neither of our destiny's will lead us to that conclusion. Our...disparate power dynamic does not rob me of affection for you. Quite the contrary, you have learned you thrive on dependence and I have learned it is in my nature to enjoy controlling you. Your proper place is one of surrender to me and mine is one of control. With that, protection and appreciation. You must give me absolute trust."

I considered everything he had said. It was true, pretty much all of it. I trusted that much. It was pure delusion on my part if I thought I was in an equal in this. I wasn't strong enough or fast enough or tough enough to survive hardly at all on my own. I was Public Enemy Number Two, maybe even Number One just by virtue of being the only walking battery pack on the planet and I didn't know where I was going or what I would do if I got there. I needed Perikos in a way he would never need me, but he wanted me and it was for more than just sex. Sex for me of course – I had to remind myself that I had no idea what sex might mean for him. I was a babe in the woods, hopeless and mostly helpless but could I give him what he wanted?

"You said it yourself," I felt my eyes watering a little, though I wasn't sure why. "I'm demanding, unreasonable – what else did you say? Belligerent. You know that."

"Yes, I know that," Perikos stroked me cheeks and forehead.

"Well, then you should know I can't just do what I'm told and I can't trust anyone completely. I can't not question, I can't be someone I'm not." There they were, those fucking tears again. Because I was a disappointment. Perikos only needed a few things from me and I had to fight him every step of the way. I had to, it was impossible to stop. 

"You don't need to be sorrowful, Jayn. I do not resent your nature. I tell you this plainly so you will remember my words when I am holding you down, forcing you to accept whatever I feel is appropriate. Let me show you in a moment but from now on we will have no more illusions about your right to decide your future."

"I don't even need to speak anymore then, I guess. I'm just here for food?" I said before I could curb the impulse. 

"Don't be so dramatic, Little Shade. When I actually wish to silence you, I do so without hesitation. The rest of the time I enjoy your thoughts, your opinions and feelings, even if they do not change my decision. I am very pleased to possess you. Allow me to illustrate my point."

I felt him move off of me, so the bulk of his mass rested behind my head. Shadow hung around by my right ankle, virtually unmoved by Perikos' and my heart to heart.

"My Second, we will continue where we left off. This is her neck," I felt Perikos' tendril on my exposed neck and then I felt Shadow's clammy one follow. I felt my breath catch but I kept my mouth shut.

"This is very important since right here is the best possible place to monitor her heart rate and breathing. She will find it thrilling to have something around her neck and it will allow you to control her quite effectively but you must be extremely cautious. This is one of the most vulnerable places on her body and so I would advise extreme caution. Feel her heartbeat. Can you feel it flutter at the very suggestion that she be lead around in that manner? She is exquisite."

I moaned as I felt Perikos trace a serpentine line over my collarbone and down to my breasts. He encircled my left nipple, which was already rigid, pointing skyward. Shadow followed him and wound around my right nipple. He tugged my breast down towards him while Perikos pulled my left breast up towards my chin.

"You have discerned the affect manipulation of these have on her if not their intended purpose, have you not? They are an important female characteristic among her species. Notice they are soft, round and smooth but when you squeeze them hard you will notice they are solid. If she was carrying offspring, these would produce fluid to feed them. She enjoys any and all attention they receive and they are both sensitive and yet durable. They can take a certain amount of abuse and are suitable for striking, provided you are careful not to inflict serious or permanent damage."

How was it possible that Perikos knew so much about humans when the rest of his kind seemed to know nothing? I didn't have time to ponder further before I felt Perikos hook two thick, powerful tentacles under my knees and pull them back to expose my pussy and ass. I tried to wriggle away but Perikos held my arms and legs firmly and all I could do was squeeze my eyes shut and try to deal with the humiliation. I felt a cool breeze tickle my wet folds and I felt horribly exposed.

"These are her other main orifices. This," he traced slow, deliberate circles around my entrance, teasing my slick, swollen lips, "is her primary sex organ. You are no doubt acquainted it, having used it once already to strengthen yourself when you and Jayn were captured." His tune was devoid of any accusation but it betrayed nothing else either. He was probably trying to stifle his normal jealous impulses but he had nothing to be jealous about, particularly then. And now, actually, since this was hardly my idea. I felt him pinch my clit and I began to buck and howl. I was too sensitive to process such direct stimulation.

"Though it is small, you can see this part is very sensitive. You can use it to tease her and keep her aroused, to bring her to orgasm rapidly or to distract her from unpleasant internal or external occurrences. Direct your appendage there and stimulate her."

I had to close my eyes again, even though it was so dark I could have barely made anything out anyway. I couldn't watch as Shadow pressed his soft, oily tendril to my throbbing clit and ground against it. I thrashed and howled again, unable to control the sensory overload. It was too slow, too shallow and they'd been teasing me for hours. I needed more, if I didn't lose my mind completely getting there.

"Of course, Jayn is a complex creature and need not only be pleasured in one way. Enter her now, making sure you do so slowly and fill her completely. Stretch her if need be but be careful not to tear her on the inside."

Shadow wasted little time and I felt his tentacle, wide and smooth burrow inside me, twisting and pushing slowly, heeding Perikos' advice about stretching me to accommodate his girth.

"Oh shit," I moaned, my eyes tearing from the strain as Perikos held my arms down over my head. Even the chill from the tide coming in couldn't distract me.

"Silly Shade, you've taken more than that and begged me not to stop. Why do you protest now?"

Because it's not you, stupid. Well, that wasn't entirely it. Maybe I had tightened up in our downtime or maybe I wasn't use to taking someone or something I didn't completely like inside me. Or maybe I was still sore from our escape.

I felt something jar inside me.

"You have reached the entrance to her womb. While it is technically possible for us to penetrate that barrier, I would ask you not to, as it can be painful and dangerous." I felt Perikos' attention shift. "Can you perceive this with your eyes, Little Shade?"

I opened one eye, then the other and strained in near perfect darkness but there was no avoiding what was so close to my face. An oily tentacle nearly as thick as my wrist was imbedded in me and seeing it made me clench around Shadow and I felt some flicker of something in him, some emotion. 

"Do you...enjoy this?" Shadow's tone was soft and totally incredulous. What, wasn't Perikos' word enough for him? Couldn't he tell just by touching me? I tried to close my legs but Perikos held them wide open. I felt myself tearing up from shame, from humiliation.

"Answer him, Little Shade," said Perikos. Insult to injury.

"No," I said, turning my face away from both of them, squeezing my eyes shut. How did we get to this? To two tentacle aliens holding me down and fucking me and then making me feel like a freak?

"Please do as I ask, Jayn. It would disappoint me to have you refuse my wishes," said Perikos. Well, far be it for me to disappoint him by not doing whatever horrible thing he wanted. I felt hot tears running down my face in earnest now but Perikos still held me wide open and Shadow was wedged deep inside me. He hadn't even moved.

"Fuck you, you know I enjoy it. You can feel that," my voice has low, heated, husky with anger, humiliation and, despite myself, arousal. "Perikos told you I like, you don't believe him? This whole stupid thing is predicated on the idea that you can do this to me and I'll like it. So why the fuck would you ask?"

They were both silent for a moment, although neither allowed me to move. Perikos brushed the tears from my reddened cheeks and stroked the backs of my knees but Shadow stayed just where he was; painfully inside of me, unnaturally still. Finally he sang, and when he did it was an odd tempo...not actually apologetic but I heard something in it I hadn't heard from him before.

"I believed you enjoyed what Leader did to you because you both share the bond of Kragosa. But I did not think...I mean, I would not have guessed...I only mean that it is an extraordinary thing that one kind of creature, born and bred in isolation from other kinds could enjoy alien attentions." I wanted to interrupt him, to tell him that he had better not insinuate I was crazy or a slut but he kept going. "I thought Leader's ability to pleasure you was isolated or contingent on your emotional ties to him. Now I realize that you enjoy this feeling of...fullness? That I could...cause such a feeling. How extraordinary that Leader would encounter someone so desirous of such things. Of all the species in the system and all the humans in the Union, that we should have you."

I wasn't sure what to do with that. Shadow expressing wonder? Devotion? Maybe not, maybe something else. Perikos cleared the air.

"Perhaps it's time to withdraw and move on," he told Shadow and I felt the huge tentacle withdraw, aided by the moisture that had been building in me. I expected Perikos to help me up but he kept me down in the water. Instead I felt an almost electric jolt on the pucker beneath.

"This has its own anatomical purpose," Perikos told Shadow and I could only hope he would spare the details. "This is not a sex organ, though notice I will use it as such. Please respect my wishes and do not penetrate it. It can be very painful and dangerous if not done correctly. You may touch the outside, however."

I began to spasm when I felt Shadow's damp touch circle my most private hole. 

"She is afraid," I heard Shadow tell Perikos.

"Indeed. She fears the discomfort and lack of control penetration there brings. There are many ways to elicit similar emotions without violating any areas I have forbidden."

Before I realized what was happened, I felt Perikos flip me over so I was ass up, face down as the tide rolled in. Perikos wound around my hair like before so even though he pressed me breasts and shoulders into the water, he pulled my hair until I couldn't drown if I wanted to. I felt Perikos and Shadow massage the round globes of my ass.

"These are excellent for striking if that is your wish, especially while she is being penetrated. If I am taking her smaller hole, even better."

My breath caught in my throat again and I wriggled my hips in spite of the pull from my hair.

"If she enjoys such sensations, why does she protest?" Shadow's tone was hot and slick.

Perikos stroked my ass and I heard the tinkle of bells yet again. Perikos' laughter filled me to the brim and then washed over the sides. It was always so warm, so jubilant. "That is a mystery I have only recently resolved. In part it seems to be something of a human mating ritual to feign disinterest or discomfort. I believe your assessment about my extraordinary good fortune in finding a human so compatible is very accurate. In her culture what we share and the physicality behind it are taboo and so she is conflicted about such treatment. That is why she finds so much relief in our control, since she cannot be properly held accountable in her own mind."




The Light Within Ch. 02



"But she begs for it," Shadow sounded transfixed and I felt his soft, fat tendril slide over my asshole again. "I can feel her oozing arousal from here!"

"That is why she is so sweet," said Perikos traced a tendril barely smaller than my hand over my lips. "That's right, Jayn, open your mouth and let me silence you. I said I will not punish you, as punishment among my kind is a harsh affair and I doubt you would survive. But physical discomfort and embarrassment are something of a punishment on their own, are they not? You may bite as hard as you need to and if you let go of your pretensions to control, perhaps my Second and I will reward you when you have learned some humility."

My heart was pounding so hard I could feel it in my throat. Perikos dipped into the slick pool at my pussy and bathed himself in it. He avoided my clit, slowing his movement whenever he got close. I moaned into the tentacle in my mouth and then nearly swallowed my tongue when I felt Perikos squirm into my ass. He stayed very still inside me a moment before swelling lengthwise. Outside my body he laid perfectly still along the crack on my ass, down between my legs and over the curve of my spine where he held on tight to my hair and kept me from moving. Inside me he vibrated, squirmed, wiggled and burrowed. It was obscenely serpentine. At once it hurt enough to tear me apart and felt painfully shallow. It felt wrong, intrusive, disgusting and gloriously full all at once. I was absorbed in the strangeness I didn't hear what Perikos whispered to Shadow.

I felt Shadow come down hard on my ass, so hard it shook my body and everything inside it. Before I could think to shift my hips Shadow spanked me again, this time landing directly on top of Perikos, who allowed Shadow to push him deeper inside me. I screamed into the tentacle in my mouth, though the next spank was so loud I could barely hear my own scream. Then there was another. And another. How many times had Shadow hit me? More than ten? More than twenty? Perikos withdrew almost entirely, until just his tip was still inside. I felt its tip broaden, stretching me while I howled into my gag. Shadow's blows didn't slow as more landed at the tops of my thighs now an impressive red heat was rising off the rest of my ass. I felt Perikos try to withdraw entirely but the wide blunt tip of the tendril stopped him before I could, like a plug, and I shrieked into my gag, my tears falling hot and heavy into the cool, deepening water around me. Shadow's blow landed squarely on the tendril and Perikos was pushed back inside me painfully. I felt Shadow coil around my waist, his hold surprisingly strong. He flipped me over easily. Perikos took his cue and let go of my hair and instead propped my head so that my eyes were only just above the surface of the water. 

Shadow folded my legs crosswise against my stomach so my ass was still exposed. I felt water splash on my thighs and tummy from the force of him hitting my ass. Another tentacle began to slap my breasts and instead of screaming I tried to focus on the feeling, however uncomfortable, of Perikos lodged in my ass.

"That's right, Jaynling, let go. Perhaps if you are very good I will keep it in there just as it is. Would you like that? To be led around on a lead extending from that hole, wedged and plugged so tight it will only come out if I wish it to? I could keep you close, I could grow so wide and heavy I could nearly hobble you. You could only move if I wished it. What do you think?"

I opened my eyes again when I felt Shadow slap my breast again. Had he been doing that the whole time? Judging by the way I ached, I supposed he had. I took a deep breath and tried to relax as the water got deeper and my skin got sorer and then I saw the red light in the sky.

"Stop! STOP!" I shrieked into Perikos' tentacle.

"Ah, Little Shade, just when you were beginning to learn to cooperate - " Perikos twisted the tentacle in my ass and I shrieked into my gag again.

The red light was moving fast, getting bigger. Shit, I was being so overwhelmed I couldn't think straight. They couldn't see it, couldn't hear it and they weren't listening to me either.

I tried to block out every other thought, from the aches to the throbbing arousal, to my broken wrist, to the cold water beginning to lap over my eyes. "Kragosi ship!" I whispered into Perikos' tendril, trying to focus on remembering on the sound it makes when it gets close enough to hear. Much too close.

There was less than a half second when the red light above us blurred and seemed to swell as the light refracted off the water in my eyes. Something, maybe just the feeling in the air, changed absolutely. Before my body could register the movement, Perikos was holding me out of the water and Shadow was right behind me.

"The sea!" Shadow hissed though I felt an edge of hesitation follow from him and Perikos. My eyes flickered up towards the ship above us. They were close enough I could see their port windows and judging by the way they slowed as they approached, I bet they could see us too.

Perikos' blackness clamped over my nose and mouth again as he submerged us. I took my first gasp of air through his tendrils when Shadow wrapped a thin tendril around my right wrist but I didn't have time to appreciate the sentiment.

"Deeper! We are too shallow, weapons will reach us at these depths!" he said, though there was no point in telling me. Perikos seemed to almost dance through the blackness, which was even more disorienting than usual since I couldn't breathe for myself, or swim with a broken wrist, or even make out anything at this depth. Maybe I was caught up in the flight, but for a moment I panicked, twisting and reaching out my hands and feet for Perikos.

"Stay calm. Breathe normally, Jayn. I'm right here. I'm holding you." I felt Shadow squeeze my left hand. But where are you getting the air from? I wondered. I felt myself begin to shiver from the cold and fright. No answer. What if they shot light at the surface?

"Deeper," Shadow's song would be been incomprehensible if he weren't holding my hand.

My retinas seemed to explode as the surface blossomed with light. It wasn't even bright where we were but now I could make out the dim outline of Shadow beside me.

"Perikos!" I screamed into the blackness that covered my nose and mouth.

"Jayn, be calm. We're going deeper so it will not hurt us even if they choose to stay there and attempt to root us out."

My words were stunted, unformed garbles but Perikos and Shadow seemed to understand me all right. "What about the air -?" 

I didn't have time to complete my thought before Perikos' tones filled my head. "I can pull air from the water around us for a time, which should be sufficient if you can remain calm."

I took long, steady, measured breaths and vowed that I wouldn't be responsible for any more deaths. I couldn't stop shivering from the cold but didn't that lower your heart rate and breathing? Wasn't that a good thing?

We waited, perfectly still, for the better part of ten minutes. The light was still trained on the surface but down here it was so dim I could barely make out the blurry edges of Shadow's form. 

"Your body temperature is too low, Little Shade," Perikos told me after another couple of minutes. I'll get right on that, I thought, saying nothing as my teeth chattered loudly. Shadow let go of my hand and pressed what might have been the whole of his body against my front, squishing me between him and Perikos.

"Good," Perikos whispered to us. "Jayn's body temperature is rising. Without depleting myself, I anticipate I can pull air from the water for another seventy minutes provided we do not move vigerously."

I took another long, slow breath and just I was about to exhale I saw something like a vast pendulum plunge down into the water from source of the light. I narrowed my eyes to try to see it properly though the water but Perikos was suddenly moving swiftly through the water.

"What happened to not moving vigorously?" I mumbled into his tendrils.

"That disturbance in the water was a Light or I am a fool!" Shadow held me head so I was leaning it against Perikos. No comment on the fool thing. Besides, I was pretty sure he was right.

"I believe we are deep enough, Leader. Perhaps we should go west along the coast a while or else..."

I could feel something complicated pass between them. The smell something rotting like it had washed up on the beach, while overlaid I could hear a hollow, ghostly tune wail softly in the back of my mind. Next was something more abstract...more the idea of cold and a vacuum than the physical sensation of being pulled and sucked and trapped. There were other layers too rich to deconstruct quickly. The only thing I could be sure, besides the fact that I wasn't meant to have heard it, was that it was bad.

"Perhaps if we both move south?" Shadow said. He sounded smaller, softer than usual. Less arrogant. 

They both wrapped their mass around me and I felt us lurch to the side for a moment before continuing straight ahead. Finally the ideas exchanged between them earlier clicked and clunked into place.

"Are we caught in some kind of undertow?" I mumbled into Perikos. Neither of them said anything. Great. I escaped Kragosa, Rebels, Loyalists, and mercs, all to die in a water current. Shouldn't Perikos and Shadow have been able to escape this? Couldn't they alter their mass or something? I took another deep breath and tried not to freak out again. "Tell me the likelihood that all three of us live through this."

I could feel it now, a curiously strange pull downwards. I would have noticed ages ago if I wasn't being held, if they hadn't seemed so in control. The water here was so cold.

"Second? Please go, head for the surface and see if there's anything we can try to utilize..." Perikos' tones were empty but steady.

"We are now half a kilometer beneath the surface! What could I possibly utilize?" Shadow felt furious suddenly.

"Do not question me, Second. Go as I have asked." Shit, this was starting to sound serious.

"And how do you expect me to carry out your work? I will stay with her and you can – "

"Wait, is it because of me that you can't get away? I'm too slow, too heavy against the undertow. Perikos will die because of me?"

"Not if he leaves now. I will stay with you," Shadow said, which was at once touching and absolutely morbid and terrifying.

"Yes, I agree," I heard myself whisper before I could try to talk myself out of it. No sense in three of us dying.

"No," Perikos' tone was soft, empty like before.

"Yes, yes. You alone understand how necessary this mission is to us," at first I thought Shadow was talking to Perikos and then I realized he was talking directly to me. "You know he must live at all costs. You are prepared and so am I." His song was a little shrill and a touch fanatical but he was right. I understood what had to be done.

"No!" Perikos' melody was literally sharp enough to cut a clean, brutal line through my certainty. I didn't want to leave him. I felt sick to my stomach and my eardrums felt like they would burst any second. "I will not leave Jayn again."

"That's suicide," I mumbled into him. It really was awfully cold. I couldn't feel my fingers, wrists or elbows anymore.

"No, it was a promise," Perikos whispered. He stroked my head and pulled me tightly against him as though he thought Shadow might get funny ideas otherwise. "I promised to protect you. I have failed again but we are not dead yet. I will stay with you until this is over, one way or the other."

I didn't have the energy to feel remorseful. To be unselfish, to stand outside myself enough to know that in my right mind I wouldn't want this. He was supposed to live. I felt oddly giddy, like a huge burden was lifted off my shoulders. I wouldn't die alone after all. If I was going to die now, my last thoughts would be grateful ones. 

"Please, Leader," Shadow said, but it felt numb. I knew he was asking Perikos to abandon me and leave me to drown and normally I would have agreed with him but I felt my heart lighten when he relented.

"Second, go now, just for a moment to catch your breath. You are not as young as I am and you tire more easily. If you truly wish to stay with us you will need your strength. Go now so you can return quickly."

I don't know what I expected but it wasn't for Shadow to let go of my hand, to coil into the barest sliver of himself and rush for the surface. Perikos correctly interpreted my surprise.

"Please don't think too harshly of him, Little Shade. Under normal circumstances he would have caught the lie. He would have realized he wouldn't be able to find us again, but we need oxygen just as you do and he wasn't able to pull enough from the water. He will look for us, but I couldn't risk him needlessly."

I nodded. That made sense but I couldn't help thinking that if Perikos had left and Shadow had stayed with me I'm sure I could have relied on him to make it quick. He wouldn't have waited until we ran out of air or until the pressure crushed me or hypothermia set in; he probably would have snapped my neck cleanly and headed for the surface. Not a happy thought but it had some dignity to it. I wouldn't have blamed him.

The water was even colder and I felt like someone had taken a red hot pin to my eardrums. I tried not to scream but the pain was unbearable.

"Little Shade," I could just hear Perikos over my heaving sobs. "To save you suffering and both of our air, I'm going to temporarily flood your lungs with enough nitrogen to make you sleep. I will keep oxygen in your system after that." Hmm. That really wasn't that different than what Shadow would do.

"I've got you, Jayn. Don't be afraid, I'm not going to let go."



The Light Within Ch. 03



My face felt gritty, even itchy and when I reached up to brush the wet sand from my face I was gratified to know that I wasn't dead, that I could feel my fingers and toes, and that my broken wrist felt no worse for wear. I pulled myself onto my side and looked back at the ocean lapping at my ankles. Where was Perikos?

I wanted to lay my head back into the sand and fall asleep till tomorrow but if he needed my help he couldn't wait that long. My legs wobbled under me as I stood up and pulled my hair away from my face. I squinted along the shoreline. The darkness seemed less oppressive than usual, but maybe just compared to how black the ocean had been. I began to walk forward, trying to concentrate on not tripping and watching the shoreline rather than the sinking possibility that I wouldn't find him or that there was nothing to find.

"Where are you?" I whispered when I'd walked for close to an hour. I could just make out some rolling hills in the distance, like grand anthills. But no Perikos.

"Jayn?" I heard him say my name! I spun on my heel and looked behind me, then to the side. Shit, I was losing it and my mind was fucking with me in the cruelest way possible.

"Is that...what is this sensation?" It was Perikos again. I wanted to fall down, to burst into tears because it couldn't be him, he was nowhere around but instead I stood stock still, just watching the hillsides. "Jayn, there are six apparent hills southeast off the coast on the Greedy Sea."

I frowned. "I know that, I'm looking at them. Now please, just stop."

"I know you are looking at them," his notes fluttered. "I can see them too."

"Huh?" I closed my eyes and took another step forward and felt something cool and slippery under my foot. It looked like a black bit of seaweed or kelp or something. I bent down to pick it up. It felt thick and strong in my hand. Maybe if Shadow had been quick enough, and found one of these long enough, he could have tried to pull us to shore. I was being stupid. "You can't see anything. That's what proves you're just my brain going haywire. Trying to make what happened seem okay. But it wasn't." I felt dangerously close to a breakdown.

"But I do see. Jayn! This is what it is to see!"

I was halfway tempted to turn around and walk back into the ocean but I felt the faintest stab of non-metaphorical pain at the very idea.

"Do not even joke about that. You are quite right to disbelieve me though, I do not blame you. If you walk approximately six hundred meters north down the beach, you will know I am not lying. I will meet you there."

A part of me, the proud, pessimistic part that knew I was going to curl up in a little ball and cry myself to death from getting my hopes up told me to be prudent, or at least to walk. But I couldn't - I ran faster than I can ever remember running. I didn't notice the gravity weighing me down or the dull throb from my swollen ankle. I didn't feel the pokes and stabs from the rocks and shells that stuck in my feet as I sprinted across the sand. Then I felt it connect.

I was on my back in the sand, being very nearly crushed by a massive ball of blackness. My eyes were leaking but I didn't remember feeling sad, ever, in my entire life.

"Jayn! I am so grateful you are alive! I feared you were the product of my grief, my guilt! But you are alive!" For a moment every last inch of my skin was covered my darkness as he encased me in it. Then he let me go, deciding instead to wind thickly around my waist while a sea of twitching tendrils encircled my head and face. 

"Perikos! You saved my life! Our lives, and probably Shadow's life as well. You're okay! I thought you were..."

"I promised I would not leave you alone. With my smaller mass I must have drifted downshore but only after we resurfaced. I am sorry you were in such danger in the first place. If it were not for my –"

"So what did you mean you could see? How could I hear you? Is it like how I can sense emotions with you guys or –" Perikos had gone weirdly still. "Is it a Kragosi ship?"

"No."

"The Loyalists then?"

"Worse."

"What?" I followed Perikos' attention back towards the hills. There was the slightest hint of a grayish-mauve tinge to them that made me nostalgic for Ferox 4. Then I could have swallowed my stomach. "DAWN?"

"Through this area, yes. I am so supremely foolish! I should have predicted it would come this far south."

I raised my eyebrows. It was a good thing I hadn't eaten in at least a day because I might have thrown up otherwise. "Look, this really isn't the time. Do you think you'll be safe enough if you...you know, use me to hide?'

Perikos was silent for a beat. "I believe so, and at any rate there is no other choice. I will not go back into the ocean and leave you here alone."

"Okay then," I said, and dropped down to my knees. Perikos' diminishing blackness pooled between my legs.

"Spread your knees as wide apart as you can and hold yourself open for me." 

I swallowed hard, keeping my eyes on the slowly brightening horizon.

"Don't be afraid, Little Shade. This isn't like last time. I'll be helping you and once we get out the star's reach, everything will be fine." I wasn't looking forward to walking however many hundreds or even thousands of kilometers that would be all by myself, but we had just run out of choices.

"Exhale and relax," Perikos pinched my clit gently before slithering up inside me. I felt a wildly sharp, breathtaking pain and then the release of pressure, followed by an odd, uncomfortable heaviness, heavier than I ever remember him feeling.

I reached down to clutch my swollen belly when I heard his voice again. "Do see that bit of marine plant near your foot?" 

I almost fell over from shock. "What? How?"

"I will explain later. First, reach down and pick it up again. Take your hair and place it so it covers your left ear."

I obeyed him, trepidation rising. How exactly was this important or was it something I didn't want to know?

"Take the plant and tie it around the circumference of your head to keep the hair in place. Just make sure that the bulk of the plant rests immediately over that ear."

I finished tying the knot. Oh, that ear. The ear where he stitched my skin together with a piece of himself, a piece likely susceptible to light. "But I thought Shadow said that the piece of yourself that broke off would die." The feeling of trepidation didn't abate. How was he hearing me talk? And how was I hearing him?

"Yes, he thought it likely would, although neither he nor I knew what would happen. We were sure the risks were minimal."

"...and now?"

"I still believe they were minimal. After all, is our improved communication not a boon?"

I slumped down all the way in the sand while I watched the horizon lighten. "So you can hear me and I can hear you because of that piece connected to me? Even when we're far apart?"

"While that is essentially true, it is somewhat more complex." Perikos' music was relatively peaceful, considering the situation.

The air around me already seemed warmer. "Oh? Please elaborate, won't you?"

When Perikos sang this time, the tempo was faster, nervous almost. "While we were being pulled under, enormous strain was put on your ears. As a matter of fact, your right eardrum burst."

The fact that my eardrum neither hurt, nor did I have any sensation of deafness or hearing loss gave me pause but I decided, perhaps for the first time in my life, not to interrupt.

"To be honest, your hearing was not my priority and while I was worried for it, I was far more concerned with getting you to the surface alive. You can hardly imagine my surprise when I felt a renewal of sensation in the piece of myself I used to stitch your ear. Indeed, sensation in it resumed shortly after it...staunched the bleeding from your ear. It then began to bind with your ruptured tissue to create a proper tympanic membrane."

"What?"

"It is still imbedded in you middle and outer ear. I have learned that while I am subject to physical sensation from it, I cannot control it as I would control any normal appendage. Therefore you must protect it because apparently I cannot."

I reached up and traced the shape of my ear through the shield on hair I'd hidden it behind. "It...made me a new eardrum? How does that even work? I mean, it's not really a part of you anymore, but you can feel it? And it's not a part of me at all, but it can bind with my cells? Perikos, I –"

"I am more surprised than you are, let me assure you. Unless I make a conscious effort to block it out, I seem to be sharing a certain amount of sensory input with you, sensory input to which I am not accustomed."

"Sight," I whispered as I watched an enormous orange sun crest the horizon. "For some weird reason, you can...see? Like I can?"

"No, not as you can. No part of me so far as I know is connected to your optic nerves. In fact, if there were no Light, or you were blind or even less reliant on that particular sense, I do not imagine I would perceive anything that way. However, we apparently share enough of a mutual neurological connection that while I am not utilizing your optic nerves, I am processing your visual impressions. Like your appreciation for that star."

I watched the sun inch past the horizon. It stayed low, like it was perpetually setting, giving off the most amazing oranges and reds. I had thought I would never see any color properly again. I had even thought that my eyes would be unable to process light correctly after so much darkness. The dawn was beautiful, but it felt alien to me rather than comforting.

"So our cells bonded then. How is that not like mating?" I knew I was generalizing. I had lived on a farm my whole life, I had bred plants and animals. But it came down to the fact that we weren't the same species so this shouldn't be happening.

"Technically it is rather different than mating. I don't believe your middle ear can reproduce, can it?" Perikos' song was distant, maybe even distracted.

"No, but you know what I mean. This isn't supposed to happen, it isn't normal. If...if my middle ear could reproduce, would it be viable?" I tried to find a way to ask that didn't sound like I would ever, ever entertain the possibility of alien babies.

"This experience is as unprecedented for me as it is for you, Little Shade. There's no way of knowing, except that I seem to be in complete control of the whole of my form, save the bit that I'm communicating to you through. It is taxing, by the way, to process such extensive communication while remaining small and pliant enough not to hurt you. My suggestion is that you either rest or continue east on foot. To get where we must go, we would either have to follow the entire seacoast and then continue northeast for close to five thousand kilometers, or else turn around and all but circumnavigate the planet, which I don't need to tell you will take considerably longer. Our best option is to move directly through the star's path and out the other side."

I sighed and rubbed my temples. "How long will that take, given how slow I am?"

"It is difficult to estimate and at any rate you need not worry about it for now. We will confront this one step at a time. I cannot carry on an extensive conversation with you in this state without needing to feed, but this time I will hear your words and be able to comprehend your visual impressions so you will not be alone."

I looked down to brush my swollen belly. "Can you feel that?"

I felt something inside me shift and lost my breath as I felt him press outwards towards my palm. It hurt but I was elated. I really wasn't alone anymore.

I had been walking for several hours. I couldn't use the sun to measure it; it stayed where it was in the sky and even then the planet didn't rotate fast enough for it to matter. Five hours, maybe six. My hips ached along with my wrist and head, though oddly my ankle felt fine. Maybe it just needed to be exercised properly. Well, I was getting nothing if not exercise.

I had gotten as far as the base of the easternmost edge of the foothills. The terrain here was sparse on the fungus front; the ground was a mottled grey and weirdly soft – maybe the whole of the earth was made from fungus. I couldn't see any trees or standing shrubbery, which was no surprise with little water and limited sunlight. I could tell a more complete concept of weather must exist here though, because I could see what looked like a pillar of greyish purple storm clouds gathering to the southeast. If I was really lucky, the might blot out of the sun.

"A storm," Perikos murmured to me.

"Yeah, I see it," I told him, shielding my eyes from the dim sunlight. "Are storms here dangerous? It doesn't rain fire, does it?" I was definitely willing to believe I was unfortunate enough to end up on a planet where it rained fire.

"Not fire. Electrical storm. It may be violent. You should seek cover at the nearest opportunity."

My eyes scanned the terrain between me and it. I wasn't noticing a whole lot of shelter or actually anything taller and more conductive than I was. Suddenly Perikos' metal bracelet felt heavier. "Right. Well, I'm not seeing anything yet, but help me look and just maybe I won't have to add electrocution to the list of things I did this summer."

Perikos seemed to decide not to dignify my sarcasm with a response, which was fine by me. Honestly, we could be much worse off than having to contend with a little lightening. Apart from all the many times we almost got ourselves killed since we met, I thought we were in relatively good shape. Sure, we were relying on slow, clumsy little me to schlep across untold countryside on an alien planet and there wasn't the slightest chance Perikos would be of any physical help as long as the sun was out. On the bright side, we were guaranteed not to encounter any Loyalists with the sun overhead and although I was sure the Kragosi mercs weren't totally clueless as to how we must have escaped the prison, I doubted they would think to look here first, since who in their right mind would let a battered, ravenously hungry human female be responsible for the safety of the leader of the Rebellion? On second thought, no need to be too grateful.

When I wasn't weighing the likelihood of my own demise, I was boring Perikos with the unabridged version of my life story. Now was as good a time as any, I reasoned, and anyway what else did we have in common to talk about? I would have preferred to hear his life story, as he knew far more about me than I did about him but he couldn't divide his attentions enough so I guess he just listened to me. I could have walked in silence, but for the sake of keeping my brain focused and my anxiety manageable, I droned on and on for two more hours before collapsing in a heap at the top of the highest point of my hills.

I looked out over the valley below. The gray mottled earth was coated in an odd, orange-green grass. There were still no trees but instead circular patches of denser, thicker green which had to be plant life. I started as I saw something in the distance move, something tall, narrow and spindly. Something with three legs.

"I did not know they still existed," Perikos' music was quiet but lilted with surprise. "I believed we had driven them to extinction."

"Are they dangerous?" I asked, wondering if it could sense me from here. It was still far off but what the fuck did I know?

"No. They are not sentient and they are quite skittish. They are omnivorous but they only prey on a particularly large insect. There may be some left here as well."

"Goody, a big insect. How big are talking exactly? Because that may change how I feel about going down there."

Perikos paused a moment before answering. "Close to your length and width but smaller in terms of overall mass."

"Did you just call me fat?" I asked, scanning the ground below for big, slimy alien bugs.

"Fat? I do not understand the question."

"Nevermind. I was just teasing you." I managed to get back on my feet after a moment and I began to slowly descend into the valley. "So the bugs aren't dangerous either, right? They won't try to eat me or lay eggs in me or anything?"

"I should hope not," Perikos sounded tired but my sympathy was limited at the moment, seeing as how I'd been the mule for the past who knew how many hours.

"Okay, the first thing I need is water, then food, then I need to stop moving before I keel over," I told him.

Rather than express his appreciation for my troubles, Perikos whispered, "before you rest we need shelter. The storm is not far off. I estimate no more than thirty minutes before the rains reach us."

I chewed my lip. What did he want me to do, have a barn raising? There were no stones, no branches and vegetation was thin on the ground. It would take me nearly thirty minutes just to figure what I could eat without puking.

"I do not mean to add to your worries. Travel closer to where you saw that animal, for they need water and it has likely rained recently."

I didn't argue or ask him how he worked that out. I just set off at a jog in the direction of the whatever-it-was, hoping not to step on anything weird along the way.

The first drop splashed my nose, making me sneeze the second after I got a proper look at the three-legged critter. It must have been four meters tall and it stood on three long, double jointed legs. Its neck was nearly as long as its legs, so that its nose dragged over the ground as I watched. Hunting for creepy-crawlies. It jerked its head up when I sneezed and turned to face me. I saw the barest glint of sunlight off one black eye and then it turned from me and sprinted back towards the gathering storm clouds. More warm, heavy drops fell on my face and chest.

"Keep walking. There is likely water close by," Perikos said.

There was something ironic about trying to track down water in the opening seconds of a downpour but I did as he said. I saw five or six shallow grey pools before me, each small in diameter as less than a foot deep but I didn't hesitate. I fell to my knees and plunged my mouth in, forgetting to surface for air at regular intervals so that when I did I choked and coughed. The water tasted a little odd, more like dirt or earth than I was used to, but then going by that logic I was used to not having any water. I drank till I thought I'd be sick.

"First food and then shelter," Perikos reminded me as I caught my breath. It had begun to pour in earnest now and I heard the deep throbbing roar of thunder roll across the sky. "Behind you there is a diverse patch of vegetation. When you passed before I saw fungi, fruits and grasses."

I wheeled around and grabbed some of everything, even a bit of mushroom that looked like moldy cheese. That would be a last resort. I stepped backwards and felt something sharp and slimy underfoot. I couldn't stop myself from shrieking.

It was a part and not even a major part, of a huge, white bug. It looked like the oozing remains of an exoskeleton of what I imagined that three-legged animal had for lunch. I wiped my foot off on the soaking weeds beside it. "Shit, that is so gross."

"Look around, Little Shade. There should be a dwelling of some kind, a burrow you could hide in."

I groaned. "I don't think I can stand a repeat of that episode on Kragosa. No more burrows, please."

The sky seemed to open so wide my vision went white for a moment and then the thunder followed. 

"There it is! Do you see it, Little Shade? Thirty meters to your left, set into that bank? The hole is large enough for you, I am certain."




The Light Within Ch. 03



I kept my head down and jogged through huge puddles that were forming until I stood next to the hole. It looked like it had burrowed into the mottled fungal earth. So, so gross.

"You want me to go in there? How do you know it belonged to the dead thing? How do you know it lived alone? That there aren't...larva or something waiting in there?"

"Trust me, Jayn. Can you not feel the electricity in the atmosphere? It is dangerous to stay out here. Get in."

It would have been a lot easier to crawl in feet first but there was no way in hell I wasn't going to see what was coming. The hole was so narrow I could barely squeeze my hips or bloated stomach in and I had to wiggle and shift my way down. My toes touched the bottom of the burrow and I let out almost a scream of relief that I couldn't feel anything weird or gross at the bottom. 

"You'll have to shift your shoulders to fit properly," Perikos whispered. "If you shift your weight onto your left side you can move your right arm down to your side. That should give you enough space for your shoulders and still leave you a hand free to eat and in case of emergencies."

It didn't give me much range of motion though. I'd be very lucky to get out of here without help the way I was wedged. The fungus around me was slick and wet and while it squeezed at my belly, hips and shoulders, it also gave me zero purchase.

The thunder very nearly deafened me again the lightening picked up. I ended up just squeezing my eyes shut so I wouldn't keep flinching. What if lightening struck the bank and the moist fungus carried the charge all the way to me? Did mushrooms conduct electricity?

Something inside me started to cramp and twist and I felt my body try to relax before my brain could catch up. I felt a slick, dense tendril form slide out of me, gripping my pussy lips to pull himself out. I felt him slide down my leg and settle between my feet for a moment. He curled between my toes and around my ankles.

"If I feel a charge coming I will redirect it," Perikos murmured, as he twisted himself around my calves and knees.

"You can do that?" I sighed as he rubbed himself against my legs. "Are you strong enough? Are you feeling okay? Is it dark enough?" Which was stupid really, of course it was dark enough or he wouldn't have left.

"I will be strong enough soon," his tune sounded warm, husky. Excited. "This will be interesting. I have restrained you many times before but I have never allowed anything else to restrain you. I've instructed you to arrange yourself such that you can't move forward or shift your hips without assistance."

I swallowed hard.

"You are extremely moist," said Perikos. I felt a thick, hard tendril slide between my thighs and come to rest right below, so near that the slightest movement from him would have parted my lips wide.

"Of course I am. It's raining." My attempt at nonchalance failed utterly as I panted hard, trying to squeeze my hips down a little lower, to force him into me.

"Silly Shade, you need me to penetrate you. To split you open and feed until you lose all sense of time, don't you?"

"What?" I knew he was speaking, even knew what he was saying but the words had so little meaning. I was afraid I would burst out of my skin. The itch inside me ignited and burned until it hurt. Still, what was the point in begging when he needed it more than I did? I didn't need to feel even weaker, even more pathetic. He would take me and I would come again and again, all without acting anymore like a bitch in heat than I already was.

Maybe Perikos had access to my thoughts now, which was in itself a scary prospect. Either that or he read me like an open book. I felt the tendril part my lips enough to tease, enough to prompt a new batch of wiggling and grinding from me while never actually entering me. "If it is not that important to you, Little Shade, there are always alternatives. Where were we before the Kragosi ships interrupted us?"

I flinched as lightening sliced the sky overhead and the extra few seconds it took me to process what he said was enough time from Perikos to remove the tendril from between my pussy lips and burrow between my ass cheeks. There was no room to part them in the burrow but Perikos wasted no time before I felt his slick, heavy tendril force its way into my ass. I felt the very tip inside me and I howled out loud, ungagged and caught off guard. Perikos held it still within me a moment before pushing deeper. He moved so incredibly slowly, millimeter by millimeter, letting me focus on how smoothly and carefully he stretched me open. The tip of the tendril expanded slowly in width and I felt my toes curl until my nails dug into the spongy ground below me. I couldn't move my hips without hurting my arm. All I could do was scream.

"There now," Perikos whispered as he withdrew a few millimeters of tendril from my ass as slowly and carefully as he'd entered. The wide tip of the tendril pulled against the inside of that ring of muscle. It wouldn't come out unless he wanted it to, which honestly wasn't saying much since I knew better than to ever suppose I had a say in this. "Do you remember me telling you that if I wanted I could keep this in you from now on?"

"Yes," I groaned, trying to shift my weight between my feet so the pulsing ache in my ass was at least balanced, if not alleviated.

"It might be a good idea for you to beg me to feed from your other orifice, Little Shade, because this way is so much more appealing when I am so famished. You will take much longer to pleasure this way and because it can be painful I have the privilege of feeding on your fear as well."

"Please, no. Please use...the other one," I knew he could hear me even if I could barely hear myself. Lightening struck again, even closer this time.

Perikos tugged the tentacle inside me gently but all the same it felt like he was trying to pull a square peg out my round hole. "You will never convince me of anything by pretending to be quiet and demure. Be yourself, Jayn, and I will give you everything you need."

I felt my face burn so hot I wondered if it hadn't been struck by lightening while my mind was busy contemplating my predicament. Pride was a big deal for me and then again I didn't have much cause to cling to it. And I had begged Perikos before and he had fucked me till the orgasms left me high and disoriented. Bloody hell did I need to come. I tried to bear down on the tentacle in my ass so I could concentrate on saying the right thing but it grew wider to match the give so I was even fuller than before.

"Please, Perikos, please!" The words tumbled out of my mouth before I could stop them. "Please! Do anything you want to me, anything but make me wait! I need it. I need you! Please, anything!"

Perikos said nothing for a moment and the dense tendril in my ass rested there, infuriatingly inert. "I need you too, Jayn. I will indeed do anything I want and the first thing I want is to bring you pleasure with this hole. I will use it until I feel your climax. Then I will fill your other hole and feed from you until I am sated. You will enjoy every moment because you trusted me and humbled yourself." I felt the wide tip of the tendril narrow and Perikos pushed it deeper into me. "Relax these muscles, Little Shade, like you tried to do before," he said over my pained grunts and groans. "That's right, good. You are so delicious when you're immobile, when I am stuffing you full."

He thrust the tendril deeper and withdrew it before slamming it back into place and stretching me wide all over again. He didn't go deep like before but instead withdrew fully every time, stretching and restretching my hole till it gaped every time he entered. My shouts became moaning little mews and pain and shameful, glorious lust. I could feel it rising up inside me like some lost horror of the deep as Perikos thrust the tendril in and out of me. I felt him expand slightly in width, out of necessity as my muscles adjusted to the torment. He didn't want me to adjust, ever. He wanted me to know he would always hold me down, crawl up inside me and ride me till he had had enough.

I screamed so loud as my body shook with wave after wave of orgasm that I could hear myself over the thunder. Perikos kept thrusting till I stopped quivering. He held himself till for a moment before sliding out easily. "That was magnificent, Little Shade. I was going to keep this one inside you," he traced my sore and gaping asshole with his tendril, "but there is plenty of time to play later. Instead I will concentrate exhausting your system with orgasms." 

A thick, knobbly tentacle pushed past my lips but the pain didn't even register. I could I have cheered out loud and I did as I felt something long and thin affix itself to my puffy pink clit. I felt heat explode through my pelvis as another climax rocked me, this time quick and sharp as needles. The knobbly tentacle pumped in and out of me and my juices slowed in thick rivulets down my thighs. I gasped and moaned and tried to bend my knees to open my legs wider. More, more, more.

"How I wish I could fill your mouth right now," Perikos' song felt like it was coming from deep inside me and I felt my body hum in time with it. The back of my neck and the space right below my navel twitched and tickled from the wet heat of it. "I would open your throat and cover your eyes, stroke your hair and touch ever inch of your face. I would have the luxury of controlling everything you saw, heard and felt. Every time you climaxed and every time you took a breath, every movement you made and every thought you had would be mine to give you, and I would give it all happily, Jayn. You are mine to protect, and hold and fill to the brim."

Oh shit, I was so close. I could feel it in my nail beds, in my eyelids.

"Do you like the shape?" Perikos wiggled the knobbly tentacle inside me for emphasis. I felt it change so that every nodule multiplied itself until Perikos' tentacle must have looked like a smoother, slightly softer version of a breed of spotted cucumber we grew on Ferox 4. The bumps and bristled ribbing tickled every nerve inside me. I came hard, painfully this time.

"You are squeezing it so hard it is difficult to push it any deeper inside you without causing you discomfort." Perikos crammed it in further in anyway, maybe to illustrate the point that my discomfort was part of the package deal. 

I groaned as I felt the supple, rounded conical bristles tickle my cervical wall. The tiny tendril coiled around my clit clenched it taut and I arched my back as far as I could. How could I be this close again so soon?

"You are going to ride this until the storm abates or until consciousness fails you, whichever comes first. Do not worry, I will not continue to feed from you after that point, regardless of the circumstance." He wiggled the tentacle in my pussy again. "Do not bother to think or try to stop it. You are no longer under the delusion that there is any point. Be still and let me fill you."

The first thrust finished me and I know he never stopped thrusting after that, even when my body was stiff and rigid from exhaustion, when the lightest touch to my clit brought stinging stars in front of my eyes. Let go, let go, I told myself. It didn't work of course; I couldn't stop myself from trying to close my legs, from trying to shift away from thrusts. He didn't scold or punish me or say anything at all. He just ploughed it into me, ripping the orgasms out of me. This wasn't like before. I felt so helpless and he wasn't slowing or changing it up or stopping and there was nothing I could do to alleviate the tension.

"Stop, please!" I begged as he milked my body for more. 

"You have taken more." His voice was a drum roll and he stole another. There was a violence to it.

"But it hurts!" I gasped. And it did. The intensity had crossed from pleasure to pain to exhaustive agony.

"You are mine to hurt," he answered and the suddenly my fear returned, real and unabated. My trust evaporated like water in a kettle. No, no, no. I never agreed to this. I would have run away if I could.

My vision faded, slowly at first until I could only see a few distant cracks of lightening, and then in blotches so that big shadows shaped like fireworks danced in front of my retinas. I was losing it and he still wasn't stopping. The world got darker and I felt myself wanting to crawl out of the darkness. This is too much, I murmured. Did I say that out loud? The darkness was frightening as it closed in on me again. What if he never stopped?

My body felt warm and heavy and my muscles felt loose. I opened my right eye and saw daylight and forgot where I was for a moment. I looked down and saw two handfuls of grass, berries and mushrooms wedged between my chest and the side of the burrow. I must have dropped them and they had nowhere else to go.

"How are you feeling?" I heard Perikos ask me, his music softer than I'd heard in a while, more subdued.

It took me a moment to remember what I was waking up from. My skin was warm and I felt lazy, like if I fell asleep now I could sleep for days. Then I remembered my consciousness fading. My head felt foggy, like the memory was dusty and cobwebbed even though it couldn't have been more than a few hours ago. I remembered feeling darkness closing in on my vision, and the intensity of the pain I could do nothing to stop. I remembered the epiphany, the real truth behind having no control over anything that happened. I closed my eyes against the overcast sky and the darkness scared me for the first time since the Loyalists captured me. It wasn't the thought of being alone without Perikos though, it was the thought of being totally at his mercy.

"Jayn? Are you okay?" 

"Yeah, I'm all right," I didn't sound all right, even to myself. I swallowed hard. "We should go soon."

"Please eat first. You haven't had the chance."

I looked down at what passed for food in front of me and was prepared to declare that I had no appetite for it but my stomach caught up with me. When had I last eaten? Two days ago? More? I tried to concentrate on what I was eating in case it made me sick so I'd know to avoid it, but I was so famished I could barely concentrate on anything besides chewing and swallowing.

"Jayn, are you angry with me?"

I stuffed my mouth with food so I didn't have to respond but I realized that I didn't actually know the answer. Hadn't he been pretty much clear with me from the get go? Hadn't he used me like that before and hadn't I begged for more? This certainly wasn't the first time he forced me to do something I would never have let him do willingly. Did I even have a right to be angry?

I swallowed a mouthful of the berries. They were bitter, but juicy and a fair sight better than the mushroom buffet I was used to and maybe I'd be able to stave off the scurvy or whatever. I had to be losing my mind along with my autonomy. Of course I had the right to be angry. I had the right to do whatever I wanted, actually. Fuck Perikos and Shadow and the Loyalists and every other godforsaken alien on the goddamn planet. I was right before. I went along with all this every step of the way because I wanted to and the minute I stopped wanting to would be the end of it. Perikos had saved my life, sure, but I'd saved him just as often with a lot fewer resources at my disposal. If it weren't for me, he'd still be on Kragosa sucking the life force out of death row inmates if he hadn't starved to death. Sure, the prison had been an awful experience but it wouldn't have killed me. Perikos might have even made up the worst stuff about Brogn to scare me, to gain my trust or at least my cooperation. I sighed and took a bite out of the corner of a dark green leaf. It tasted about how I expected a leaf to and given how hungry I was that was fine by me. 

Yes I was angry with Perikos. For wanting to control me so much that he didn't care I was scared. He didn't stop because he knew I couldn't make him and that much was just the way things were. He was going to do whatever he wanted even if it made me miserable and this was my life now and I'd better get used to it. Who wouldn't be angry?

"I've finished eating. We should go." I wiped the remnants of berry juice off my mouth and tried to sound dignified. 

"You are right," Perikos didn't sound guilty exactly but he did sound quieter. More distant. "Move your left arm in front of you so I can get your right arm free."

I did as I was told and felt Perikos' tendrils on my butt and thighs as he pushed me forward almost gingerly, till I could reach the edge of the burrow with both arms and support myself. I tried to square my hips to make sure no light got in. I was pretty pissed with Perikos but I didn't want him dead.

"Do you think you can get yourself out from here?"

"I got in, didn't I?" my voice sounded way too bitter and not even a little dignified. I was never much of a bullshitter.

"Yes, you did. I must retreat before you leave. Please be careful, Jayn." He pushed my lips apart rather unceremoniously and I felt something smoother and very slender slide up into me, barely touching the sides. I felt the familiar sharp pangs as he slipped past my barrier and settled as far inside me as he could go. I sucked in my gut and heaved hard till I pulled my hips free. The only problem was that on the angle of the burrow and I overcompensated and pulled too hard. My hips popped free and I fell ass over teakettle into a puddle of mud outside the hole. 

If I'd been in a better mood I would have laughed or tolerated Perikos laughing. I felt him shift in my belly but he said nothing, which was definitely for the best. I sat up, wiped the mud out of my eyes and looked at my arm. The skin on my right arm was pinched where the splint had broken from my having landed on it. Something about it snapping bothered me. I narrowed my eyes and tried to make out any splints in the mud but it looked fine. It felt fine too and then it hit me. That was my broken arm.

I pulled the dry, frayed vine off my arm and looked at the place Perikos has set the bone less than forty-eight hours ago. It was perfect, apart from being covered in mud. The skin was clear and unbruised and it didn't hurt when I wiggled it. What the fuck was going on?

I stood up and wiped the largest clumps of mud off my chest and legs. "You didn't drug me or anything, did you?" The fact that I wasn't stiff or sore from Perikos' abuse had been bothering me in a vague, don't-look-a-gift-horse-in-the-mouth kind of way. And now this?

"I would never do that," I heard softly in my hear. Rape was fine but drugs weren't apparently. Intriguing. "Perhaps something you ate has anesthetic properties in your system."

I thought back to the berries and the leaves. I looked down at my arm. "Fine, but riddle me this then. My arm looks completely healed."

I waited in silence for almost a full minute before Perikos replied, his tone entirely even and devoid of surprise. "That's because your arm isn't broken."

"But it was broken."

"Yes."

"And now it isn't?"

"No."

I blinked. "And you don't think this a big deal because...?"

"If your bone had not been broken before and was now, I would consider that a 'big deal'."

That seemed awfully evasive to me but I was kind of eager at that moment for more reasons to be mad at Perikos and him knowing something was weird and not telling me was a perfect excuse. I wouldn't have let it go so easily if I hadn't been so pleased to not be in pain. I set my shoulders, tried not to think about my arm too much, and continued walking east.




The Light Within Ch. 03



Half a day later the sliver of sun had burned away what remained of the clouds and I'd seen three small herds of those weird three-legged creatures Perikos had thought were extinct. The terrain was the same as the where I'd holed up during the storm, except now it was wetter. The spongy ground was pockmarked with waterholes and the long, thin green grasses grew in dense tufts in some parts and absent in others, like the valley had a comb-over. 

I wasn't sure how much ground I had covered. True, no part of my body actually hurt, but for some reason I was feeling the heavier gravity more today. I was sweating in the hot sun and my feet were swollen and my back was aching from the extra weight I was carrying. The mystery behind how my broken arm could have healed in less than three days was needling me and making it hard to concentrate on anything else, like not tripping in ditches and keeping an eye out for Kragosi merc ships.

For his part Perikos had kept his trap shut all morning – or was it afternoon? Time had as little meaning in perpetual sunlight as it had in absolute darkness. I hadn't spoken to Perikos either, so he might have been taking the hint or maybe he just had nothing to say.

An hour later I found a giant bug-free tuft of grass and lay down on my back. Whatever was up with my arm was more complicated than mutant powers of instant-healing since my back, feet, belly and knees were plenty sore from all the walking. I touched the skin of my right arm, then pinched it lightly. It hurt as much as it ought to. Hmm.

I stood up again and ambled onwards. How long would I take at this rate? A few weeks? Or months or years? Surviving off fungus was hard enough to do in the Rebel camps when all I did was sleep and fuck and I doubted very much my eating habits would be sustainable when I was walking for nine hours at a time. Unlike Kragosa, I couldn't just wait till dark so Perikos could come out and kill something tasty for me and the way I was feeling about him right now, I liked him better where he was. Was I going to have to learn to lasso one of those three-legged bug-eating things? Without a rope or knife or anything to cook with? What had I gotten myself into? This was so overwhelmingly impossible! 

I stumbled forward, eyes watering and felt my foot hit something slick as I lost my balance. My knees slid out from under me and I landed on my side on particularly thick, spongy slick surface. It was a raised circular bit of brown and white fungus poking out of the ground beneath me, twice as wide as I was tall. I got on my hands and knees and moved to stand up when I felt a searing pain on my arm. My skin was bubbling under a thick glob of grey mucousy ooze. The fungus had sprayed me so quickly I hadn't realized what had happened at first. Teeth clenched, eyes wide, I tried to shake it off but it stuck to my skin like sap. I used the back of my hand to flick it off, feeling the skin around my knuckles blister and crack. I sprung up from my knees and lost my balance again but I managed to avoid landing on the fungus again. It was sticky, but not stickier than I was strong and it wasn't going to chase me. Just to be sure though, I turned and ran till it was a good fifty feet behind me before turning to check the damage from its acid.

The bubbling was gone and the blistering was negligible. The skin that was badly burned not a minute ago was pink and a little puffy, but besides that it was fine. I looked at the back of my hand and I couldn't even tell where it'd touched the stuff. My heart was pounding hard in my chest and I was starting to feel like my head was full of cobwebs again.

"P-Perikos? Any insight to offer on this?" My adrenaline was so off the chart I figured I could cross the sunlight zone by tomorrow if I started now.

"Are you feeling all right? I did not anticipate that fungus would attack you or I would have warned you away from it."

"Perikos, my arm!"

"It is your heart rate I'm concerned about, Jayn. You are under a great deal of stress –"

"No fucking kidding! Now what the hell wrong is wrong with me?" I was shouting now but that wasn't enough either. I started searching the ground frantically. I needed to know, needed to see it happen.

"Jayn? Perhaps you should rest a moment. You're going to hyperventilate if you continue like this."

I found what I what I was searching for. It would be too small to catch anything with but the pebble was large enough and sharp enough for what I needed. I took a deep breath and jabbed it into my right arm, hard.

"Jayn! Stop that! What is wrong with you?"

I raked it across my bare skin as hard as I could but it was pretty dull and the cut wasn't that deep. I pulled the pebble away and watched blood welling up from the cut turn a deep, aubergine black before sealing itself right in front of my eyes.

"This! This is exactly what's wrong with me! Or are you going to keep bullshitting me and pretending that you have no idea why this happening to me?"

Perikos said nothing and I threw the rock down to the ground. My eyes felt wet and my face was hot but I wasn't sad, I was furious. And terrified. I curled up into a tight ball but even that felt wrong. It was like I was protecting him and he was leaving me out in the cold.

A couple minutes passed as I wept and seethed and plotted improbable revenge so that when I heard his tune in my ear again I very nearly flew into a fresh rage.

"I am sorry but I do not know what to tell you."

I had to scream before I could respond just to get it out of my system. "If you really didn't know what was happening, you'd just tell me exactly that but you think you can lie by omission instead. Why are you doing this to me?" 

"I am not doing anything to you on purpose."

"What?" There it was again, the truth closing in on me. It was always worse than I imagined. "What are you doing by accident then?"

I felt him shift inside me and it felt good in spite of my rage. "Protecting you, I suppose. I can feel it in you, moving through your bloodstream, guiding your cells Being your cells."

"What! The thing from the stitches that you –? The thing in my ear? BEING my cells?" This was too much. I didn't care what it meant, I didn't want the prognosis. I dissolved completely.

"I am sorry, Jayn, but we should not jump to conclusions," his song was whisper-soft and unusually gentle, though he didn't deny I was right. "I did not speak to you about my suspicions because you were angry with me and I assumed this conversation would alarm you. As far as I know that part of me that has physically bonded with you is trying to protect you."

Shadow had been right, anything could happen. It managed to bind seamlessly into my body, so much so that its healing extended to me. It was controlling me, controlling the cells that made me. It was parasitic and if a better opportunity came along, to hell with me, it could probably shut down every cell in my body and my immune system wouldn't even fight it because it was me.

Perikos' melody was as achingly sad as I felt when he answered my unspoken thoughts. "No, that would never happen."

"Get out of my head!" My voice broke as the words tore out of me.

"I can't."

Perikos let me cry myself out. I took a couple heaving breaths and wiped my face. Okay, we did the denial and anger part, I was feeling good about moving onto the bargaining and depression.

"You can read my thoughts?" I sniffed and rolled onto my back.

"Not as such. You were projecting your feelings so strongly I could not help but understand them. I could no sooner ignore your speech. You were in such obvious distress."

Okay, good. For now I have some privacy, so long as I wasn't 'distressed'. "How long have you been able to...read my thoughts?"

"Since before the storm."

"I see," I said, since there wasn't much else I could say. He absolutely knowingly inflicted that crap on me and then neglected to say anything was up and just tuned in to my anger and private thoughts for the last seven hours or whatever.

"You do not have to hide any part of yourself from me, you know."

"Do you really not get it? It's about the luxury of privacy. You get to keep your thoughts and feelings to yourself. You've known for hours and hours what I've been freaking out about and you know what's causing it and still you said nothing. I can't make you tell me anything but you get an all-access pass."

Perikos shifted inside me again and I closed my eyes and tried to remember a time when this seemed less complicated but I couldn't think of anything except how it might end.

"You are right. I am sorry. I am accustomed to considering fear, particularly your fear, beneficial. There is nothing beneficial about how you are feeling now. You feel as though you cannot trust me to tell you everything, even if I do not have the answers. Even if it leaves you feeling uncertain."

I felt my entire body relax a little. I might be completely fucked but I didn't want to fight anymore. I wasn't sure I wanted to do anything besides sleep.

"Please know this, Jayn: I do not know what is happening to you or how but if you decide to expose the piece of my flesh on the outside of your ear, it may stop it from spreading internally and kill any bond between it and you. There is also the possibility that it would not kill the bond, just the exposed flesh and I even surmise the possibility that you will experience its pain if you try to kill it. I support your decision if you decide to do this, since all of these potentialities are alarming. No matter what you decide, the bond between you and I will not change. I cannot claim to understand what has taken place here but that piece of me I left with you would never harm you. If for any reason it tried I would destroy it myself."

That was a lot to take in. What if I did kill it? What if it didn't really die? I thought about what it would mean to expose it to sunlight. The best case scenario was for it to shrivel up and die and for communication between Perikos and I to sever until we got away from the sun. I knew Perikos would feel all of it too. It would feel like he was dying, like he was being burned alive from the inside out but he wanted me to do it if it calmed my fears. I didn't know if I even could.

I rolled onto my heels and got to my feet. There was nothing more to be accomplished from lying around, crying like a little girl. If I wanted to try and stop it I could. Perikos couldn't even stop me if he wanted to but I still had my own responsibilities. I had to get us away from the danger of the sun and judging by how long I could expect that to take, I had all kinds of time to decide what to do about the thing inside me. Hmm, make that the two things inside me.

Perikos and I barely spoke over the next few days. He corrected my course twice, wished me goodnight and good morning before and after I slept, and once warned me off a mushroom I had apparently tried once before and gotten extremely sick from, though they had all begun to look the same to me now. Mostly though we kept to ourselves, though it was distinctly possible he was reading my every thought.

For my part, I made my way through what I could only describe as a minefield of gigantic acid-shooting carnivorous mushrooms all by myself without resorting to any more girlish hysterics. I had found enough food and water for myself each day and had not complained about my swollen ankles, sore knees or aching hips since our fight.

I had so many questions about the nature of this semi-parasitic invasion of Perikos flesh that he couldn't answer that I couldn't help but feel resentful. I spent silent hours walking, constructing elaborate internal dialogues between Perikos and myself where I told him exactly what a raw deal I was getting. Then I spent the next couple hours reliving it all as I worried he was reading my mind. I began to wonder who wasn't talking to who and then felt an entirely non-physical weight in my gut that forced me to admit I was only okay with being furious with Perikos' controlling ways provided he wasn't angry with me. What if he had spent the last few days listening to every frustrated, resentful thought I had and had decided to get rid of me as soon as we got to dark side of the planet? Sometimes, when I was feeling particularly adept or pleased with my survival skills I told myself I didn't care, that I might even be better off. The rest of time the thought haunted me like a cold shadow hanging over my head. I just wanted to be mad at Perikos in peace.

It was only day five of our cold war the landscape became more barren. The patches of greenery disappeared, giving way to small, cup-shaped mushrooms that seemed to pulse with a vague, reddish tinge. The sky seemed darker too, like late afternoon, and in the farthest distance I could make out the twinkling gleam of a star on the horizon. How could we be so close already?

"That is Rhydia," Perikos hummed softly and I realized he could see the star through my eyes or brain or whatever. 

"It's so bright because it's relatively close," I told him, which wasn't exactly romantic, but it was true. How weird must it be to see stars for the first time? I wondered. 

I kept walking, scanning the skies more carefully now. If we were in fact getting closer to dark side of the planet, then before long we were bound to find trouble.

I bedded down curled into a tight ball. I hadn't made it to the dark zone yet, but I might tomorrow. I was happy the sun was still visible, still warm – it was colder here than on the other side of the sea and the farther east I walked, the colder it got. 

"Goodnight, Jayn," Perikos had been so formal with me lately but I wasn't sure what it meant. Damn him to hell for making me think I was the one on thin ice.

I looked up at the faint twinkling right Perikos said was Rhydia. "Hey, are we really almost there? This is a big planet. I expected this to take longer."

"Indeed it would have," Perikos' music was soft, rhythmic like a lullaby. "We have been astonishingly fortunate. I incorrectly calculated our position on the shores of the Greedy Sea. The sea itself extends some six thousand miles south and although I knew we could not have accidently drifted such a vast distance, I miscalculated the position of our meeting by no few than four hundred and twenty three and a half kilometers south. I instructed you to travel directly east, though the Star itself is on south-eastern trajectory so it has only ever risen just above the horizon. You have walked approximately three hundred and twenty kilometers and I believe if you push yourself we can reach darkness before you must sleep again."

"I'll try," I mumbled, and it was true. For now though I needed to sleep. I was grateful that for the last five nights the one place Perikos hadn't dominated my mind was in my dreams.

I had no idea how long I had slept, only that it took me a few hours to wake up properly even after I began walking. I hoped Perikos was paying attention for me because I was having trouble focusing on anything beyond putting one foot in front of the other. On the plus side, my sleep-drenched mind was blissfully empty; I couldn't concentrate on being angry at Perikos or what he might be thinking about me until well after I stopped for lunch.

The mushrooms' glow became more apparent as the sky got darker. I felt Perikos shift in me and felt a little surge of anticipation that didn't feel like my own. I shouldn't be surprised if he felt bored or restless – I wouldn't want to be trapped inside my own body for a week, never mind anyone else's. 

'Afternoon' moved into 'evening' and 'evening' became 'night' and I still hadn't managed to reach the edge of the Light. All around me felt dim and my anxiety at facing down perpetual night felt freshly renewed but we weren't far enough away to escape the ultra-violet radiation. The swelling in my ankles and knees was worse than before and I felt exhaustion closing in but this was a dangerous place to sleep. We were beyond the reach of the Loyalists but the Kragosi mercs had had time to work out what might have happened in the sea and if they were smart they'd be patrolling liminal zones like this one. There'd be all the benefits of catching Perikos and I at high noon in path of the sun, except a lot less space to patrol and here I would have the illusion of safety because of the encroaching darkness. I had to keep walking till Perikos could take over.

After another hour I had to stop for more water. It tasted sweeter than usual, less metallic. I scanned the skies again, looking for that telltale red light.

"How much farther can you go, Jayn?" Perikos asked as I rose to my feet again, apparently projecting nothing so much as an overwhelming urge to lie down. What I actually wanted was an enormous duvet made of heschva fur, a hot mug of cacao and a steaming bowl of rice noodles, but none of those things were ever going to happen again.

"I can make it. It can't be much farther." I answered briskly, hoping to remind him I was doing this all for him. 

I walked in silence a few more minutes, then I heard his song again, measured and tentative. "Perhaps we should talk."

Great. Not what I needed right now. "Couldn't this wait? Wouldn't you rather do this face to face?" I was fishing now and hoped I wasn't being obvious. I had no idea what he wanted to talk about or if it was bad.

"I do not think so. I do not have a 'face' as you say, but I comprehend your meaning. More to the point, I understand you well enough to know you will need to sleep once I can take over and yet you will be unable to relax in my care until we have...cleared the air between us."

There was nothing I could do to distract myself from where this was going besides scanning the skies for merc vessels and for a moment I wondered if I wouldn't prefer the distraction. Then again, as much as I didn't want to have a heart to heart at the moment, I wanted to end up back at Kragosa even less.

"I would like to explain myself because I feel I owe you an explanation of my actions," Perikos said softly. I felt him shift inside me and my breath caught a little in my throat.

"From the first moment we were mutually aware of each others' sentience our relationship has been predicated on our mutual needs. My need for sustenance has matched your sexual desires and at times my appetite has exceeded your own. Given the potent flavor of your combined excitement and anticipation, I concluded that the dynamic we shared was a natural and important one."

I kept walking, one foot after another. What was he going to say? I felt my heart thrumming in my chest, felt my palms and the back of my knees sweat in spite of the chill in the air.

"My bond with you was very rapid and intense and I felt very sorry for myself at the prospect of losing you. When you agreed to accompany me here I was delighted but it was not until those first days among my people that I fully comprehended the nature of my responsibility to you."

"And what's that, exactly?" I asked, my voice barely more than a whisper, more to conserve what little energy I had left than anything else.

"Naturally I was afraid for your physical form. You are, or were until quite recently, the most physically fragile being I have ever interacted with and I realized that I it was my responsibility to tend to your need for sustenance, pleasure, safety, and wellness."

What could I really say? I was alive and I wasn't deathly ill; the pleasure had come and gone and come again, no pun intended, and though my safety track record had been less than impeccable, I had lived to tell the tale. Maybe Perikos was a complete success and I was an ingrate and a whiner to boot.




The Light Within Ch. 04



"So, can you control my mind now, then?" I asked Perikos. We'd been traveling less than half an hour since we met up with Shadow and I was forced to confront my imaginary exhibitionism.

"Of course not. Why would you wonder such a thing?" Perikos sang back at me. 

Why indeed. Only that our last and very recent sexual encounter had involved Perikos' power of suggestion and when I tried to clear my mind or alter the imagery I couldn't. Not that I was particularly worried. We'd talked some stuff out and I was ninety-eight percent sure Perikos wouldn't use his powers for evil. Still, I told him to be honest with me from now on.

"What, you mean you can't control my mind anymore? Your powers stopped working half an hour ago?"

"No," Perikos began, pausing to allow me to shift in his embrace. My leg had been falling asleep. "If you are referring to my suggestions – "

" - Suggestions?" 

"I presented you with a scenario I thought would excite you. You created the details, collaborated in the fantasy. It would not have seemed realistic otherwise."

"What about when I tried to change some of details?" Like my estranged brother looking on in disgust. Honestly, that wasn't supposed to happen. 

Perikos uttered the musical equivalent of a shrug. Fairly or unfairly, I thought I might already have the answer before I put Perikos on the spot. I hadn't really wanted to be able to change anything. I was quite content, actually, for things like that to stay out of my hands. Of course, how would I know I was being forced if I didn't at least try, however feebly, to break the bonds? Depravity, thy name is Jayn.

"Okay, then, but can't you at least admit – "

"Silence!" Perikos' voice slammed against me like a steel trap. For a moment I felt like I'd been slapped. Hadn't we worked our way past this bullshit? Then I heard something that made my gut clench and twist so badly I thought it was trying to fight its way out. Then I saw it overhead; the red light of a Kragosa ship speeding towards us. A moment later a blinding javelin of light hit the ground not far from us and began gaining as the ship closed the distance.

If we had more time, Perikos and Shadow could have outrun it. If it dropped in altitude before the spotlight got us, Perikos and Shadow could have grown big enough and strong enough to pull it out of the sky. But we didn't have that kind of time. I knew it even as I turned and broke into the fastest run I could. This time there was no shelter to take, and no place to hide. Perikos caught me around the ankle and I sprawled onto my stomach, unable to stop my forward momentum. My head bounced off the soft fungus floor and Perikos pushed my thighs apart roughly. He reached between them and I felt four thin tendrils pull me open and hold me there. The whine of the engine was getting louder.

"In!" I heard Perikos scream and I felt Shadow compress his shape between my legs and push his mass inside me. Shadow tried to push his way into my womb but he didn't seem able to make himself small and thin enough to push past without making me feel like I was being quite literally ripped open.

"No time!" Perikos shouted and pushed inside me as well, so that I was stretched wide enough to accommodate both Perikos and Shadow. I doubled over in pain. Even if I wanted to run now, I couldn't. Perikos wasted no time and made himself slender enough to force his way through my barrier and into my womb. I felt and odd sensation that I imagined was Perikos pulling Shadow in behind him. 

The light was overhead now, and blinding. I stumbled to my feet and tried to run a few more meters but just as I registered how slow I was actually moving and how awkward my steps had become, I felt a horrible, searing pain in the side of my head. 

Spots clouded my vision. There had never been anything like this. I was being boiled in hot tar, in lava, I was being shredded on a cellular level. I wanted to die, I wanted to have never been born. Then it all stopped.

I felt a sharp prick in my neck and before I opened my eyes I knew where I was and what had happened. My arms were strapped to a metal table and my legs were attached to some off sort of stirrups. I was on the Kragosi ship. I could feel hot, smoldering light on the other side of my eyelids and my head was pounding like someone had raked dull shards of glass all round the inside of my skull. The intense pain at the side of my head was gone.

I kept my eyes closed to give myself time to tally my situation. The Kragosi guards had me and the rest of planet's Most Wanted and we were royally fucked. For all I knew they were waiting till they saw me wake up before carving me up like a goose and throwing Perikos and Shadow into the gravitational pull of the first star they passed. I was all alone again.

"You are not," Perikos' tune reverberated in my head. It sounded deeper, warmer than usual. The quality of the sound seemed different.

"I'm standing by for any and all suggestions", I thought back at him, not daring to open my mouth and give the game away.

"They undoubtedly know you're awake," Perikos said. My stomach felt much more stretched, much larger than normal. "They gave you something to revive you." He paused a moment more. "Be strong, Little Shade. I promise you we are not going back to Kragosa and you are not alone. We will get away, we will just have to be...strategic in our timing."

Something grunted near my feet. A Kragosi guard. What I thought was a grunt was actually just spoken Kragosi. He uttered a few more guttural grunts and snorts and I couldn't decide if I would prefer he was talking to me or to someone else on board. I heard static and then another oddly familiar series of grunts coming from what sounded like a badly tuned radio. Then the guard poked my swollen belly with something. Not a stick. A rod, maybe?

Suddenly there was pain. My body spasmed and twitched. My teeth clamped together hard as the blast of electricity slammed through my body. My back arched hard enough that my legs and torso cleared the table. My eyes flew open as the guard withdrew the cattle prod from my belly. I had forgotten about those. Didn't stop me from wanting to fly off the table and beat him to death with it.

"Awake!" He blurted out in thick, slurred Common. Definitely an order. The light was so bright I could barely make out his thick grey skin, his cleft, hoof-like hands or his flabby, pig snout or the tusks poking out from either side that made his Common even more incomprehensible.

It occurred to me to wonder about Perikos and Shadow. Had the shock hurt them? They were oddly silent. As my thoughts went to Perikos, I heard his soft whisper in my head. "The electricity is detrimental to your species, not ours. Unfortunately, I had not realized it was coming in time to redirect it."

And me on a metal table. I tensed and prepared for more of the same when the bay door slid open and in the glowing light I could make out another guard's dark shape in the doorway.

"Jayn bek Sherop. Do you know why you're here?" His Common was fluent. The husky, rasping tone was horrifyingly familiar.

"Brogn?" My voice came out somewhere between a gasp and a squeak. The last time we had met, the Warden of Kragosa had promised to rape me, but only after Perikos raped me. Well, that hadn't gone as Brogn had planned, but I had it on good authority that any female creature of my size and stature was likely to bleed to death from Brogn's brand of lovin'. I had sincerely hoped he and I would never meet again.

The door slid shut behind Brogn and he waddled over to stand beside me. Three thick, sausagey fingers drummed against my belly next to where the guard had shocked me. 

"Surprised to see me?" he asked, emitting another series of grunts mixed with an odd sort of hacking, wheezing sound. Laughter, Perikos suggested wordlessly. "I am surprised to see you, Jayn bek Sherop. Why, in our short time apart you have become quite a fat sow, am I not right?"

More laughter as he swatted my belly. If he hadn't been so sick, so revolting, I could have described it as playful. This was more like a mangy cat playing with its food before eating it. Fuck, I was disgusting myself with that line of thinking.

"Of course you are surprised that I would involve myself personally, am I not right? I will admit that I took your escapes personally. I like to think I am a thorough warden. I am fastidious. I was well paid to make the Perikos problem go away and then I find out that I delivered it a mule. Or more accurately in your case, a sow." 

He slapped my belly again and I felt Perikos and Shadow shift and move inside me.

"Had you been other prisoners, I might have let you go. Sometimes a good warden must make a decision; is retrieval cost effective or a waste of valuable, limited resources? In the case of the Perikos, we would receive funds as long as it lived in our custody. You, on the other hand, were nothing. Hardly more than a wet hole to sleeve myself in, but I told myself good things come to those who wait. I was right, Jayn bek Sherop. Instead of being paid in small, erratic installments by the Perikos government, I will receive a sizeable lump sum for guaranteeing his demise."

My heart thrummed like a harp string in my chest. Nothing was ever gained by playing nice with Brogn. "Good luck getting them out without getting killed in the process."

Brogn laughed again, so hard this time he wheezed and huffed to catch his breath, his girth shaking like jelly under the strain. It took him several moments to reply. "Your bluff is pointless beyond its capacity for amusement. There is something more valuable to this government than the death of belligerent rebels. Do you know what that is, Jayn bek Sherop?"

There it was again. Something was closing in on me. I felt Perikos expand slightly and then contract again inside me.

"If you guessed that the Perikos government has offered me enough to allow me to live out the rest of my life in obscene luxury if I deliver you to them unharmed, then you are correct!"

I thrashed and strained against the straps holding me down on the table. Brogn laughed again and squeezed my right breast hard, like he was trying to ring out a sponge one-handed. 

"Stupid Human. I would have thought you'd be happy so long as something was pummeling your cunt. You lack foresight at any rate. Suppose they did not want you? What would stop my doctor" – he gestured to what I had taken to be the other Kragosi guard, who was watching me – "from sawing you open with a dull blade and shining a very bright light on your passengers? What would stop me from riding you like the bloated sow you are, even if it killed you? No, Jayn bek Sherop, you are very lucky today. We are devising a way to extract the fugitives from you without causing any noticeable damage, and when we do, we will deliver you to our...clients. I'm certain they can think of a great many things to keep you occupied."

Brogn reached over to what I supposed was a table behind my head and brought with him three lengths of cord and an oddly shaped crescent piece of white plastic. I watched Brogn take one of the cords and open a metal clip at the end of it. He pinched the flesh around my navel and I felt the metal clip snap closed around the skin there. He closed another between my first and second toe.

"These are hooked up to a battery, of course," Brogn said as he tightened the straps at my ankles and wrists. "I would like to cause you a certain degree of mental and physical anguish before we part ways and if it kills of harms or even encourages those cowardly worms inside of you to come out, so much the better. The most obvious places to shock you into submission would be the most sensitive parts of your anatomy. However, I have learned from my mistakes. I will not do anything to you while your...passengers are still alive that could possibly be interpreted as pleasing, even to someone as reportedly desperate and whorish as you."

He forced two fat, dirty fingers into my mouth and I bit down hard. Brogn jerked his hand back a moment, probably to examine the damage. Then I saw his hand move almost before it started and something told me to close my eyes and brace for impact.

I felt the impact, the physical pressure and sensation of Brogn's vast, bolt-like knuckles pound against my face but something thrilling, even spine-tingling coursed through my torso instead. I didn't just feel good. I was nearly there. 

Brogn seemed to decide my shriek of ecstasy was really one of immense suffering and he took the opportunity to wrench my head back by my hair and jam his fingers halfway down my throat. I was so aroused I forgot to put up a fight and before I knew it Brogn had forced the crescent-shaped white plastic thing between my jaws. I tried to close my mouth but the retractor held it wide open. He then reached down and closed a bulbous, sweaty hand around my throat and I coughed and spluttered. Brogn waited until my tongue poked out between my teeth and then snapped the final clamp shut on the tip of my tongue. I screeched and squawked through the pinch of the metal but I also knew the shit hadn't hit the fan yet. He hadn't even turned the damn thing on yet.

Brogn grunted smugly and slapped my exposed pussy. "You may be pleased to know I've set the charge to an interval timer. I would hate for you to die or become accustomed enough to it that you no longer wish to die. If the reports I have been given are correct and the Perikos truly has some affection for you, perhaps it will take pity on you. This will not stop until they are prepared to cease hiding and realize they are only prolonging the inevitable. You have been bought and paid for by those who matter on this planet. And they have no life here at all. No life anywhere, for that matter. I will leave you to ponder that, Jayn bek Sherop. See you in the morning."

I waited under the unpleasantly hot lights. Any second now. Then something ripped through my body, so brutal and thrilling it took me a moment to realize where it came from. 

"Jayn?" Perikos spoke softly in my mind. "Do not be afraid, Jayn. I am here with you."

"At least the electricity isn't so bad," I thought at him.

"I am doing my best to modify the current and your brain's response so that you will not have to experience pain, at least not as Brogn intended."

That was a lot to take in. I counted down from ten slowly in my head. "Let's review here. We've been caught. You two are trapped in me and I'm trapped in here. Brogn wants you two dead but me intact for some reason."

"Correct."

"Any idea how I became public enemy number one?"

Perikos twisted inside me again. "Do not be naïve, Little Shade. You know as well as I do why they would pay handsomely to possess you."

"Is it so wrong to hope I'm not going to end up getting raped to death by Loyalists?" I hoped my dry, dark humor sounded just as funny in my head.

Another surge tore through my body, leaving my tongue, belly and toes and every part in between feeling as though I'd tickled softly for hours until I became so sensitive I came from it. I fell back onto the table, gasping for air.

"Well, according to what I overheard while you were unconscious, there is other motivation, besides reaping energy from you."

"Do I want to know?" I thought, still gasping.

"According to the 'doctor' they have stated that first they intend to attempt to breed with you. If that proves unsuccessful, or perhaps even if it does not, they have decided they will attempt to capture a human male and attempt to breed you as livestock. Obviously the final decisions have yet to be made, but – "

I didn't hear anything else. Breed?! Not okay, not in the least. It was bad enough I couldn't even fall back on my usual strategy of identifying the worst case scenario and trying to be optimistic, or at least, not utterly pessimistic. I thought I heard Perikos calling my name through the din of my own rising panic.

"When did they mention breeding?" I tried to play it cool but the simple fact is that nonchalance is a lot easier to fake when you're able to say things out loud.

"While you were unconscious," Perikos answered.

Another jolt of pleasure slammed through me, much more rapidly this time. It hit hard and fast like a stack of bricks and then my mind was clear again, even through my bellybutton, toes, and especially my tongue, where still pulsing.

"What happened down there?" I thought through the fog. "They found us, you two took shelter, then what?" My head still throbbed. I remembered something hurt badly right before they took me aboard their ship. Some sort of taser, maybe? The echoing ache was too precise to been any sort of blunt instrument.

"They brought you to this sealed room," Perikos said, but this time I could hear the omission.

"Come on, out with it," I told him. I would have dearly loved to have clenched my teeth but the gag and clamp made that impossible.

Perikos didn't waste time asking what I meant. "They turned their Light on us and we had to hide or risk a very painful death."

Not news to me. 

"There was no time to warn you to guard your ear from the light and it was integrated so thoroughly in your system that I doubt I could have stopped you from experiencing its death in time to prevent the agony you experienced."

"Its death?" I felt myself tremble in my bonds.

"Yes," Perikos said quietly. "It could not withstand the exposure. The overwhelming pain you experienced preceded its demise."

"But it was so small. That's what you experience even in unnatural UV light?"

Another electric jolt jarred me, left my heart pounding and the cleft between my legs humming.

"Yes," said Perikos.

"And so then did you feel it? That time?"

"Yes," he said, his melody gentle. "I experienced something akin to what you felt, although likely not as intense."

"How come?"

I felt Perikos squirm and shift inside me again. "I mentioned that I feel a sympathetic connection with that bit of myself but it was beyond my control. It had bonded with your body, though it largely retained my will. Surely you have noticed we are still communicating although the external remnants of the bond is gone, obviously many internal bonds are still available to us. You are not remotely vulnerable to Light, but you are energized by your own fear and arousal. You and I can communicate quite clearly without articulation on your part. You body is stronger and more resistant as the result of the bond. I can also experience your senses. Prior to the bond, I was relying on signals from your body – increased heart rate, perspiration, body temperature, vibration and the like – but now I can hear what you hear and I can gather information from your eyes and interpret that information correctly."

It was hard to concentrate on the ramifications of all that with two more jolts sending sharp, rippling shock waves through me. At least they were shorter now.

"They have not actually been shorter, but I believe that I can absorb and contain a certain amount of energy from the shocks, I may be able to overload the battery, which should short circuit the ultraviolet lights in this room."

"Is that the plan?" I wanted to roll over and sleep, and when I woke and I would find out that Perikos and Shadow and I were curled up together some place safe and warm, far from Kragosi merc ships or deranged Loyalist armies who wanted to make babies.

"In actuality, the plan my Second and I have devised is a dangerous gamble, but I will not continue to hide while you suffer to protect us."




The Light Within Ch. 04



Another thrill of energy ran through me, coursing through my insides like a rough tongue. The insides of my eyelids felt warm. 'Suffering' was a funny way to describe it.

"In several minutes I believe I will have accumulated enough electricity to short the battery, which is connected to the ultraviolet lights. This will be an unpleasant, though certainly non-fatal experience for your newly strengthened body, and I will do my best to distract you and minimize the discomfort. I estimate that after the battery shorts we will have less than sixty seconds of darkness during which my Second and I will retreat."

"And kill Brogn?" Even in my head I sounded hopeful.

"No. If my Second and I are both quick and fortunate, we will be able to leave the vessel entirely and convince Brogn we have fled to protect ourselves."

"Sure, yeah, I can only think of one problem with that plan. What the fuck is going to happen to me once you both leave?!"

"I doubt very much that Brogn will want to delay relieving himself of you by more than a day, even if the circumstances surrounding our departure are suspicious. He will likely isolate you but he knows better than to harm you. After he receives compensation from the Loyalists, I imagine his retreat from this system will be hasty; he has no investment in our politics."

My remarkably swollen belly ached as though it was already empty and I felt cold. "So then what?"

"He will deliver you to the Loyalists, whose militia would be impenetrable without your assistance. Sneaking you inside the stronghold within proximity of the king would be impossible and otherwise we have little chance of overcoming their forces. But Brogn has permission to deliver you to the leaders themselves."

"So you're leaving me with a deranged, murdering, sociopathic serial rapist for a day or so and then letting him give me to a few more monsterous, inhuman creatures to rape me some more?"

"I am inhuman," said Perikos.

"No you're not," I said, and in a way it was the truth. He felt more real, more compassionate, more loving than any human I knew besides maybe Dad.

I felt his warm chuckle deep in my own chest. "Yes, I am. Perhaps you have not considered that you are becoming less human as time goes on."

I hadn't of course, but that didn't change my panic, the odd feeling of betrayal that coursed through me when I considered that he really was leaving me behind. To use as a kind of bait and for the first time in what felt like ages, I would be physically alone again. In the company of Brogn and Loyalists, I though, and I felt my anxiety triple.

My back cleared the table as another jolt slammed through me. My stomach bounced heavily above me as little charges of pleasure snaked through my limbs and torso. And Perikos moved inside me again and I actually saw my belly swell slightly. I wanted to touch it, to touch him.

"You can see me. You can feel me. Now you must trust me. I will not let anyone hurt you."

How he intended to prevent me from being hurt when he was fucking kilometers away was anyone's guess.

"I explained to you before, Little Shade, our connection is now invulnerable. I can use your ears and your eyes, I can control your physical sensations. I can control your thoughts if you let me. None of my kind will be able to detect our physical bond by touching you. Wherever you are, I am there also. And my body will follow because I crave you. I crave your lust and passion, your thoughts and your affection. I will not let anything happen to you and so we have few choices left to us, because when the shocks you have been experiencing do not work, I believe they will resort to other forms of pain and torture. I can alter the physical sensations, but to what end? It will only stop when Brogn is convinced he has completed his part of the bargain and delivered you to my king. And then we will ambush, and with our bodies united we will defeat him and his court and our running will be over."

I felt my eyes water, less from the electricity than the fear. Fear that it wouldn't work, fear they'd be stopped or I'd be left alone with Brogn, who would punish me for ever daring to escape in the first place. But I knew Perikos was right. This wouldn't stop until the king was dead and his was a better plan, a better opportunity than we'd had so far.

"Thank you, Little Shade. After I release the current I have absorbed back into the battery, we will retreat was quickly as possible, though we will not hurt you of course. Try not be afraid and remember I am not really leaving."

I took a deep breath as a last, comparatively pitiful current ran through me and I am proud to say I kept it together.

"I will count to three. Your senses may overload when I prevent you from experiencing the pain of the current but if that happens, you will not be unconscious for long. Just let go of your anxiety and trust me."

I couldn't stop my entire body tensing. 

"...One", whispered Perikos. My heartbeat thrummed in my throat.

"...two", he said, and I felt him stir a little inside me. I felt a slight burning ache I hadn't concentrated on before. My bracelet. I could feel a thin burn-like welt around my wrist under my bracelet.

"...three!"

I was high, higher than I'd ever been, ever dreamed of being. My body felt hot, heavy with sleepy, scorching lust and I still flew. I felt jammed full, like every cell in my body lit up with such an amazing, perverse intimacy that I could never have imagined it before. I was being used, filled and loved in ways I never dreamed existed. I felt like I was everywhere, like I was everything that existed and at the same time that someone special, someone just for me had melded with my skin, my blood and my bones. They were everything I was and more and they opened me up, gloried in what they saw, filled me up and swallowed me whole.

I saw starbursts in the dark and felt horribly deflated. My belly was no longer distended. I heard crashing and squealing outside the room and then the overhead lights flashed on and I was blinded. 

I felt something horribly like a hoof press down on my gut and then turn and emit an awful, earsplitting squeal. Then the drone of an alarm and the door slammed shut again. 

I waited while my eyes adjusted to the light. Now I was alone and I couldn't see how Perikos and Shadow, however small their masses, would be able to get away from a ship designed for hyper drive. There weren't exactly gaps under the doors.

In spite of my fear, and the immense vulnerability of waiting there alone and spread for all the world to see, I felt little aftershocks of pleasure travel up and down my spine. If that was pain converted to pleasure, I was glad Perikos was in my head enough to change my perceptions. I was also more than a little relieved to have survived enough electricity to short a battery and two lights and live to talk about it. Maybe sharing my body with a piece of Perikos wouldn't be as devastating as I imagined. There were certainly plenty of benefits in evidence.

A few minutes later the door to the room opened again and Brogn was standing, silhouetted there, looking like nothing so much as an overgrown rabid boar. He stepped forward and the door shut behind him. He reached up and pulled the clamp from between my big toes. And then he yarded on the one on my navel till it parted company with me. Then he pulled the clamp from my tongue and I was left, naked and tied down in front of him, no Perikos to save me now. I felt my jaw ache under the strain as I tried to close my mouth around the dental retractor but of course I couldn't.

"It looks to my crew as though your slugs have left the ship."

"He's not convinced," Perikos whispered and I started as though the battery was still going. It could have been my own inner voice, it was so deep, internal. Natural. But it wasn't my voice, it was very clearly his. 

"I will not bother to ask how they blacked out the room because I know better than to trust on lying, whore word from your mouth."

Brogn raised his hand as thought to hit me but then took a step back. He turned and I heard him rummaging through tables and drawers on the far side of the small room. He returned with a bulbous bit of glass and steel attached to a strand of trailing cord. The first thirty centimeters or so of the cord was rigid, though the rest was slack. Brogn leered over me and the bulb and the end flared to life. A UV probe.

"Since your slugs are gone, you won't mind if I check to make sure you smuggled them into any other holes?" 

Never have I ever wanted to be strapped to a gurney less. 

Brogn aimed the light at my open mouth, like a trip to the oral hygienist. He shone the light delicately, noninvasively even, all the way to the back of my mouth and I didn't flinch even once, at least not until he literally jammed the light down my throat. Then I tried not to throw up.

"Relax your throat, Little Shade," Perikos whispered pointlessly.

"Not there, eh?" Brogn grunted, withdrawing the little bulb. He reached out and twisted a dial on the dental retractor and removed it, probably not out of the goodness of his heart. It hurt almost as much to close my mouth as it did to keep it open.

"This is your chance, sow. Tell me where they are and I won't have to look for them." Brogn jammed a calloused thumb inside me, just in case I missed the subtlety of his threat.

"I don't know," I told him, allowing myself to sound as miserable about that as I felt.

"Wrong answer!" Brogn barked at me as he jammed the light into my pussy.

It was hardly comfortable but I'd taken bigger, wider and more unique shapes. God, I even sounded like a slut to my own ears. But there was nothing there to find.

It didn't stop Brogn from taking his probing duties very seriously. He couldn't make it past my cervix like Perikos could, for which I was extremely thankful, but Kragosi probably weren't all that up on human anatomy anyway, so maybe he didn't know he was leaving stones unturned. I wasn't about to tell him.

Brogn yanked the light from my pussy with a slick and embarrassing 'pop' and took a moment to just stare at my exposed flesh, until I wanted to slide through the ship's floor. 

"We will try again. Where are the Perikos?" I felt a rough, blunt prick at the entrance to my ass. "Are they here?"

"No!" I shouted, and even to myself I sounded like I'd been caught with my hand in the cookie jar. "They're not," I added feebly, with what I hoped very much was a calm and rational tone.

"But you're a cock-hungry, filthy, lying little sow, aren't you? So I better check for myself."

I felt a dry, awfully sharp pain but then I was standing alone back on the surface of the planet, surrounded by nothing but darkness, stars and the dull red glow of the luminescent fungus beneath my feet.

"Perikos?" I called out. Odds on this was the dream and I was still back on the Kragosi ship getting probed by Brogn but there was always the hope that the opposite was true. 

First there was only silence, stillness. Then the starry sky lit up all around me, in bursts and waves of green and pinks and blues. The colors rippled and changed and made twisting, shimmering shapes before me where I stood.

"What do you see?" I heard Perikos' music echo through my head.

"I don't know. It's beautiful though," I answered. Maybe this wasn't a dream after all.

"It is an illusion, an escape," Perikos explained finally, "but it is based in reality. These are my memories of the night before I was captured and sent to Kragosa."

The night before he killed the former king and got convicted for it, to be even more precise. "I don't understand why you're showing me this. Besides to distract me," I added, in case he thought I'd rather not be distracted.

"These are the Destiny Stars. They are visible only far east and they occur once every eight years. Before my people gained an understanding beyond the reaches of our planet, we believed they had the power to tell the future of our people. Only the wisest, most learned and powerful of my people were allowed to interpret them. These are the ones I saw before I was taken from my people. And before I met you. What do you see, Jayn?"

I looked their patterns, their dips and swirls, the spiraling, shifting, glimmering movements but there were no patterns, no symbols I recognized.

"Silly Shade, their colors and movements are not a literal part of my memory. I cannot see such things with eyes as you can. What you are perceiving is how they felt, their sound, their composition."

I thought about that for a moment. "Do you believe in fortune telling and stuff like that?"

Perikos' melody was cool and sweet as spring water. "It is clear from our knowledge of the natural that these phenomenon are the product of gasses, starlight and magnetic fields interacting with one another. Now that I have answered your question, please answer mine. What do you see? Or perhaps feel?"

The colors were bright, glowing and changing. So much change, and so much strength. And there was something strange about the composition, something foreign and dark mingling with the light. It wound its way into the center of the lights and the colors and shapes exploded outwards into a shower of effervescent stars.

"There is a story among my people of an outsider who comes to rule as a god. Someone weak, perhaps underestimated by those around them. That person has a unique greatness inside them and with them they bring enormous change. Change for the better."

I stood staring at the now dark sky that wasn't really a sky. It looked like someone had unplugged the stars. I wasn't sure what I ought to say but maybe something in the blackened sky would inspire me.

"I will admit that at the time I hoped such signs flattered me. I wished that they spoke of my destiny, the change I would bring to my people."

I frowned. "You did. I mean, you still are Bring change to your people, I mean."

"The Destiny Stars echo the old story of the outsider who brings peace and abundance and is beloved. While it demonstrated nearly unforgivable arrogance to assume I was somehow the subject of the tale, I could not have imagined you before I met you. I could not have understood my importance in this tale, that I would be the catalyst, your guardian and your friend."

The details of Perikos' memory had faded completely now and I was surrounded by an imaginary darkness and I felt little ripples of anxiety run through me about going back to face reality. This little visit to Perikos' La-La Land had been a real neat break, a real boost to the old self-esteem and I didn't want to have to return to my body to face the music. Or the flatulent, grunting violations of the Kragosi Warden.

"You only need to be brave a little longer, Jayn." Perikos' gentle tune beamed down at me from all directions.

"What if it's all wrong? This may be no time to be a downer, but there is no such thing as destiny or prophecy or any of it. You said yourself it's all just superstition."

"Of course it is," agreed Perikos, which surprised the hell out of me, to be honest. "We see what we wish to see and believe that which gives our life purpose. Now I have shown you my life purpose, in the hopes you will ally yours and we will do all we can to bring it about. And together we can do a great deal."

I tasted blood in my mouth and I was lying on my stomach. I wasn't strapped down anymore, but I had to the muzzle of a fairly hefty blaster wedged into the small of my back so I didn't feel much like struggling anyway.

My eyes scanned the room quickly trying to remember if it looked like a cyclone had been let loose in here before Perikos had taken me on his magical mystery tour. Apparently Brogn had had a proper tantrum while I was off star-gazing and I could only hope that all my parts were still intact, because my body felt quite numb, and I had reason to believe I'd been knocked around but good in the interim.

"Hands!" shouted Brogn, and I flinched in spite of myself. He sounded totally unhinged.

As a prison veteran I knew the drill, so I pushed my elbows back towards one another and felt Brogn awkwardly slap a pair of heavy manacles around my wrists. Then he pushed me off the table.

I didn't break anything, face included, but I was getting tired of being at such a disadvantage and the string of profanity that gushed out of my mouth just then earned me a literal kick in the ass from Brogn.

Then against all reason, he helped me to my feet. His sweaty, cloven hand curled around my arm and then he pushed me hard enough that I stumbled to regain balance. I felt another meaty mitt squeeze my ass and I twisted out of his hold, though I was careful to keep my back turned to him so he couldn't imagine I intended to run.

"So, what's our ETA? I only ask because I'd rather be torn apart by raping, murderous alien tentacles than have you do that again." 

That earned me a hard kick planted squarely in the back, so that I was launched into the far wall. My head hit the metal but I barely noticed the pain. This lack of pain sensation wasn't helping keep my smart mouth in check even a little, I thought, as the room spun in front of my eyes.

Brogn's normally grayish-green hide was tinged an unpleasant shade of puce. "Do you think for even a minute that I would dirty my cock on anything so foul as you? So slutty and depraved you would fuck a banha melon if I left you alone with one. You'd shove anything in your cunt, wouldn't you? I would far rather receive a tenth of my new and considerable fortune than pollute my cock in you, Jayn bek Sherop. Let the Perikos fuck you full of squirming, larval worms and then tear you apart in the suckling."

He pressed a thick, steel toed boot at the aperture of my thighs and I felt my face blossom red with shame as I saw the clear sheen of my earlier arousal reflected in the metal. I could see the muscles tense in his leg and I could tell he wanted to kick my there, in my most vulnerable place. I braced for it but Brogn instead pulled me to my feet by my hair. His face was close enough to mine I could feel the moisture and heat of his breath and I could smell warm slop. I gagged but he didn't seem to notice.

"Less than five hours, since you are so eager to begin your new life. Enjoy your last hours in Kragosi custody, Jayn bek Sherop, because they will be your last moments of peace in this world."

The wall I was pressed up against vanished behind me and I fell backwards, nearly hitting my head on the wall of a tiny, metal-lined closet. Before I could look up, Brogn had coded the door shut behind me. 

It was like Kragosa all over again. Except smaller and with no bars. My eyes strained in the darkness but I couldn't distinguish anything. No irregularities in the wall, or distinctive shapes. My arms ached behind me and the heavy chain connecting the thick manacles scratched against the cold metal floor. How long would they keep me here? It wouldn't be very long. It couldn't be. Brogn had said less than five hours till I was down on the planet with the Loyalists but with the wall closing in on me I felt tiny and forgotten.

"Jayn." Perikos' voice was warm, filled me up to the brim and made me want to cry. What if everything went wrong? What if I never saw him again? Never felt his touch? What if even worse than being killed, they did manage to isolate me, breed me?

"You are feeling pessimistic because you are scared," he said, his voice a whisper in my mind.

"No shit I'm scared," I whispered back, my voice tiny and tremulous even in my tiny cell. "You know, you could try being reassuring instead of giving me the silent treatment while Brogn is knocking me around."




The Light Within Ch. 04



Perikos said nothing and I felt the walls close in on me even more. It was more of a tomb than a closet, an awful, cold, dark steel tomb and the only way out suggested the very real possibility of being torn apart by inhuman monsters. 

Something in the blackness around me moved and my eyes focused enough to see a thick, dark shape enter the tiny room by my feet. I saw Perikos in front of me but I couldn't feel him and it took my brain a moment to catch up with the punctured bubble of relief that had welled in my heart.

"Stop messing with my head. You're not really here."

The image of Perikos wound around my calves and I could feel his smooth, tempered coils of muscle tighten around me. I was losing my mind.

"I am real, Little Shade. I am really inside you. I share the feeling of your heartbeat, I mitigate your pain. This is me."

It so clearly wasn't though. He continued to wind around my hips and waist, over my shackled wrists and around my shoulders. I could almost see him in the dark and I could certainly feel every stroke, even his lightest brush against my skin but intellectually I knew he wasn't really there. If Brogn walked in he would see me writhing on the floor, muttering to myself and squirming like a bitch in heat. I was letting my imagination get way, way away from me. Perikos was so good at manipulating my thoughts, my nerves, my expectations that he made it easy to just let it happen. But didn't I have to draw the line somewhere between wishful thinking, between fantasy and reality?

"Why?" Perikos asked. His tempo was slow and scorching hot. He wound more tentacles around my neck, the tips of which came to rest on top of my head.

"B-because! It's important to know the difference. How else can you function in society? How else can you be a fully functioning person capable of looking after yourself?"

"You forget, Little Shade, it is no longer your responsibility to function in human society. You are certainly fully functional, and while you have proven yourself adept at self-preservation, it is not your responsibility to look after yourself anymore. Your body is collection of nerves and electrical sensory input. I am giving your body information that gives you the physical sensation of my presence in a more concrete way, as my presence inside you is proving unsatisfactory in reassuring you of our intimacy. When we are together, when we have won and you are quite safe from external threats, I will not confuse your senses by presenting them with technically inaccurate information unless you request it. But here, in this place, I have an obligation to fulfill to you. Relax your body and let me worry about our reality."

His grip on my waist and thighs intensified and the tentacles around my neck squeezed gently.

I tried to argue, to remind him that we were equal now and that playing with my head didn't make everything okay but the tendrils on top of my head pressed me down until a smooth, thick tendril pushed past my lips.

"Shhh," Perikos cooed as he stroked my hair and pushed a few damp strands away from my face. 

I knew it wasn't real. There was nothing in my mouth, it was an entirely false sensation and I fought my way through it to try and keep talking. So strange to have the feeling of a mouthful of phallus overlaid with the empty, hollow feeling of my tongue brushing the roof of my mouth unimpeded. Then he pushed deeper, past my gag reflex, until he sat in my throat again, creating that passageway for air so I could breath even as he tricked my brain into thinking he was filling my throat.

"Please, Little Shade, I do not wish to fight you with this. I would far rather spend my efforts pleasing you than thwarting your attempts to disbelieve my caress."

I was lying partly on my side and he adjusted my legs, hooking the top one under my knee and pulling it up to my chest. A few tendrils there began to knead and squeeze and coil around my breasts. He pushed them hard against my body, till they bulged obscenely around his tendrils. He prodded and twisted my nipples, and continued to knead the meat of them as he moved. He began to mirror his attention to my breasts on the globes of my ass. 

"Do you remember the first time I filled you? Of my own volition, at least.? In the charred ruins of that old Kragosi village?"

I remembered in an instant he had taken me so hard it forced me to my knees and he rode me like an animal. I knew right then I wasn't his equal. He had me quivering to be filled even moments after he admitted he was feeding on me, that I was his only sustenance, but still I bent over at the slightest suggestion. I needed him so badly.

"I barely knew you then. Certainly I knew you were special, for I had never tasted anything like you in all my experience. I rode your arousal hard and I knew what you wanted because your body begged for it every second we shared contact. Every moment I almost held you down and fed and but did not, your disappointment was palpable. I touched your body but it was your mind and emotions that fed me. It was how I was capable of manipulating your wishes, not your real, physical body that held allure. Among my people, softness and pliability is more commonly associated with age or sickness. I assumed you were soft because humans were weak and fragile."

He continued to squeeze and pinch my ass and breasts. He tugged them hard before tightening his coils around my breasts and ribs so that my flesh spilled out over and under my tendrils. He pulled my ass cheeks apart and pressed them together and then pinched each of them at their widest part.

"I understand now, as I did not then, the allure of what nature has designed to be deliberately soft. It makes you pliable and accentuates your weaker physicality. I can feel your muscle beneath the softness and remind myself it is only me you wish to be weak for."

Four thin tendrils reached between my thighs and pulled my pussy lips open. I thought of the moisture gathered there and my mind flashed back to Brogn's boot, covered in a sheen of indecent arousal.

"Do not think about that. Do not be so foolish as to feel guilty or shameful because of Brogn. I was converting your pain to arousal and Brogn is pathetic enough to condemn what he cannot easily possess. I am here with you now, holding you open so I can thrust inside you and stroke your body from the inside out. Think of yourself prone and bound, think of my body simultaneously holding you still, lodged in your throat, rubbing you hard and holding you open for easy access. Good, Little Shade. Well done. Now I will begin to fill you up and all you need to do is relax. You cannot stop me, so just let go."

He fed his thick, blunt tip into me and gathered my hair in his tendrils and then paused as my pussy contracted around him. Suddenly I was full and he bumped against my cervix before withdrawing completely and then stretching me wide open all over again. The thought that he wasn't really there, that I only imagined he was plunging in and out of me, never occurred to me after that. The fullness, the perfection of being cuffed and caged and plundered by Perikos was too much to deny. He was purposely avoiding my clit as he slithered in and out of me, fast and hard but that was the fun of it, wasn't it? What could I do about it besides just let go and let it happen?

"Yes, Sweet Shade, yes, you understand. You bring me so much pleasure, so much pride." The tendrils coiled around my thighs and midriff tightened their hold and righted me to my knees. Perikos slammed me up against the metal wall, careful to tighten his hold on my hair and spare me the blow. He pressed my body hard against the wall and I gasped for breath around the tendril in my mouth and throat. 

He pounded into me again and again, driving my hips against the cold metal. My shoulders ached from the strain of the manacles but I didn't want Perikos to relieve that kind of discomfort. He pressed my head against the wall so my cheek was flush with the metal, and refocused his attentions on my ass and thighs. 

"Did you like it when my Second would strike you? That he reveled in your discomfort, your shame?" The tendril around my throat constricted slightly. "Would you like me to do that now? Answer honestly."

Shadow did like to slap and spank my ass and thighs and breasts, and I hated it and loved it in equal measure. I supposed that as long as Perikos was there I knew the pain would always feel good and the fear would always be tempered in mind-bending, puddle-making arousal.

I felt a small, sharp spank to my left ass cheek. Then one on my right. Then five, hard, heavy and fast right across the middle.

I squeaked into the tentacle in my mouth and Perikos stroked my hair as he drove the other one into pussy, hard enough I would have begged him to let me come if I could. I felt him grow in me, swelling in size till he'd stretched me as wide as I could stand and still he kept ploughing into me, his rhythm steady and unrelenting.

"Soon we will be free from the Loyalists and free from the Kragosi," he whispered to me. His thrusts never slowed. "I can give you what you deserve for all that you have done for me and for the Resistance. I can make you happy, Little Shade. I will keep your body occupied and your mind excited."

I thrust my hips back against him, moving my body in time to his thrusts and the tentacles coiled around me tightened their hold even more. 

"I like you in chains, Little Shade. Soon I can put you in more. Would you like that?"

I was sweaty and my limbs were taut like an overtuned piano. This was it, I could feel it boiling up inside me. Yes, some part of brain thought being Perikos' literal and figurative slave for all eternity was just about the best idea there was. Just the King's fucktoy. Hadn't I masturbated to that endlessly as a young girl? I had never imagined the king as a sightless, shapeshifting tentacled alien, but hey, I'd matured since then.

Perikos tugged gently on my hair, pulled himself all the way out and swelled his girth even more before positioning himself at my swollen entrance. He had been holding me open all the while and I'd been too in the moment to notice.

"Hold still, Little Shade. I do not want to hurt you."

But how can you? I wondered. You're not even really there...

The massive tip thrust inside of me and a keen, ecstatic pain tore through me just in time to demonstrate very clearly the inaccuracy of that thought. It left me bucking away, sweating and panting but Perikos had managed to lodge the very tip of a massive tentacle inside me.

"On the count of three I will drive it in all the way and you will realize this was what you needed all along, Jayn. Stay still now. Are you ready?"

No, I thought, still gagged and reeling from just the tip. I could feel the girth of it heavy between my thighs, its width keeping me from closing them entirely.

"One. Two. Three."

I was at once wider, happier and in more pain than I could ever remember feeling there and then a small, hard tentacle clamped down like a steel trap over my rock hard clit.

The shock waves had subsided and I lay on my side again, just like before, switching and achingly empty.

"I meant it," Perikos sang softly, his voice resonating through my chest.

"Meant it?" My head was still foggy as I grasped at cobwebs and tried to remember whatever Perikos had been talking about while I had been imagining having my brains fucked out, for want of a better term. Only on thing came to mind. "The chains?"

Perikos was silent for a moment and then I heard the light tinkle of bells. Laughter. "No, I was not referring to the chains, but if that is your preference – "

" – it isn't," I half lied.

" – then I will be happy to accommodate you. I was referring to my promise to you. You will be safe and you will be cared for because negating your worries and fulfilling your desires is the least I can do after all you have given us. And all you will continue to give us."

Before I could ask exactly what else I would continue to give, the brig door slid open and a Kragosi guard even more massive and repulsive than Brogn loomed down over me.

It grunted an awful, bathroom noise.

"It wants you to stand," Perikos told me.

Easier said than done considering my arms were still chained behind my back and I didn't have enough room to roll to my feet. I tried twice and only succeeded in whacking the crap out of my elbows before slumping against the wall again.

It mustn't have been feeling very patient because it grasped a meaty fistful of hair and yarded me upwards. After only a second the sensation shifted from agony to a heady, ticklish feeling but the second of agony was enough to spring me to my feet.

It pulled me by my hair into the awful room with the examining table again and held me still while it reached beside the table to a tray with a thick metal band on it. The guard snapped around it me neck tight enough that I had to deliberately slow my breathing to keep from freaking out.

The guard moved quickly and something under my chin snapped like the clasp of a metal buckle. He tugged twice on a thin metal cable and I realized as my stomach performed an awful little flip flop, that I'd been collared and leashed my the Kragosi before I even realized what was happening.

The guard turned, leash in hand and pulled me towards the bay doors. I felt more naked now than during my first few days at Kragosa and I began to shake uncontrollably. Something about the leash made me feel wildly vulnerable.

"Just imagine I'm holding the other end," Perikos said only to me. His tone was warm but the sentiment was obviously shallow. He was trying to cheer me up, and it might have worked if I wasn't about to be used as bate and led into a den of ravenous aliens by a group of sadistic and disgusting prison guards with a personal vendetta against me.

Brogn and three other guards loomed in front of me. The one that brought me in handed the leash to Brogn, who wound it around his wrist to shorten the lead. In his other hand he unholstered a small, snub-nosed blaster with some sort of jury-rigged mod on top. His mouth split into a jowly leer beneath his snout and he aimed right at me.

I sidestepped him without even realizing I had moved and I felt my fist close around something behind me. My arms were still chained; I had no idea what I'd grabbed. It felt hard and heavy, like some kind of resin, maybe. Brogn's eyes narrowed and I saw a small, perfect circle of light on the far wall and traced its beam back to the mod on Brogn's gun. 

"The worm has taught you some clever tricks in such a short time," Brogn said, his voice oily and measured. "If you do anything like that again, I will have my men hold you down and I will personally cut off each and every finger. You do not need your fingers to be an alien fuck slut, now do you?" He reached behind and deftly yanked the heavy stick I held in my hand and showed it to me. It was seventeen centimeter bladed sidearm that I'd somehow pulled from the guard to my right.

Brogn cuffed the guard on the side of the head and returned his knife to him. A reasonable amount of agitated grunting ensued as he and the rest of the guards outfitted themselves with various blasters, rifles and solar lights but I was still stuck in that odd second and a half between when I considered the very real possibility that Brogn was aiming to kill and when I'd managed to dodge the light and disarm the guard without even realizing what I was doing.

I felt a sharp tug on my leash and a shove from behind and we loaded the landing shuttle.

"Did you do that?" I asked Perikos wordlessly.

Radio silence. Not cool, not even a little, especially considering my circumstances. Maybe Perikos felt a massive, deal-breaking tantrum coming on, because he didn't stay quiet long.

"I am sorry for being distracted but I am busy calculating you current location based on number of changing variables – "

"Oh, for fuck's sake, don't lie to me right now." My tone sounded very unforgiving inside my own head. "Can't you see I have more important things to worry about? Look, I never made it through Union special ops training, so why don't you just try something new and give me the straight goods when I ask for them. You know, just for a change."

"Very well. I did not believe Brogn had any intention of shooting you but your fear was significant and it overwhelmed my common sense. I couldn't risk the possibility he might so I took over a moment."

The shuttle was standing room only and utterly silent. Not even grunting or gassy noises. Maybe they were almost as scared as I was.

"So you can do that now? 'Take over'? Move me around like a rag doll?" I didn't even sound as miserable about it as I thought I would. Hell, better a rag doll than Loyalist livestock, if it came to that.

"Insofar as you permit it, perhaps."

"Hmmm. Can't you also play with my head enough to make me see and feel things that aren't real? Enough to change my sensory input completely? You could probably tweak the circumstances so that I did whatever you wanted whenever you wanted it So that I ever thought whatever you wanted. Total control."

Perikos said nothing until we felt the gentle bump of shuttle landing. The bay doors to the shuttle pressurized and unlocked. 

"That would defeat the purpose of loving you."

My pulse quickened so fast I wondered if the guards could hear. I could have vibrated. It wasn't until we stepped out into the chill and absolute darkness that the gravity of plan occurred to me again. 

Brogn shortened my leash so that I was forced to stand almost flush against him. The biggest of his guards stepped in front of us, assault rifle in one hand, hand held solar floodlight in the other. The two remaining guards mimicked his posture, taking their places behind and beside us. I wasn't sure whether or not to be grateful that I was precious cargo.

We marched. The guard behind would give me a light shove every now and again if I moved too slowly. The darkness here was absolute; there were no glowing red mushrooms and the low cloud cover made even the tiniest glints of starlight invisible. Each Kragosi guard had a light but the four hostile beams boring out into the vast darkness seemed all at once too weak. Woefully inadequate, not to mention a walking advertisement of our alien nature here. 

"I am utterly amazed as to how well you function here when your primary sense organ is so crippled," Perikos told me, his tone oddly conversational. "Where I as limited as you are, I would be nearly helpless. 'Seeing' through your eyes has given me great insight."

"Not that I don't like to hear praise, but could we maybe talk about this later? I have a lot of my mind," I thought at him. I tried to look down to scan the ground as I walked but Brogn kept me on such a short lead it was all I could do to pump my legs fast enough to keep up with them under the heavy gravity. Judging by the amount of grunting going on around me, at least they were feeling the strain too.

Ten minutes on we came to a wide river, or at least I assumed it was a wide river, judging by the sound of it. I had no idea exactly why Brogn or the Loyalists thought it prudent for us to hike across a great expanse of planet before getting to the drop point, or why exactly we were standing gormlessly around the fast-moving river when I knew all Kragosi ships were outfitted with global navigation devices.

The guard in front of us turned and I could only suppose he was telling the Warden something he didn't like, because soon Brogn and the two other guards were squealing and snorting in a sort of half-tone that sounded like a stage whisper.