Everfall II

 

 

Two girls, both of them about nineteen, sat at the local cafe. The radio was playing in the background, creating an atmosphere of almost comforting familiarity. A short-haired, blonde woman of about forty was tending to the bar. She pretended not to hear what the two were talking about.

 

“Can you contact her?”, asked the shorter one. She wore her blond hair in a bob, a black t-shirt with some funny writing on it, and a miniskirt.

 

The other girl shook her head. She was miniskirted as well, a bit taller, had jet-black hair she wore in a short pigtail.

 

“Damn it”, swore the shorter, “I told her not to go there. She's probably...”

 

“There she is”, remarked the taller grimly, “They've sent a picture.”

 

She presented the mobile phone to the shorter. The shorter swore under her breath.

 

“Damn it.”

 

The woman started to ostensibly wipe the countertop. Still pretending she's not listening.

 

The picture presented a girl of their age, a long-haired blonde, bound frontally to an idol. She was naked and bound in such a way that she appeared to be locked in a passionate embrace with the idol, her arms and legs wrapped around it. This position was called an “Embrace of Kamadora” and was one of the favorite methods of punishment used by those who worshipped her Dark side. The blonde girl's expression was one of terror.

 

At least we know that they're there, and that she's there. Should we go after her?”, asked the shorter.

 

The taller shook her head.

 

“That's what they want us to do. Unless you want to get caught naked and stripped.”

 

The girls were actually sisters. They were also lovers since they turned thirteen. The girl on the picture was their partner in kainian, which was a Meirennian word for a relationship composed by two people related by blood (usually sisters) and a third one, not a kin.

 

The shorter smiled.

 

“It would not be the first time we were.”

 

She laid her hand on her sisters arm and leaned down do her.

 

They kissed.

 

The woman at the bar kept wiping it with even greater determination.

 

The music kept on playing.

*

 

Did it already happen to you?”, asked Jim.

 

Many times”, his mother stood up, “The last time when I told you I went to fortuneteller.”

 

Jim remembered. His mother went to have her fortune told by some charlatan. She returned dissheveled and didn't want to talk about the visit.

 

“Actually, I was snooping around the house of the fortuneteller who was in fact a witch devoted to the Dark side... I will tell you more about those things later on. Anyway, I was caught snooping, ushered into the house, stripped naked, stretched out on a couch and rather humiliatingly spanked.”

 

She smiled.

 

“The next time I go snooping anywhere I'm taking you with me. In case of being caught we'll get stripped together. “

 

As she saw the shock growing in the eyes of the lad, she added:

 

Meirenn or even its outskirts are not the place where you could preserve your dignity for long... Prepare yourself to become relieved of your clothing. And to see me relieved of them as well.”

 

Jim looked at his mother. Slim, busty, definitely not looking her age – he was trying hard to imagine her forcibly undressed by the woman who just visited them. He couldn't believe what he heard – it was almost an erotic fantasy came true.

 

He imagined himself in bed with her – the thought that just a moment ago was forbidden, until he found himself in a place where nothing was forbidden.

 

Daliah looked at him knowingly.

 

Perhaps you should take a walk after all.”, she said.

 

*

 

Adria never liked her name. It was so, she'd say, cheap. Also, she hated being barmaid in this bloody, run-down diner. That is, she hated her cover.

 

Everyone in Everfall was someone else than he or she pretended to be. The entre town was a cover. A haven for the exiles from Meirenn. Adria happened to belong to the Minor Priesthood and was long at the trail of the Darksider temple at the edge of the town.

 

It began with the kids. A groip of ordinary teenagers (one of the few that still resided in the town before the Diaspora claimed it) went to celebrate the Halloween in the abandoned house on the outskirts of the town. Of the group of five only two returned,a boy and a girl, naked and scared. They were mumbling something about a strange cult and a portal to another world, where there was daylight in the middle of the night. Police tried to investigate. The cops (of both sexes) have vanished, leaving only their uniforms behind. Eventually the case was dropped. It might have to do with the last “ordinary” people leaving Everfall, and with the members of Diaspora surrounding the place with a supernatural haze. It was no longer that easy to find your way in. But it was still easy to find your way out.

 

Adria was sent to investigate on the behalf of the Lesser Clergy, along with her teenage son and lover, Brian (alias Iain). What she found only confirmed her susupcions. The home was a portal to Meirenn, to the lands under the sway of the Darkside. And not only that. It was a source of corruption that would spread even further, beyond Everfall, with ordinary men and women, and teenage kids deemed old enough, being kidnapped and sent through the portal to serve the perverse clergy of Darkside.

 

The girls have left. Instead, two boys went in. One was about eighteen and seemed lost. An outsider. Adria took a closer look at him. He had the noble, beautiful features of a Meirennian. Perhaps one of those who are sheltered from the reality of Meirenn by their mothers. There was a neologism for it – Tankanaian, the “overly stretched rope”. They usually experieced a deep desire for their mothers that they've deeply repressed. In Meirenn, such dalliances were deemed normal, if only fleeting – in some cases – but nevertheless deeply satisfying. It was not until they found their mothers naked in the hands of the other members of Diaspora that their repressed urges exploded. Mother-son couples who started this way were usually even more passionate than those that started slowly and deliberately.

 

That is not to say that there was a lack of passion between her and Brian.

 

The other boy was newcomer's age. It was Brian.

 

Remember the Ianitan... I mean Janice?”, she corrected herself, squinting at the outsider.

 

Brian nodded.

 

She embraced Kamadora in the haunted house”, Daliah said carefully, “I'm going there tonight.”

 

No, you're not. The risk is too high.”

 

They became silent for a moment, careful not to spill to much words in the presence of the outsider.

 

Janice was in -  kainian – with Bradford sisters?”

 

Daliah nodded.

 

“And how was your day?”, she asked him.

 

Her son nodded at the newcomer.

 

“Not when he's watching. I don't like him anyway.”

 

Do you think we should...”

 

Brian nodded. A wicked smile appeared in his mother's eye. She liked this part of the game.

 

She and her son would have the newcomer stripped and tied up for the interrogation. He sure had a great body that Adria would play with. It would have been even more interesting if he had company, male or female, that they would lure for the pleasure of tormenting them,..

 

… but then the boy just turned around and left.

What a shame.

 

*

 

“Focus, Mainian”, the pigtailed girl told her sister, “Do you sense her? Do you know where she is?”

 

The short-haired blonde looked like she was about to burst into tears.

 

She's terrified. She's naked and in pain. But she's also... Oh”, she shook her head.

 

Oddly excited”, her sister finished for her.

 

They were on the road leading through the pine forest. The Darksiders house was not yet visible but they could sense it, sending waves of malice through the area. The sensation was one of horror mixed with allure; a promise of something both terrifying and pervertedly blissful. It was known that in the presence of the great sources of Darkside the victims would strip naked of their own volition, and pledge themselves as slaves for the pleasure of their own debasement.

 

But the two sisters were trained to resist such urges.

 

The corruption had to stop. And their lover rescued.