Dark Places

It had begun with laughter and tears.  It would end in screaming and death.  Between was a ritual that changed lives.

Pale skin, bloodied in places and slick with sweat and tears, gleamed against the rough basalt that formed the walls of the deeper parts of the castle.  Twin heartbeats thundered in the quiet of the castle’s depths, listening for heavy footfall or thunderous cries of rage.  Soft, lightly curved bosoms heaved as breath was drawn to cool burning muscles and expel fright and worry.  Bright eyes of glowing opal in triune rings flicked this way and that or gazed at the wall across from their owners.

Upon first glance one would have believed them carved from the same pale stone, the glossy cream of opal quarried in its purest form, given hair of sculpted mother-of-pearl and eyes of the more vibrant greater opal, filled with strange fire.  A momentary study would give the viewer time to see the minute differences in the twin beauties.  While their hair was knee length and the same leaden color touched with pink and blue iridescence, one was held in a thick, wavy pony-tail by a ring of silver while her sister’s was a thick braid that she gathered to her lap.  The braid-wearer was delicate seeming, possessed of an ethereal, fulsome beauty that epitomized the gentle pursuits of young ladies of good breeding.  Her sister was only slightly fuller of face, a touch more firmly muscled, evidence of following the pursuits of many tomboys over the centuries.  

The twins (for they could be nothing else) rested for the few scant moments they could.  Soon they knew they would have to run again or be caught.  The sidhe beauty with the pony’s tail glanced quickly around the corner, seeking signs of pursuit; the roar that resounded through the darkened hallways almost set her companion to her heels once more, but a gentle hand halted her flight.  “No – he is not near yet.”  The light touch relaxed the other far more than the words did, and Illumina slumped to sit with her back against the wall, releasing her sister’s arm.  Her gaze slid down as her body did and she caught the swath of crimson that still decorated her sister’s inner thigh.  

Illumina looked away, but not from embarrassment at the unbidden sight; the white flesh of the sidhe had more allure than that, and the tracery of blood did not make her sister less appealing for all that it meant had happened.  It was sidhe flesh and blood that had begun it all and it would undoubtedly be sidhe flesh and blood that ended it – though there would be goblin flesh involved in the last.  Her own blood and sweat stained her skin as well and Illiara did not care as she gently wrapped her hands about Illumina’s arm.  

“He means to kill us now,” she said softly, regret tingeing her soft voice.  It was punctuated with another roar of agony and rage, further if one believed the echoes of the halls.  Neither young sidhe was as foolish as that.  “There will be nothing more to it than our blood upon the floor.”  Illiara shook her head, the delicate silver chain that hung upon her forehead sending flashes of bright gold and rainbows flickering from the diamonds and curlicues that adorned it.  Her earrings were also a mixture of such beauty, as random and as beautiful as her sister’s platinum and moonstone earrings and head-chain décor was organized and lovely.  

Speaking softly, Illumina looked at the dark stone opposite she and her sister.  “No.”  Illiara looked at her, hope springing in her eyes as she believed that Illumina would find them their way out of this terrible debacle.  But the firm, unyielding expression her sister wore instead chilled her more deeply.  With utter sincerity the young warrior spoke even more softly, her words punctuated by their accursed brother’s roar.  “He means to have his way with us, and then kill us.”

Illiara cast her mind back to how this horror had begun, and found she could not disagree….

~~~~~

Their coming of age ceremony had given them power; it was both undeniable and wonderful.  Only a scant year before, they had come together to grant one another power in full, as was their birthright, and they had changed from lesser sidhe children to true sidhe adults, with the immortality and the turmoil that would bring.  They had done so without warfare or sexual union, though the second was not true only by flesh and blood.  It had not been too long before Illumina’s hand of power had manifested, and Illiara’s had followed soon after.

As so many other things in so many other ways, their hands of power did not seem to perfectly match their natures.  Illumina’s talents for ritual and controlled magical workings did not suit her vivacious, wild ways; her hand of power was a thing of wonder and glory turned upon itself until the victim was burned alive in their own magics and power.  Her lovely sister, demure and gentle, was a keeper of wild magics, able to draw forth power from the abundance of natural magics in the world.  Her hand was a dreadful thing, a wasting power that set disease and consumption upon the victim of her touch, devouring them alive with a host of potent and virulent mystical illnesses.  While they grew into other, lesser powers, these odd exchanges of supposed nature seemed to be the norm for the twins; it was the wielder of the dreadful Hand of Hydra, Illiara, who could grant fae blessings, while the holder of the Hand of Glory could bestow terrible curses.

Illumina preferred the idea that their magics had mixed so well in the ritual they were as one person might be, while Illiara quietly kept the opinion that the addition of her wild magics had confused the powers they were meant to carry.  They did not fight over this difference of opinion; the sisters never fought at all and such a trifling matter as this was to them meant nothing compared to the one other discovery the ritual had given to them.

The family they were born into lived on a remote world, far from court and politics; it was remote in one other way, for while there were some fae upon Erinna the only sidhe aside from themselves were their remote and aloof parents and their cruel, handsome half brother.  When they were young they had sought surrogates and replacements for the lack of parental attention they had found themselves mired in.  The fae that served their house, while lesser, fulfilled some need, but only their brother provided any true measure of touch that the sisters needed.  When they had discovered – individually – that their brother possessed a hatred of their mixed blood that was enduring and cruel as the storms of their wind and water ravaged home-world, the need for the touch of fae had been forcibly weaned from them with their brother’s cruel and malicious torments.  

So when they had discovered what the touch of glowing, pale flesh truly held for them after their shared ritual awakening to power, they were forced to seek it in each others arms.  Yet they could not consummate any such union; not merely because it was forbidden or illicit – such words held little meaning to the twins when applied towards each other – but because the curse their father had laid over them and their brother Branndwyn required their virginity remain intact so that they could not do one another or their depraved, hateful brother harm.  So they soothed one another and found solace in as many ways as they could.  Yet it was never quite enough.

When Illiara had broken down into tears at the need to fill the emptiness within her body, despite her sister’s loving touch and warm body against hers, Illumina took the matter to heart and sought their father.  It was not long before midnight only a week later that she called Illiara to her room with a softly whispered word upon the breezes that moved through the castle.  

Illumina’s room was a work of art, a carefully sculpted maze of silver and crystal that lent itself to the fancy of the imaginative.  There were no columns or spires in the room; instead she had instructed the masons and enchanters to construct splashes of silver and frothing waves of crystal throughout her rooms.  The blue-white marble added even more to the illusion of being trapped within a cavern of ice being filled with water and mercury.  The maze-like construction of her rooms further gave an air of the fantastic to the rooms, and thick pelts of white fur lay upon the floor, with pillows of light blue silk here and there.  A classic fainting couch – large enough to seat an ogress – rested against one wall while a fountain played softly across the room from it, hidden by the curve of her living spaces.  In the year since the twins had become truly sidhe, she had changed her room as much as Illiara had changed hers.  

The liquid motif of the room always brought to mind their Asrai ancestry, their mother’s sidhe father and Asrai mother had borne strange fruit in their grandchildren.  It was one of the things that their brother hated so much, that their sidhe blood was contaminated by that of a delicate and beautiful water sprite.  That blood gave the twin girls much of their exotic beauty, and while Illiara still strove to please her brother in small things, much as she hated to admit it to herself, Illumina had purposefully thrown the truth into his teeth with her choice in décor.  

In some small way it shamed her that she still sought Brann’s approval despite all the hate and cruelty he’d shown her.  She still loved him, still hated him, but with the advent of their coming into power, he had not dared approach them as he had before for some months.  If point of fact, he’d strictly avoided them, partly because their new found power was uncontrolled and could not be trusted to behave itself under stress and partly because it was a torment of sorts to not allow them the touch of shining skin to their own, particularly in Illiara’s case.  It kept her in mind of the secret she had kept from her sister for far too long, the one secret she could not stand to have her sister know.  Then the visitations had returned; with greater depths of pain and humiliation than before now that they healed as their brother did, and could withstand greater harm than once was possible.  

Drawing her thoughts from such dark and gloomy subjects Illiara hunted for her sister in the beautiful maze of her sister’s living space.  A glimpse of pale skin and mother of pearl in the bend of light provided by one of the liquid-like crystal falls showed her sister lying amid the pillows on one of the fur rugs.  Rounding the corner of the crystal fall, hand sliding along a silver splash, she felt her heart flutter in anticipation, though she knew there would be no true fulfillment in their gentle play.  

Illumina was lying on the thick white fur, her milky skin almost translucent, as she lounged languidly among her pillows.  Her small, firm breasts moved slowly as she breathed; she seemed almost asleep.  One delicate hand rested below her naked breasts, the other was casually flung across a sapphire pillow.  One knee was raised, and hid from view the bare places between her legs, while revealing the perfect curve of her derrière as the other leg was stretched long through the thick fur.   The delicate silver cuffs that held a platinum chain along the outer edge of one ear shown in the brightness of her room, and it was only when she turned to look upon her sister that Illiara saw the bright platinum and sunstones that decorated her other ear in delicate balls through the cup of ear, the sensitive lobe, the painful tragus piercing.  They formed the Seven Sister’s perfectly, and moonstones and platinum dangled from the chain hung between the loops pierced to her temples above her ears.  Illumina’s hair was drawn back in the manner of a pony tail, and without seeing it Illiara knew there would be a single thick ring of beaten silver holding it so.

The more delicate young woman spoke softly.  “I have never seen you look as you do now; I would dare even our father’s curse to bring light to your skin and fire to your eyes.”  It was, at that moment, truth.  Illiara could no more lie to her sister than she could lie to herself and the compliment – part of a game they had played for years now – was not merely flattering.  Illiara needed to feel true flesh into flesh, needed to be held completely and fully by another’s body, find release that the curse denied her and her sister both.  Their father had been twice a fool to word the curse as he had; it had not fully protected his daughters from their brother and it denied them the blessing of sidhe flesh as well.

“You will not need to dare that curse; I have found a way to give you that gift and to enjoy it.”  Illumina’s soft words were gentle and they brought Illiara’s heart beating quickly to her throat.  It had always been this way: Illumina always gave Illiara not what she wanted or what she desired, but what she needed.  The rings of white opal with delicate flares of red and blue and green, fiery bands of blue and green, and the soft, moving wash of grey opal with it’s flares of opal-fire that surrounded her starburst pupils looked upon her sister with love and more than love.

The twins had long since learned that to traipse about the halls of the castle unclothed or too lightly clothed was an invitation to disaster, but they enjoyed being beautiful.  The growth of their power had also made them more bold than they once had been as well, and their choices in dress reflected that.  So Illiara was dressed as her sister was not, but it was far more revealing than it had been in past years.

The nearly crimson colored tunic she wore shimmered, nearly translucent in the white light that lit the grotto of her sister’s rooms.  Despite its translucence one could never catch more than a hint of breast, the possibility of navel, or the shadow of the line of her sex.  The tunic ended just below Illiara’s hips; from there short, delicate chains of white metal hung, each bearing a golden sheen, a skirt of shimmering sounds and discreet revelation of her shapely thighs.  Bracelets and anklets of similar metal adorned her wrists and ankles, and she met the heat it brought to her sister’s gaze with an understanding that another might have denied.

Bare footed, for their Asrai blood kept them from fearing the cold, she slowly walked to her sister as her sister rose to greet her.  Delicate hands met, clasped as Illumina’s body moved along Illiara’s, breasts meeting as their lips did.  The almost electrical frisson of kissing her twin was accompanied by the warm heat of sidhe flesh, and it almost immediately brought potency to the shine of their skins.  The touch of light to Illumina’s skin held a faint green-ness to it, the luminosity of radium or sea foam in moonlight.  Illiara’s skin held a nacreous glow, pearlescence that revealed what her tunic-dress had hidden before.  

The kiss deepened, slowly, becoming more than a sisterly kiss.  Illiara’s heart sped up, and she felt the thunder of her sister’s heart against her breast do the same.  Slowly breaking the kiss, Illumina’s mouth traveled down, along her neck, causing her to lift her face up to gaze at the ceiling with its fantastic whorls and shapes of icy marble, shining silver, and crystalline glass.  The heat of her sister’s kisses along her throat stole her breath away and as those soft lips caressed her throat, gently hands traced the tendons of wrist and the smooth muscle of arms.  

Illumina slowly brought her sister’s arms down, and once more their fingers became laced together as she murmured softly, “It has been too long.”  Illiara flushed, shame and guilt washing hot blood to her cheeks, ears and breasts.  A fortnight and half again she had denied herself her sister’s touch, unable to stand the lack of fulfillment in her arms.  But she had been given sidhe flesh to touch, to take a tiny measure of comfort in though it was tainted by humiliation, pain and hate.  Her brother words came back to haunt her now, as they had not when he’d first spoken them with his hands along her breasts and his silk-covered length pressed between her legs.  

“She will not glow for me, not as you do….all she can do for me is bleed.”  Tears came unbidden to her eyes, as she slowly embraced her sister, though she did not sob.  Always she looked for faint touches of love in her brother’s deeds and words, only to find them now, as always, tainted by the most bitter of poisons.  She had wanted him to mean that he no longer sought her sister to take his terrible pleasures in; she was not truly jealous because his pleasures were cruel and heartless, but she had hoped he would not harm Illumina.  Instead he had caused her to harm Illumina, giving her the warm touch of his flesh even as she denied her sister any such succor.  

Illiara started to open her mouth, to ask for forgiveness, and tell her sister of what a fool she had been to deny Illumina these forbidden pleasures, but gentle fingers moved to stop her from speaking.  “No, heart-of-me, no….tonight I will give you the release you need, though it will not be the release I wish to give you.  ‘So long as by no man nor woman their maidenheads be riven’, our father said to me, ‘the twins shall be guarded by the goblins curse.’  So by no man or woman shall your maidenhead be lost.”  Her eyes shimmered, laughter within them and the faint glow of her skin and the warmth of her body chasing the shame – though not the guilt – from Illiara’s mind.  Her sister would know: there could be no denying that they would each have been visited by hateful Branndwyn, his torments visited upon each of them in private terror and shame.  

“I do not deserve such kindness,” said Illiara, her head bowing and her tears slipping along her cheeks.  

“No….you deserve far more, and would that I could give it all to you.”  Illumina lifted her twin’s head, sought the mirror of her self and kissed her, sharing in the tears as some fell from her own glowing eyes.  When she broke the kiss she spoke softly.  “But I will give you what can be given, and it will ease at least those aches which are mine to heal in you.”  Illumina kissed Illiara again, sliding the dress up her body, letting the chains caress her twin’s body as she removed it. 

Letting fall the beautiful dress to the edge of the soft furs they stood upon, Illumina’s hands slid along the soft, svelte curves of Illiara’s body.  “So beautiful,” she whispered softly as she cupped the small, firm breasts of her sibling.  She did not refer to the warm orbs she now caressed or the delicate grey flesh of her nipples as she teased them into further hardness, but of her sister in whole did she speak.  She had long known her sister was the more beautiful between them and while there was no envy there was a large measure of appreciation in her words.  “Like the living sculpture crafted by the long dead human, you are opal and mother-of-pearl brought to life.  But no hands save the Goddess’ could have carved thee to such perfection.”  

Illiara flushed and her hands found Illumina’s hips, brought them closer.  “Fie on thee for saying such things.”  But there was no real reprimand to her voice.  There was no reason for the compliments they gave one another, except a game they had been playing since they were much younger to pretend how they would ply other sidhe with compliments.  They had been naked together on many occasions.  Illiara’s thoughts were derailed as soft, warm lips slowly encircled her nipple, kissed and suckled it with the gentleness Illiara had come to desire more with each passing day she had been without.  

Illumina rained kisses, sweet tastings, and gentle bites upon breasts, throat, and ears.  Illiara responded eagerly, pressing her hands tightly into the smooth curves of her sister’s derrière, nails biting in deep enough to bruise.  Illumina made a soft, pleased noise and gently bit her sister’s nipple harder, making Illiara squirm and press her sex along the hard thigh between her legs.  Slowly they sank to the fur, Illiara rubbing her body along her sister even as she was ravenously kissed and licked and bitten with tender love.  

Finally she pushed her twin away.  “I can take no more, Illumina….fall upon me and take me and curse be damned, or torment me no more.”  Despite her desperate plea Illumina only smiled and slipped a hand behind Illiara’s neck, drawing her close in a manner at once tender and forceful, using her own sidhe strength and the pleasure that Illiara took in the firm treatment to force her twin to meld their bodies together.  She pressed her leg to those places between her lovely mirror’s legs, rubbing slowly, knowing soon she would have to stop as the curse began to strain under their near-loveplay.  

Smiling, Illumina snapped her fingers.  Illiara was confused until a strange beast stalked from around the curve of a hallway and gazed at the entwined sisters.  At first glance it had the aspect of a dog, but the smooth muzzle and sharp teeth were far more draconian; faint scales shone there, white edges with iridescence of blue and red.  Likewise its legs were similarly scaled past the bends of its knees; otherwise thick white fur it had, deep and warm and silky.  The tail had a single stripe of fur along the length of it and ended in a tuft, but scales took most of it.  Its splayed claws were more similar to those of birds or lizards and it was clearly a creature meant to hunt.  

A jolt of pleasure rocked Illiara as her sister caressed her nether lips, but that same jolt of pleasure was accompanied by the tightening of the spell-woven curse that protected their lives and bodies from the most intimate of their brother’s desires.  They had quickly learned only momentary touches of each other could occur in this manner.  Illiara knew what the final result could be, but she had never shared that secret shame with her sister.   Illumina, much to her twin’s embarrassment and shock, held those moistened fingers out to the beast, which sniffed and then began licking with long, slender tongue the nectar it found there.

“I found a servant, one of the humans, enjoying his attentions.  I asked her to explain it to me, and she had him perform in every way for my education.”  Illumina drew her hand lower and closer to her sister’s back.  “I gave her three pieces of silver, and a kiss, and she will not speak of our meeting to any.  But this lovely hunter I brought here, and made him mine in all ways save the ones I shall make him yours first.”  Her fingers slipped between the soft, firm globes of Illiara’s derrière and she stiffened, as the beast moved behind her.  

Glowing eyes of three opals shifted and glowed, sparks of red, green and blue shifting and melting throughout the sidhe’s tripartite eyes in her pleasure and fear.  “But what do you mean him to….OH!”  The cool nose slipped past Illumina’s fingers, pressed along her tight rear entrance so that the long hot flame of the beast’s tongue slid between her nether lips and stoked the fires there that had begun to fade.

“Not with man or with woman, so by beast you will have your pleasures,” Illumina murmured in her sister’s ear, pressing her breasts to those of her twin as she caressed and fed upon the touch of another sidhe, just as her sister did her own.  “He will bring you as I may not, while you lie above me and are held by glowing flesh and the power that has always been yours to command.”  Illumina kissed her sister even as Illiara leaned forward, her sister’s words and the passion they had built between them urging her to allow this act of love to continue.  The seelie and the unseelie alike had not been above taking their pleasures with creatures of wild or magic before – Lady Jessamyn’s father had been a wyrm, and the Darkness was a son of the Wild Hunt.

Illiara forced a kiss from her twin as the beast slid hot flame along her nether lips and the crease of her derrière, a slender, swift tongue seeking the nectar that formed there.  She shook with each caress of that length of moist flesh, and Illumina’s hands slid along her back, squeezed lightly, dug nails in when her sister made noises of pleasure.  The nacreous glow increased, became warm and shining as her sister was pleasured by the creature.  Illumina broke the kiss and pulled her sister down, sliding between her legs to lie beneath Illiara.  The heavy braid of her sister’s hair caressed her cheek and she grabbed it, used it to pull her sister closer still.

Obedient to her twin’s urgings, Illiara lowered herself, slid her glowing breasts against her sister’s softly shining ones.  “I would have him bring you another way, ‘Li,” Illumina said softly, almost shyly.  Illiara smiled and buried her hands in her sister’s thick hair, realizing at once it was as close to a request as she would receive.  She jerked as the tongue slid more closely, her new position giving the beast access to her in a more intimate manner.  “AH!  Y….yes, Illumina,” she whispered and she kissed her sister once more, one hand clutching her back, knowing there might be pain at first.  Not pain as it could have been, for her secret would be revealed when she did not bleed as she should. 

The thought made her hesitate and her glow dimmed a little, and she pulled away to speak….Illumina slid her finger along the soft lips of her glowing sister, her eyes full of love and knowledge.  Illiara’s eye shown with tears and she gave herself wholly to her sister’s desire.  

She trembled as the beast’s work became more urgent, the hot ribbon of flesh sliding between her petals and along the risen jewel they hid until she was incapable of little more than gasping moans.  Illumina spoke a word and there was fur along her back, along her sides, as the beast moved over her, its forelegs clutching her thighs and the strong muscles of his legs covering her derrière.  Illumina’s fingers moved under her, caressing her slit carefully while she took the thick, warm, slick member and guided its pistoning length to the entrance of her twin’s body.  

Their eyes locked, met, shimmering bursts of eldritch fire rising and dissolving in the white and grey of their irises, while the mid-line between was a furnace of green and blue fire that lit their pale faces with alien fire.  Illumina mouthed the words alone, and Illiara opened her mouth to speak when she was pierced in full, the beast taking her fast and hard as she collapsed onto her sister and was held and kissed and murmured to with sweet love.  Hard and thick the creature filled her completely, her body aching with the size of it and further with the rapidity of its assault.  The pain only brought her greater pleasure and Illumina’s eyes grew wider with the knowledge.  

With the gasping, quick breaths of her twin in her ears and against her neck, Illumina slipped a hand between them and dug her nails into the soft, willing flesh of her sister, while her other hand clawed the soft skin of Illiara’s hip just as deeply, until tiny crimson rivers started to form.  Illiara cried out her pleasure at the deep, hard assault of the beast, warm fur and thick member sliding across and into skin while her sister gave her tiny cuts to further her pleasure.  They kissed, and then a thought strayed into her mind.  As if knowing, Illumina grabbed her hair and held it tight as the beast forced her to take harder and faster thrusts.

“If so, we shall keep her, and hold her to us in safety and love, as we should have been….she will be ours to cherish….”  Illiara’s heart burst with love and then the shock of pleasure pain as the knot of the beast expanded inside her, locking them together as her sister had locked them together with the promise that only a lover could make.  Illiara screamed, her glow erupting over Illumina and her hands and body burning into her sister’s body with pleasure and pain, making her scream as well, not without some pain but more in the shared pleasure of her climax.

Slowly, very slowly, Illiara came back to herself, collapsed upon her sister who whispered soft lullabies of love and affection in her ear.  The beast had broken from her already and a dull heat deep within told her she had been given a surfeit of sidhe flesh and finally achieved pleasure in the act of love by her sister’s will.  “I love you as well, Illumina,” she whispered softly.  

“And so now you are finally mine,” the deep, rich voice of their brother came from behind them.  Illiara rolled from her sister even as Illumina sat up, eyes blazing with a fury that could not eclipse Branndwyn’s hate.  His eyes looked upon his sisters, seeing the wetness and spill of seed there, while the beast hissed menacingly at him.  “Now I may finally give you what you truly desired all these years Illiara….again….”

Panic killed Illiara’s glow quickly, and she glanced fearfully at Illumina.  “No Brann, please don’t….”  He sneered and Illumina slowly maneuvered to put herself between Brann and Illiara.  “No, please….”

Brann laughed.  “What, you never told your sister that I took you, put my prick deep into you that night when you were eleven?  Did it mean that much to you, to have your brother inside your virgin cunt?”  Illiara choked on her sobs, and Illumina’s eyes narrowed.  “The price was not worth it….you were not even sidhe, and I had to take a goblin’s pleasure with goblin’s flesh to pay penance and take my rightful form!”  He was screaming at them, his hands clenched in anger.  

“You can’t take her Branndwyn,” Illumina said flatly and loudly.  “No man or woman lay with her, but a beast, and the curse still stands over us both!”  Illiara could not believe her ears.  Despite the awful truth, the loss of her virginity at the hands of their half-brother, Illumina was still protecting her – more than protecting her, for before neither had dared his wrath standing before him so.  “Take either of us, do either of us real harm, and you’ll once again be reduced to the twisted thing you’d been when you took my sister’s flower from her by force.”  

Illiara’s head was reeling.  The howls that had erupted that night, driving her brother-turned goblin from the stairwell, had been Illumina.  Illumina had known her shameful secret, kept it in her heart, for so long, and had never once turned away or done anything but love her.  Illiara spoke up finally, breaking her silence.  “Leave us be Brann, you have no right to be here or touch us.”  

He laughed at them, laughed his mocking, hateful laughter.  “Oh, so you are not jealous of your sister then Illumina?  Did you want what I’d had, for yourself?”  The shimmering opaline eyes narrowed.  “Do you think she would feel the same if she knew about you?”  The opal eyes blazed open and power flooded the room, but it was constrained, the tension of the curse making all three aware of the dangerous ground they tread.  

“Illu….?”  Illiara asked softly, her hands slowly caressing her sister’s shoulder, drawing the power from the air, saving her sister from the wrath that threatened to consume her.  

“Oh, you didn’t know either Illiara?”  Brann’s mocking voice hung over them as he toyed with a long silvery whip.  

“Goddess knows I do not love you Brann, but for my sister’s sake I beseech you – do not speak of it.  And for her love for you, given as I can never give you love, I tell you three times this is truth: the curse lies unbroken, and you will bring doom upon yourself should you harm us.”  Illiara’s heart surged, overflowing with wonder at her sister’s forgiveness, her willingness to sacrifice revenge for her Illiara’s protection and even to protect their brother – though for Illiara’s sake and not her own.  But Illumina saw it in his eyes.  The madness there was full, and no hope remained for succor from what would follow.  “Brann, please –“ 

“SILENCE WENCH!” he roared and the lash struck Illumina across her belly.  The sidhe grimaced and then screamed, rolling onto her side and curling over as the wound burned like fire.  Illiara cried out and grasped her sister, looking at the red mark seared into her flesh by the pain-lash.  “Oh, you still seek her side?  Did you not know, she was my first choice?  You are only second best, Illiara, for she rejected me, after I’d taken her as I wished.”  

Illiara blinked back tears, her eyes widening with understanding.  She looked at her sister, and felt a hot stab of jealousy….that quickly died as she saw the look on Illumina’s pain wracked face.  The last piece of the puzzle was thrust into her heart, as she now understood why her sister had hated Branndwyn so much after their ninth year, why she had never given in easily to her brother as Illiara had so often, for Illi’s love of him was there, faint and shameful.  Illiara looked at Branndwyn and her tears spilled, her love finally dying inside as she realized how much he had hurt Illumina.  

Branndwyn laughed and lashed her with the pain-lash and she screamed, writhing in agony as he lashed at her twice more, across her bare back and her legs, the fire of it eating into her flesh.  She barely heard Illu’s scream of rage or the screams of agony that followed as her sister was lashed again and again by the evil weapon.  Illiara slowly rolled over to see Branndwyn lashing her beloved sister’s back, her thighs, her derrière with the pain-whip, leaving her red and nearly raw, but never would the injury be enough to do any true harm.  Illumina barely quivered with each new blow, her breath hoarse gasps for air as the pain drove all thought away. 

“Branndwyn….” Illiara said softly, standing up, naked and vulnerable.  The sight of her caused the sidhe warrior to hesitate, to pause in his cruel work.  He lifted the lash and she leaned back, her hands up over her head, her ankles one in front of the other, as if she were suspended.  Her small breasts jutted, and the mark of one lash shimmered, red across the pale skin of breast and belly.  She shivered in terror and closed her eyes as he moved towards her, grabbing the bracelets about her wrists and rubbing the handle of the whip along her slick, warm nether lips.

With a delicate whimper Illiara pressed her thighs together, and the handle of the lash left her nether places only so he could slap her, hard enough to bruise, not hard enough to injure.  Her tears fell like rain, and she spread her legs, reluctantly.  Yet she wanted him, wanted his….fingers reached between her legs, probed deeply and roughly her slick, heated sex, rubbed her tender jewel brusquely.  “Such the slut you are, sweet sister, fucked by an animal and still wanting more.”  Illiara’s mind flashed with the thought that he was the only animal here, but she bit her lip, whimpering fearfully as her brother slid three fingers inside her, stretching her painfully.  

“Please don’t Brann,” she whispered softly, only to have her breasts slapped with the pain lash.  Fire ate along them, her nipples two white hot points of raw agony as she screamed.  

Her body tensed and her brother laughed.  “So that’s how to make you tight and writhe like a dog in heat,” he murmured into her ear.  He turned her around and pinned her against the wall.  She heard tearing cloth and she breathlessly cried, knowing that this was finally the end.  “I’ll need you to hold this for me,” he said, and he ran the butt of the pain lash along her back, and she quivered, not wanting to touch the device used to torture her sister into unconsciousness.  

She shook as his hand tightened over her wrists and then she screamed as her half-brother thrust most of the handle of the whip deep into her backside, tearing tender flesh and filling her with an obscenity.  She was still sobbing as he bit her ear hard enough to make her bleed, and she felt his warm, silky length rubbing along her nether lips.  His cruel whisper was nothing more than hate, “I’ve always wanted you,” he said, just before he plunged into her, his manhood almost too big for her to take fully.  She screamed, knowing it wasn’t true, hating him for making it sound true, and knowing that in the end she might believe him again.

He took her, brutally, his other hand using the whip inside her back passage, raping her with pleasure.  She felt her body respond, knew the warm glow that started was because she wanted to believe he loved her.  Then he whispered softly, “I’ll kill her, and keep you as a toy, forever.”  Her glow died even as he thrust himself deep again, and all that she felt for him, pity, love, hate, died.  She only needed him dead, to protect her sister.  

Then he was gone, and she was flung sideways as he was torn from her back.  She screamed as the whip’s handle was yanked half way out of her derrière by the sudden movement, and she collapsed on the ground to the sound of shattering crystal and bending metal.  Illumina stood swaying in front of her, blood dripping from her mouth and her hands, eyes dark and powerful.  “On your own head be it then, brother,” she whispered and suddenly the power of the curse was chokingly present, the bonds of it tight and deadly….and then they were gone and a freedom Illiara and Illumina had never known descended upon them both.  

Illumina knelt next to her sister as Branndwyn lay among the shattered remnants of one of her sculptures.  “We must run, beloved,” she murmured, her sweet voice broken and hoarse from her screams.  Reaching down she laid her fingers upon the whip, and then bit her lip, hating to do it, but knowing she had no choice.  Slowly she pulled the bloody end of the whip from her sister, her hand clenched within both of Illumina’s.  Illiara bit back a scream and then was gently lifted into the unsteady arms of her sister.  Illumina tried to walk, but shook so badly it was clear they would have to escape on foot together.  

Brann woke slowly, and glared at them.  They felt his power massing behind them, his hand of power being raised to destroy them.  They turned as one to face their doom....and the power faded.  Branndwyn looked at his hand, shocked.  

“You’ve freed us from the curse – Illiara is no longer a virgin….but you harmed us both, dear brother….so the curse ends with you becoming a goblin….”  And then Illumina smiled.  She spat, blood mostly, on the floor at his feet.  “But here is my revenge upon you – that you remain a goblin for as many years as you have tormented my sister!”

“I loved you once, Brann,” said Illiara softly as he raised horror filled eyes at them, the curse inches away from his skin as it built slowly to something new, something more horrific than he could have imagined.  “You hate us for being what we are not – not pure unseelie, not your true kin….”  She looked down, and then looked at him, her wild magics reaching for the curse, twisting it, making it something else yet again.  “When the curse ends and you are no longer goblin….you will be a little girl, Branndwyn, a girl of young age….I only hope that no one like yourself finds you….”  Illiara sobbed and Illumina looked at her with wide, shocked eyes, having held back her curse’s full power for Illiara’s sake.

“Let us leave him, beloved,” Illiara said softly, “and let him learn of cruelty alone.”  Branndwyn shrieked in agony, his bones popping and his flesh tearing with wet sounds as he became something else.  She wiped her eyes and then felt Illumina tense, and looked at her, confused.

“We have to flee,” said her bold twin, and Illiara saw the horror on her sister’s face.  Turning to Brann she stifled a scream of her own.  

Branndwyn’s body was a ruin of red flesh and monstrous limbs, a goblin of such hideous appearance growing from the shining sidhe flesh that it would be welcome only in the darkest of courts, within the Host of the Sluagh alone.  He roared as limb and flesh and bone surged and broke and reformed, each time becoming more and more hideous.  Illumina pulled her away, deeper into her rooms.  “The catacombs,” she whispered, truly afraid for their lives for the first time in their lives.  “They are our only hope….”  

~~~~~

Illiara sighed, holding her sisters arm gently.  They had healed finally, but so had Branndwyn, and now he pursued them, in a form they did not know.  “He’s strong now,” she whispered softly to Illumina.  

“Weaker than he was as sidhe; he has no magic now either.  But he is mad, and that makes him a horror.”  Illumina rose slowly, and then looked up in shock as a massive, three taloned hand buried itself in the rock of the catacombs inches above her head.  Branndwyn thrust himself around the corner, and Illiara screamed. 

Illumina froze, appalled by the transformation her curse had wrought.  Where before their brother had taken the form of a twisted, many armed and many eyed goblin, hardly a thing of beauty or fearsome mien, this thing was a grotesque mockery of everything their brother had been.  Twisted sinew wrapped about muscle so thick it rippled the skin; eyes bulged from a sloped brow that could hardly be intelligent; fangs jutted every which way, while twisted, massive claws sprouted from three gnarled and hard limbs.  The true horror of it was that the sapphire blue of Branndwyn’s eyes lurked under that heavy brow, and the stretched, torn skin that covered a body too large for it was the moonlit skin of something that had once been sidhe, now stripped of its shine and beauty.  

The elongated neck thrust the head forward from the bulk of the apish body, and he roared his rage at the twins, who heard the twisted echoes of their brother’s voice within that enraged noise.  Illumina reacted unthinking and smashed the heel of her palm into that grotesque’s jaw, shattering bone and driving the tusks and fangs deep into his own flesh.  He shrieked, spraying them with crimson and spittle, while Illiara scrambled up.  The twins bolted, and the monstrous beast they had created – no, that their brother had revealed himself to be – lumbered after them with uncanny swiftness.  

Illiara led the chase, but her sister caught up quickly, with body honed by martial training.  The creature roared at them; Illumina’s blow had done little more than bloody her brother and caused cosmetic damage.  Illiara laughed at the thought, an almost hysteria-tainted burst of giggles.  Illumina turned to her sister and gave her a wide eyed ‘are you insane?’ look that almost made the girl stumble as she tried to stifle the mad laughter from escaping her lips.  

Warned by that sixth sense that every warrior develops eventually and fails to listen to on the day of their death, Illumina grabbed her twin and dragged her to the side and a chuff of hot breath exploded from their brother’s lungs.  The rush of his passage though the hall as he leaped for them was quickly followed by the meaty thud of the unwieldy goblin body crashing to the floor of the hallway.  Illiara’s laughter was cut short by her gasp of horror: the creature that had passed them was larger, more twisted and monstrous, the tatters of its sidhe skin mostly gone now as more raw muscle and sinew was revealed.  “Knuckleavee,” she whispered, to which Illumina replied only by becoming as blanched as a ghost.  

A creature of the darkest Host, the knuckleavee goblins were the most horrific, monstrous of their kind.  Skinless, twisted things, they would devour their victims piece by piece, seeking to restore their horrid forms to some seeming that would allow them to walk in the sun once more.  The beasts were also nearly unkillable even by goblin standards.  

Illumina grabbed her sister’s arm and pulled her away, down the hallway they’d entered.  Between rows of ceremoniously wrapped dead – none of which were fae – they ran for their lives.  Illumina spoke quickly as they ran, words parted by quick, desperate breaths.  “We must reach the castle proper….the guards must hold him off….”  In her heart Illumina could not believe that would be the end of this.  The guards would not kill the beast but only capture it and reveal Branndwyn’s guilt and the shame upon his sisters.  

“No, we mustn’t….Brann….” Illiara could not finish the sentence.  A part of her, that part of herself she felt shamed by, loved her brother still, despite all the horrors he’d visited upon them both.  Her sister led her on, and then was brought up short as they moved to the intersection of a new hallway.  

The grotesque monstrosity their brother had become lurched out from the side hallway, and roared at them, no longer covered by a single shred of shining skin.  The transformation was complete and the three armed beast grabbed Illumina even as she tried to stop her headlong run down the hallway.  She slammed both hands down upon the massive wrist and Illiara heard bone snap.  That terrified her, for the strength of the sidhe should have shattered bone, and possibly crushed his wrist.

With a shocking roar he threw Illumina aside, slamming her into the wall with such force blood sprayed from her shoulder and the stones cracked.  Illumina’s cry of pain was cut off as he raised a foot and stomped on her waist, forcing a gout of blood so dark it was nearly black to erupt from her mouth in a choked cry.  Illiara’s scream at seeing her sister’s body broken against the wall, like little more than a cast aside child’s doll, brought her monstrous brother’s full attention upon her.  Illumina gestured weakly, motioning her away with her working hand, and mouthing a single word – go.

One other thing made her leave her battered sister there, sure that the beast would follow her.  Illiara looked upon her brother, and fled, not merely because her sister told her to go, nor out of cowardice.  She knew the creature would follow her, because upon sighting her, the thick, grotesquely swollen member that hung between its legs had started to swell.  Branndwyn’s twisted, gory hands had lifted; seeking to catch her and make her his yet again had filled his eyes with unholy lust.  So she fled, and he moved after her, chasing the delicate sidhe with naught but lust on his mind, leaving Illumina to bleed, broken and alone on the floor of the catacombs.

Illiara did not know where she ran to, or how far she had run; she felt the hot, fetid breath of her brother’s lungs, smelled the raw, animal scent of him, and felt the wind of his hands pass inches from her delicate, naked body.  She would gain distance at each turning, only to find him at her heels as she ran down the hallway.  So many twistings and turnings she made that she was thoroughly lost, as undoubtedly her brother was; but she needed escape, while all her brother desired was her.  She made one last turn, and slapped both palms against the wall she discovered at the end of the dead end hallway.

The frescoes of the ancient wars were rough and she cut her palm upon one….then he was on her, his body – surprisingly smooth and not slick or bloody at all – pressing hers to the wall as she screamed.  He rolled his body along hers, grasping her hands with massive claws even as the third reached under her, massive fingers stretching her open, thrusting deep inside both openings there.  She screamed again, struggling futilely as she was once more taken by her brother, his hands going where they would as they had all her life.  But there was no curse now to protect her from deeper violation, and he rubbed his enormous member along her backside, the tip leaving crystalline droplets of his oils against the middle of her back.  She cried at the knowledge she would not die of such a taking, she would live, until he finally killed her.  

His claws slid free from her, a patter of heat upon the floor following them as he tore her within.  She screamed, helpless to stop what would be next.  Her scream became a soft grunt as she could not breathe, the unsteady dripping between her legs becoming a splash as she was pierced by a prick the size of a grown man’s arm.  She felt him inside her, her body his sheath, though he had not torn her inside.  The power and strength of sidhe flesh kept her from death, and despite the agony, there was pleasure in having him in her and her skin glowed softly as he took her.  

His mouth covered hers and she felt her lips cut and torn by fangs as he kissed her, his tongue forcing it’s way into her mouth, sliding deep inside, writhing.  He pulled out and her body felt empty, a void he filled immediately and completely.  Branndwyn took her, brutally using her, his fingers sliding into her rear entrance as she fell limp against the wall.  Another hand held her arms up, keeping her palms away from his skin, while his third groped, clawed her small, firm breasts, leaving bloody gouges.  She breathed to the rhythm of his thrusts, unable to do anything but as each deep penetration drove breath from her body.  She felt the tightening of her body, the obscenity of an orgasm building from the horror he perpetrated on her.  

But it was not he who broke the wall that held her from climax.  It was three simple words, and a feeling of power that enveloped her.  “She is mine,” Illumina said as she grasped her brother’s ankle.  Those words allowed Illiara the release her body craved, even as Brann shrieked in an inhuman, otherworldly voice.  Illiara felt him slide from her, her body torn, abused, but not broken; her spirit was wounded but she pushed herself up, turning to see her sister lying on the floor, a wide trail of dark crimson showing where she had dragged herself around a corner.  

With a soft cry she grabbed her sister, hugged her.  Illumina did little more than wince; Illiara’s touch made pain nothing, and she would live, though a healer’s help would be all that kept her whole of body.  Together, Illiara cradling Illumina protectively, both crying, they watched the demise of their brother.

The power of Illumina’s hand ripped through the monster that had once been their brother.  Flesh bulged and sinew twisted like things alive.  Branndwyn clutched at his chest, his head, his belly, and clawed himself open, as his flesh burned, his own body filling with power it had never been meant to contain.  One sapphire eye exploded, and the other rolled madly, until it fell upon the twins, lying beneath him.  He roared and reached for them but Illumina lifted her hand, pushing her power upon him.  

The action pained her, but she held her power strong.  Brann shrieked as light exploded from tears in his flayed flesh, his bones twisted and roiled within, sending spears of jagged agony tearing through thick muscle.  His fangs grew, tearing and piercing his face and skull, while his claws became massive things so large he could no longer lift them.  His body twisted and the crack of things inside bursting and the gush of noisome fluids that burst from mouth, ears, navel, and all other orifices hissed, steaming upon the ground.  Illumina screamed and pushed her power deeper into him and he burned, erupting into weird fire that twisted and grew his body, until he stopped writhing in torment, a statue of calcified flesh standing in a boiling pool of ichor.  

Illiara finally looked away, holding her sister close as she collapsed in the arms of her beloved twin.  Illumina spoke softly.  “I….am sorry….but I would not….let you harm him….”  Her soft, uneven breaths came a little more easily, and she caressed her sister’s face with one blood-smeared hand.  “I could not loose you….that way….dear sister….”  

Illiara laughed, a choked sob of laughter.  “Illumina….hush….I will call for help….”  She did not blame her sister for the death of her brother.  She could not, though she knew she would never have lived with herself if she had been the one to slay him.  She would heal, and her sister would live.  Summoning up a breeze, she sent it for others, a healer, the guards.  Slowly she staggered upright, her body aching in deep protest, but she forced herself up despite that.  

Illiara cradled her sister’s broken, bleeding body, and gently carried her from under the shadow of their brother’s evil to heal in the light of a new world.

XS