Hell For Feathers Ch 05

Chapter 5: Crawlin' Out as I Was Crawlin' In

Ashley had returned to the sky. As always, the barest thought of intention meant the endless space of the sky moved and shifted, bringing her right to where she wanted to go, and who she wanted to see.

She saw it moving in like the side of a skyscraper, that enormous bookshelf that must contain all the world's knowledge. If Ashley had a question, she knew who to ask.

"Hello, Candice."

Candice spun around. "Oh!" She pushed her glasses up. "Hello, Ashley."

"I hope I'm not interrupting anything." Ashley put her hands before herself and bowed a bit.

"No, not at all." Candice smiled. "You've found the quietest part of the sky. Any work here can always be put aside to help the truly important work that we do for the surface."

"All the work we do here is important." Ashley beamed. "We certainly couldn't help the surface without all the support we get from here."

"I feel as though I don't do any of the work. All I do is learn. I pick up books, read them and put them back."

"Well, with your permission, let's put that big brain to the test." Ashley said. "Do you know anything about the process of... judgment?"

Candice's smile faded. "Judgment?" She sounded confused.

"Yeah, the judgment of the surface. How they get chosen to get sent to the pit or not."

Candice's gaze went up the enormous book shelf. "Uh..." She hummed. "Not really."

"It's not somewhere in here?" Ashley gestured to the shelf.

"Judgment isn't our department." Candice shrugged. "That's all handled by someone else, somewhere else, I assume. I mean..." She tipped her glasses up her nose again. "It is definitely handled, so someone must be doing that."

In Ashley's mind, she pictured a factory worker "handling" an industrial-sized rip-resistant bag of plastic beads and pouring them into a hopper. Most made it into the machine, a few didn't... but it was not a rigorous or careful process.

"How do we know that everyone who's made it to the pit deserves it?"

"I guess we have to trust that the angels that work in that area are as studious and strong as we are with enforcing it."

Before Ashley had met Skyler, and before she'd undergone her transformation... that might have been enough. The simple assurance that everything was working as it was supposed to be. Now, she wasn't so sure.

"The demon woman I'm pursuing..." Ashley said. "I was hoping to see her... rap sheet, so to speak. Maybe I could... anticipate her movements easier if I knew what she was accused of?"

"Accused?" Candice tipped her head.

"Convicted, I suppose." Ashley corrected herself. "The sins of her life."

"I'm afraid that's not recorded here." Candice apologized. "It's only filled with things we might need to know. And I suppose... that isn't considered knowledge to which we require immediate access."

Ashley looked up to the shelf. Standing right beneath it... it looked like a straight road that stretched into the horizon.

"You could ask an archangel for that information. They might know."

Ashley rolled her wings with an uncomfortable shrug. "I don't want to ask them unless I have to... they always seem so displeased when they have to stop whatever they're doing to help us."

Candice nodded. "I've experienced that a few times. I swear, their duties must include setting every chemical reaction molecule-by-molecule to be so busy as to dismiss us."

"They seem to prefer that we work autonomously." Ashley said. "I am happy to oblige."

Candice took a small stack of books up from her lectern. "Excuse me..." She tipped her head forward while once again pushing her glasses to the bridge of her nose. Clutching the books to her breast, she drifted upward, light as a bubble, up to some higher shelves. She didn't go very far, maybe four our five feet off the ground, within the range of an average library ladder.

It was far enough up that Candice's knees were about at Ashley's eyeline. It also meant that Candice's skirt end was floating above that eye-level. If Ashley were to raise her gaze, she could peek up at whatever was under there...

Good grief, why were all their skirts so short? She never noticed it before her member wouldn't be concealed beneath it, but none of them had to worry about that. And didn't this bookshelf move by itself? She saw it happen before! Why would she float around like this unless she wanted to be seen, to have Ashley's nose folded into the dark covers of that lovely tome under that skirt. There was something she could bury her face in in the evening and enjoy her time thoroughly...

Get a grip, Ashley. Nobody here wants what she's thinking about. Maybe she could get a grip of those lovely cheeks... now she was just staring up Candice's skirt, at her round skirt-wrapped rump, at her thin little thighs... and as her thighs spread apart... even that tiny little slit between them.

Ashley had barely ever considered it before her new appendage appeared. It was previously as interesting as the inside of the elbow, something that had to be there but was never noted on. Suddenly, that little aperture was incredibly alluring.

Even after her experience with Skyler... she hadn't considered that her hot little gash was the same thing she had as part of her this whole time. Could she dispense such pleasures with it as Skyler had? But Candice would never do that. Maybe she could use it to hold a pencil... or a finger... or a toe... or a mighty rock hard foot-long cock. All good ideas, really...

Candice floated down back down to the plush cloudy floor. She nearly dropped down right onto Ashley's raised face, evidently unaware how close she had gotten. "Sadly, big as my bookshelf is, even it might be insufficient to hold the records of the billions who have passed before us."

"Have that many souls really passed into the pit?" Ashley said. "If so many people are failing the test... could the test be too hard?"

"I don't think the only two options for an afterlife are the sky and the pit." Candice said. "I'm not sure why I was found worthy, but I'm glad the test to get in here is evidently quite robust. I do feel like there's a realm where the humans can continue to live without punishment."

Ashley's shoulders slumped a bit. "Even here... we have to take that on faith?"

"We just do the work we're here to do and make the world better for the world we know is there... and that we know can be influence and distorted by bad actors."

Candice looked down. Ashley's erection stood between them. It had been there for their entire previous conversation, like a patient dog sitting by the back door to be let out.

"Oh, gosh!" Candice averted her gaze.

"Sorry!" Ashley turned herself away from Candice.

Candice interrupted her. "It's fine. I understand that it's not entirely... under your control." She made a short cough and looked away. "I mean, surely that didn't happen from looking at... plain old boring me."

Ashley looked at her from over her shoulder.

Candice was frowning, fumbling with her glasses. She tried to part a rogue curl of hair over her ear and pushed the temple of her glasses off with it. "After all... nobody ever... CHOSE me, unless I was the only one around, or I was expected to help them. Even here, people rarely visit the library unless they need my help. I'm happy to oblige, of course..."

Ashley went in for a sideways hug, one of the only forms of contact that would keep her extension held away from her. She planted a big kiss on Candice's cheek.

"Candice, you are not boring and you are not plain. You are just as lovely as you are smart. When this is over, and everything goes back to normal, I would love to get to know you better and have what I am sure would be some fascinating conversations."

Candice chuckled and held the spot where Ashley kissed her. She grinned a slightly dorky smile and adjusted her glasses again. "I thank you for enduring all this to help us put everything and everyone back in its rightful place."

She involuntarily glanced down at Ashley's member. It was easy to see with her glasses magnifying her eyes so strongly. Maybe she thought Ashley wouldn't notice.

"If you ever need help about anything else, you know just where to find me." She continued.

Ashley left Candice to her work. Ashley had told no lie. She would love to get to know her better.. and put something where she knew it belonged... where it would fit quite snugly...

But not right now. She would have to go down to the surface to do the things she was hoping for.

Candice held the cheek that Ashley had kissed. It still burned like a hot skillet. She hadn't seen one of those... things since she got here. That particular part was not really featured on anyone else in the sky. She didn't remember it being so... nice looking. Even those periodicals in her library that talked about it didn't do justice to it.

She tugged at her collar. Now she was all hot, for unknown reasons. What was she meant to do when she felt like this? A trip to the baths... but that water was always warm. She waved her wings in front of her, evaporating the sweat from her forehead and chest. She could not tell if this was cooling her... or if this was just fanning the flames.

Candice waved her wings so hard that all the loose papers on her lectern blew around to the cloudy floor. She sighed, picking them all up and returning her focus to her work.

--

A minuscule island somewhere in Indonesia, a strip of white sand surrounding a core of dense jungle. An island too remote to be inhabited... but not too remote to be visited.

It was much easier to get here when you could create portals that connected any two distinct spaces. Much faster, too, and nobody got seasick.

Ashley drifted onto the beach from the sky, nobody around to see her portal standing in space before it vanished. All the sand near was undisturbed. Ashley put her toe down in the sand.

She yelped and pulled her foot back, floating above the ground by a few inches. That sand was darn hot. It didn't burn or injure her strong flesh... but it took her by surprise. Even with the never-ending sunlight in the sky, nothing ever got that hot. Even all the perhaps decadent marble was always pleasantly cool to the touch.

Ashley drifted lazily around the circumference of the island, staying a good distance from the sand. She found the part of the island that faced east. There, she found the island's only inhabitant, her image wobbling like a mirage.

Skyler was stretched out on a beach chair, wearing a colorful bikini with flowers and other tie-dye imagery printed across what little of the garment existed. Her whole body shimmered like a waxed car, covered in sweat.

Skyler notice a shape approaching her from the side. She lifted her sunglasses up from her eye and saw Ashley floating towards her. She leaned up on her elbows. "You're back."

"Are you enjoying the heat for once?" Ashley asked.

"Oh, this has been so nice." Skyler stretched her arms over her head. "The sun is hot, but its invigorating. I feel great... sunlight is so different than lava-light." She reached over to a plastic sandbox pail and pulled out the last two glass bottles of soda. "Want one for the road?"

Ashley got closer and took the bottle. "It's hot."

"Yeah, the ice is long gone." Skyler said. "Even the water's all evaporated. That was when I got bored and practiced fellatio on the bottle and also masturbated with it."

Ashley looked at the bottle in her hand uncertainly. "Which bottle did you use?"

"I don't remember." Skyler put the neck of the bottle in the curve of her horn and somehow levered the cap off. She rotated her hand in a circle to create a little cyclone of cola in the bottle before bringing it to her lips and gulping down the entire thing. She let out a loud sigh.

"That would have been way better if it was cold."

"You want to go someplace cold?" Ashley said.

Skyler stretched her arms over her head, a bead of sweat dropping from her chin and onto her cleavage. "That sounds great." She rocked out of her chair and stood.

Ashley gazed at her damp, colorful form. "We might want to get the sweat off you before we move, so it doesn't freeze on you."

Skyler looked around at her feet. A beach towel! That's what this was missing. She was just spread out on this hot wooden chair like a burger on a grill. "Well, how are we going to do that?"

Ashley seemed to plant her feet against open air, feet poised at a sharp angle like a runner on the starting blocks.. She waved her wings in front of her a few times, turning the hot still air into sudden cyclone. For just a moment, the sudden evaporation left Skyler feeling... quite cold.

Skyler shivered, running a hand through her hair. "I hope you didn't mess up my hair..."

"Hopefully, there's a mirror where we end up... if you'll even appear in one."

--

Ashley stepped through her portal into a cabin, even more rustic than the Swiss chalet they had visited previously. It was pitch black outside, the only thing visible through the windows the snow that had piled up against the glass.

"Another cabin?" Skyler said, only to be startled by seeing her breath. It didn't feel THAT cold in there... maybe it was the fire in her belly.

"You wanted me to take you someplace cold." Ashley said.

"Where are we? Iceland? The north pole?" Skyler guessed. "I'll show that Santa what for. He never got me a bike for Christmas."

Ashley cleared her throat. "This is Turkey."

"What?" Skyler said automatically, before it struck her. "OHH, of course. Mount Ararat. Final resting place of the savior Ark."

"No, it's just someplace where you can still find snow during summer in the northern hemisphere." Ashley said. "Besides, that passage references the 'mountains of Ararat,' not... Mount Ararat."

"You ever wonder why there's so much confusion on the surface about the rules?!"

"Don't worry about the rules so much." Ashley said. "It's more of a holistic approach."

"Why would I worry about that when I'm already damned?" Skyler said. "I'm going to eat ice cream before bed, stay up past nine and sharpen the eraser side of my pencil! I'm breaking all the rules."

"Well, after what happened last time, I wanted someplace very private. The roads are impassable right now. I would have brought you to Saporro, but there wouldn't be any snow there right now."

"Where is that? Italy?"

"Japan."

"Ooh, that would've been fun."

Skyler nearly had her nose pressed up against the window, the light from within the cabin briefly illuminating the tiny snowflakes as they blew past, her breath fogging the window. "I want to play in the snow!"

Ashley looked past Skyler's shoulder to the window. "This isn't a normal snowstorm that delays the mail and causes school cancellations. There are literal feet of snow, drifts forty feet high."

"Awesome." Skyler said, undeterred. "I ain't afraid. Finding forty feet of snow is like finding a twelve-inch cock. I didn't know it ever got THAT deep, but I'm thrilled and maybe I'll hurt myself jumping right onto it."

"If you want to go outside, go for it." Ashley gestured towards the door. "Freeze your literal tail off out there."

Not one to hesitate at such an opportunity, Skyler took her up on it. She opened the door, letting a plume of frigid air inside the relatively warm cabin. She ran out the door, taking a giant leap off the balcony. Her clothes vanished as she reached the apex of her jump, and her naked purple body cut through the enormous snow bank like water dissolving cotton candy.

Ashley scoffed. She stepped out onto the balcony, gazing into the long cavern Skyler had cut with her body.

"Come on in!" Skyler cried out from within. The cavelike appearance of the tunnel made Ashley anticipate her voice to echo... but surely the snow was too soft for that. In fact, it seemed to absorb the sound, making it unsettlingly quiet down there.

Ashley followed Skyler down the narrow entryway she had created. Though she had hidden her wings, she could still drift through the tunnel like a dragonfly. She'd found a comparatively huge cavity down near the ground, Skyler having melted it out with her body. Her naked form was flecked with snow, a few patches covering her nipples like the large peaks they were.

"It's... surprisingly not that cold in here."

"Well, that's the scientific principle behind an igloo, isn't it?" Skyler said. "The ice can't get lower than 32 degrees Fahrenheit. And there's no wind. AND..." Skyler licked her lips and dragged a clawlike nail down her body. "There's a sexy little succubus in here, bringing the temperature up."

Ashley felt a drop of icy cold water touch her bare shoulder.

"I feel a little silly out here in the snow, when we've got the cabin sitting there unused." Ashley shivered. "It's like the cat playing with the box the scratching post came in."

"I love it." Skyler rolled her arms through the snow under her. "I wanted more snow, and you got me so much of it." The snow sizzled as it touched her skin, turning into steam. "But it didn't get steamy in here... until YOU showed up."

Skyler lurched forward and kissed her. They both felt their temperature rise rapidly. They held each other, the puddle beneath them splashing as they moved. They had only been apart for one day... but it certainly felt longer.

Perhaps due to this jump in localized heat... the flimsy tunnel of snow that was their point of ingress collapsed. Even with so little light coming in from outside, it suddenly felt darker and colder.

Ashley started a bit, suddenly plunged into darkness. She nearly jumped out of Skyler's arms in shock, but Skyler kept her close, wrapping her arms around her neck and running the tip of her tail on her flank.

"Don't be scared." Skyler smirked. "I've got you."

"I'm not scared." Ashley said. "I know I can just bust out of this snow... or just make a portal back into the cabin, or to a geothermal spring in Iceland..."

"Please don't." Skyler requested. "I get enough time with the Earth's natural heat, thanks."

There was unnerving silence. Every little shift of the body would lead to a soft crunch of the snow under them, or a splash in the rapidly growing puddle of ice water that Skyler was sitting in.

"For the first time, the angel went underground... and saw the entrance seal up behind her." Skyler whispered. "The darkness, the chill... the absence of God's sight. That horrible feeling in the bladder, where you wonder if you'll ever see the sky again."

Ashley shook a bit. Skyler's natural night vision must have been better than hers. She whispered right in her ear without being able to see it.

Skyler continued, "You wonder what forces brought you to these shores... and the only thing to bring you comfort... was a fellow sinner. It's a story I've been through more than once. I remember stumbling around, when me and some other sinner were blown into the air by an exploding boulder. How did the boulder explode? No idea, but that just sort of happens down there, I guess. We were tossed into a little ravine where... nothing really bothered us for a while, and we enjoyed the closeness and the solitude we had been granted by fate. Never even asked her name.

"Based on what you and I have now done, you might end up down here after all." Skyler pulled her in closer. "Don't worry. I'll show you the ropes. How to stuff your hair in your nose so you don't gag when the smell gets too strong, where to find the pumice that makes for halfway decent pillows, how to rotate through the night so you don't get too scalded on each side, flipping like a burger..."

"Goodness gracious..." Ashley said. "Is it really that bad?"

"Oh, yeah." Skyler said. "There's probably some mind-bending horrors that I can't even remember right now. Not to mention the millions, probably billions of other souls going through it all, trying to step on you to climb up towards a sky that isn't even there. But don't you worry about anyone else down there." Skyler ran her nose on Ashley's neck. "I'll protect you."