Author's Note: This is a sequel series to Amy, Captured. To get the full experience, please read through that one first.
Hey guys, apologies for the long delay between chapters here, I've been working on a few other things that you might find interesting, coming in future. I'm back on the Panic Moon bandwagon, hard at work on the next chapter, so it shouldn't be too long incoming. In the meantime, I'd appreciate any feedback and votes you guys want to give. Enjoy!
Kurokami
**************
'You keep getting looks.'
'Yes, thank you. I can tell. I may not have eyes, but I'm not
blind,
Lysithea
,' Dulcimer sent, the apex of her gaze swinging around to regard the alien.
'I know that,' She replied. 'But it does make me want to ask: What happened to the Dullahan? Your people are only stories to me, but you are
here
, you exist. Where are the rest?'
'
That's a long story. And I can't blame these people for looking
,' The Dullahan seemed to sigh, though it was hard to tell without any real sound. '
I doubt there's anyone here who has even seen one of us before. We don't really leave the homeworld.'
'You did,' Lysithea pointed out.
'
Yes. I did. Can we talk about something else, please?
'
'Yeah, okay,' The Trine-form craned her neck to look back, eyeing Sally and Lorna as they walked side by side, some ways behind the pair of aliens. 'Come on girls, keep up. This is hardly the place to be unescorted.'
'Aren't you two technically the same?' Sally, always the most willing to speak up, asked.
'Ah yes, but we aren't wearing those Collars,' The pale alien responded with a sly smile, winking a clear green eye at them. 'That's quite a distinguishing factor. Just look at the kinds of attention
you two
are attracting.'
True enough, the non-contemporaneous duo were attracting an undue amount of attention, mostly from the passersby, but occasionally from the service staff working the stalls and out-facing shops, too. It was frankly unnerving; the citizens of Selestene were uniformly well dressed and aristocratic in manner, and their expressions had a refined sort of detachment to them. This city was filled with libertine dignitaries and a wealthy criminal element; an Arcology for those with lots of money and a minimum of respect for the law. The kinds of things they would be perfectly willing to do to people like Lorna and Sally didn't bear thinking about.
The four of them walked well kept streets, with the aliens walking ahead to cut through the crowds; the streets were filled with humanity, and not much else. Lorna got the feeling that Selestene didn't get a lot of nonhuman traffic, or that if it did, the aliens had the good sense to stick to being unseen. These folks had never seen anything like Dulcimer and Lysithea before.
'
I'm glad you convinced me to come out, I'm getting all sorts of interesting signals from these people. This place is surprisingly murky, for a human city
,' The Dullahan sent during a lull in the conversation.
'
You shouldn't be reading minds without permission, Dulsie
,' Lysithea sent back, keeping her words in the mental realm to avoid raising the ire of the crowd around her; she got the feeling they wouldn't appreciate knowing that a couple of telepaths were walking among them with their empathic filters off. '
It's rude
.'
'It's also not something I can help
,' Dulsie replied, calmly. '
I can't just turn off how I see the world. I'm not even trying to limit it, these people are just
brazen.'
'I'm beginning to feel left out, now,' Lysithea lapsed back into speech, the sudden return to the audible spectrum causing Lorna and Sally to look up quickly, receiving only a fragment of the conversation. The Trine-form had had to force herself into the habit of speaking; her own people were hive minded in the extreme, and if she allowed herself to converse telepathically more than she had to, it would be easy to slip back into it and not return.
'
Well, let's find a nice likely cathouse with poorly maintained telepathic shielding, sit down outside and you can soak up some nice feelings
,' The Dullahan stopped dead in the middle of the street, sweeping the focus of her awareness about the scene, lifting her mind above the murmuring of the people on the street to push the locus of her mind into the nearby buildings.
In a place like this, it didn't take her long at all to find what she was looking for.
'
There
,' She pointed, drawing not only Lysithea's attention, but the attention of the two human girls following them. Without another word she set off, allowing the rest of the group to follow her.
In truth, Dulcimer had found herself spoiled for choice, in regards to houses of ill repute; though on the whole Selestene was filled with crystalline towers and complex, sweeping structures, it hadn't been all that hard to find the arcology's red light district. The buildings here were more squat, the layout of the streets more conducive to keeping each individual person at a remove from everyone else.
Some buildings had wide, open entrances, beckoning passersby in as effectively as several hundred blinking augmented reality advertisements could do. But the one that had attracted the Dullahan's attention was far more discrete, something that did not escape Lysithea's notice.
'Yes, this one's good,' She nodded, drawing her eyes over the front faΓ§ade. 'The people in there mean business, you can tell. No ads, no indication it's even open... sessions by appointment, probably. Good choice.'
'
It's also exuding pleasure like nobody's business
,' Dulcimer pointed out. '
No vacant rooms, so much the better for us.
'
'Then let us sit, my friend,' Lysithea winked, perching herself with self-effacing daintiness on a garden bed opposite the unobtrusive building. With a vaguely concerned look over her shoulder at Lorna, Sally did likewise, a very noticeable gap between herself and the alien; this gap was quickly filled by the Dullahan, much to Sally's discomfort.
'It's been a while since I've been able to cut loose,' Lysithea sighed happily, closing her eyes and expanding her mental field. 'Without having to worry about the Chorus, that is.'
'
I can help you deal with that
,' Dulcimer sent, with the telepathic equivalent of a wink. Lysithea felt the tickling, light touch of the Dullahan's mind brushing against her own, waiting for permission for further contact. In many ways it was like a psychic caress, a gentle, almost seductive probing, sliding in further only when the Trine-form allowed it.
'Whoa,' Lysithea blinked, having to rapidly adjust to the Dullahan's connection, which brought with it a magnification of her own telepathic abilities. But it was the silence that was truly difficult to adjust to; generally Lysithea's telepathy brought with it a kind of low drone, as the hive mind of her people swelled like a tide through her mind. This was the first time she had been free of it, alone with her mindreading, and she quickly found it rather pleasant. There was still the usual morass of feelings and thoughts and half formed concepts floating up her spine like so much sea foam, but without the pressure of her entire race bearing down upon her mind, Lysithea found it all so much...
clearer
.
'
You like? I've never had to block out a hive mind before
,' Dulcimer said.
'Yeah, yeah... that's good,' The Trine-form's voice trembled, as for the first time in her life she could focus completely on the mental shapes around her; specifically, the physical sensations emanating from the building across the road. Though she couldn't tell precisely what was going on inside this house of ill repute, she certainly knew that the employees within knew their jobs very well; the place was awash with pleasure, flooded with the kind of delicious, burning desires that Lysithea had once been paid to provide for others. It was at once familiar and strange.
'This brings back memories,' The Trine-form found herself grinning, her mind going back to that floating brothel on Theros, her home and the home of her employers for several years. Time was, she would have been in the thick of this, acting as the conduit between different entities, a bridge of pleasure enfolding and enhancing the experience for all manner of paying customers. It might have seemed seedy from the outside looking in, but Lysithea had always found it highly rewarding work.
If Sander hadn't been attempting something that had never before been accomplished in history, she probably would still be doing it.
She became aware, gradually, of just how uncomfortable all this was making Sally and Lorna. She couldn't really blame them for that; from their position what she and Dulcimer were doing probably seemed very strange. After all, they were just sitting on the brick rim of a garden bed, twitching occasionally and soaking in the good feelings suffusing the air around them. There was no way that the two human girls could feel the same thing.
Yet.
'Oh my. Dulcimer, we're being rude,' The Trine-form laid a pale hand on Dulsie's shoulder, directing her attention to the shifting, nervous gazes of Lorna and Sally. 'Hardly good behavior for a host, letting our guests sit unattended while we... ahem, mentally masturbate.'
'
Ah. Yes, I suppose you're right
,' Dulcimer sent, allowing an odd sense of amusement filter into her thoughts. '
Besides, it would certainly be more entertaining to let the pretty things in on the process, don't you think? Kind of a local fix...