A Big Shiny Blue Marble

###NOTE: One of the characters in this speaks several languages, and there are several used here which I've written in English, obviously, but when that one character speaks in English her speech carries a heavy Russian accent. It's a challenge to write that accent into the dialog and love scenes, and though it might not flow - it is intended to be that way, and is not a long line of grammatical errors. It's only the slight and natural imperfections which come as one's grasp of a language improves though usage.###

***In a later part of the chapter, there's ... well, there's a theme that is used by many fantasy artists and I've seen it done many times over. I wanted to write something like that for this chapter. It worked out to be a little long, and it just wouldn't split into two very well, so here it is in one piece.

Oh, there's no fascination with this on my part, believe me, but later on, near the end, if you find that it's a bit messy, well just skip that bit. Where the characters are, well, sometimes things are just the way they are, and not what they might prefer. 0_o

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Book of the Forsaken Part 6

Monnie chuckled to herself. She was getting to really like these ancient stadiums. You could always count on them being filled with a sea of humanity which sang such music to her after she turned her hellions loose. Since there had been no thought given toward a plan when the people erected their squatter's shanties, the narrow passageways were little more than a rabbit's warren through the mess. There was no easy and quick way out unless someone lived near the exits and placing a couple of her new friends there before the festivities really got underway solved the issue nicely.

She drifted down to perch on the roof of the announcer's booth to watch. She'd had to revise her outlook lately. She now thought of her life's path as what led her to this pinnacle.

It was all in how you looked at things, she thought.

She was making the most of what she had, what had been done to her and what she'd gained in all of this. Monnie didn't give a fuck about humans anymore. She didn't give a fuck about anything anymore.

Everywhere that she looked there was slaughter as the demons that she'd brought here carved their rapacious paths through everything. People cowered in their homes for perhaps a few minutes until at last, the roof was torn off or a wall was flattened and they were looking at their doom then.

She watched a woman being raped and she guessed that the noise was upsetting the one who was enjoying her. As she looked, he tore her head off and kept on fucking. What she supposed was the victim's mate began to scream louder than she had, since he was discovered seconds later as he reeled in horror at what he saw. Another demon was on him in a heartbeat and she supposed that he'd have been screaming over being raped himself, but he seemed to be more upset at the way that a third demon had already begun gnawing his arm off.

Monnie became aware of a presence near her. She stopped watching and began to think and feel a little. Her teeth flashed in a grin when it came to her and she jumped forward to grab the edge of the roof of the booth to swung right through the ancient glass and land inside. It took her four seconds to find the two people hiding there.

As the girl jumped up to run, Monnie's hand flashed out and she had her by the hair as her other arm went around the man and she closed her jaws on the side of his neck. His struggles grew feeble after a few moments in inverse proportion to the rate that his blood pressure fell. When she had the last of what she could get, she looked at the corpse for a moment and threw it out of the gaping hole where the glass had been and she turned to the small blonde.

There were no hysterics, thought she was shaking in terror. What there was in its place was quiet and mumbled pleading.

Monnie looked down and decided that she liked the girl. "I suppose that you'd do quite a lot to keep on existing a little longer, huh?"

The blue eyes looked up and the face nodded.

Monnie smiled, "Alright," she said as her smile turned into a grin, "I'll give you a shot and we'll see. All that fucking out there is making me a little ... well, you know. You just put that pretty face right there and if you can get me off really good, I might just keep you around."

The girl looked up and nodded fervently before she looked straight ahead at the task that she'd been given. She'd never done this before in her life, and never even had the thought of it cross her mind before, but considering the alternative ...

She reached out with trembling hands to place her palms on Monnie's dark green thighs and she didn't know it, but the timid way that she licked her lips in preparation to begin went a long way toward keeping her alive. Monnie had seen it and she liked what she saw, already deciding that she'd allow for a little uncertainty and fumbling. She leaned back on the commentator's desk to allow the girl a little more room and to situate herself a little better for this.

She'd never been all that interested in this sort of thing herself, but after a few days of fucking with male demons, she figured that she was up for a change. As she felt the warm tip of that tongue slip into her a little, Monnie noticed that the girl was wondering a few things. A few seconds into this, and Monnie knew. This little blonde beauty was quickly coming to like doing this, for one, and Monnie felt a slight change in herself then; deciding that she liked both what was being done for her and the way that she knew that the girl was growing wet.

She sighed and caressed the golden curls in front of her so that those pretty blue eyes looked up.

"Do I taste alright to you?"

The girl nodded and Monnie smiled a little sadly, "I'm really sorry that I must feel a little cold to you, honey. You just do your very best for me, and I'll see what I can do to fix that for you if you like me."

The girl nodded again and Monnie closed her eyes, loving the warmth that she felt in her loins, and moving her foot aside a little to give her new toy a little more room. Outside, the din of the carnage and the howling wails and screams faded into the background for them both.

Unnoticed by anyone, a pair of eyes glowed hotly from the blood and gore-covered entrance to the underground portion of the stadium. Relatively few humans had made their homes here because of the dankness and the seeping groundwater which came through the cracked old foundations. It just wasn't healthy. Those few had already been killed off by the handful of demons who'd been able to get past the intense feeling of dread which they found there. They'd killed and eaten a little and then they'd gone, liking the noise and commotion up above far better.

The eyes watched for a while longer and then the creature turned and began to walk deeper, past mold and slime covered doors hanging from nearly rusted-through hinges. It took some minutes until the beast was able to get to the opening that it sought and then it disappeared and emerged in an underground cavern.

The walls looked a little weak and that wasn't really surprising, given the seismic instability of the whole region. But the creature didn't care much and in a few moments, it was bounding away into the pitch blackness at an astounding rate, moving along underground pathways unknown to almost all surface dwellers these days.

The muscles moved like heavy machinery built to perfection as the miles flew by in an effortless blur. There were softly glowing spots all over the thing, but what lit the way most were those eyes.

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They'd been walking together, speaking quietly as Maahes told of what was happening far away. Dakhete looked over and sighed, "We have seen these flocks," she said, "we kill them as we find them, but it blocks what I want for my kingdom here. I cannot send people forth to farm and build in other places if they are found by these demons and killed before much of anything is begun. I must keep the people close so that they are protected."

She pointed to a dark smear near the horizon, "Pyres to burn the bodies of the ones who come to kill my people."

Maahes nodded, "It grows worse, Kandake. There is a new bringer of them, and that one does not bring the ones who are easily driven to madness in fear as the demons seem to have been before. To the west, across the ocean, a new terror grows. The ones that she brings fear little if anything and they are murderous to humans -- far more so than the ones that you have seen thus far. She has only a few hundred so far, but we think that she will summon more to her."

Dakhete turned, "She? Who?"

"We do not know," he said, "We only knew that there was one of the higher ones who wanted all of this. It was through his hand that the bringer worked. We think the first bringer is dead and we do not know where the old one is, but the new bringer is a blood-drinker the same as the first -- that much is known."

They walked a little further in silence as they considered.

The young god stopped as he looked a little, trying not to stare at the two females who lay in the sun before him.

Once they'd gotten a little used to the bright sunshine, Khyan's sisters had gotten much better, the exposure to free and clean air and the sunshine had worked wonders to heal and dry the scabs and sores that they'd been covered in when they were imprisoned. Now, they were a pair of happy girls for almost the first time in their lives and they loved to feel the sun on their bodies. Every day, they spent at least an hour or two out in it and they no longer felt so shy and withdrawn -- something which made their brother and Yasmin very happy and relieved to see.

The trouble was that the heat of the sun made them feel very comfortable and it was never very long before one of them had the thought of a little pleasure in the sunshine and her hands would begin to wander on her own body. No matter which of them had begun it, the other would notice not long after and then there were two beauties lying with their eyes closed in a little quiet happiness as they masturbated more or less side-by-side.

That was what Maahes was looking at now as Dakhete rolled her eyes and smirked.

She coughed once very politely and the two females opened their eyes and sat up, laughing a little at being discovered but not feeling any shame for what they'd been doing. In fact, they liked what they were looking at in the young lion-god as well. The Kandake made the brief introductions and they remained only long enough so as not to appear impolite in any way until she grabbed Maahes' hand and got him away from there before she'd lost his attention completely.

"Something must be done," she said when they were a little way off as she looked at him -- while he was watching the pair lie down and begin once more. "And I do not mean about this," she said with a smile as her finger gently tapped the erection that she saw beginning on the god.

To his credit, Maahes managed to look a little embarrassed over it. Dakhete liked Maahes, and the look caused her to like him even more as she considered what it must take for a god to look that way.

"We think that it is time to gather up the arrows," he said, "There are some that we wish for you to meet. They know more of the problem than we have seen."

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Monnie moved her growing host one night. In spite of feeling rather omnipotent lately, she had a sense that there was always the possibility that stasis brought inevitable decline and one way to at least sidestep it was to move. Besides, she thought, Oakland was a nice place, smack in the middle of many other places -- and a few stadiums.

At the moment, she was reclining, looking down at Goldilocks who napped on her belly. Monnie was torn between offering her the gift of immortality and leaving her to remain as she was. Monnie had feelings for the girl now and they were reciprocated, the diminutive blonde having figured out that as a way of life, what she now had beat being dead, and also, she was rising in the eyes of the demon horde because she was the consort of their "queen".

The way that Monnie looked at it, they could go on forever if she turned Goldilocks -- as she preferred to address her. But then there was always the amazing way that her hot little tongue felt to her and so she could never decide.

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Dakhete walked with Khyan, his sisters, Yasmin, and a few others to one end of the city. Maahes met them there and nodded to them, "There are many kinds of life on this world," he said, "Some are known to those who live in the free air, but others are not so well-known and some are not known at all. I doubt that you will need your weapons or even if they would do you much good if you were foolish enough to think to use them where we go now, but you will need to bring your goodwill and a fair measure of courtesy."

He raised his arms and they were in a place far to the north and a little east of Medewi in the next instant.

It appeared to be a temple of some sort, bathed in almost total darkness but for a very few torches which sputtered in holders here and there. The columns were not bare and weathered; rather they were sleek and ornately decorated. It didn't look as though anyone had lived here recently, but from the looks of it, it might have been inhabited only a few years ago.

"Where are we?" Yasmin asked as she looked at the symbols everywhere around her.

"A very old place," a voice came out of the darkness and as they looked, they saw Anubis and Sekhmet walking with Bast toward them. "This region still bears the name of Jordan, though I would guess that it had several rulers through the ages. It was here at least a few hundred years before the one called Jesus of Nazareth was born. The place above and not far away is where he is reputed to have driven many demons out of a man and into a herd of swine."

There was a snort from a way off in the long corridor and they heard some quiet clacking on the stone floor which drew nearer a little slowly and a deep voice began to rumble to them.

"Were you there, mighty Anubis?" the voice said, "I was here, where we stand now, while this event occurred above me. I missed it somehow, for I was mating with a female at the time. I hope that I might be forgiven for thinking that what I was doing was more important.

As the legend goes, he drove many demons out of a single man. I would not care at all what he did were it not for one detail which the scribes wrote in error."

"O Meu Nome É Legião," a second voice said, "Legión me llamo."

They saw a pair of eyes then, perhaps ten or twelve feet above the floor. "My brother plays with the incorrect phrase which has irritated us since we first heard that it was uttered there that day.

Legio mihi nomen est, quia multi sumus," he said in Latin, "My name is Legion for we are many."

They looked as a second set of eyes neared the first, "We were not there that day and so we cannot say if it was said at all, but if we were and had we heard it, the puny imp who was being cast out would have found his doom at my hands for the insult.

I am Legion, though it is not my name," he said.

"We are Legion, for it is what we call ourselves, and we were not inside some fool's head. We may pass through humans in our haste and harm nothing, but none of me can reside there. It is a fool's thought for I am a little large and no human could live with only my hand in him. Yet many were supposedly there, it is said.

From this, we think a fool scribe erred -- or wrote a mistruth. We were here, under Umm Qais where we often were then, having no interest in the doings of Man at all. If the word had been uttered loudly there that day, we would have been there; wanting to know who it was who threw our name around in pretense.

We have never cared about the doings of Man; the weak and presumptuous creature who believes that he is the only one with a mind and has always thought that it bought him the right to sit on a throne of some sort.

Such a race of imbeciles. Their only saving grace is the speed at which they breed more of themselves.

There is no such throne and there never has been, though at one time, they ruled the world. But we think that it is perhaps the time that we interest ourselves," the voice said, "Here,"

At that instant, the dusty floor shone and gleamed under their feet, and many cushions and large pillows were seen to be strewn about. "Rest yourselves while we talk, and also, we think that it is time that we make ourselves known to the others here."

The torches flared brightly then and most of them stared at what they saw. The hall went on a long way into the darkness on the other side of the chamber, and they saw that it was filled with many sets of eyes glowing faintly.

Two creatures stepped forward, their hooves and claws clattering a little against the stone and one of them came close enough to cause a little nervousness in one or two of the visitors. For a moment, there was no other sound, but then they heard something far off, a thin jingling which after a moment's thought came to their ears as though they were being approached by an individual who wore bells or something such as this.

Most of what they saw looked to be covered in hard plates and yet to a careful eye, it could be seen that the plates wore the same gray leathery skin which covered everything else. The creature's rear legs were long and as muscled as any other part appeared to be, looking a little human-like in the shape of their thighs and knees. But below the knees the shins were a little thinner in proportion and a spike grew out of the calves to protrude rearward over a foot in length. Below that were cloven hooves which appeared to have the ability to be splayed out a little for a better grip on the smooth floor.

The waist was very thin in proportion to the chest which was deeper than that of a draft horse, though it was plain that the ribs carried far more muscle than what might be found there on any Clydesdale or Belgian. It was obvious at once that they had to in order to support and power the massive shoulders. The hump over those shoulders was the tallest part to be seen like this and it wore some rough and bristly fur. All that rose above that were long spiked horns on the upper back, three facing forward and one or two smaller ones behind then facing rearward.

The shoulders were huge and they supported massive arms which were longer than the thing's hind legs. In their outline, they were shaped very similarly to human arms, and they functioned as forelegs, but had the full range of motions that a man's arm might have. At the outsides of the forearms and near the elbows, a single spike grew there as well, about two feet in length and facing backward in this position. The clawed hands were huge as well and the knuckles were thickly padded, since the beast walked on them with his fingers curled backward. Each finger wore a claw and there was one vicious-looking one which stood out from the back of each hand.

The neck was far thicker than the waist and well-armored; carrying more of the rough fur and it ended in a head which was more like a lizard's than anything else which walked the earth above and had warm blood. There were thick ridges of muscle along the top and the bottom of that neck ended in a long line of fur which ran back to the chest. Behind that skull, there were perhaps twenty long black tendrils which looked a little like thin hoses and they seemed to be able to move a little by themselves. The long tail seemed to have the same ability. It left the haunches as a thick and plated appendage, but it narrowed not far after, turning into a whip-like thing which was held up a little over the back for the most part.