Here it is, the next chapter of HFHM, and just in the nick of time!
It should go without saying that my plans (much like yours) have been royally fucked for the foreseeable future. I still intend to keep writing as much as I can each month, but with everything closed down and my family now at home during odd hours of the day, my writing schedule has been screwed up like crazy!
Anyway, welcome new reader! This is the 52nd chapter of a fantasy sex epic with plenty of magic, fighting, plot and sexual deviance. It would make the most sense for you to start at the beginning, but hey, you are probably quarantined, so who's gonna stop you?
Returning reader? I missed you! I have gotten a lot of feedback prior to this chapter begging for another scene with this character, and I hope I did it justice. Also, thank you to everybody who has made sure to leave me comments and reviews, I really do read them all and they really do keep me inspired (especially after some of the meaner ones...), so keep it up!
Okay, enough from me, I hope you like this one!
The Person in Charge
Mike was face down on a tall table as Zel and another centaur examined the back of his scalp. He hissed in pain as they checked his wound for any other sources of infection.
After his bath with the fairies and Naia, he had eaten a light dinner and gone to bed. In the morning he woke up with a pounding headache that felt like a sinus infection. The back of his scalp was tender and swollen, and that was when he learned that the moisture from his hours long bath had kept his wound from scabbing over properly; it had opened during his sleep and bled all over his pillow. When the wound had tried to close up again, his pillow and hair had gotten caught inside, which triggered a nasty bout of swelling all along his scalp.
The wound was bad enough that the centaurs had taken him in, and were constantly opening his wound to clean it and apply medicine. Based on the light coming in through the flaps of the yurt, it was almost evening. He could hear music coming from the camp followed by the smell of freshly baked bread that made his mouth water.
"Okay, we may be in the clear," Zel announced. "I want you to lay there until you clot. I'll be back in an hour."
"But I—"
"No arguments." He could hear her tail swishing angrily. "I'm going to make sure you are in the clear before you leave, especially since you refuse to follow directions."
He sighed, and decided not to argue. She had been guilt tripping him ever since his arrival, and not only did his head still hurt, he was bored out of his mind. Zel and her assistant left, and it occurred to him that he should have asked for a snack.
Alone in the dark with his thoughts, he went over his plan for the days ahead. He needed to find a way to cross into the Underworld without simply dying, and felt his best bet would be to speak with Death. Sulyvahn might be willing to explain it to him, but he got the feeling that the dullahan was probably under orders from the queen to keep his mouth shut.
Someone laughed outside the tent, and Mike shifted to make himself comfortable, careful not to rub the back of his head. Zel had given him a haircut to see the wound better, and now his neck was all itchy.
Between lying in the dark and doing nothing else, his mind began to wander. He didn't want to take a nap, but he felt like one was coming, and maybe then he could just skip the next fifty or so minutes and go straight to going home.
He closed his eyes and emptied his mind, then pictured the white sand beach of the Dreamscape. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad to get away to the salty shores of his mind after all and take a small vacation where Zel wasn't there to yell at him.
The transition was swift, and he found himself on the beach, his eyes gazing along the horizon of his mind. He was getting better at entering the Dreamscape from a waking state, but it was still more common to fall into normal dreams.
"Ha!" He stood up and rubbed the back of his head. There was no sign of his wound, so he walked down to the edge of the water and pulled off his shoes, then nonchalantly tossed them over his shoulder where they burst into smoke upon impact with the sand.
The water felt cool on his feet and he started walking along the shore. Despite walking a considerable distance, anytime he looked up from the waves, the house was sitting right there, watching him. Sometimes he could circle it, other times it followed, but this little beach paradise was still plenty of fun to visit.
Out in the ocean, a cloud dropped from the sky and rolled toward him, over the waves. Curious, he stopped to watch it break apart on the shore and scatter around him, casting the world into shadows. The house disappeared from view, and all he could see was the surf beneath his feet. The waves broke somewhere to his left, and he kept walking.
"So what's it gonna be this time?" he asked. "Your world will burn, mer mer mer." This was most likely the shadow come to bother him, and he simply wasn't in the mood to deal with the spirit.
The fog lifted in front of him, revealing a pier that went out into the ocean.
"Okay, I'll bite." He stepped onto the wooden planks of the pier and walked out into the water. The fog was thick out here, and he could only see a dozen feet in front of his face. "So when do you think you'll—"
He froze in place at the sight of the cage that appeared from the darkness. Inside, a lone figure watched him, her hands wrapped around the bars.
"Cecilia?" he asked.
She nodded, then stretched her arms to him through the bars. He ran to meet her, and they embraced through the metal bars. Was she an illusion? Just a figment of the dream world, appearing to torment him? Or perhaps a memory of some sort to give him comfort?
"Mike. A Ghrá mo ChroÃ," she said, and his shoulder became wet with her tears. "How I have longed to see you."
"Is it really you?" He stepped back to get a look at her. The red stripe in her hair looked a little bigger, and her hair was a couple of inches longer. "I can't be sure this is real."
"Nor I," she told him. "I have been in this cage for such a long time, but my dreams have become so real. Did you know that? I can have dreams now. Often they are lovely, and sometimes not. I only sleep every few days, and not for very long."
"Oh." It couldn't be her, then. Banshees didn't need to sleep. Even so, her presence gave him a sense of peace, and he gladly embraced it, willing the dream to stretch out so they could spend more time together.
"Please," Cecilia begged. "You mustn't come here, it isn't safe. The queen is planning—"
A whiff of sulfur tickled his nostrils and his eyes popped open. The Dreamscape shattered apart and he was back on his table. The yurt had filled with the sound of roaring flames, and a dark figure fell from above, landing face down in the dirt next to him.
"Lily?" He sat up on the table and looked down at the succubus, doing his best to keep disappointment off his face. Cecilia had seemed so real, even if it was only for a few seconds, that all he wanted to do was go back to sleep.
"Hey there, Romeo," Lily said. She was covered from head to toe in soot, and she stumbled to her feet, her face a mask of aggravation. When she shook her head, ash sprayed out in every direction. When she rubbed her eyes clean, it reminded him briefly of a coal miner.
"What on earth happened to you?" he asked.
"Well, to start, nothing happened to me on Earth." She spat dust out of her mouth and then shape changed into Dana. However, she was still covered in soot. "Oh, for fuck's sake, hold up a second."
She transformed into a little girl, and then into Sofia. The sudden shift in size caused quite a bit of the soot to fall off of her, and she repeated this process a few more times, then noticed a pitcher of water next to the wash basin near Mike's bed. She picked up the pitcher, turned into the little girl, then poured it over her head. As the water fell over her, she transformed into her original form, and most of the soot was now gone.
"That's much better. I can probably take a dunk in the fountain, if the nymph doesn't...wait, where are we?" She looked around the yurt in astonishment. "Please tell me we aren't too far from home."
"I'm with the centaurs. They're treating my head injury." He frowned. "By the way, seeing you turn into a kid freaks me out a little."
"It's how I hunt these days. Sit on a park swing and wait for the pervs to come out of the woodwork. What did you do to your head?"
He gave her a brief version of the events that transpired. When finished, he fixed her with a look. "Wait a sec. How is it that you didn't know about any of this? I thought you were keeping an eye on my dreams."
"Ugh. Change in plans." She coiled up her tail and sat on it like a stool. "The whole purpose of monitoring your dreams was to watch for your shadow buddy. I decided it would be even better to watch the shadow himself, and when I caught him skulking around your subconscious, I went after him."
"So you've been following the shadow this whole time?" He looked at her with interest.
"Mmm-hmm. And let me say, it wasn't my idea of a fun date. That piece of shit led me on quite the wild goose chase."
"To where, though? If you've been gone for days, where have you been?"
"Ugh, days?" Lily scowled. "Damn. I lost track of time trying to pin that fucker down. Remember when he tossed me around so easily in the Dreamscape? He's just as nasty outside of it, a real piece of work. He eventually lured me into a trap and sent me to Hell. I can always teleport straight to my master, which is why I'm here." She coughed, and a fair amount of ash came out of her lungs.
"You were in Hell?"
"Only for a few minutes. The trip is always disorienting and the demons running the place don't exactly provide a warm welcome." She crossed her arms. "So anyway, let's talk about this shadow of yours. He seems to be linked to your mind, but I couldn't figure out why, and I remember you first ran into him in that tower on the other side of the wardrobe."
