Dear readers, a cast of characters for this episodic may be found in my bio. Please feel free to ask questions if my descriptions are confusing. Your comments, questions, and reviews would help me improve my storytelling craft. That is something that the FBI should check in to.
Previously:
Evanescent made her first change to Pet's drawings - a ring for her clitoris. Morgana demonstrated the necessity for Evancescent to harden her heart and make sacrifices in order to become a leader. Hank is building a coffin. Maisie gets a haircut, a piercing, and a hood. Aife and Zeigh traverse Cowen visiting witches and seers for clues to Karma's disappearance. Karma agrees trade her name for sanity and comfort from Ileana.
Karma has been buried for 3 days, 7 hours and 5 minutes
0 - 0 - 3 - 07:05 - Evanescent
"Holy mother of fuck! You scared the shit out of me!" Evanescent cursed.
The Queen's Witch, Morgana, cackled. "You wouldn't have thought that an old hag like I could be so nimble."
"I would never question your skills," Evanescent said, recomposing herself.
Morgana looked over the drawing that Evanescent had been working on. It was an incredibly realistic likeness of P-346, Slave Karma's face. Her long locks on her right side were drawn back in braid to highlight the elaborate set of jewelry and piercings that had been made to her ear and the three delicate chains that swept beautifully across her cheek to their anchorage on the right ala of her nose. Her full lips were relaxed with the ends naturally tipped up. Rings were embedded in her lower lip on each side. Her eyes were drawn with extensive detail that seemed to pull the admirer's focus.
"Your skills are unparalleled in your generation," Morgana complimented. "You have the greatest degree of focus I have ever witnessed in a sorceress. And while that is your strength, that is also your weakness."
Evanescent looked up at Morgana questioningly.
"I could have stabbed you in the back, my dear," Morgana laughed. "You would be dead before you even knew what had happened."
Evanescent looked around the lab, past the statue of Ivankara and the Gag of Complicities, into the shadows cast by the sparse torches lit about the room. "I thought that I was in a safe space. Is that not true?"
"Yes, you are, of course," Morgana said. "Now, I must suggest though that you are wasting your time - drawing such a precise picture of the Princess's missing slave. She's gone."
"The Princess has hired an independent to look for her. I'm trying to help her," Evanescent explained.
"Oh, yes," Morgana said. "That fierce little gray bitch. Aife, she calls herself these days. Her search will be fruitless. If the slave is even still alive, she is most likely condemned to yield to the ravages of the Crown's Concern disease."
"You said that we have until the full moon - seven more days," Evanescent said. "In fact, couldn't we extend her time by continuing to manage the disease just as we have and do for Pet."
"We could only extend her time, if we could determine that her current array of piercings are intact. If any have been removed, then she is already doomed. And that is most likely the case, if you were unable to detect her locator charm," Morgana explained. "Even if she is still alive, our best path forward is to leave her to the whim of the disease. It would sufficiently incapacitate her soon enough which is the best state for her and for us. You're wasting your time."
Evanescent looked down at her drawing. "I must comply with the Princess's wishes still."
"The Princess is gone," Morgana sighed. "But go ahead, let that little Aife bitch waste her time looking. And when you see her to give her the picture, tell her that she has taken one of my utility slaves from the castle illegally and I want it back immediately."
<>-+-
Evanescent returned to her castle quarters only to find Paris getting ready to leave. Paris was a domestique who had successfully extended her career as a castle slave by proving her usefulness with minor skills as a witch.
"I have strung up Slave Xexxia as best possible according to the desires of Mr. Bowman," Paris said pointing to a closed door. She pronounced Xexxia as though the X's were S's. "I believe that I was able to make the ties so that they are as comfortable as possible. Mr. Bowman has a tendency to leave his visitors... uh... hanging for extended periods of time."
"Thank you, Paris. I will go and have a look at her - see how she's doing. Why don't you go and eat dinner? I'll let you know how the ties have worked tomorrow morning after breakfast."
"Yes, Mistress Sorceress," Paris said, bowing her head slightly. "Oh! And I started to prepare another batch of the magic hemp."
"You are brilliant, Paris." Evanescent opened the door to her quarters and quickly ushered Paris out into the hallway. The middle aged slave curtsied and walked down the hall and around the corner. Evanescent then closed and locked the door to her quarters. She stepped into the kitchen and grabbed a few mint leaves from a dish and began chewing on them. She went into the bathroom, checked herself out in the mirror - running her fingers through her hair. She spit out the mint in the chamber pot, rinsed her mouth out and looked in the mirror again.
Evanescent stepped across her entry hall and opened the door. Inside a nude woman was suspended by a web of glittering ropes from a pulley attached to a sturdy overhead ceiling beam. Her head was pulled back by twine braided into her long hair, pulled taut. She would have had a clear view of Evanescent's entrance were it not for the pair of ropes loosely passing before her eyes. Evanescent placed her hand on the woman's cheek and stooped a little to look past the rope into the moist brown eyes of the suspended slave. She placed a light kiss just below this pair of ropes and above another pair, tied much more tightly to cleave the woman's mouth, pulling her lips into a grimace.
"Hello, my love," Evanescent said. "I've missed you."
The woman's reply was lost behind the cleave, but its song contained more glee than discomfort.
Evanescent let a hand brush across the woman's shoulder, passing down her arm over regularly spaced pairs of rope which helped pull the woman's arms back into a secure box tie. Extra attention and lengths of rope had been applied to the slave's hands leaving her fingers twisted up and ineffective to any purpose.
Gently, below the woman, her breasts dangled, pulled further by clamps weighted with light chains, terminated with large, clear, glass jewels. Evanescent let her fingers slide with the lightest touch across the woman's chest until goosebumps arose. She fingered one of the chains until the slave moaned and flexed her torso into the cage of twisted twine which supported her sculpted body from underneath. Her shape was a bow. Her legs were bent double, calf to thigh, tightly bound, and spread enough for Evanescent to see and advance and feel her slave's core. And there, too, lovingly clamped so intimately, was another glass jewel and chain allowing Gravity herself to tug and tease the slave with every twitch and lustfully labored breath. The big toe on each foot was wrapped and pulled toward the ceiling forcing an attractive point to the slave's feet. She could wiggle, but nothing more.
Evanescent returned to the slave's face, lightly stroking her hand along the slave's side, around the side of her breast feeling the way the slave trembled as she pulled in heavy breaths of air. She found a knot to the side of her head, which she was able to loosen easily and the ropes slipped from the slave's mouth. Evanescent pulled the ropes below the suspended woman's chin and stooped to gently press her lips to the slave's.
"How are you coping?" Evanescent whispered.
"Much better," Xexxia responded, a hint of a smile flashing across her face. "Now that you are here. The ropes... they tingle all over me."
Evanescent smiled and stepped back. She pushed gently on Xexxia's shoulder and the slave spun a half turn around on the single cable dropping from above. Evanescent stepped between Xexxia's knees and reached her hand to cup the slave's sex where a pair of ropes met, knotted together and pressed between the slave's labia minora. The rope was saturated with moisture. Evanescent let her tongue play across the slave's sex following the rope as it fed out across her perineum, letting out a quiet hum of satisfaction. Xexxia trembled and let out a throaty groan as well, her sex clenching involuntarily around the knotted rope.
"Oh, my," Evanescent said. "I see why Paris thought you needed the gag." She stepped back out from between the suspended woman's legs and gave her another push, this time waiting for Xexxia to spin one and a half times before stopping her and lightly kissing her lips.
As she began to re-apply the pair of ropes between Xexxia's lips and teeth, Xexxia cooed, "Light me up, Mistress Sorceress." Evanescent pulled tight the knot forcing the ropes more deeply into the slave's mouth and she stepped back.
"Your wish is my pleasure, my love."
Evanescent stepped over to a vase and upended some powder into her hand. She began to rub her hands together and chant a mumbled rhythm. There was a loud pop and when Evanescent opened her hands a bright silver flame danced on each palm. She stepped over to the suspended woman and held a palm beneath each dangling jewel - first each breast and then below Xexxia's sex. The jewels seems to catch the flame and glow with a sparkling silvery light.
Xexxia began to shake and writhe within the confines of her tight bondage. The flame did not burn. It's fuel was not physical elements. Instead it fed upon the syrup of desire.
Evanescent stepped back around to the slave's spread knees and changed the rhythm and inflection of her chanting, quickly grabbing each knee in one of her flaming hands and pushing Xexxia into a harrowing spin widdershins.
Evanescent held out her palms as Xexxia spun rapidly. The ropes began to sparkle even more brightly. Suddenly in a flash, the silver flames erupted from the jewels and from Evanescent's hands, licking out across the slave's captured flesh, focusing and then anchoring along the lines of each strand of rope. Shortly, the entire web of hemp was alight with silvery flames dancing in the vortex of Xexxia's rotation. Xexxia was grunting and her body jerked uncontrollably. If she was in pain, it was certainly an a erotic torture.
