Hey, this is the third chapter of a multipart story. It's pretty long, so if you're into short form stories this may not be for you.
I update sporadically.
Look for the next chapter sometime in the next few months!
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Weightless clouds of cold mist float with all the tinkling brilliance of ice cracked by midmorning sunbeams. Impossible birds flutter in the deep periphery, scalding whiteness clear with every nervous wing beat. Their chirps are the deep bass thrum of rubber hammers on steel-plate bulkheads, filtering cold through the gravegrass at the pond's edge and eddying the water. Light flicks in warm fractals off the pond and carves away warmly at the shadows marring Pram's face. Nothing smells like motor oil. Everything tastes like rain.
Her unshod feet press down the angel-hair flowers, their thin, wavering petals sitting still on the air. They would beg had they throats to scream but she passes unperturbed, walking further and further till she meets her reflection at the water's edge. Wind whispered words lick at the corners of her ears but find no purchase. The heat dream around her glows with the oil slick brilliance of a dying coal lantern. Mt. Granger corkscrew-curls its way into the sky at the far edge of the pond.
Windswept quandaries of the unseen voice far beyond the pale edge of Dementia beg for palaver and she ignores them with quiet, maternal patience. Fingernails at her back, dragging gently down supple flesh sans any foul ideation. Fever cracked and crumbling from the ship rot, they find no purchase and fall away into the reedy stillness of the dreamscape.
At the edge of the pond, she finds a single, fat flower, one score and nine petals finding equal footing in gold about the circumference. Pram plucks the flower and it twirls with ballerina grace in her fingers. It grows heavy on the third turn and flattens and thickens until all the green and gold fall away, leaving only the thick, burnished copper of a gear. It slides from her palm, fitting flush into the loamy earth beside her feet. It turns.
The dream shatters, twisting out of focus as some godless machine roars to life beneath her feet. Dirt explodes upward as the clockwork floor roars to life, greedily crunching away at the forest floor. The pond bubbles into steam and puckers as it's sucked away into the depths of the machine. Fire bursts from the floor and all is consumed. It burns away her thin, cotton dress, leaving her naked. The flames invigorate her.
Where once the forest stood now rises around her a clockwork cathedral. Garish red light glows from the furnace mouths set into the walls. Gears and clockwork and pistons fire and screech and whirr around her in obscene cadence. Sulfur stink fills her nose, bites at the end of her tongue. Glyphs of dried blood wind their ways up her arms and legs. A throne waits before her. She steps forward.
"For some," speaks the crone, the windswept voice no longer bound to silence by the rules of Dementia. "This world is a nursery, a playground to leave before conquering the world." The crone hovers alongside Pram, her toe tips brushing along the hot, flat steel floor. The path they follow is coal black and inlaid with gold sigil work. Along either side, rails buried flush with the floor. "Be the babe, or the bottle."
Black smoke coughs out from vents beside the path. Specters, half-seen, wander aimlessly through the choking fog. Some draw close, close enough for Pram to see.
A black-haired man carries a silver-haired baby swaddled in the smoldering remnants of a red cloak. A tarnished blue covers one of his eyes, the other eye stares grimly forward.
A hooded man drags Bennett's corpse along the ground by a noose. Bennett's eyes are white, his mouth, toothless. The noose is woven from ivy, and the hand holding the rope is tattooed in blood. Pram catches the figure's attention, and he shrugs and moves away into the smoke.
A face, gaunt and pale as death rests above the smoke. It watches them pass, saying nothing. Pram can feel the crone shuddering.
The path ends before a massive throne of carved rock. Stars shine down through the roof, bathing the occupant in starlight. A demon sits before her, staring beyond her into the darkness. He is glorious. Massive. Pram's body aches at the sight of his cock, resting like a tired snake on the seat between his thighs, clad in the same polished copper scales as the rest of his skin.
"Wake the beast, magus," the crone whispers. "It is your duty."
Pram ascends the gilded stairs and stands before him. Even asleep, his body radiates heat like a furnace. She runs a hand down his abs, over the deep ridges of his leg muscles. Her mouth waters and she kneels, pulling his cock to her face. He stiffens in her hand, his erection brushing her cheek as he hardens fully.
Pram twists her face, running her jawbone along the shaft until her lips meet it. She parts her mouth slightly, kissing its flank. The demon shudders. It draws in a long, sucking breath. She moves up his cock, kissing and sucking her way to the tip. Her tongue snakes out from her lips and she licks up the other side of it, stopping at the tip to swirl her tongue in long, slow strokes around the head. One of his hands clenches, unclenches. His wicked, talon-like fingernails scratch channels into the armrest.
She takes his dick into her mouth as far as she can go, her soft brown lips pressing against the shaft with every long, slow suck to the top. He is hot and thick in her mouth, a bar of sun-heated steel in the back of her throat. She moves her hands to his thighs, massaging them and then grabbing on to his hips to keep her rhythm. The demon's buttocks clench, pushing his erection harder into her mouth.
His hand finds its way off the armrest and onto her back. Heavy and smooth, it moves down to her butt and squeezes hard at her ass cheek. Pram moans with his cock in her mouth, arching her back to give him better access to her bottom. His finger, twice the width of a normal man's, finds her pussy and pushes against it. She gasps, stopping for a moment to breathe with a muffled "mph" around his dick. His fingernail, not sharp enough to hurt her, slides inside of her easily, the rest of his finger following.
Pram pulls her mouth away from his cock, it's too much. She wraps her arms around his lower torso and squeezes, pulling her breasts up the length of his member and letting him finger her deeper. He obliges, pushing his finger the rest of the way in and curling it to push against her special spot. Pram moans and pushes up on her tiptoes in response. She can feel him chuckling through his chest.
His other hand curls around her chin and turns her face up to his. The demon is insanely handsome, with the carved face of some ancient general and the full lips of a sneering playboy. He picks her up easily and pulls her mouth to his. They kiss deeply, his long tongue slipping into her mouth. She knows what's coming as he shifts down in his seat and her body screams for it. In a second, her pussy is resting just over the tip of his cock.
The demon presses against her without pushing in, teasing her. Her ass rests cheek-by-cheek in his wide, strong hands. Her hands grip his arms just above his elbows. She begs with her eyes. He obliges.
His cock, terrible and hot, fills her to bursting as he slowly, slowly slides her down on top of it. Pram's head falls forward and she gasps. The runes of dried blood on her skin crackle and burn with white fire. Sparks build and fall away from the sigil work, bouncing over the demon's chest and thighs. He slams her down the rest of the way onto his cock and she leans back and screams in ecstasy.
Pram's legs go numb but move in time regardless with the demon's arms as he pulls her body up and down. Her skin glows with white fire. His hand massages her left breast hard. It hurts in the best way possible and she covers his hand with her own, placing her free hand on his shoulder to steady her. She closes her eyes and loses herself to the rhythm. She feels his hand wrap around her neck. His thumb presses against her throat. She gasps. He growls.
The demon spins her around on his lap, entwining his fingers in her hair and pulling with his elbow buried in her back. She gasps and opens her eyes. White fire pours from her face like water, scorching the ground and filling the air with wisps of smoke. It crawls along the path, burning along the runes, up the walls and on to the mad geometry of the ceiling. Pram sees the Flower of Life bloom in radiant circles above her as she comes all over the demon's cock, her thighs buckling under the pressure of the orgasm.
He stands, feet splayed apart and, holding her by her stomach and throat, begins fucking her harder. Air-starved tears run down Pram's face as his grip tightens, but she doesn't want him to stop. One last, hard pump comes and she feels his cock flex against the walls of her pussy, and then the molten steel pouring of his seed inside of her. He doesn't stop fucking her and she comes again, the white fire of the runes spreading to her entire body in a single brilliant explosion.
In the sudden burst of light, she can see the floor of the chamber is littered with the rotting dead. His cock goes slack inside her and falls out. She feels hot, viscous fluid running down the inside of her thigh. He drops her to the floor and she falls through it and into the darkness beyond Dementia. A voice in the black. Then nothing.
Pram coughed and sat up too fast, smacking her forehead against the ceiling of the drive chamber. It rang with a loud bong that resonated into her own skull.
"Ahh, fuck," she said, laying back and rubbing her forehead with her palm. Soft grey light from the runes' afterglow lit the inside of the drive chamber just enough to see. Pram scooted down and booted open the hatch with her feet, trying to blink the sleep out of her eyes. Brilliant yellow light pierced the shadowy interior of the chamber. She must have finished the overcharge early.
Pram climbed out of the chamber and stretched, trying to shake off the bizarre remnants of the caster's dream. Dreams and visions were common during long, demanding casting sessions, but it had been a long time since she had had one so bizarre and out of her control. Her face flushed with guilt at how good she had felt and her hand found its way between her legs. She bit her lip and sighed. She shook her head to clear it.
What in the fuck am I doing? She asked herself.
Pram decided to bury the memory by getting to work, pulling a reel of hose from a compartment on the wall and spraying down the compartment. Blow off from Steam Training heat filled the compartment with ash, and it was her job to spray it down after each session in the tank. A few minutes later, the job was done and she was halfway finished forgetting the bizarre dream. Her stomach growled.
"May as well get something to eat," she said to herself, rubbing her stomach. Pram popped the hatch on her storage locker and dressed. The feel of her watch against her wrist wasn't as calming as usual. She frowned and got ready to leave the compartment.
Something about the ticking, she thought.
"...and a bedroll," said the supply worker, dropping the heavy, wet-feeling mat onto the makeshift table in front of Sylvia. She pawed over top the gear, trying to look as though she had any idea what she was looking at. The dented silver mess kit, hanging off a ring on the side of the pack was the only bit she honestly recognized, though bedroll seemed self-explanatory.
