FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Author's Notes: Sorry it took so long to write this. It is sort of the sequel to Eternal Spring, but you don't really need to read that to read this one. A combination of real life and meticulous editing made this story take forever to produce, once again, sorry.

This story contains minimal sex, and also some pretty serious content (rape, mutilation, etc.) proceed at your own risk.

Story � Ara Elkins 2008

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She was flying. Intentions burned hot, each through the other, perfectly in synch. They were two halves of a whole, and they flew.

They flew smoothly, and swiftly, and arrow-straight. They crossed from world to world, and their Intention blazed around them like a comet. They were True Wholeness each in the other, and worlds blinked around them. The Intentions of others over which they passed could not touch them, slid around and over them. They were slick. They were unstoppable.

They flew headlong, unseen, until she felt a catch in their motion, snagged on some other Intention somewhere around them. And then straight into an awful Force, implacably strong, emanating from some presence aware of them instantly and desirous of them not to be wherever it was they were. It was a raging gale and their own Intentions flared and flickered but that Force was fear and sorrow and it was a black keening wail that tore their comet to ribbons. Their motion jerked and wavered, her hand began to slip from his. She tried to hold on, to press onward and outward, away from this awful, battering Force and whatever hateful world contained it. Instead they plummeted toward the earth and were torn away from one another. She saw trees rushing toward her before everything went black.

*********

She slowly regained consciousness surrounded by cool, dry earth. Her other half's Intentions for her safety must have shielded her from the worst of the crash, and she knew hers had done the same for him. That tart, omnipresent despairing Intention laid over her like a suffocating fog, making it difficult to move. She could smell the heavy scent of the loose dirt piled up around her from her impact, and the dry, crisp smell of dead leaves. She opened her eyes and saw little triangles of faint light piercing the blanket of foliage that had settled over her. She weakly lifted her head, readjusting her body in a crackling cascade of dead leaves, and rested her chin on the lip of the trench of dirt she had dug through the ground with her impact. She was on the edge of a dense forest. The trunks of the trees were either huge, rough and twisted or smooth and straight, and all around her more leaves drifted silently down, red and brown and yellow. They lay in colorful piles throughout the woods, and made a light carpet over the brown, dry grass of the clearing in front of her. The ground of the clearing gently rose into a sly little hill with a dark cabin made of large, unfinished logs crouching on top of it. The two windows blankly reflected the dim evening light, showing nothing. A thin string of smoke rose from the chimney, though, cutting across the heavy steel gray sky, twisting lazily in the gentle breeze.

She tried to stand, but the black mass of that foul Intention pushed her back into the dirt. That foul Intention made it difficult to think, to focus. The world seemed to shift around her in fits and starts as time moved jerkily forward. She squirmed, pushing away the piles of turned earth, and slowly crawled to a nearby tree. The leaves crackled and laughed as she dug her claws into the gnarled brown bark and slowly pulled herself into a half crouch. She began to make her way out of the woods, her long tail drawing out a raspy hiss with every step as she drug it across the leaves behind her. She clung to the last tree and shook, trying in vain to remove some of the leaves and dirt from her yellow-gold hair and soft, red skin. The same whispering Fall forest surrounded the circular clearing in which the cabin sat, and the deep shadow of the moon slowly rising hid everything but a tiny silver fingernail in shadow. She staggered out across the clearing, a cold wind playfully tugged at the silky hair around her ankles or forearms, along her tail or pulled at her long mane. That bitter Intention did not want her near the cabin, and as she approached closer she could no longer stand. She fell heavily onto her hands and knees, struggling slowly closer to the dark mouth of the cabin's doorway, bathed in cool, silver light. The Intention weighed down on her relentlessly as she crawled until it pressed her down completely against the grass. The moon was behind her now as she was forced to wriggle forward on her stomach, pushing herself forward with the curved talons on her feet, dragging herself forward with her clawed hands. The long shadow of the moon setting behind the far trees was slowly cutting across her body when she finally managed to press the end of nose against the cool, rough wood of the door. She smelled the living earth, the sharp tang of the varnish, her own sweat dripping from her tongue. With a final surge of strength, she pushed the door slightly ajar with the end of her wedge-shaped head before collapsing into unconsciousness.

*********

A heavy, tart fear fueled Intentions that she was strong and dangerous, allowing her to slowly regain consciousness. She also felt a soft, light curiosity, a wish and hope that she would not attack. It was a weak Intention though, she would easily be able to play up the uncertainty if she needed to defend herself. The black despair attempting to keep her out of the cabin still hung over her in a suffocating pall, but the other Intentions were from some nearby, strongly feeing creature, and so the blackness became a dull presence keeping her sluggish and languid rather than an all-smothering fog keeping her unconscious.

She felt cold wind caressing her body, but a closed warmth washed over her head and the top of her neck. As she slowly opened her eyes she could make out the dark shapes of a bulky, unfinished wooden table and a couple of similar chairs. The majority of the light was coming through the door she was laying just outside of, but a dim red glow came from what she assumed was the fireplace off to her right. The varnished plank floor was covered in scuffs and scratches, and she guessed the windows were shuttered.

She could hear some creature nearby, stumbling around the interior of the cabin. She could tell that its Intentions for her strength were fueled by a greater fear that in its weakened state she would certainly kill it. She smelled its sweat and also blood, and heard its heavy breathing and clumsy footsteps as it shuffled gradually toward her. She could feel the sour taint of madness running through its Intentions, leaking from a damaged psyche.

It moved into her field of vision, some sort of pinkish biped. It was only a dark, shuffling blur until it passed into the wedge of light in front of her. Its legs were covered in some sort of brown cloth, and much of its chest, left arm, and head were wrapped with clean linen bandages. Short black hair poked out from between the bandages on its head, and lightly dusted its arms, legs, and chest. Its sweat had a strong odor of maleness, and it held a shiny splinter of metal in its hand. He stood at the edge of the long shadow she threw across the dark room, his Intentions equally mixed between curiosity and fear.

When she looked into his eyes, at the way he stood, his tentative, cautious steps, she could see his pain, the frustration and disappointment. He had the look of a caged animal that had only recently stopped trying to chew through its bars. She felt a surge of compassion for this poor, tormented creature, and she let her eyes and face reflect that compassion, let him understand how much she wished that he were whole.

She felt curiosity beginning to win out as she slowly lifted her her on its serpentine neck. She moved carefully, gracefully, needing an strongly Intending ally far more than a corpse if she hoped to find her other half and escape. As she began to lift herself from the floor, rolling to one side and propping her body up on one arm, he began to speak to her. She cocked her head to one side, pushing the door open with her other arm, trying to look as if she understood. With a flood of relief she felt his Intention change as his language became coherent.

It was a rusty torrent of language, now that he believed he had an intelligent companion. She made her way inside and lay down in front of the fireplace as he began to recount everything he could remember. There turned out to be very little he could recall before he suddenly appeared in the cabin one day, where he had been trapped for the past 3 years. He said that there were monsters in the woods; Every time he attempted to escape he would hear them. They would back off if he moved toward the cabin, but if he pressed on they would attack, coming from all directions. He could not describe them other than to say they were very fast and large. He would always black out and wake up in bed mauled, but also stitched up and bandaged. As soon as he was healed, he would make another attempt. Recently he had been more severely injured than usual. His legs had been broken and had not healed cleanly. Before that, he had lost two fingers and an ear. In his most recent attack his left eye had been clawed out. He thought he was being warned, shown the punishment for attempting to leave. He said he was determined to continue trying, though. She pitied him, and understood his madness, and let the pity show on her face. His Intentions were now wholly devoid of fear, and she felt rather weak and sleepy from his Intention that she stay and keep him company. When his stream of words finally ran dry, she spoke to him. By then, it was dusk, and the whole interior was suffused in red light from the fireplace behind her and the still-open door. It caught and glittered in her golden hair and her eyes blazed like disks of polished bronze. She told him how horrible it was to be trapped here, and how she could surely help them both escape. She did not tell him much about who she was or where she was from, and he didn't ask. He would drink in her hopes until he found something more to say, and she knew his only strong desire was for her not to leave him to his crushing solitude. It was late in the evening when he closed the outer door, and went through the only other door she saw, on the wall opposite the fireplace. She curled up in the cozy warmth and drifted into a comfortable sleep to the slow crackle of the flames.

*********

Over the next several weeks, their routine would be almost unchanged. He would take care of his essential needs in his private room, and he never bothered about hers at all. Although she was constantly hungry and thirsty, his Intention that she did not need food or drink sustained her. He would come into the front room, pull one of the scuffed chairs near her spot by the fireplace, and speak at great length about his captivity and the little he could recall about his life before he came to the cabin. There was a journal he produced often. He said he had figured out that his memory was fading early on in his captivity, and so he had written down things he thought were important about his home. His name was Danny. He was married, he explained to Margaret and had a daughter named Rebecca. He couldn't make sense out of many of the other details, and her understanding of words like "company" didn't make sense within the context of his notes. She spoke very little, and he seemed to barely listen to what she said, even when it concerned their escape. He didn't seem to care about leaving. His need for her created an Intention that completely overpowered the oppressive black despair that had attempted to smother her since she had crashed, but it was only a little better, keeping her trapped instead of unconscious. The only changes were the slow removal of his bandages, and the open tan covering he wore over his chest and arms.

His other Intentions also began to shift as time passed. That sharp vein of madness drew more pronounced, and her own un-Intended pity and sorrow for him became mixed with a nauseating disgust that she was careful to hide. It confused her that he would Intend her to be disgusted by him, but his eyes and body language gave her some small hints about the thoughts he kept hidden. He still had an attitude of frustration and disappointment, and his feigned happiness was a mask for some hidden sorrow. She caught looks of painful wanting when he did not think she could see, and that Intention that kept her trapped in his cabin was no longer fueled just by loneliness, but a mixture of loneliness and some ashy, gnawing shame.

She would spend many of her long nights watching the silver light of th eternally-full moon slowly draw its long rectangles across the rough floorboards and reflect on her situation. Whatever his shame was, whatever secret he was keeping from her, she would have to help him overcome it. Until he reached some sort of mental equilibrium he would keep her trapped here as a balm for his pain and loneliness instead of concerning himself with his escape. She would normally suspect he was harboring some secret physical attraction toward her, but there was that strong Intention from him that she be disgusted by his presence. Usually, there would be an Intention fueled by hope that she would be attracted to him as well. She turned these thoughts over and over in her mind as the long nights drew on, trying to guess his secret. She knew things couldn't go on like this, whatever his problem was would have to come out eventually, but it would be much better if she knew what to expect. Each unchanging night followed behind its unchanging day until, one night while she was worrying over those same tired problems, she heard him moving around in the other room. New Intentions that she still be sleeping pressed her eyes closed. Nauseatingly fouled with bitter madness, sour shame and guilty longing, choked her into unconsciousness as she futilely struggled against their smothering miasma.

*********

There was a pervasive, tart madness almost overpowering the emotive force of his Intentions as she groggily blinked her way into consciousness. Early morning dribbled through the flat gray sky, barely illuminating her surroundings. She still lay in her old spot in front of the fireplace, but she was dizzy, weak and uncomfortable. She was laying on her chest, bound in torn strips of bedsheet that his Intentions made it impossible for her to tear. She was tied wrists together, wrists to ankles, with her arms underneath her, forcing her to kneel awkwardly. A wad of fabric was shoved into her mouth and tied in place with a long strip of cloth that was also tied off at her ankles, restricting the movement of her long, sinuous neck.

His Intention for her disgust rolled off of him in thick, oily waves. She saw him moving through the shadows toward her, naked and terrified. Sharp, stinging shame and guilt fueled that disgust. The Intentions that kept her weak were not fueled by just his loneliness. It was an undercurrent for a furnace of lust so inextricably intertwined in his madness that she had not noticed it before. Now, there was no way for him to hide its incinerating heat or cloying, pungent stink.

He explained that he knew they were too different, that she could never love him, but he couldn't help himself, couldn't hold himself back anymore. That he knew if he told her, she would hate him and leave, that this was the only way for him to show her how he really felt, how much he loved her. She could not help hating his shame and stupidity, this self-loathing trap he had built for himself.

He barely drew his fingers across her soft, red skin. She involuntarily twitched away in revulsion. She could not help feeling the disgust he Intended for her as he continued his slow caresses. His first tentative touches quickly became bolder, slowly, forcefully stroking her smooth, yielding flesh. She tried to master his Intentions, to hide the artificial disgust he created in her, but it was useless, she couldn't prevent her body from twitching away. Even though Her long tail was free, his mad Intentions kept her too weak to defend herself, sick and unable to do more than struggle pitifully. Whenever he touched her, all she could do was unsuccessfully attempt to writhe further away from him, and moving away would only invite him to press more forcefully against her. He stroked her wide hips and fleshy thighs, ran his hands through the golden hair on her tail, pressed against its thickness where it joined her body. He moved up her waist, exploring her physical form. When he reached her chest his slow caresses became harder, pinches and pokes, and his breathing became loud, ragged. He squeezed and groped her heavy breasts, pressed in front of her because of her awkward position. He pulled somewhat gently on her yellow mane. He almost sobbed, and began to whisper to himself, "its just like then. Just like last time," as he worked his way back toward her tail. As he grabbed and kneaded her firm ass, his voice became a sort of choking moan that accompanied his exhalations.

She felt a sickening wetness as his tiny tongue explored her slit. His Intention made her imagine a slimy little maggot trying to wriggle its way inside of her, and she could not help but squirm and thrash in a vain attempt to get away. He bit at the folds just within her, licked, sucked and fondled her, but his own Intention would not even allow her incidental pleasure. The putrid taint of his touch made her retch. He licked slowly up her inner thigh, across her buttocks, and around the base of his tail. "It's just like then," he muttered, "No matter what I did, she wouldn't get wet for me. Why? Why didn't she understand that I loved her? I just wanted her to know I loved her!" She sobbed, snot and tears running down her face, as he entered her, and screamed mutely through her gag. His emotions swirled within the entrapping Intentions, a choking cloud of filth. He threw her tail over his shoulder, and pressed fully against her. He may have been large for one of his kind, but she dwarfed him, and even his Intention for tightness, for pain on her part, could not change her physical structure. He grunted, rutted like an animal, thrusting into her, grabbing her hair, raking her back with his nails. Had she eaten in the past few weeks, she would have vomited. As it was she could only scream, cry, and retch as he snorted and slapped noisily against her. She clenched and twisted, attempting to force him out of her, but her resistance only made his penis harder. Soon, she felt everything but lust and guilt burn away as he shot his load inside of her and screamed out,

"Rebecca!"

*********

As the days drug on, she continued to exist. Danny insisted on calling her Rebecca and flipflopped between weepy mess and cringing, lustful mute. She had time to reflect on the few crucial errors she had made between his sobbing confessions about his daughter, and the violations of her body when his lust overpowered his shame. The madness she had assumed was a product of his solitude had obviously always been a part of him. This cabin had never been a prison for him, and when she crashed he had become more free than he had ever been in his old world. Those constant forays into the monster-filled forest had never been attempts to escape. He had been trying to vindicate himself, burn away his crimes with pain and mutilation. These thoughts came to her slowly because Danny's Intentions not only kept her weak, but dizzy and confused as well. As the days stretched into long weeks and she lay gagged and bound uncomfortably in this little cabin in this awful prison world, she feared that this life would become her eternity and could only hope her other half had managed to avoid a similar fate.

*********

In the predawn light one morning, she felt a hot, dry Intention that she be alive, and OK. It was a thin shield around her, a burst of strength and vibrancy. She recognized its flavor and knew her other half was coming. Her own Intention spun away in dizzying cords. Hope blossomed inside of her, empowering those congealing stands. He would find her; No obstacle would keep him from finding her.

It did not take long for her Intention to reach him. She felt a pure, living strength trying to fill her. The enfeebling stupor that Danny continuously Intended over her receded. Although she was still very weak physically, the fog of confusion was burning away with the coming of the sun. The window's square of light slowly inched across the floorboards toward her as she planned and waited silently in the crisp, clear morning air. The door to his room slowly creaked open and she saw his pale fingers creep tentatively past the frame, drawing him from the black, musty shadows of his den. Normally, the sound would force her into a groggy kind of half-wakefulness, and she would barely have time to remember her circumstances before he had stalked across the room, crying into her hair or pressing himself into her. Now, he stopped and stared in confusion as she crouched alertly, staring at him with a blank, animal expression. Her lips were bulled back over gleaming black teeth, her eyes were dull and unreflective. her head snapped up as much as it was able, following him like a snake, and her long tail thrashed back and forth, scattering ashes. He staggered back, pressing himself against the wall, his Intentions a confusing mixture of fear and uncertainty. His lust and dread and hope were mixed with a bitter, pungent fear that she might escape and she drank in that fear. Her muscles bunched and knotted beneath her hide, and she screamed, a tide of stark terror washing over her. She drank in that heavy emotion and shot upright as bits of bedsheet drifted to the floor around her. She hooked a shining black claw under the gag and tore it free, running her wet black tongue across her small black teeth. She shook and stretched, her muscles rippling liquidly under her dry, crimson skin. As she moved, working out the kinks form her long captivity, her golden hair glowed like burnished copper in the red dawn light. His fear was an awful miasma now, his madness a sour gel, but she exulted in them, in the power he was giving her. She felt them swirl around and through her in a glorious dance of strength and vibrancy.

He crouched fearfully against the wall as she sauntered toward him, sinuous, flowing. He looked up into her flat, predatory eyes flashing in the sunlight and suddenly she felt his fear drain away. Her eyes widened as a gushing torrent of madness washed over her. He had finally snapped. His eyes were far away and he seemed to be looking through her, only dimly aware of her presence as he spoke. "I knew this is how things would end. I am so sorry, Rebecca." She did not think he was talking to her. His Intentions shifted again, fueling very specific desires in her. She knew now how he expected things to happen, what he hoped she would do: Grant him a quick death, one last look at her before he died. She was dangerously close to him now, and as she crouched down, leaning toward him she also felt a sweet, light lust enter his Intentions toward her. They gave her even greater strength, and a hunger to kill him and eat his body. He was mad, he had finally snapped and she knew that she was now the avatar of his guilt, the representation of the purifying retribution he felt that he deserved. Whatever she said to him, he would believe, and for the first time since they met, what he thought would happen and what was going to happen were about to be radically different. Knowing, having Certainty that he was now wholly in her hands filled her with a tainted euphoria she had never experienced before. She was electric.

If he died before her other half reached her she would fall unconscious, or maybe even die herself from that horrid black Intention. Even now she could feel it attempting to destroy her, but it was no match for the visceral feelings from such a solid, mortal creature facing death. He was an overflowing wellspring of self-hate, pity, lust, anger and shame and each emotion empowered her as she pressed him against the wall with a hand that almost covered his chest, blood welling darkly beneath the points of her claws. "You may wish for death," she purred, "but you have engineered your nemesis, and that wish will be unanswered." She was sickened as she felt his lust increase.

She grabbed his pitiful cock and tore it free with a savage twist. Blood and semen spattered onto the floor and he fell screaming with pain and orgasmic satisfaction into the spreading pool. She looked away from him, to the thing she held that spurted blood between her fingers. After a moment's hesitation, she popped it into her mouth and chewed thoughtfully. It was spongy, unpalatable, and tasted mostly of blood, but she hadn't eaten in a long time. She left him to consider what her next move would be, felt his Intentions shifting from death to punishment, seamlessly folding her actions into his desires.

There was messy work ahead and she thought it wise to prepare herself. When she moved into the bedroom, she found fresh gauze and dressing sitting on the bed. The intelligence keeping him here, the one whose wish for her death she could barely feel beneath the tremendous power of Danny's Intentions, was apparently doing what little it could to keep him alive. Grabbing the supplies and his sheet, she moved back into the other room. She treated his wound and tore the sheet into thin strips to bind him with.

She rolled the first strip into a small cord and wrapped it agonizingly tightly above his balls. He was immobilized with pain but his thread of lust and justice only grew more turgid and powerful within her. She gagged him and tied more tourniquets above his knees and halfway up his elbows, and watched as his face contorted in pain. "You know I have a power," she said. "No matter what I inflict on you, you will not go into shock or fall unconscious. Mercy like that is not for those such as you." Only the mad could have Certainty in a statement like that, but she felt his Intentions align with what she had said. She knew he still felt pleasure by the lust that still putrefied his Intentions that she kill him, but she took pleasure only in denying him his wishes as she began to feast. She bit into the meat of his forearm, shearing through his flesh as gripping the bones in her black teeth, and with a loud pop and a wet tearing, pulling it free from his elbow. Warm arterial blood splashed in a messy arc across the wall, then dribbled and splattered across her breasts and stomach, pooling on the floor. She snapped through his bones, noisily chewing on his hand and the first third of his forearm, not bothering to lick up the blood running down her face and neck. His raw flesh was thick and tender, sweetened by its layer of fat. She wanted to savor her first meal in over a month, but her hunger was too great. She devoured him ravenously.

She tore the rest of his forearm in half, messily devouring every scrap of flesh that clung to it. When she held only glistening bones she paused, watching him as he stared up at her. The meat in her stomach was heavy and satisfying, she lay down on her side near him and looked at the bones thoughtfully. Glancing at him out of the corner of her eye, she brought one gently to her lips, licking slowly up and down its length with her wide black tongue. It was wet with her spit, thin strings of saliva dripping slowly onto the floor. She pressed it into her mouth, between her soft lips, pumping it in and out. She began to moan softly as she thrust it more and more rapidly, and her eyes narrowed as she watched him watch her, feeling his lust roil futilely. He lay there, wide eyed, panting, his Intentions a confusing swirl. She continued, twisting her hand around the slick bone, until suddenly, with a sharp snap, she split it. She noisily sucked out the marrow, cheeks compressing, eyes closed. His lust had no way to express itself. His frustration was a sweet narcotic. She leaned close over him as she drank the marrow from the second bone, the long hair on her arms leaving a little dotted line of blood across his pale skin. She leaned over and began to stitch together the gaping wound she had left just below his elbow. She could feel his consciousness wavering constantly, but his Intention in the power he believed her to have kept him from passing out.

She left bloody streaks across his leg as she gripped his thigh tightly in one hand and his calf in the other. He began to struggle and squeal as she held his thigh down firmly and slowly began to twist his leg below the knee. Soon, he was sweating and even more pale. There were meaty pops as his knee was dislocated, but she continued to twist. His skin stretched grotesquely under tension, and there was a sound like wet newspaper ripping as his connective tissues tore away from his bones and muscles. His wide unfocused eye rolled erratically down and up, shaking wildly as he squealed into his gag, his remaining limbs flailed weakly against the slick floor. Only his Intentions kept him conscious. With a quick tug, the skin split and spraying blood covered her arms. She quickly held the limb over her upturned mouth, drinking the shower of blood that drained down her face and neck. It slicked back her long mane, and ran darkly in rivers down her hide. Her previous meal no longer satisfied her. His Intentions made the smell of blood and fear, the sight of glistening bone and raw, purple meat drive her into an almost uncontrollable frenzy. The leg was quickly, sloppily dealt with before she darted, snakelike, and tore a chunk of his still-attached calf free. She growled through her teeth and the haze of red, sweet hunger, "You cannot die yet. Today is not the day I eat you," her face spattered with blood and drool and bits of his flesh. His Intention had almost overwhelmed her, and all four of his limbs were bloody, mangled stumps below the tourniquet before she managed to regain control and bandage them. During her feast, that thread of lust and justice, of shame had never been extinguished in his unfulfilled desire for his own death. Every horror she committed was an absolution of his guilt. She would have to wait for a revenge he did not Intend.

She rose up above him, his blood having dried into a rich brown patina across her crimson hide, spattered with his flesh. She grinned, her hair matted and filthy with his meat and blood. She chuckled, staring down at him, feeling his desire that this be the last thing he see, that she kill him now, warring with her own infallible prophecy. "Dessert," she whispered, hooking a gore-stained once-black claw into his remaining eye. It ruptured messily onto her finger, blood and thick amber ocular jelly. She brought her head down quickly, licking up the gel before it dripped into the mess the floor had become. She cradled his head and sighed, her hot breath on his face. Her wide, triangular tongue made its way slowly up his cheek before she poked its tip forcefully into the empty red socket. She made little noises in the back of her throat as she rolled her tongue tip around the inside of the socket, lifting out the last few globs of her sweet dessert. As she finished, she whispered to him, "No, not the peace of death for you." She licked her fingers, "Now you suffer for your sins." She drew one finger slowly down his cheek and jawline, "Your daughter cannot forgive you until your penance is fulfilled." His mad power coursed through her. He thought himself completely at her mercy, she the sole governess of his entire existence. She was ready to fight.

They sat in silence as he lusted, and she upset by her new role, but anxious to finally escape this hellish prison, waited for her other half. She tied more strips of sheet around his arms and legs, across his torso and under his shoulders, fashioning straps so she could sling him across her back.

Soon, she could hear the sounds of fighting coming from the forest, and knew her other half was nearby. She bent down to Danny and whispered to him "This prison's guardians are coming, but you know how futile their attempt to take you away from me will be. We are going now, going to what will be the end for you, but before we leave this place forever, let me give you something I know you want." She bent down lower, pressing her lips against his. She slit the gag and pulled it away from between them, and held him up as she kissed him. She played her tongue across his teeth, and when she felt him kiss her back, push his tongue past her lips, she bit into it and tore it free in a final, glistening arc of blood.

She lifted Danny by his straps and slung him onto her back. She felt a surge of pleasure infuse his Intentions as her bare skin pressed against him and her mane draped over his face and chest. More strength and quickness surge through her before she dashed through the door, down the windswept hill, and in among the reaching branches of the forest.

*********

She ran through the chilly morning air, a scattered wake of leaves behind her. She could feel the steady rhythm of Danny's rapid heartbeat against her back as she dodged around the gnarled boles of the trees. His breathing was irregular and he was tense, nervous, excited. Through his now-constant pain and diminished senses he could still feel her calm breathing, hear the wind whistling around him. His Intentions were pure, childlike exuberance making her faster, more nimble. Her strides became long, graceful bounds, higher and further until her feet barely touched the ground. As she ran, she shared in his exhilaration in the sheer joy of unrestrained forward motion. There was no need to resist, she let his innocent desire fill her and simply existed in the moment, watching the trees flash by, feeling the wind whip around her. The air grew warmer as she ran and she could smell some kind of heavy pollen in the air. Soon, the first hints of green touched the edges of the grass and leaves, and there, on the border between Spring and Autumn, she finally saw her other half again.

She took it all in in a split second, the desire to run and keep running further and faster burned hot and bright in her. There was her other half, surrounded by what were surely the guardians Danny had talked about. They were large quadrupeds whose skin was so deeply black that they looked like flat silhouettes cut in space. They were bulky, tailless, and had no appreciable neck, but two glowing yellow circles marked the eyes, and shiny white claws and teeth gleamed against the blackness of their body. He moved, her other half, with grace and power, a blur of red and gold and black. He slashed with his claws, snapped with his teeth, hurtled them against the trees, but he seemed to be faltering. She knew why when she saw the tiny human cowering at the other edge of the clearing. The stupid creature did not have the insoluble faith in her other half that would carry him through any obstacle. It stunk of fear.

An ear-splitting shriek cut across the sounds of fighting as she darted into view, barreling into the closest creature and shattering its body with the force of her impact. She stood, large, strong, matted with blood and gore, stinking like a slaughterhouse. The creatures closest to her stopped and turned, the human, too, looked upon her and trembled. When she roared again, hooked claws splayed, eyes wide and gleaming, strings of drool dripping from her lips and shining teeth, a euphoric tide of absolute terror rolled through her. She was not simply fast and strong, as she began to fight she became a twisting hurricane of violence and pain. They came at her as she sheared through them, but they could not touch her. She was elevated, transformed into an incarnations of blood and death. She moved through the monsters like gale force wind through dead leaves. Black dismembered flesh and inky viscera spun away from her in spatters, chunks, and ropy strands. She killed effortlessly, thoughtlessly and as she killed, she noticed her other half's Intentions falter within her. Confusion and fear at her appearance turned his Intentions into a muddled mess, and Perfect Wholeness slipped out of synch with an agonizing twist. He feared her, somehow her other half feared her. As more creatures poured into the woods, she pushed it out of her mind, lost within her maelstrom of violence and the piercing scream of the other human. This, too, was a moment in time in which she existed absolutely without though and reflection. Soon, the brown human blood and the black blood of the monsters almost completely obscured her hair and skin. When she tasted those monsters, they tasted like despair.

The power inside her kept her from tiring, and she danced around and through and inside her enemies. As long as they were around her, as long as they were close enough to kill, she was unaware of anything but her foes. She disemboweled them with her teeth, she sheared away their flesh and eyes. She stood, a heady tide of exultation and power burning inside of her, the head of a beast in her hand, and her hungry eyes shot left and right, looking for her next victim. There were none. Only her other half, standing ready, strong and upright, facing her, showing confusion on his face. Behind him, clinging to him in abject terror, was the little human. She stood straight, long strands of black blood dripping from her jaws. He looked worried as she walked slowly toward them.

She felt no Intentions from her longtime companion, and knew she was also sending nothing to him. His eyes reflected pain and confusion. "I have been named and touched," he said, "I am called Red." He took a tentative step forward, reflecting loss and hurt. "What has happened to you?"

"I have been named and touched," she said, "although it seems perhaps more deeply." She felt a horrible ache as her other half was skewed further out of True Wholeness. "I have been called Rebecca." A cleaving of her most intimate substance wracked her.

"This is Meagan," said Red with a pained gasp as each was sealed away from the other in True Separation. Rebecca focused on Red's human instead of the raw ache where her other half's Intentions had been. It was huddled against him, tearful. It had long, brown hair and coverings similar to the ones Danny had worn. She thought it was female. It smelled like urine and sweat.

"I will not show you Danny, the human who named and touched me," Rebecca said, "because I have done things to him that would frighten your human even more. His foulness has transformed me, but I have punished him for his misconduct." She did not know what her own face reflected, but when she saw only bitter sorrow in Red's eyes, she knew there was no gentleness in her. He looked sharply away and whispered something to his charge.

After it had scurried off into the underbrush to clean itself they each stood watching the other as the warm air hung around them. He could see her, framed against the yellowing leaves. She looked at him and saw the forest bloom behind him. Sick fear, lust and madness all swirled around and through her, and a few stray leaves blew across the green grass, bloodied by her footprints. "You have to talk to you charge," She said, grinning, "I think her Intentions are making me want to eat her."

Her lighthearted smile vanished as he took a step back, projected only horror. She could tell that he mastered himself with difficulty, trying to pretend he was speaking to his loved one, trying to pretend she was not capable of nonchalantly tearing him apart.

"You can hardly blame her," he said, his voice trailing off. She felt the abscessed emptiness where his Intentions toward her should be. She knew it was true. She could smell the pungent miasma of viscera and decaying blood that clung to her. She looked at her hands, her gory claws as they stood there in silence. He watched her in the quiet forest, his face reflecting raw, open pain. She wanted to reach out to him, to hold him against her, but knew he could not bear to touch her. Her face remained cold, inscrutable, because without his Intentions to guide her she did not know what to say, what to reflect to bring him back to her. She wasn't sure it was even possible anymore. As she stared coldly back at him, she thought she could almost see some bare, flinching desire in him to come to her. But she smelled her own fetid rot, could turn and see the gore-painted little glade she had wrought behind her, so she only stared at him, pain and solemnity across from one another, until the heard the human return. That swirling ball of confused Intentions looked up at her, and she gazed coldly down. "You should not fear me," she said, but her statement had little effect on those Intentions as they began to travel.

As they walked, the trees on their left became like the ones in Danny's enclosure, while the ones to their right were completely bare, skeletal hands clawing at the close, cold sky. Red kept an arm around his human, and they whispered softly back and forth. Rebecca could feel the human's Intentions shift inside of her. The dark hunger and thirst for violence abated slightly and she felt a tart jealousy mix in with the strong, gamy fear that fueled the other Intentions.

Red glowed in the fading dusk light as they settled down for the evening. He was beautiful, red and gold and black, his claws and hair gleaming, his smooth skin catching and holding the light. The long shadows slowly drew across him as he talked quietly with the human. As they deepened into night, he still seemed to glow with some dimly reflected light as she sat and watched them be close with one another. She reflected nothing; her colors were flat blacks and browns without definition or separation. The thick fluids had dried on her, matting her hair against her skin, blending her claws into her hands. The shadows quickly swallowed her, and only her eyes caught the fading sunlight as she lay in the dead leaves and looked into the spot of darkness where Red was curled against the frail, tired human to protect her from the cold and the night.

*********

She woke to the rotting stench of decay that hung over her in a sickly pall. Pink dawn light barely touched the edge of the sky, and stars still blinked faintly overhead. A thin skein of frost covered the ground around her. She stood and stretched, dead leaves swirling down and past her in the freezing wind and glanced over at Red, still sleeping curled around his little human. The Intentions inside of her were a conflicting mess. She felt violent, invulnerable, angry, strong, nurturing, just and vengeful, like a goddess and a monster, but most of all she was hungry, and it was no normal hunger. It was the desire to kill and eat her prey, to savage and devour a screaming victim, and it burned in her.

She smelled something strange up ahead, and crept silently forward to investigate. Besides, Danny was squirming uncomfortably and probably needed to relieve himself. There was a small clearing up ahead, and bowls and trays laid out with soups and porridges, thick black bread and fresh fruit. This was the jailer's attempt to keep his charges safe. She unstrapped Danny and noticed that his balls had fallen off at some point. She held him over some bushes as he relieved himself and struggled with her gnawing hunger. When he had finished she brought him up to the plates and bowls to feed him and to eat, but the savory aromas were nauseating. She felt like she would vomit if she tried to eat any of it. Her hunger was only for fresh, bleeding meat. She held Danny up in front of her, feeling his desire that she care for his needs. She looked into his empty eye sockets, sniffed at his bleeding sutures. She had been giving in too often recently, she began to drool as she addressed him.

"Is it you, or she? Which of you have transformed me into this thing, this monster without compassion?" She felt his Intentions becoming confused. Her voice was shaking as she took several steps back and set him gently on the ground. "Which of you have made this hunger so irresistible? I had another fate in mind for you, Danny," she whispered, "to leave you here forever with whatever creature trapped you to begin with," his Intentions faltered. He was offput. They began to realign when he felt her claws barely piercing his skin in a masochistic caress, her drool dripping onto his upturned face. She had not even realized she had approached him. "But I suppose you have made me into the monster you wished I was." she began to lose herself in the red haze of violence and hunger as she disemboweled him and began to feast, his final, ultimate satisfaction mixing with her own crushing sense of personal failure.

She began to regain her senses when she heard footsteps snapping twigs and scattering leaves behind her. She turned quickly, fighting the urge to growl, knowing now that the other human also fueled this animal hunger. She had not even noticed when Danny's Intentions disappeared. Thick purple intestines hung in swollen loops from her mouth and blood and bits of organ meat covered her face and hands. A few pieces of flesh hung from Danny's ribcage and his pelvis and femurs shone stickily in the morning light. His shoulders, neck and head were as intact as they had been the day before, his dead mouth frozen in a rictus grin.

She was unsurprised by the surge of fear, madness, and horror coming from the human, but was shocked as Certainty allowed Red to Intend towards her, and he also Intended fear, and strength, and a knowledge that his own human would be unable to give him the speed and power he would need to defeat her if she chose to kill him. Her kind could not normally achieve Certainty without True Wholeness, because they knew how Intentions affected each other. Normally, only a complete understanding of one another, an absolute mental intimateness, allowed their Intentions to empower each other. It was odd, being Intended at blindly by one of her own kind without her own Intentions able to reach him as well. She knew who she was. How could he have such disconnect between how she felt and how he felt towards her?

She stood upright and swallowed the last of Danny's intestines. "You know why I had to kill him, Red," she said, "He was sick. You know how awful madness is." He stood in shocked silence, his face reflecting pain, disgust, and horror. She knew he saw only cold certainty in her eyes. "I will dispose of this. There is other food for you." She gestured behind her and carried the corpse off into the trees.

Soon, Red joined her alone. She had tossed the body well away and had been walking back when he caught up with her and spoke. "You are going to drive Meagan insane."

"You know how we are, Red." She said, trying to sound compassionate. "He was awful. He made me like that." She moved towards him. "You know me. You know I've never been that cold." She was horrified to see him back away.

"You don't know how you look," he said, reflecting an awful, bitter disgust slightly spiced with fear. "I can't ever forget what I've just seen, how you've been since we found each other again." He continued to back slowly away, and it was horrible to feel his hopelessness, and to know that he thought she might kill him.

"Your human's Intentions are almost worse, Red." She said. "She is hopelessly jealous of me. She could probably tell how Whole we were when we first came here. I hate the beastliness all of these humans Intend on me, but how can I be other than what they make me?" and perhaps that had been true once, and she felt sick that she was able to lie to one of her own people. "She has changed you as well, Red. These emotions of hers keep you from understanding what happened to me." She kept walking towards him as he kept backing away.

"I will never be able to forgive you if you do anything to her," he said, bravely standing in her way, knowing the futility of any action he might take if she chose to kill him.

She turned quickly, hiding her face. "I know she is innocent, Red. I know they can't help what they Intend. I just never knew that you wouldn't understand that I would do whatever I had to to find you."

They walked back to the human in silence, and all she felt from him was disbelief and pain.

*********

The air became colder as they traveled, and soon they were bracketed on either side by the dead trees of winter. She maintained a healthy distance from Red and the human huddled against him. She tried to appear as composed as possible, but it was difficult. Without Danny's stabilizing Intentions for nurturing and justice, the remaining human's monstrous fear filled her with a desire to hunt and kill. That fear made her very strong, but she had yet to see any more of the guardian creatures or any signs of life whatsoever, so she paced, and watched and waited for an opportunity to fight. She saw Red whispering constantly to the shivering human and as they traveled the trees thinned and the frozen wind blew occasional snowflakes past their bare, reaching branches. She kept her sharp senses focused on the landscape around her, and when she felt the human's eyes on her, she forced herself to stand straight, maintain an attitude of calm composure. The human's fear never diminished, but her Intentions thankfully began to change. The human began to see her as coldhearted and calculating, choosing when to unleash her terrifying violence. It would have to suffice. The ground was covered in snow, and the trees became more stunted and sparse. By evening, the snow had piled up in lazy drifts and the trees were too small and scarce to break the howling wind. The human was shivering constantly and could barely stand.

They could not stop tonight, but without Intentions to keep her implacable, tireless, and immune to the elements, the human would quickly succumb to the bitter cold. Red lifted her gently into his arms, whispering to her in the gathering darkness. The two creatures walked side by side, one hunched over the delicate burden he carried, the other upright, one gory paw against the other's back. The gloom seemed to swallow them both as they stepped past the last few pitiful trees and into the impenetrable night.

Her senses were swallowed up by shrieking wind and complete darkness. Through the bloody paw she placed against Red's back she felt heat radiating out from him. She could not see her hand or hear Red moving tirelessly through the deepening snow, only the wind and the hiss of snowflakes as they evaporated on her body. The human's Intentions for warmth burned in both of them, and soon she was surrounded by a cloak of steam, constantly torn away and replenished by the freezing wind. When she breathed in, the air was close and thick with moisture and she could feel the tiny droplets of water being driven across what little exposed skin she had. There was no way to communicate, she was alone in the noise and darkness, only aware of Red's presence. It was comforting, feeling him breathe in and out, feeling his warmth, knowing he moved inexorably forward. If her hand were to leave him, she would instantly be utterly alone in a blind, deaf void. The piling snowdrifts melted beneath her as she pressed on against the blizzard. The ground became a muddy river behind her, black and filthy, although she knew that soon after she was gone the water would freeze again, and snow would cover any sign of her passage. She envied it. Its purity, the sins it quickly masked.

It was impossible to determine the passage of time. Minutes, days, she did not know how long it was before she felt a shift in the layer of gore that covered her. She felt it first on her feet and legs. Something slid down, disappearing into her trail of filth. More of the rotten blood, loosened by the steam, scoured by the wind, began to crack, slough off to form a decayed river of mud and spoiled meat behind her. Still, it would freeze again, be covered by the forgiving snow. Rivulets and streams of corruption began to move across her body. They flowed from her matted hair across the smooth plane of her back. They twisted blackly around her tail. Like gentle fingers they moved across her stomach, curved around her thighs. They darted over her heavy breasts, gently prying at the gory slime, gently carrying it from her. She flexed her free hand and felt the thick crust of grime break up, fall away into the night.

As the cleansing storm washed away evidence of her violence, she noticed she could hear the sound of Red trudging through the snow. The wind was dying. The hiss of steam, the sounds as they moved forward were comforting in the black, otherwise silent world where the snowflakes drifted down gently around her. As the wind died, their bodies also cooled. The human must not have needed as much heat to stay warm once the storm had slackened. The snow quietly melted against her skin instead of hissing into steam, and the sounds of snow compacting as they traveled were huge in the infinite-seeming space around them. She took her hand from Red's back, and stood still, listening to him move away from her. She trotted forward, making sure she could easily find him again in the dark, before allowing him to advance past her again. The blizzard had scoured her, but filth still clung to her. It was thickly matted in the long, fine hair on her forearms and calves, and in her once-lustrous mane.

She fell into the heaps of snow, rolling on her back, scooping up handfuls and working it into her hair. When Red's footsteps grew faint, she bounded forward through the snow, wet, rubbing away as much of the filth as she could. She exuberant. She groped blindly in the night, rubbing, scraping, feeling that thick mess break up and stay behind, masked in whiteness. Clean! She felt clean for the first time since coming to this horrid world. She closed her eyes, scrubbing her face and hair, feeling the cool snow turn to water, feeling that water dislodge, sluice away the stench, the rottenness that still clung to her. When she opened her eyes, she could see her smooth skin and shining claws dimly under a shimmer of variegated light. It was a cool light, like moonlight, but infused with a dim rainbow of shifting colors. The light was like a shimmering gossamer veil laid over the gently drifting snow, barely passing through the clouds overhead. She could see Red's silhouette drifting through the soft curtain of snowflakes slowly falling around them. The colors moved, shifted, grew stronger as the clouds began to dissipate. She slipped up to him between the snowflakes, among the shifting colors. As they walked, the wavering, shifting light grew brighter. She felt as though she was walking along the bottom of the ocean. Red glanced at her sideways, not flinching away. His head was bent low over the human, his hair hanging around her like a screen. She could hear the human's slow breathing, cradled in his arms, surrounded by warmth and comfort. The human had somehow managed to drift off to sleep at some point during the long, cold night.

They could make out patches of sky through holes in the increasingly tattered sheet of snow clouds. Millions of glittering embers were visible through the tears, fixed into the void's velvety blackness. Both of them gazed up into the sky as the clouds melted away into the darkness, revealing a wavering curtain of rainbow colors, shifting and sliding through one another organically. It was an enormous, ever changing veil of light that dominated the sky and its vibrant oscillations illuminated the stark, flat landscape, occluding its sameness in an illusory dance of color. The towering, curving walls of light rose up, one behind the other, wavering mirage-like in shifting rainbow hues. They both stopped, stunned, their breath misting in the crisp midnight air.

Gently, slowly, she wrapped an arm around his shoulder, pressed her cheek to his. He did not flinch or move away. And as they stood there in silence under the eerie play of light, gazing at the ever shifting sky, her arms wrapped around him, and his cradling the sleeping human, something slipped and twisted inside her, fell into place. It was not True Wholeness, but a connection with her other half, a spilling through of compassionate Intentions that she sent just as strongly. Each watched the other's open, pained, joyful faces, the shifting rainbow light playing over their skin, caught in their shining hair. Each understood that no action was irrevocable. They burned in the cold silence.

"Beautiful," she said, looking into his dark eyes.

"Beautiful," he replied.

*********

They did not know how long they stood in the frozen field of color but both knew they could not wait forever. They began to walk again, moving on tirelessly through slowly shifting rainbow light, accompanied only by the sound of their own footfalls and Meagan's slow breathing. Eventually, dawn light began to creep over the horizon, painting the snow a deep crimson like the skin of the two creatures walking steadily across it. All around them, there was nothing but a bright, flat expanse of snow and their own tracks receding into the distance.

When Meagan awoke, her Intentions immediately shifted in confusion. She could not easily reconcile the creature she saw now; gleaming, wet, resplendent in the dawn, with the reeking, violent monster she had met two days ago. She knew the power she had seen before still existed, but now the idea that one of Red's kind with her arm wrapped around him could want to kill and eat her seemed at least a little ridiculous. Although she was hungry and exhausted, Meagan insisted on walking beside her tireless companions.

The snow was much thinner here, barely covering the creatures' feet and coming up to Meagan's ankles. The white blankness seemed to spread out infinitely around them except for a tiny line of color on the horizon they were walking towards. Warm dawn light had transformed the air's bitter, freezing bite into mere coolness. It was almost pleasant as they trudged onward, the line on the horizon slowly expanding into band of green, and the snow underfoot becoming mud as the heat continued to increase. By noon they were walking under a hot summer sun across thick green grass. Only a few miles ahead, the grass seemed to succumb to dry, brown ground. A searing white line beyond that stretched across the horizon, some sort of huge, glowing wall.

After they had been walking for some time, Red spoke. "We must bear straight ahead," he said, "That line of light is the border of this world, and Rebecca and I can open a hole for us to leave through as long as we keep going straight. You can't be surprised by anything you see though, some creature brought you here, and I doubt it will let us just walk out. Be strong, and know that any power it has, Rebecca and I are more powerful. We can protect you. I told you that I knew the way out, and I told you that my other half would come and fight with us, and both of these things have been true. Know that I am telling you the truth now, and that we will all leave here together."

Rebecca could feel Meagan's tiredness and discomfort even if she couldn't plainly see it in the determined little girl's demeanor, nevertheless she felt a surge of strength. She hoped it would last as they walked through the last sickly blades of brown grass and onto cracked, dusty hardpack. The heat had relentlessly increased, and seemed to be radiating in punishing waves from the wall itself, still some distance away. Rebecca could make out a dim, translucent shape hovering directly in front of the wall. As they walked, the wall grew larger and larger, as did the shape in front of it. The size of the wall of searing light was unguessable. It dominated their vision. She guessed the hazy hovering shape was at least four times the size of the cabin she had been trapped in. The parched, split ground sent up puffs of dust with each step, and the heat from the wall pummeled them with an almost physical force. Rebecca and Red both ignored the heat as best they could, and Meagan's Intentions reflected their perceived resistances back into them. A hot wind sometimes sprung up in little whorls and spurts, doing nothing to comfort them and throwing dust into their faces.

Although Rebecca did not feel the awful heat like Meagan did, that black Intention that had haunted her and Red since they had come here had become an oppressive, suffocating shroud. The huge almost invisible shape wavered like a mirage in front of them, still about half a mile away, and Red turned to Meagan. Her hair was matted with dust and sweat, her lips were cracked and her eyes were bloodshot. Those patches of skin not covered in dust were bright red. They stopped again and Red turned to her and spoke.

"You have suffered and persevered to reach this point." He waved his arm to the dim shape in front of them, putting his other hand over Meagan's shoulder, "This is your jailer, and before we get any closer, you have to know that Rebecca and I can defeat it. We must go straight past it to escape, and I know it will not be eager to let us leave. We can protect you from it, and carry out out of this wretched nightmare that has brought you so much pain, but you have to believe in us." He placed both huge hands on her shoulders, his curved black claws gleaming, sweat dripping from his tongue. "If you don't believe in us, Meagan, then Rebecca and I will not be able to protect you. We will die there in the dirt, at the gateway to freedom, and you will be trapped here forever." He squeezed her shoulders gently, "I know you can do it. Just trust us. Know that we can win." His open face reflected caring, pain, triumph, and love. Intentions shifted inside of Rebecca, pushing back the bitter screaming blackness a little, and she could see determination, love and fear in Meagan's face.

They strode forward purposefully, and Rebecca could feel Meagan's confidence through her fear. This, then was the final approach, and that little girl would determine whether or not they succeeded or failed. It was vital that she and Red appear confident, strong and in control. She could tell that Meagan's hunger, exhaustion and pain made her weak despite her inner strength, and any failing of her perception of their strength could shatter her confidence and determination. She Intended fortitude and solidarity to Red, and felt those same Intentions press against the awful black wailing as the wavering ball began to resolve itself into an almost visible shape.

It drifted lazily in front of the burning wall. Its body was a huge sac, like an organ or a bloated maggot. Two rows of thin, spindly arms ending in long-fingered hands, any one of which could easily close all three of them in its fist, waved and pinched and clasped one another all across the front of its mass. Its body dwarfed an insignificant head composed mostly of two huge compound eyes and a long proboscis curled into a tight spiral. Blast-furnace heat from the white wall behind it washed through its indistinct, shimmering form.

It rocked toward them across its horizontal axis, its hands a mad flurry of motion. The ground beneath them vibrated like a drumhead, and a voice like falling shards of metal rose up around them.

"My, my my!" it clattered, "Those horrible ruiners came all the way here!" Its flickering hands spun and pointed and wrung each other. "Why would you come here, ruiners? To kill more of my precious, precious treasures? To kill this sweet, innocent, precious little girl, right in front of me? Just to do that out of hate, you horrid, malicious little creatures?" It leaned down even lower, its clear proboscis rolling and unrolling rapidly.

"Everyone here is in a Hell," shouted Red, tiny and defiant before its ephemeral bulk. "They all suffer more in that awful solitude you've trapped them in than they ever could in any world I've ever seen."

The ground around them clattered out a sigh, and the creature slapped the palm of every one of its multitudinous hands silently against its tiny face. "You don't understand anything, do you little ruiner? I've saved all of them. I look out across a thousand thousand worlds, and I see them all, so sparking and beautiful and precious and tiny and mortal and frail. Each of them out there, hidden among all the cruel little creatures and cruel little worlds, and when their death is just the littlest millisecond away, I snatch them up!" It made hundreds of quick grasping or pinching motions, "I bring them here, and put them in a place where they won't age; a place where their preciousness can't become soiled or broken or tainted or chipped or dusty. Although I can't touch them, I can keep them safe from the universe and everything and each other. Any other way, and they might get hurt somehow." It seemed to fold into itself and shook with invisible sobs. It wiped its unblinking eyes, and stroked its long proboscis, and held its shuddering body in a tight hug.

"What you've done to them is worse," Red shouted again, when the voice from beneath him faded enough for him to be heard. "These creatures can't be kept alone. Almost no creatures can! They need each other! They need someone to talk with them, to listen to their fears, to touch them in the cold and the dark and let them know that someone is there for them, someone they can see, and hear, and feel!"

Its horrid, broken laughter nearly knocked them off their feet, and it swung back, its arm either grabbing its quivering mass, or waving wildly at its sides. "Pah! I keep them safe! And besides, I can't let them see me! Look at me!" its hands waved over and pointed at its mass, "They would scream and cry and try to run off! Besides, I know things aren't perfect here," it leaned down again, its curled proboscis almost touching the vibrating ground, and a few of its hands were held up against the side of its silent head like a conspiratorial whisperer. "But the only alternative is oblivion," the ground rumbled.

Meagan said something, but her mouth was too dry and only a parched croak came out.

"What was that, my precious dearie? Do you want me to get rid of these horrible, horrid, malicious, ugly, dirty little ruiners? You want to go back to your nice, safe cabin where I can take care of you forever? Don't worry dearie, I've crafted something nice for them, it should be arriving any moment now. You just close your little eyes and I will whisk you right away to your cabin where you can have some peace and quiet."

Meagan tried again, and now her rough cough formed words. "I'd rather," the creature's proboscis brushed harmlessly through her body, its ethereal hands trying unsuccessfully to cradle her as it leaned as far toward her as it could, "have oblivion."

This time they did fall as the ground's awful metallic scream threw them off their feet. The creature curved backwards, writhing and twisting, seeming to almost split in half. Its spindly arms curved painfully backwards, flailing in all directions. It shook and shuddered and could barely be seen, and the awful cacophony drowned out all other sound.

Then the jailer's monster attacked Red.

It hurtled into him, as wide as he was tall, slamming him into the dirt. It was a harsh animal shadow cut out of the air except for where dust and now blood gave it definition. As it rose above him and roared, its six sets of yellow-disc eyes gleamed savagely, and its six mouths slobbered and gnashed their fangs. It slammed its forepaws repeatedly against him with horrid crunches. Rebecca ran to Meagan, who was screaming in the dirt, tears streaking her filthy face. She picked the little human up and shook her, feeling only weakness fueled by fear being Intended toward her. She shook her harder, and snarled, "You idiot! That thing is nothing, imaginary. It can only kill Red if you let it. Watch me rip its heart out!" She roared in the human's face and dropped her onto the dirt. She felt the Intentions shift as she bolted toward the monster. The jailer Intended nothing toward her now, she glanced at it and saw only a flailing blur, its scream had become a rattling sob. She Intended as hard as she could that Red be safe, and felt his desire for her survival, although weak. It was fueled almost only through bitter, agonizing pain. Her ploy with the human had worked a little, she felt a resurgence of strength, speed, a desire for violence. There was just too much confusion and fear and too little hope. *Decisive,* she though, *violent. I will make her believe.*

When she was close enough, she leaped, a graceful arc of crimson and gold, and sunk her claws into the yielding shadowy flesh on its back. It reared onto its hind legs, roaring and thrashing, and she screamed just as loudly and sank her teeth into its bitter flesh. *I will show her I am powerful. I will be victorious.* When it fell onto its side and attempted to roll over her, she jumped clear towards the stupid mortal. She tumbled across the dusty ground, screaming defiance and covered in blood. *I do not know weakness, human!* The Intentions inside her surged with power as she jumped to her feet. She soared through the air again, pounced onto the creature's exposed belly and began to rip and tear into its huge guts. It was not receiving support from its creator, and its short legs and stocky body meant it could not reach her as she burrowed deep inside of it, spraying blood, unspooling jet black intestines thicker than her arm. Gouts of gore sprayed out of the gaping hole where she worked, and Its shadow flesh tasted like failure and sorrow. Her claws dug deeper into its yielding mass with each swipe, as if some integral component of its solidity was slipping away. She could feel her feet sinking into its bulk as its thrashing became slow twitches and its body continued to soften and lose coherence. She sunk slowly down and forward, the cool, gellid flesh close around her. She began to struggle, suspended inside the slippery colorless substance. She could feel some more solid structure temporarily holding her in place. A bone? It only slowed her, its thicker matter passing around her, and she sank completely into its body without a ripple. She held her breath, struggling in the silky darkness. She stretched out her arms, flexed her feet, thrashed, felt the weight of it press against her body. She could not tell if her motions were moving her closer to the ground or further away, there was no sense of motion or space inside the creature's dying body. It pressed its way into her nostrils and she gasped, filled her mouth with viscid sadness. Loss, it was a suffocating loss all around her. She drifted through it, losing herself in it. Loss, such horrid, bitter sadness.

One of the claws on her feet caught on something solid, more tangible. She curled her toes, digging into the ground, flexing the muscles in her leg, straining forward. One hand reaching forward pierced the creature's outer skin. Another leg, she pressed forward, straining, bursting forth gasping into the burning heat and trailing heavy black tendrils of evaporating shadow stuff.

The ground vibrated gently under her feet as she choked down deep breaths of bright, hot air. She could hear it whispering, sobbing. Little pebbles bounced in the dust and she could make out a few of those gently whispered words, "oblivion... choose..." She walked forward, toward the head of the creature where Red should be. "Safe..." She rounded its bulk, saw a red leg twisted at an awkward angle. "Precious..." She saw the human sitting haphazardly in the dirt, turned away, cradling Red's head against her. "Failure..." She placed a hand against the human's shoulder, saw the lines of its tears cut through the dirt masking its face, "Oblivion..." She felt no Intentions coming from Red.

"I've killed him!" the human sobbed, and Rebecca felt a painful tightness in her chest, was horrified to hear the most powerful Intender say something like that.

"No Meagan, no, he isn't dead, he's only unconscious," She looked down at the pitiful, filthy creature holding Red's crumpled head. His long hair was streaked with blood and dirt, one arm was almost torn free, and his chest was a giant, pulpy bruise.

"He's dead! Just look at him!" She broke down into choking, snotty sobs.

"He isn't dead, Meagan," she roared, grabbing it, tearing the screaming, sobbing child off of his corpse. "You know he isn't dead. You don't believe he's dead. Say he isn't dead Meagan!" They were both screaming hysterically, and the ground cried and gibbered with them.

*********

Rebecca stood, holding the human, and looked around her. The jailer hung hazily in the air, curled tightly in on itself, its arms dangling uselessly as it sobbed. There was the broken ground, the sticky mass of the dissolving monster slowly drifting away in oily trails of smoke, thankfully obscuring Red's mutilated body. she could see a green arc of the summer grass, and a thin, white line that must be the snow, far off in the distance. And there, in front of her, the burning white wall. Escape. She began to walk slowly towards it. The blistering heat washed harmlessly over her, but the human began to squirm. "We have to hurry," it croaked, "we have to get out of here."

The tall red creature, muscles rippling, silky, golden hair blowing behind it in the invisible wind, tail flicking back and forth in the dust, held the little human out at arm's length, gripping her clothing in its curved, black claws, bared its black teeth, reflected horrible loss in its yellow, liquid eyes and said, "have oblivion instead." Then, with a slow, tense descent and a sharp upward flick of her arm, she threw the human into the wall.

Her hair and clothing instantly blossomed with bright orange petals of fire, and she passed into its white substance with a shriek and the smell of crisping flesh. Rebecca walked slowly through the shroud of ash blowing past her, up to the wall of light. There were no Intentions anywhere around her, only the roar of the flames and the quiet, sobbing vibrations in the dirt. The wall opened for her as she used her kinds' power to split the border between worlds. Her tears evaporated in the heat as she left this tragic prison forever, truly alone for the first time.