The Seed of the Most Powerful Witch the World has ever Known

Join the twin Witches, Yeta and Yater, as they venture out to find a demon to seed their perfect child. Part of a series of short stories that make up the Anataya Chronicles.

Story contains mature subject matter. With that, enjoy.

Prologue

Yeta and Yater were too much alike. Their ambitions and desire for magical power and knowledge bounced off eachother. A feedback loop that led them to a cursed place to meet the remnants of a demon.

The joint leaders of a coven of vauli spellcasters, or witches as they were referred to, looked onto the mess before them. A mud patch of malice threatened to reach out. They each took collective breaths in a grove lit only with fading torchlight.

“You sure this is a good idea?” Yeta asked her sister.

“No…” Yater replied, “but… can you think of anything in this world, anything, that can give us the seed we need.”

“A seed to bloom our perfect little vaul.”

“The most beautiful…”

“And the most powerful…”

“Witch this world will ever know!” that last line they said in unison.

Ticking Clock

The thought first crept into their collective brains during the Sabbat of the Red Sun. The twin coven leaders stood each with their other sisters in barely covering clothes marked for this event as they painted themselves white and chanted under the sun in the Dead Desert. The day picked marking when the sun was at its reddest - a phenomenon that made the desert cooler than usual, a day clearly associated with Ithialis, the guardian of Sinikas birthed from Daca, the goddess of might.

The witches and their acolytes all partook, chanting thus to Ithialis:

Bless you’re sword and your shield

Give your divine power to your charges

Guarding the only place of life within the Dead Lands

Followed with throat singing saying nothing in particular, just maintaining the same, resonating, sound. A sound meant to pierce the reddening of the sky and channel the essence of magical power within them, and within the land around them. Under the shield of Ithialis such magic would give insight, and protection.

As the festivities came to an end the two looked at three little vauli children, each in the simple dresses and pointed hats apprentice witches were bequeathed. Once they came of age and proved themselves they would be given the black robes designating them as the magical ones within vauli society. They watched their two sisters, Jadjia and Papiu, approached their respective children: Jadjia had two daughters three years apart while Papiu had one approaching teenhood.

“Yeta? We’re getting old.” Yater bowed her head. “Old, and with no one to pass our power to.”

“Yater, you’re right!” Yeta replied, “But what to do? The only way to have a child is to fuck a… voel…” her lips wrinkled in disgust.

Voel, the vauli word that translated to male or men. A male vauli, known as a volrodrais, are very rare. If a vauli wished to have a child she would have to mate with a voel from another sapi race, usually hunmen or voelhun. Within inner Sinikas men were not allowed, so a middle to upper caste vauli could go her entire childhood without ever seeing a voel.

“Voel are so… weak…” Yater wrinkled her face in equal fashion, “So little, so breakable.”

“Well, Voelhun are.” Yeta nodded in agreement, “But maybe an elvoel? Katithvoel?”

“Still weak, but we must make do, huh, sister?”

“Well, perhaps there is magic that can help us!”

“Oh yeah!” Yater’s eyes started twinkling. “Like, getting a seed without a voel?”

“Maybe!” Yeta proposed, “Or… maybe a summoning! Perhaps we can take the seed of a monster!”

“Not just any monster… those things look so vile half the time, so ugly and too stupid to use magic!”

“Would be a thing for the books. Maybe we can find something, powerful and beautiful!”

“Oh… perfect! My daughter will be…”

“Why your daughter? Who said it would be your womb?”

“Whichever one of us takes the seed, the plan will be all the same.”

“She will be the most beautiful and power witch of the vauli…”

“No, the desert…”

“No, this land…”

“No…”

In unison they said “This world!”

Minds made up they spend their freetime reading over tomes and bestiaries, looking for the perfect voel creature. An exhausting endeavour that at first returned nothing but reminders of how gross many creatures were, magical or not. It wouldn’t be until a visit with some hun scholars where they made their breakthrough.

“So the gods amalgamated amongst themselves, becoming one, at the cries of her people.” So the lecture with Deina began. The hun spoke in the square within Inner Sinikas.

“She faced off with The Demise, while she could not overpower the monster, she rescued her children by taking them in to the heavens.” A yellow dress covering the copper-skinned woman from neck to floor soaked in sweat stains.

“There, when the time became right, she reincarnated into a mortal. There she guided the people while constructing a weapon that would seal away The Demise and allow her children to return to the earth.” A few vauli stopped to listen before going about their day. Several guards locked eyes with the vaulhun, hands on their sheathed weapons.

This wasn’t what interested the witches as they went to look for herbs sold within the inner market. No, it would be this: “The weapon was then handed to the best swordman in the heavens, who descended onto the surface, slaying the demon. Its essence scattered within the darkest pits of the world, where it can harm no more…”

“A demon you say?” Yeta approached Deina.

“A terrifying power one, yes,” Deina replied.

“Darkest pits? The underdark?” Yater asked.

“That has been theorized, yes,” Deina nodded with them.

“How about the battle between this ‘swordsman’ and demon: where did that happen?” Spoke Yeta.

A twinkle formed in Deina’s eyes. Her face lifted into a smile as she did her best to not bounce in excitement. “In Anataya,” she said.

“Where in Anataya?” Yater asked in follow up, “Isn’t it a country?”

The Nation of Anataya, consisting of the plainsland of Una, the southside of Mount Kilamore, and the surrounding wood. A long, deep, chasm marked the border between Anataya and the Dead Desert.

“Within the wood north of Anataya Castle there is a grove considered cursed,” Deina continued talking, “This grove, where the trees grow twisted, is said to be the site of that battle. The demon’s blood spilled onto the ground, poisoning it.”

“Is that where The Demise is?” Yeta asked.

“The Demise is long gone, having been slain by the Swordsman.”

“I think my sister means, where is his body?” Yater rephrased.

“His body?” Deina bit the knuckle on her index finger. “Huh… well, no knows for sure where the body was buried… if there ever was…”

The two vauli witches looked at eachother. “Well, Yeta… you’re thinking what I’m thinking?”

“I think we are going to Anataya!”

Minds made up the two women retreated into the small sandstone building they shared, where they packed various provisions and herbs for the trip ahead of them. Starting with exiting the Dead Desert, crossing through the wastes, marked with a mere reading of the unforgiving sun. A path vauli commonly took when dealing with the other races within the land, whether trade or romance.

“Anataya, and the Una plains, is north, so…”

“That way!”

The two marched on, robed to protect from the sun as it beat down within the wastes. Enchewing the witch blacks in favour of lighter clothing for travelling through the desert for the day it would take to get to the Alo’as rift. In the night, along the dunes, the two set camp, and took turns keeping watch, knowing that zals could be stalking the wastes, as well as many desert beasts and monsters.

At dawn they resumed, making their way to the Alo’as rift. Named as a chasm stretching out wide from east to west, a good distance north, and was so deep the bottom was unseeable, marked the boundary between the Dead Desert and the Ali’onski rainforest.

“We were going to come to this eventually.” Yater said, looking down.

“Vauli have gone to Anataya looking for voel, so there must be a way to cross.” Yeta said back.

“Perhaps the Trade Bridge?”

“Where exactly is it?”

The trade bridge simply was a bridge built by the hun long ago when they were sending their people to mine in trenches within the Dead Desert. After the crews were either killed, scared off, or captured by vauli the Anataya Empire rethought their plans for the region. Today the bridge stands to allow commerce and trade from the Feudal Estates of the hun in Una, the elves in Ani’onski, and the vauli of Sinikas.

Yeta rubbed her hands together. Slight static formed that she discarded into her sister. Yater yelped as Yeta said “A crackle-storm is coming.”

“The strange lightening from those storms will hurt way more than your prank, sister,” Yater replied, “We need to find that bridge!”

“But… which way?”

Going in the wrong direction would just push them deeper into the Dead Desert, and strand them in the middle of a crackle-storm: a phenomenon of nature where the air would be so dry during a sandstorm that the sand within the winds develops static that discharges amongst themselves or along anyone, or thing, stuck within it. Thus, the ‘crackle.’

“Maybe separate?”

“Sister, one of us will go the wrong way guaranteed!”

“One of us will find the bridge, guaranteed!”

The two just stared at each-other, trying heard to decide which one went east and which one went west. As they started hearing the popping of electrified sand Yater said “What are we doing? We’re witches!”

Yeta said “Yeah! We should have enough mana to fly across.”

“Just.”

“Ready?”

The twins held hands, and in unison chanted “Wind! Carry!” Magical power can be manifested by forcing the mana to manipulate the matter around them in some fashion - spell words were nothing more than a focusing trick to keep the caster on track. In this case, they wanted the pressure of the air to shift in order for them to be lifted off the ground and carried across the chasm via the resulting winds.

Indeed it worked, a sight to beheld as the two lifted off the ground and floated across the rift, being lifted and carried by the wind as one in water is carried by a wave. They just crossed as they saw the dust behind them pick up and the glow of lightening bounce through the storm.

Played By Ear

On the other side of the rift in a clearing near the Ali’onski Rainforest, the two slumped down on the greenery. Simply walking would have been less strenuous than forcing the wind to move them. Their eyes dropped as they fell asleep. A rest that soothed muscles and cleared waste in the mind, but also allowed the mana making up their essense stabilize before resuming their journey.

The sky darkened when they came too. “We lost time,” Yeta said.

“Or did we?” Yater replied as she snapped her fingers. She held a ball of fire in her hand. “I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to go back to sleep right now. I say we get out of the forest and onto the plains.”

“Alright then.” Yeta stood up. “I just hope no beasts come at us. Not that we can’t defend ourselves, its just the less resistance the better!”

With that they marched into the rainforest. The damp foliage, darkgreen and ever so present, almost hindered them as much as sand dunes. Squeezing through gaps between trees, while hoping they didn’t step on a poisonous plant or venomous creature.

“Elvoel live here, don’t they?” Yater asked.

“I believe so.” Yeta replied. “They aren’t any better than voelhun.”

“So we stick to the plan?”

“We find the essence of The Demise!”

The two vauli continued walking. As they walked around trees, hoping they were still going north, eyes stared at them in the dark. Yater aimed her palm fire in their direction, meeting the glare of an elvaul staring back. Silence passed between them as the elven woman cocked her head, her red eyes not leaving the direction.

Yater took a step forward. Yeta followed. A few more paces and the stares were broken off. The witches were not an obvious threat and neither were the elves, so both came to the mutual understanding of simply ignoring the other.

Dawn broke when they found themselves within the thinning of the rainforest giving into the plainsland of Una. Una where hun where said to have originated from, though now hun where literally everywhere within the known world. The prairie proved easier to transverse than the forest floor and they made some strides. However, there was one problem that they forgot to account for.

“Where exactly is Anataya Castle?” Yeta asked.

“I-I have no idea,” Yater replied.

“Should we ask for directions?”

“We would need to find someone first.”

“Where?”

“We’re in Una! Aren’t there lords and towns?”

“And patrolled roads?”

“Some tiny voelhun oughta know where their own damn castle is!”

They strolled along the grass until they found a cobblestone path. Such things do not exist in nature, so someone had to have built it and later maintain it. The women continued their walk, following the path until they found a voelhun in leather armour carrying a spear.

“Excuse me, voel?” Yeta held an arm up to hail the guy.

“Yes, voel, do you know where Anataya Castle is?” Yater waved in turn.

The guard gave a cautionary look at the vauli. “Why do you want to know that?” he asked, “Do you have plans at the castle?”

“What business is that of yours?” Yeta scoffed.

“Well, ladies, the king doesn’t take petitions from just any citizen of Una, nevermind foreigners - and thieves at that!”

“Do we look like burglars?” Yater demanded in a growl.

“Like a thief is going to walk around with a sign reading ‘I am a thief!’” quote the guard.

“If you must know, we are looking to talk to the king.” Yeta said.

“If his majesty doesn’t want to talk to us, that’s our problem, not yours.” Yater said.

“Oh, but…” Yeta outstretched her hand and blow on it. Frost formed on the guard’s leathers. “Maybe you need persuading, huh…?”

“What is this… witchcraft!” the guard panicked.

“You know, its been a while since we’ve spent time in the pit, eh sis?” Yater smiled as she carried a ball of fire.

The pit referring to a place in Sinikas where captured voel are kept for the entertainment of the vauli.

The guard drew his spear. Yater hurled fire at him, setting the wooden shaft of the weapon on fire. He dropped it in a panic as the vauli stepped closer. Yeta stood in between him and the metal tip that rested on the spear and blasted him with a rush of cold air.

“Last chance, little-voel.” Yater spat.

“Just tell us what we want to know, or we’re giving you heat and frost burns while milking your cock raw!” Yeta spoke with a twisted smile and a piercing glare. Yater started smiling too while saying “Oh, good idea sister!”

At the threat of being raped and tortured the guard said “Ok! Follow this path to Grenidad, then go straight north. Can’t miss it.”

“And we were getting excited too…” Yeta pushed out her bottom lip.

“Oh well, to our original plans. Thank you little voel!” Yater said with a dismissive hand guesture.

The two resumed their walk along cobblestone. A trot that they maintained until they found the palisade marking the boundary of some lord’s land. On the other side they saw mostly farms being tended to by roughly dressed hun in the midday sun. An estate loomed further out built of wood and some masonry. Further along they found a guarded gate with the words “Lands of Earl Grenidad” carved into a sign. This leather-dressed guard looked upon them, eyes narrowed and glaring in suspection.

“Do we need to be here?” Yater asked her sister.

“Nah. We’re looking for a demon, not a party with voel.” Yeta replied.

The two women kept walking. North, as that one guard said, showed an oppressive stone building in the distance.

“That’s definitely Anataya Castle!” Said Yeta.

“No mistaking that hun design, and massive stone.” Yater replied.

It was dusk when they came onto the wall leading into the castlegrounds. The imposing stack of stone laid surrounded by a moat from a diverted river nearby. A drawbridge showing as the only entrance into the castle, up to keep those with no business inside out.

“There is no way we’re getting in.” Yeta shock her head.

“Do we need to?” Yater pointed to some foliage that appeared to surround the moat. “The site of the fight laid in a cursed wood near Anataya Castle.”

“Yes, of course!” Yeta nodded. “We don’t need the king. We just need the wood.”

As the night descended onto the sky the twins went to set up camp for the night a distance from the castle. They got their bedrolls and food nearby a cluster of camps near the wall.

“So this is Outer Anataya?” Yater asked, “The place where anyone is allowed, and not just vaul or nikas?” Nikas being upper-caste vauli.

“It would appear so.” Yeta replied.

“Sad really.”

“I know! I mean, Outer Sinikas has a lot going for it. Bazaars, performers, cantinas, gorgeous little voel!”

“This looks like a refugee camp. How can we the vauli have it so much better than these rich hun?” Yater darn near spat.

“This is what happens with voel run things!” Yeta snorted.

“Isn’t volrodrais voel?” Yater asked. “They routinely are chief you know.”

“Notice there isn’t one in power at the moment?”

“Because he died. The replacement hasn’t been born yet.”

“You think the nikas will fuck themselves sore trying?”

“Anything to stay in the palace.”

The two laughed as they chopped on trail rations before settling in for the night.

“You know, we make fun of nikas for racing for volrodrais, but we’re here, hoping I can get the seed of a demon in my womb.” Yeta mused.

“This is true. Hypocritical - they want strong, beautiful, vauls too. Though, why you’re womb? I have a womb too you know!” Yater snarled.

“In my womb she will inherit my ice power!”

“Fire is much more powerful!”

“Ice can make things stand still! Platforms in water! Keep the daylight from liquefying you!”

“Fire can destroy and kill effectively! Remove or melt barriers! Keep the night from freezing you solid!”

“Ice can reinforce!”

“Fire can light!”

“Ice is easier to control!”

“Fire has a better spread!”

The two huffed at the other. “Well, we need to decide which one will have the honours.” Yater laid her head onto her bedroll.

“And who is a mere aunt.” Yeta added as she did likewise.

The next morning the women packed up, only pausing to cat-call a pretty little voelhun that passed by. While eating dried fruit they walked in the direction of the wood.

“The trees are twisted, Deina said.” Yeta reminded.

“Shouldn’t be too hard to find.” Yater added.

As they walked a voelhun guard approached. Standing at the treeline he asked “Ladies? Where are you going?”

“To the forest,” Yater replied.

“Surely you wouldn’t have an issue with two, lovely, ‘ladies’ enjoying the wood of Anataya, hmm?” Yeta gave a big grin.

“Well, as a matter of fact…” The guard began.

“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding us!” Yater spat, seeing where this conversation was going, “You’re forbidding the forest?”

“Its under order of King Biloam Anataya,” the guard continued, “And as been decree since his father, and his father before him.”

“No exceptions?” Yeta asked.

“None.”

“Why is that, little voel?” Yater asked as a twisted smile formed on her face.

“The wood is cursed,” he replied, “It is feared that what it does to the trees will happen to a person.”

“Oh?” Yeta smiled with her sister, “And what would that be?”

“Well, the trees do not grow right. Knotted and twisted, and appear dead… yet have leaves and needles.”

“So a mutation then?” Quote Yater.

“I guess…” the guard shrugged.

“Aww, sister, he doesn’t understand big words.”

“Should have known he is a guard.”

The guard let out a huff. “You have been warned, please move along.”

“Just one question…” Yeta held up her index finger. “Are you foresworn to the king?”

“Of course I am. I am part of the Anataya military.”

“The knight’s vow?” Yater glared at the guard, “Like, you are to lay down your life in the name of the king?”

“Yes…” the guard took a step back, his hand on the hilt of his sword.

“Which would you like, guard?” Yeta asked as ice came along her hands. “Frozen solid?”

“Or burnt into ash?” Yater added as flames started dancing on her own palms. “The longer you bode, the more it will hurt.”

It didn’t take long before the guard said “Frozen” as he drew his blade.

This response made the twins flinch. “Freeze? Why?” Yater asked.

He swung the blade in the direction of Yater. She blinked and winked away where the sword would have connected. “A fire could set the forest and surrounding area on fire, including the castle,” he said as he swung at Yeta. “Ice seems less risky.”

“Whose squire are you?” Yeta asked as a gust of cold wind escaped her fingers.

“I am no squire yet, but…”

“You idiot…” Yeta said as the frost shot out with violent force in the direction of the guard. As he screamed from frost burn Yater added “If you lived, you would never be knight.”

“Course,” Yeta said, “You aren’t going to live.”

Against a tree the guard stuck onto it. Solid, purple, coated in ice.

“You know, he could have just walked away.” Yater shrugged.

“Yet he didn’t,” Yeta sneered, “Because his master dangled a title over him!”

No Turning Back

The way clear the two vauli spellcasters continued on their way. Yater had to say “See? Fire can do more damage! More powerful than ice!”

Yeta retorted with “Ice has precision! So you destroy only what you want to destroy.”

The wood for the first one hundred or so paces appeared to be like any other wood - brown trees with green leaves and needles of various sizes bordered with green vines and little flowers.

“Think this is the right direction?” Yeta asked.

“The wood is suppose to be twisted, so it should be obvious when we’re there.” Replied Yater.

“Maybe Deina was messing with us?”

“Nah… she’s nuts, not stupid.”

“Sister, it just dawned on me.” Yeta spoke up, “This is still the Una planes, right? Remember what a plane is?”

“Its grass and prairie, isn’t it?” Answered Yater.

“So, how is there a wood as thick as this?”

“We’re near the castle. Maybe a king ordered its seeding long ago, and mandates it remain.”

“Doesn’t look manicured.”

“Not like the gardens in Sinikas.”

“Magic, maybe?”

“Blowing on Anataya?”

Not long after they stopped walking, for they saw it.

The trees were browner and greyer. The trunks and branches growing in uncontrolled twists. Leaves and needles scarce upon them, and what was there looked black with rot. The ground foliage had a dark, purple, tint along it. Vines grew mushrooms all over them. The mud upon the ground had a shin upon it, and a slight, violet, glow it it.

“Well, here it is.” Yater smiled.

“Can’t mistake that. Those woods look cursed.” Yeta smiled with her sister.

“The land is just soaked in this… what is that?”

“I think its magical, whatever it is.”

“Demonic, maybe?”

“Oh… we’re close!”

Caution to the wind they trudged right in. The ground sunk deeper beneath their feet than when walking within the more normal parts of the woods, almost stealing their sandals. Deeper in the woods got darker, and darker, the sky no longer visible.

“Is the night a little early?” Yater asked.

“The woods don’t look that thick.” Replied Yeta.

Further out they, as the wood became at its darkest, a dark-red light glowed ahead of them. A beacon for anyone looking to tempt fate with whatever twisted the trees and plants of the area. Seeing no other sign they march onward. Soon they found themselves in a grove bathed in crimson light illuminating a slight fog coming from the dirt.

“This must be it!” Yeta smiled, walking ahead.

“It is!” Yater replied following her sister. The two stood within a haze of miasma. “Now what?”

The witches each held their chins. “Maybe we breath it in?” Yeta said, taking a deep breath, only to fall on her butt in a fit of coughing.

“No, that would only make us sick, sister.” Yater knelt down and pressed a hand along the tainted mud. “Maybe we strip naked and bury ourselves into the ground?”

“So, what, this purple sludge just oozes into our vaginas and impregnate us?” Yeta asked as she rose to her feet. “I don’t think it works like that either.”

The two each took a clump of the poisoned earth and squeezed it into their hands. “Well, this has to be the site, this is definitely magic of sorts.” Yeta mused.

“Well, what do we know about demons?” Yater asked as she flung the purple muck off here hands.

“They’re a kind of monster,” Yeta said, “Immortal beings crafted by a primordial force before the gods moulded our earth.”

“Beings that predate our world and the arrival of the gods… whom are of immense power.” Yater mused onwards with her sister.

“That means that, at one point, The Demise was more powerful than the combined might of the gods themselves!”

“Clearly what we see of him now pales to such past splender.”

“Curious how something that could fight off the gods could be slain by a mere mortal’s hand?”

“We’re mere mortals, sister.”

“So?”

“We expect a demon to mate with me…”

“No, no no, we didn’t agree to that!”

“It has to be one of our wombs, can’t be both… or can it?”

“You want to raise two vaul? Suppose that could work.”

“Assuming it will be what he wants.”

The two women looked at the centre of the grove and the dancing gas lines making a show out of the red light.

“Wait… that’s it!” Yater almost leaped, her eyes sparkled. “Sister, demons are monsters, yes?”

“Oh… that means… that they can be assembled like monsters!” Yeta joined her sister in the excitement.

“So… we are going to mould a man out of mud to fuck us?” Yater asked. The two stopped being giddy.

“Sand up the coochie doesn’t sound nice, does it?” Yeta asked in response.

More hands rubbing chins. Yeta then had a torch flash in her mind as she said “Course, we could focus on separating the dirt from the… ooze…”

“Isn’t it the essence of The Demise?” Yater asked, “I mean, it could be used to build a demon.”

“Oh, but how would it be assembled?”

“Doubt there is enough here to recreate The Demise as legend foretells.”

“I doubt we would have the mana for that. Course, does it have to be exact?”

“I suppose not! Perhaps… we can mould it into the image of a perfect voel!”

“Personified Masculine Perfection?”

“Yeah!”

“Sounds like sacrilege!” Yeta exclaimed.

“Sounds like a volrodrais!” Yater added in equal excitement!

“He would only be volrodrais if born of a vauli womb? Otherwise, he’s just voel!”

“Sounds disrespectful to call… uh… him… a mere voel!”

“A devoel?”

“Voelmon?”

“Devoelmon?”

“Voeldemon?”

The two just scratched their heads and looked back to the muck. “It will be the same, whatever we call him.” Yater shrugged.

“A cactus by any other name prickles all the same.” Yeta agreed.

“Still, a perfect voel not volrodrais!”

“Such blasphemy!”

The two grabbed eachother’s hands and excitedly exclaimed “Let’s do it!”

They wasted no time as they stood facing each other about three paces away at the centre of the cursed grove. The mana creating its own miasma out from their hands and eyes as they concentrated on assembling the blocks of matter left within the essence. The ritual involving them chanting “Pass the blood, stitch the muscle, condense the bone, replicate seed…” started exhausting them as arranging the life-matter depleted their mana, such that their own life essence struggled with their bodily functions.

Using mana to rearrange any form of matter was hard, thus why those with magical aptitude were so rare. It would be one thing to arrange it in such a way that one could conjure a spark of lightening, a lick of fire, or a speck of frost. Manipulating life essence was even more taxing as it required not only exact placement but having to control the chaotic nature of such essence as it follows laws of nature set out by Effore - the god of creation. Being forced into another alignment went against said natures.

A shape formed within the mud as the two vauli witches collapsed from the strain of such an effort. They panted as their bodies felt too heavy to lift off the ground. The bloblous entity they created wriggled along while the women watched helplessly. Wet, tendrils, wrapped themselves around them and dragged them down into the mud.

Their world went black as a voice echoed in both their minds: “Mortals… you dare control me, the king of daemons?”

They came to floating in a syrup-like liquid within inky blackness facing up towards air. “Fair demon,” Yeta spoke, “We have come so far, and for only one want.”

Yater finished her off, saying “We wish for you’re seed, you’re majesty! To plant it in our wombs.”

In a rumble that vibrated in the liquid this form of The Demise asked “So much trouble… for offspring? You’d dare pervert both nature, and you’re own bodies with an unnatural seed?”

“Exalted one,” Yeta said, “We wish for the seed of a powerful and beautiful creature.”

“Such that our daughter will be powerful and beautiful as well, sire,” Yater replied.

Silence overcame them. The twins took deep breaths, hoping against hope that they appeased this demon. Even in this weakened state, they could feel his powerful, oppressive aura.

He must have been a sight to behold long ago at full, god killing, power.

“For daring to twist me…” The Demise rumbled as the women’s bodies started tingling.

“What’s happening?” Yeta asked.

“Please, sire, we’re sorry!” Yater replied.

The tingling became pins and needles, than gave into agony all over: their joints and bones hurt, their muscles stiff from bruising, heart racing so hard each beat brought a wave of pain, their stomachs knotting with nausea, migraines so intense even closing the eyes did nothing. The two screamed, their voices distorting as the torture went on, soon to sound of one voice and not two similar voices.

Within a split moment the pain ceased.

They breathed deeply and opened eyes in unison. Or was ‘they’ still an appropriate pronoun?

“Sister, sister?” she said in a panic. Which one? Does it matter anymore?

Semisolid tendrils wrapped themselves around her, the fluid she had been suspended in draining out into a void. Before her, glowing gold eyes glared at her. The only light in the pitch. The tendrils all came from him - a humanoid form just barely noticed at the centre of the mass. A mass she was pulled closer to.

“I’ve altered your essence against the laws of Effore,” the monster bellowed. Closer the face of a beautiful man glared back with those gold eyes. “A fitting punishment for your sacrilege.”

A beautiful man with defined muscles along his torso. Limbs lost within tendrils. Absent of any hair, including that on his head. His face - high cheekbones, eyes the shape of almonds, defined jaw connecting to a muscular neck, full smooth lips. A form with a purplish-red hue that pressed her against that manly, muscular, body.

“You were two people that had no individual identity.” He spoke with white, well-shaped teeth. “Now, you are one.”

“Spirits too?” She asked. “Or only flesh? Which decays over time.”

“Just in body.” He answered. “A curse you shall have until your child is born.”

“Wait… you mean…”

“Your request weird and perverse, and yet it helps plant my influence into the world.”

Well, at least we don’t have to fight over which womb if the womb is shared, she thought. Indeed, one body, two minds. Spirits operating in tandem, as one thought raced through, not knowing whose though was whose.

Through biting lips she said: “Oh… exalted one, most excellent of all… masculinity’s perfection… I’m ready… to receive you.”

The demon opened his mouth. A tendril slowly emerged from it, swaying like a dancing snake as its tip pressed against her face. She allowed the appendage into her mouth, suckling it as if a voel’s tongue. Her clothes unravealed as the many limbs fondled her new form.

She let out a moan, a smile wide with elation at the feel of a cock, his cock, slipping inside her. The member pressed into her quick and rough. Wrapped in tendrils, his tongue in her mouth, she shock under the sensation.

Just as the enrapture started to be shadowed by pain he retracted. A white liquid with a dark sheen oozed out of her. As he disappeared she found herself back in the grove. She lied on her back in the purple mud, completely naked. This once two people now one sat up, ran a finger along the mess between her thighs, and brought it to her lips.

“Thank you,” she said while licking demon cum off her fingers.

No response.

She got up, finding the two packs laying nearby. She grabbed a change of clothes from one of them, not checking to see if it was the blue robes of Yeta or the red ones of Yater. It did not matter, for those women no longer exist. By chance it was Yeta’s bag and she tossed on the blue robes.

I’ll wear the red ones tomorrow, she thought to herself as she swung both packs over her back and marched out of the forest.

Sorta Worked

At the sight of hun soldiers walking around, scoping the wood, she kept herself hidden behind trees. Still vauli, still from a race of thieves. She didn’t need to listen in to know these men were looking into what happened to that one guard who Yeta made into a frost statue earlier. Clearly, the voelhun shook, stuttered, and darted about in agitation.

At the snap of a twig one guard spun around. “Halt! Who goes there?” he shouted.

The vauli sprinted off, ducking into a patch of shrubbery along the way. There she held her breath as several guards went where she last was. Sure, she had magic and could use it, but such would draw unwanted attention to herself.

And her unborn daughter.

She knew that this would be the last hurdle out. Once out of the forbidden wood she could easily get back to Sinikas.

A hand reached into the shrub and gripped her shoulder. She shrugged it off as the hand went back in, gripping bit of branch that time. With a bit of thought she lit that branch on fire. The man screamed while gripping his hand. The distraction enough for her to dart away.

At last she was out. Out and on the road again.

After some walking on the road in Una she decided: I am to be called Yetatar!

Yetatar spent a few uneventful nights sleeping in the plains while in the day hearing panicked whispers akin to “Did you hear? Someone might have gotten into the woods behind the castle! I hear they even found a patrol guard dead: frozen solid!” “Think magic was involved?” “Of course, it isn’t cold enough!”

Yater should have killed him, Yetatar thought, Set the damn wood on fire. Maybe burn the castle and the little voel inside.

At last she was at the Trade Bridge, leading from Anataya to the Dead Desert. She strolled on this final leg of her trip back home in the familiar setting of sand and sun. Of course, her situation required some explaining as the coven witches wanted to know who this vaul was and why she insisted on being a witch like them. To anyone who asked, she merged after arguing over which twin got to be the mother. “This way, we both are,” she said.

Yetatar rubbed her belly. Her excitement spilling when her moon blood stopped coming and a bump began to form along her lower abdomen. Indeed she was talk of parts of Sinikas, the twin witches who merged to share a womb. If asked, she went to a orgy and fucked many voel, therefore couldn’t identity the father.

Even vauli would balk at someone who mated with a demon voluntarily.

Soon, the day came. Her daughter would be born. She raced to the midwife the moment she felt her water break and gush onto the sand below her feet, wrecking her robes. Yetatar laid on her back on an angled bed as the midwife guided her through the process, watching for breach positioning or other complications.

Finally, as Yetatar grunted in pain she heard a screaming baby. She smiled at the through of her daughter finally being in the world. A delirious excitement that held her half-open mouth in a smile. Eyes wide and panting she looked down at the midwife holding her child.

The excitement shifted to fear. Yetatar’s face dropped, tears came down her face, all at the sight of a wide eyed, jaw dropped midwife staring at the baby. She mustered all her breath to ask “Is she alright?”

“Uh… mother… ahh…” the midwife stuttered.

“What’s wrong with my daughter?” Racing through Yetatar’s mind the effort she went to. The distance she travelled. The pain endured. All that effort for a stillborn? A deformed child? Someone doomed to die before growing up? If they would even grow up and not be a forever child?

The midwife sat up, holding the naked child where the mother could get a better look at said child’s body. Yetatar saw it, and shared the surprised expression of the midwife.

“I birthed… the volrodrais…” she uttered while the midwife swaddled the child and handed him to her.

The midwife nodded. “The palace needs to know.” She said.

“Of course…” Yetatar replied as the midwife ran outside looking for someone official, leaving her alone with the babe.

Leading up to this moment she imagined a daughter in the coven, under the tutelage of a separated Yeta and Yater. Celebrating the Sabbats with her. Helping her pick dresses. Watching her play with the other little vaul, talking about dolls and magic. Wondering about voel, and what it would be like to be with one.

All that shattered in a brief moment.

Several moments alone, she collected herself. Over the shock she looked at her son as he fed off her breast. “Eirajdine,” she said, “We as you mothers promise to do everything we can for you. You’re unique body won’t stop us from raising you into being the most beautiful and powerful witch this world has ever known.”

---

Originally Published March 8th, 2025.

Written, and coverart, by Shannon Frances Smith