Quinn's embrace lasts an infinity and is over in the blink of an eye.
I am cast out of the darkness again and for a moment I fear I will kill us all, but all the heat and energy is drained downwards towards her.
I should be happy that everyone is safe, but the black is still there in me, whispering and threatening and it takes all the anger and fear I have to keep it in check with fire.
Thoughts of abandonment, retribution and pain coalesce like tarry black bubbles and I answer it with fiery wrath and dread lightning.
The fight requires almost all of me. I barely notice Zoom building a ring of metal around me.
I do notice when the ring starts to drain some of the heat, but that spark of hope is quickly doused when that is all it does.
They're abandoning me, using me like a battery, a resource, just like the bastards back home, I am going to spend eternity suffering for them!
Except they're not, they wouldn't, how dare I think those thoughts about them! They are probably struggling to keep themselves safe from me and I'm attacking them even more!
Black crystalline curses shatter when they're impacted by strikes of fearful lightning and are burned to ashes by self incriminating anger.
Zoom leaves soon enough, I notice the arrival of Nemetona, but it's taking even longer than Zoom to grow. Leaving me with time to reacquaint myself with all my identity crises, trauma responses and self hatred.
I'm right in the middle of convincing myself my male upbringing doesn't disqualify me from being a woman and doesn't automatically make me a predator, when I notice the blue and purple garden growing around Quinn.
For a second I forget my fears and admire my alter's work, but without fear holding it back, the black quickly grows and metastasizes, rekindling my fear as I risk burning Nem.
Quinn absorbs the extra heat without any issue, but I still spiral back inwards, allowing nothing but fear and anger as I try to keep the black restrained.
I do my best to ignore the little robots dumping barrels of something and building stuff around the chamber.
I barely notice the trees growing around in me in a matter of hours.
I keep myself tightly contained in my little ball of suffering so I don't hurt anyone.
Scarlet paws the remote in her pocket, turning off the intercom as she hurries over to the newly spawned couch. She hadn't really registered what they were shouting, but she didn't want the noise, not now.
She almost stumbles as she stops her run in front of it, suddenly afraid the seat might disappear like a dream if she touches it.
She gingerly reaches over to it, pulling back the moment she feels her fingertips brushing the fabric. The couch fails to disintegrate into dust. So she reaches again, a bit more sure this time.
The fabric is slightly off, missing the impossibly even texture of dreams. Pushing down she realizes the filling is a bit lumpy as well.
Dazed as she is, habit easily takes over, sitting down on her spot on the right side of the couch.
It's only then that she sees and remembers the glittering dark silhouette of a woman rising from the pitch black lake. The lack of detail makes it hard to be sure, but she seems to be looking towards Scarlet.
Unsure, she gives an awkward wave to the lake woman.
The woman nods and turns around, reaching for Ember's star.
I startle when I feel an impossibly cold hand brush the outer corona of my self conflagration.
I don't have time to process Quinn's new appearance as my attention is pulled further in front of me.
Just a few steps of the shore is our couch where it always is and she's sitting right on top of it. It isn't quite right, instead of my soft cute little ball of fluff, there is a stately elegant woman, but it' i's also undeniably her. The way she crunches her nose in sync with her tensing shoulders, the little anxious shimmy left and right, how she holds half her weight leaning forward on her palms, there is no way she is anyone but her.
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
I have either died or I'm hallucinating, but I no longer care if it's a fever dream, all I know is desire.
I reach out towards her, I crawl on my knees, I thank whatever Gods are listening, I lower myself in supplication, I tell her I love her and want her in a thousand ways, all at once as I rush towards her.
But as I am almost close enough to touch her, I see naked fear on her face, I wheel around to see who would threaten my divine beloved.
There aren't any, her eyes are glues on me, she's scared of ME!
A hand breadth away from her perfect face, I explode in fear and fire.
Scarlet freezes as the silhouette's hand passes through the fire and the blazing golden star begins to bleed a fluorescent pink ooze.
It floats on top of the dark water below the star, thick globs of it falling from the dimming star until only a small spark is left.
The mass begins to writhe and move towards her, dozen of hands and arms forming and reaching towards the increasingly frightened half kitsune.
Screaming desperate face emerge as it rushes towards her in a wild knot of half liquid body parts, breasts and genitals begin to dot the mass like some nightmare amalgamation of an eldritch orgy.
It moves too fast for her to run, fear cementing her in her seat.
The horrifying mass suddenly stops a hairbreadth away, hot breath warming her face with the scents of red fruit, honey and sex, when the faces suddenly go from a delirious desire to utter shock.
Familiar golden flames erupt along the mass, but just before they can reach her, the dark lake surges forward, sweeping away the pink and yellow disaster into it's center.
"Holy shitballs, I knew that bitch was horny needy mess, but that's bad even for her!"
Scarlet wheels around to see a familiar ferret floating just behind her, "Don't worry, Quinn has that hoe on lock, she'd never forgive us if we allowed you to get hurt", Zoom grins at her.
They touch down on the couch and stretch themself over her lap, giving her a mischievous grin.
The lake's center bulges inward as it releases a familiar star back up, "There ya go, right as rain, just give her a moment to process, not even Ember can have an endless meltdown", the neon ferret quips at her before blinking out again.
I wake back up in the darkness afraid I just killed the only truly good thing in existence, but Quinn's memories start flooding in.
I try to focus on the relief that my little fox is safe, but instead I just wallow in the shame and disgust of showing her that monster of lust and hunger.
Part of me wants to wallow for eternity, rend myself apart as punishment, but a much larger part wants to see my love again.
I know what I need now, I remember the lesson I keep forgetting and relearning.
So when Quinn peels herself back and releases me into reality, I know what to do next.
I let go of the fear and anger, allowing the black to ooze back into existence. This darkness isn't a curse or an attack, whether I like it or not, it is part of me, the little black hole in my soul that always keeps hungering.
I can't separate it from myself, so instead I force the tarry black ooze into a different shape, compacting it until it crystallizes in something more solid and brittle. I condense the storm of intrusive thoughts and harming impulses into something deeper, more primal. The very first sin, rebellion against death.
Every fear, every act of violence, every instance of pain all goes back to that, the rebellion against entropy, the hunger for life, to stand before death and choosing to fight.
The ooze turns into strong and ungiving steel and I form that into bones.
Just a will to live isn't enough though, the black will continue to grow like a tumor until it collapses into itself, taking everything it can with it. It needs to be both accepted and rejected. I coat my bones in an anxious wreath of lightning to guard them and I ignite the dark infinite pit in my underbelly with wrathful fire to fight the people I don't want to become.
A will to live and the tools to guard myself aren't enough either, a person needs more than just survival. So instead of burning all the darkness life gives me, I start to melt some of it, radiating pink like molten metal, it becomes blood, joy and desire. Because suffering can't exist without pleasure, just as much as the reverse is true. I let it flow through me like blood, transmuting joy into life and I mold viscous half molten pink into flesh, powering myself with desire.
Survival, a good fight and an even better fuck, for a long time I didn't want more than that and I wielded those weapons with skill and passion. However not all the darkness and curses in the world can be burned with righteous anger or molten down in the crucibles of desire. Some you only need to let go of, to turn entropy against itself. So I fill my lungs with a disintegrating cyan breath. Withering away the last unwanted remnants of black.
Which just leaves the last step. To know myself as One and Whole. To accept everything that is me without exception or separation.
And just like how in printed comics, Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black mix into every color of the spectrum, I come into focus as a complete person as well.
When I open my eyes I am kneeling in front of the couch. I gaze up at my love, for a moment fearful that it isn't going to be her, but I would recognize that look any place any time.
Breath stuck in my throat I stare at her, until she moves forward, placing her forehead unto mine in a painfully familiar gesture.
"Hey Sunshine, I missed you", Scarlet whispers gazing into my eyes.
"Hey Fluffbutt, I missed you too", I manage to force out in a squeak.
How do you feel about the body horror?
