Nightmare Sanctuary: Inner Sanctum (Ended) Ch. 25th

[Aerin Penna Seleratus]

When light came back into the world, Aern and Yelena were kneeling atop plush pillows, facing each other, the light from an unseen candle shining between them, piercing the darkness in a small cone of light which barely extended beyond their bodies.

Aerin’s feathers had seemed to lose their luster in the transition, her wings lowered in weariness and defeat, her face following suit, her empty colorless eyes downcast toward the cobbled stone which made up the floor. After a burn or two of total silence, Aerin looked up and wiped the green liquid from her cheeks. “You are so….” Aerin began, her voice distant and morose, her fingers reaching out to brush a stray lock of blonde hair behind Yelena’s pointed ear, her fingers lingering just behind the conch before coming forth to stroke Yelena’s cheek. “…pretty…”

[Yelena Kintessia]

Yelena opened her eyes, the light of the candle was noticeable through her eyelids. She was kneeling on pillows, soft and fluffy to the touch. The light did not reach far, so Yelena could not make out where she was. The bar? No that can't be it, we fell from there... Across from her was Aerin, the white feathered wings still appeared behind her, but instead of the energy Yelena had seen earlier the wings seemed the complete opposite. Her eyes turned up to the angelic face. It emanated dejection, pain, a need for comfort.

“You are so… pretty…”

The blond didn't flinch at her touch. It was cold. Cold... Aerin why are you cold, just a while ago... Still fixed on the face, she could feel herself starting to cry. There was no reason to cry. Not a reason she could think of. Her own hand met Aerin's and she pulled the woman close to her into an embrace.

“I told you already, it is okay...”

[Aerin Penna Seleratus]

Aerin’s skin was cold to the touch as Yelena draw her close, the goosebumps on her flesh almost painful to both parties, the individual hairs in the gooseflesh standing bolt upright in a manner resembling porcupine or cactus quills, but without the harmful abilities of either.

“I told you already, it is okay...”

“For all the study, you miss it all…” Aerin replied with a shake of her head, still seeing Yelena as an aspect of herself instead of an outside influence on her dreams. Despite Aerin’s sudden bout of moroseness, part of the redhead still sought to climb back out of the well, her chilly fingers sliding down Yelena’s chest and following the long course around to the bared nipples, her nails absentmindedly teasing and perking them up as she continued to speak. “Rat left us, love… He left us because he could not accept us for who we are…” Aerin’s fingers stopped, mid-tease and slid upward again, one hand gliding up Yelena’s slender neck to nestle into her hair, while the other came to cup underneath the blonde’s chin, half-lovingly…half-threateningly.

“He hated dark desires… He hated living outside the rules…” Aerin brought her lips to Yelena’s for one quick, teasing kiss. “Were the roles reversed and it had been he who had tortured, raped, and murdered that girl….mmmm…MMM!” The redhead’s warmth was returning as she relived her crime in her mind. “No man or woman’s touch in all of Tazlure can compare to the sweet caress of Death as she guides your hands across the skin of another… Shows you how to peel back both passion and pain like a Lotus blossom…”

Aerin was growing more and more aroused with each word, a seductive smile on her face as she kissed once more and reached again for a nipple, her fingers tight upon the flesh once she got there.

Her want was growing stronger by the flicker and Aerin was prepared to do what she had done many times in dreams before – to destroy ‘herself’ as both punishment and reward for keeping her inner demons bottled up for too long…

[Yelena Kintessia]

Yelena flinched to the touch, but something did not seem right to her. Physically her body responded to the arousal and got warmer but she could not help but feel something odd was happening to Aerin. 'Us'? Does she think we are one? I am an extension of herself? When Aerin started to give off the hint of warmth, the words that she spoke began to scare the blonde... Torture, rape, murder? Who... which girl? The last part explained it to Yelena. She was becoming uncomfortable. Is this really her? When she... dug her nails into me, was that a part of her pleasure, a memory of what she said? No, I don't want it like this...

“Aerin, I am not you...” She grabbed the redhead's hands and clutched them together with her own, but she was scared to think about what Aerin would do next. “Rat didn't leave 'us', I don't know who Rat is... Tell me what is wrong.”

[Aerin Penna Seleratus]

One flicker, Aerin was on her way to self-seduction and self-destruction – to the reaffirmation that she was not damaged…not a monster…that what she felt was right and natural…

The next flicker, Aerin found her hands bound by flesh and deprived of their ability to wander and the woman whom she had thought to be her own innocence and diligence was suddenly her own confrontation as Yelena declared her independence.

Aerin flushed, suddenly aware of both her literal and metaphorical nakedness, the crimson on her cheeks growing redder as she thought of the others in the bar and how they, too, were probably outsiders looking in.

“Oh…………my…..” Aerin wrenched her hands free of Yelena’s and stood, turning her back to the girl for a moment and clutching her fists to her cleavage as her breathing became a little labored. She had just confessed to murder and rape – to a total stranger.

Oh shit… What do I…? What if she..? Who…? red curls danced as Aerin’s eyes turned back toward Yelena, her body following after a slight delay. Aerin had spilled her secrets to this girl and yet the girl – had remained interested…

“Rat was…an old lover who did not understand me… You know how that is, right?” Aerin asked, trying to figure Yelena and her new role within the ‘dream’ out.

[Yelena Kintessia]

“Rat was…an old lover who did not understand me… You know how that is, right?”

Yelena looked down at the floor, trying to remember if there was anything... similar to the redhead's feeling. She had never had a true love, and even then it was not even a man. Thea's face appeared in her mind again, as it occasionally did when she thought of the girl. Thea and Aerin looked eerily similar, but it could have just been the blurring effects to past mixing with what is present.

“I.. I believe I do, but I do not think it is of the same magnitude of you and Rat...” Yelena looked up at Aerin, locking the green gazes together. Slightly she tilted her head. Yelena had come to grip her past and put it behind her, but when she considered Aerin's situation it seemed... easier said than done.

“Everyone has to move on from the past, am I right?”

[Aerin Penna Seleratus]

Aerin chuckled and shook her head as a reply, kneeling once more before Yelena on the pillows. “Even if it is a past that everyone but you wants you to move away from? And I’m talking about having to give up a new love…and no, I do not mean Rat…” the redhead asked semi-cryptically. “Like food, for instance… If you went out right now and tasted a new type of pie – the flavors more succulent than anything you could imagine… The textures and sights…divine…” Aerin proposed, cupping her hands as if holding a slice of that very pie.

“And then BAM!” Aerin said, yelling the last word for effect. “Some asshole decides that he hates your entire existence because of that pie… That you are a monster for eating it… And you spend the next half yahren longing for just one more taste but find that your hunger must remain un-sated, lest more people judge you for it?”

Aerin’s featureless eyes narrowed at Yelena’s, yet there was a playful look about her mouth.

“Could you remain sane for long having both the sweet taste of the pie on your tongue as well as the aftertaste of degradation?” Aerin hoped that Yelena would say yes, for that would show that Aerin was somewhere near ‘normal’.

[Yelena Kintessia]

“No... Well, I don't actually know.” Yelena looked away, “I did give up a new love, but she had to leave! I didn't get a taste... not even the hint of the flavor...” She continued the metaphor of the 'pie', but in all of Aerin's explanation Yelena had never experienced any of it. Was that what it could have been like? She didn't like trying to think what could have happened, as it was past her, she had moved on.

“I have never experienced any judgment compared to what you are describing.” Yelena felt very detached now. She felt she was a... a very sheltered child. She never went through anything like what Aerin had described. Perhaps she had experienced so much, yet because she wanted to survive she fought to live and keep her sanity. Yelena could not begin to fathom what things she would have to go through to understand Aerin more.

[Aerin Penna Seleratus]

“No... Well, I don't actually know. I did give up a new love, but she had to leave! I didn't get a taste... not even the hint of the flavor...”

Aerin’s head tilted slightly as she listened, suddenly curious more about Yelena than what Yelena was doing there in Aerin’s dream or what she could possibly do to Aerin. Aerin’s warmth continued to grow as she recline sideways on the pillows and paid attention to the blonde.

“I have never experienced any judgment compared to what you are describing.”

“Your relationship died too early for anyone to question why your ‘love’ also had breasts?” Aerin perked an eyebrow curiously. “Rat didn’t like it that I felt comfortable making love to both men and women whenever we would go to the Temple of Pan for the occasional orgy. He said that if it wasn’t himself or another male, then it was not natural and that I was an abomination in the eyes of the One – no better than the Panlings that he found no problems fucking.” Aerin gave a small shrug.

“Have you ever felt the urge to kill or been turned on by blood?” she asked frankly, tapping herself on the shoulder while indicating the fresh claw marks and minor leakage on Yelena’s skin.

[Yelena Kintessia]

“Well yes, it didn't even start.” Yelena said simply. She was more interested Aerin's last question. Taking the visual cue from the redhead, Yelena reached over one of her shoulders, pressing down gently to feel for any wound. Indeed there were marks, and when she pulled her hand back there was the hint of red. She was surprised, wondering why it didn't hurt. Yelena looked back up at Aerin. She didn't find it really odd or disturbing, but rather different.

“I... um... No, I have not felt the need to kill or been turned on by blood.” And she had to add, “But you have? And you like... blood?”

[Aerin Penna Seleratus]

“Well yes, it didn't even start.”

Aerin nodded in silent understanding. She knew the feeling all too well, thanks to her father’s overbearing nature when it came to anything which distracted the redhead from study. On the topic of distraction, Aerin’s blank eyes nearly sparkled as Yelena examined her fresh wounds.

“I... um... No, I have not felt the need to kill or been turned on by blood. But you have? And you like... blood?”

“Mmmhmm…” Aerin hummed, giving one answer for both questions as she reached out and gently took Yelena’s hand, bringing the bloodied finger close to her lips. “I first noticed the flavor when I cut myself while cooking dinner for my family…” Aerin began before placing the tip of her tongue lightly against Yelena’s fingertip and made a small circle around the digit, almost as if Yelena’s finger were a tiny version of something that Neither she nor Yelena possessed by nature.

“So warm…and salty…kind of sweet…and…so…intimate a fluid…” With each pause, she licked another circle, Yelena’s whole fingertip slowly becoming a dark pink as the blood was smeared across the surface. “So…erotic…to know…that your lover…gave so much…to you…” Again, she licked a circle every few words, Yelena’s fingertip disappearing into her mouth after the last, Aerin’s softly-textured tongue whirling this way and that along the length as she began to slowly suck on the finger, her lips a mildly insistent ‘o’ of capture and her cheeks collapsing just a little each time the finger began to withdraw.

[Yelena Kintessia]

“My lover... gave... so much... to me?” Yelena was slow to say each word, her eyes were clearly fixed on her finger, and Aerin's mouth. The blood spread over the skin, thinned by mixing with the saliva. The dark red grew into a different shad, the color blending with her own skin color. The feeling described by Aerin was getting through to her, the blonde looked on with widened eyes. Is it... really that enticing...? Somehow she seemed to like it too. No, that was wrong was it not?

Yelena blushed and heldher breath while continuing to watch the redhead take her finger, caressing it with her tongue. When Aerin started to suck on the finger, it felt that she was taking some air along with it. Yelena breathed just a bit deeper every time, trying to regain the loss. Her emerald eyes stayed fixed on Aerin. She opened her mouth, motioning her lips to form some words, but her voice failed her. Somehow she was at a loss for some breath and some words.

[Aerin Penna Seleratus]

“My lover... gave... so much... to me?”

Aerin’s eyes stayed locked on Yelena’s as the continued to suck, the act as breathtaking for the redhead as it was for the blonde, much like their initial encounter in the bar, but made somehow more intimate by the blood. Aerin brought her left hand up to cup and squeeze her own left breast, her fingers pinching and teasing the nipple into firmness with such intensity and tightness that most men would get a healthy beating for being so rough with it.

It was not that Aerin’s nipples did not respond to a gentler touch – far from it, as Yelena had seen before – but the winged woman seemed to be more or less tugging on an animal’s teat than a human breast, and for good reason as the skin began to darken and redden under the force of her attack, the entire breast turning hot pink as blood practically flooded it.

With a soft cross between a whisper and a moan, a small stretch of tissue opened up just above Aerin’s nipple, thanks largely to an almost impossibly sharp thumbnail, three thick beads of crimson leaving the minute gash in single file on a pilgrimage to the hardened nub which now enjoyed freedom from Aerin’s unrelenting grip.

“Care to try a taste?” Aerin asked, her voice almost dreamy as she slightly rubbed Yelena’s wounds, coating the girl’s middle finger with her own blood with a few deft strokes, this new finger joining the first in a warm, wet pickling ritual as Aerin took the newly-bloodied digit into her mouth and began to suck it clean.

[Yelena Kintessia]

Yelena examined the situation, darting her widened eyes around Aerin's actions. The woman was unrelenting, her mouth was still wrapped around Yelena's finger and she even added another blood laden finger to join the first. The feeling of the suckled fingers seemed to strengthen for the little time that had passed. The tongue, every little force of suction that the digits were subjected to seemed to be amplified. Yelena wondered whether it was Aerin's doing... or if the amplification was just her own mind enjoying it.

Closing her eyes, she shifted her view to Aerin's breast before opening them again, examining the fresh, slow flowing redness glimmering in the candle light. It was calling out to her. Drawing her in. It was another thing for Yelena to resist. She stopped her head from going any closer and looked away for a flicker, her eyes aimed into the darkness surrounding the two. Blood? Suckle on a bloodied nipple? She did want to taste it; she wanted to experience the taste for once. Aerin seemed to be enjoying it.

So she moved closer, motivated by her want and the nonexistent voice of the crimson substance. With her free hand, she placed a finger on the nipple, smearing the blood in one smooth swipe. Yelena brought the finger up to her face afterwards, aiming to taste it from her finger. She stared at it for quite a few flickers, bringing it closer and moving it away, as if she was fighting the urge to taste it. She shot a quick glance at Aerin before finally sticking it in her mouth.

A metallic taste. Smooth. Mixes well with saliva. It was... an acquired taste it seemed. It was not a disgusting or an overly desired taste, but it was not... bad. The oddest thing about it as she thought for a bit, was that... She wanted more. Yelena wiggled the two fingers that Aerin had, trying to stimulate the woman a bit further, while making her way to the blood to have herself another taste. How very interesting...

[Aerin Penna Seleratus]

“Mmmhmm?” the redhead moaned around the fingers, a delicious thrill reacing through her as she warched Yelena raste her blood. The dead girl in her memories had fought it – that first transition – which is what had prompted Aerin to eventually destroy her. Yelena, however, was different.

“You like?” Aerin asked, removing Yelena’s fingers from her mouth after one final suckle. “Feel how warm it is, my gift? How full of life it is, each scarlet teardrop having passed through my heart before passing through your lips? No rose or necklace could ever compare, yes?” Aerin brought her fingers once more through Yelena’s wounds, sticking them straight into her mouth this time and sucking them clean within moments, one more forbidden taste of the young blonde Adhiel before loading the two digits up with an ample helping of saliva.

“Drink, baby, drink…” Aerin half-whispered, her own eyes fluttering shut as she surrendered to sensation, her lubricated fingers finding their way to the savory spot at the crux of Yelena’s thighs by instinct, the pair sailing through small fleshy waves and capturing the tiny ‘dingy’ which sailed them. “Tiny little drops on your tongue…so small…so powerful…that even one draws feelings that you can feel..” Aerin continued, talking to both herself and the woman in her arms as she began to rub slow, powerful circles around Yelena’s little nerve center.

“…everywhere….” She breathed after a long pause, unaware that the intimate moment had stolen her breath for a few flickers.

[Yelena Kintessia]

“Uhnn..” Her response to Aerin's questions were just a stressed moan while she continued to feed on the bloody treat. It was great, she liked it. The sensation was enjoyable, as Aerin had described to her. Even so, she was confused. Her eyes showed it, pleasure and confusion. She was thinking of why she chose to go on with Aerin's wishes in the first place. Did it begin in the bar? Before they fell into.. this darkness? Was it truly the allure of tasting another person's blood? Or was it simply that... she liked Aerin?

“I... uhn!” The blonde was caught unaware by Aerin's wandering fingers as she was pondering those possibilities. A rush of sensation flowed through the girl's body, her thighs tensed almost immediately, and Yelena let out a sharp moan. She shifted according Aerin's will, like a puppet. She looked up at the redhead, continuing the sentence that she had started. “I... don't know.. ah... if I like the blood... or just you...”

[Aerin Penna Seleratus]

“I... uhn! I... don't know.. ah... if I like the blood... or just you...”

Cute… Cute…and quaint. Aerin paused in her masturbation of her partner for a moment and tilted her head slightly to one side, curiosity on her features as she studied the Adheil. “Must it be one or the other?” she asked after a flicker or two, her fingers still moving in slow circles - enough to keep the sensations going but not to the point where it seemed like she was trying to force the girl away from coherent thought.

“What is it that you like? Perhaps that would help you decide…”

[Yelena Kintessia]

“What I like?” The question came quick and hurried and Yelena wanted to ask it without pausing to catch the sensation that the hand of Aerin forced into her. It was a good question. What I like? About her? Her looks, the hair... the way she talks... Kind of Thea-like. She brought herself up to rest her head on Aerin's shoulder. Her eyes stared into the darkness behind the shoulder occasionally fluttering to the continued touch of the redhead.

Continuing her thought for a few burns, Yelena concluded that she liked Aerin herself. A tear slipped from her eyes, but she continued to stare into nothingness. Past is past right? She just looks kind of like Thea, and even then it may be just the hair color! Emotions overflowing, her body heating up, Yelena moaned sharply to Aerin's touch and her hands clawed at Aerin's back, trying to find a grip.

“I... I think it's... just you...” It took her a few flickers, but the answer had made it out of her mouth.

[Aerin Penna Seleratus]

Aerin’s hand never stopped moving as she looked down into Yelena’s eyes, a small smile on her lips. “Well, if that makes you happy, then thank you – I must say that I like you too.” You like me? came the silent thought behind those eyes as Aerin fitted her mouth to Yelena’s. You don’t even know me… The redhead’s hand began to move faster and with a touch more intensity s her other arm cupped the blonde Adhiel closer. There were many things that Aerin enjoyed about Yelena, but Aerin’s mind was still churning in the background about the dream-turned-altered-reality-aetherspace that she and Yelena occupied, making thoughts of emotional attachment of any sort to the moaning blonde seem redundant as she tried to come to terms with where and why she was.

Yelena’s surrender to her touch had not helped matters, neither did the Adhiel’s sweet scent and succulent tastes as the primal part of Aerin gave its own muffled moan into her lover’s mouth as her tongue probed Yelena’s mouth again and again. She had gone to the bar as an escape from a somewhat chaotic reality and damn it all if she was about to question the hows and whys of it all as she slid her ‘free’ hand along any portion of Yelena’s warm flesh that she could touch, her fingertips tracing the gentle contours of the other woman as two of the fingers of her other hand slid toward even warmer and wetter climes.

[Yelena Kintessia]

“Well, if that makes you happy, then thank you – I must say that I like you too.”

It did. It did make Yelena happy when she heard the words out of Aerin's mouth. She didn't know how she came to be into the bar earlier, but if this was the outcome then it was okay in her mind. No one could break them from this kiss, this feeling, this... entanglement. Her defenses were at their limit. Her subsequently louder moans indicated that soon they would be shattered and she would not be able to hold them back. Her grip tightened around the redhead, she could feel the smooth skin and the texture of the feathers of her wings.

The sensations varied nearly as much as the colors on a rainbow and kept the girl guessing. The wetness and softness of the tongue, also the tickling she would feel as Aerin glided over the sensitive parts of her skin, but more prominent than any of those were where two curious (Really?) fingers found themselves.

Yes, Yelena was happy.

[Aerin Penna Seleratus]

Aerin was happy too, all five of her senses wrapping cocoon-like around Yelena’s presence and forcing the redhead to lose herself in sensation. Aerin, before Yelena, had never been with an Adhiel before – as opportunity had never presented itself in such a string-free way before – and Aerin quickly decided that even if she remembered nothing from the dream-cum-Aether-experience, she would definitely have to try the experience again. Moving as one, Aerin slowly rolled onto Yelena, the both of them centered almost perfectly upon the pillows, their passion reaching a crescendo as Aerin’s wings flung wide open in orgasm, her moan fading long after the wind-snuffed light from the candle had washed out into darkness.

OOC: To re-iterate, fade-to-black.