VI. 

“It’s alright, I’m fine, it’s really not that deep.” Jemima waved off Vader before he could do much more than sheathe the lightsaber, her left hand clenched around her bleeding side. Whatever she said, however, blood continued to seep into her gown, soaking it a deep brackish red, darker than an average human’s, both from her throat and the raking claw marks on her side and back. In an attempt to get up the woman only ended up falling back with a muffled curse, blood-slick hand flailing out to catch her fall on the cold marble.

“You sure about that?” The man asked wryly, pale blue eyes narrow as he knelt to take a look. When Jemima moved to swat the man away, Vader only growled and pinned her with a flat stare until she backed down with an ugly look, letting him inspect the claw- and teeth-marks that marred her skin and continued to pump thick, viscous blood out onto the ruined fabric of her gown.

“These look fairly nasty,” Vader finally judged, expression flat and unreadable. “I have no idea how medical attention works here, so you probably need to summon—”

“No.”

“What? But you—”

“No. If Lucifer finds out I’m injured, he’ll come blazing in here and probably roast you before either of us gets a word in edgewise. Just let me…” Jemima swallowed and gritted her teeth, gathering her legs under her as she rolled to her knees.

“I don’t think that’s a—” 

“Shut up and help me up!” Jemima snapped, wide blue eyes crackling as she glared at her companion. “Seven circles but you complain like an old woman.”

Surprisingly, Vader laughed. It wasn’t a great laugh by any stretch of the imagination, more a low and gravelly chuckle than anything, but it was such an improvement over his general surly air and, moreover, a surprise that Jemima didn’t even fight when his arm slid around her shoulders to heave her up, save for a broad wince as it yanked on her wounds. When he went to set her down on the bed she refused, teeth set into her lip.

“No use getting your sheets all bloody. Just set me down somewhere closer to the window.”

Vader shot a sidelong look at the woman, skepticism written clearly across his craggy face. “You sure about that? There could be more of them.” He jerked his head over his shoulder, indicating the pieces of the corpse that still lay on his floor, oozing a fetid greeny-black fluid onto the marble that smoked where it mixed with Jemima’s blood. He didn’t really want to think about what that meant for any other fluids it might produce or their possible effect on the woman he was now, despite his misgivings, carting to the sitting area by the window, where there were at least benches.

The woman groaned as Vader set her down, having never answered his question, and didn’t open her eyes until some impatient fidgeting on Vader’s part reminded her she’d asked to be brought to the window for a reason. Hands now clamped over the worst of her wounds, Jemima leaned back against the wall and closed her eyes again, lips moving silently. She spoke only once, and Vader could make out only what sounded like a nonsense word; he had no idea what ‘vetis’ meant or could mean, and given the other abilities she’d shown him tonight he didn’t know what to expect.

He’d just turned to start pacing when something big landed on his balcony. Immediately the lightsaber appeared as Vader took a defensive stance, glaring down whatever-it-was until Jemima grimaced and kicked out at him.

“Stop that. This is my retainer, Vetis. He’s here to help me.”

Still glowering, Vader only slowly withdrew the lightsaber and eased back upright, eyeing the obvious demon with distinct distrust. To compound his irritation, this Vetis ignored him completely and went directly to Jemima, gently pulling her fingers away from her wounds with an aggrieved sigh.

“What did you do this time? Lucifer’s going to destroy whole swathes of the kingdom when he finds out.” Despite his chiding the demon as digging in a bag at his hip, bringing forth clean cloths and various flasks and vials, which he set down on the bench next to Jemima while inspecting the ugly wounds she’d garnered. The dress came away before Vader could properly protest, giving the other demon a proper view of just how much mischief Jemima had managed to get herself into, and a suffering sigh swept past his lips. He paused to look at Vader, looking distinctly irritated.

“Get me a bowl of clean water, lukewarm.” Then it was back to poking and prodding the grumbling queen, gently turning her this way or that to get a better look in the moonlight, and after several moments (in which Vader stood there glowering, not entirely enjoying having been ordered about like a common slave) the demon snapped his tail and bared his teeth over his shoulder, hissing out a very snide ‘please’.

Vader cursed and grumbled all the way to the bathing room, then continued to do so on the way back— though he was careful not to splash or spill the water. Vetis wasted no time putting it to use once he’d made it back; no sooner had the bowl touched the marble than Vetis was dipping one of the cloths into it and gently cleaning Jemima’s wounds, ignoring her winces and hissing as he dabbed the worst of the blood and saliva away. Watching him dab various ointments and strange-smelling creams on the wounds, Vader couldn’t help remembering some of his own injuries— times when he’d barely escaped death, or ended up with scars that had marred his frame until he’d been virtually reconstructed. A few of them remained, the thick twist of scar tissue across his eye one of them, and remembering that Vader found his eyes lingering on a similar scar on Jemima’s face, a detail he hadn’t noticed— or, rather, had chosen to ignore.

Some distant part of him wondered, almost guiltily, how she’d come across a wound ugly enough to scar on such a vulnerable part of her body. She was no Jedi, no soldier in any war he was aware of, and for the most part she acted like a lady…although that didn’t mean much. Padme had often played the lady, in fact enjoyed it, but he’d seen her just as easily take a blaster in hand as a Senate brief. 

He came back to the present as Vetis pressed a bandage over Jemima’s neck, long white strips of cloth already wound around her rib cage to keep thick pads of fibrous fabric held in place, and Vader watched in silence as the demon packed his things away, leaving only three small vials behind. 

“Take this for the pain immediately along with this,” Vetis instructed, indicating two of the vials with a claw, “to counter any lingering venom or whatever else that thing carried. Take the second one again in a few hours, and take this before you go to sleep.” He held up the crystal containers, and Jemima took them with a fairly steady hand, finally sitting up. “I’ll have food sent along once everything is cleaned up; make sure you’ve dressed by then, and don’t get those bandages wet.”

Jemima made a face. “You mean I can’t bathe?”

“No. Not until Lucifer heals you properly.” Jemima gave her retainer a flat look.

“Vetis, I’ve no intention of—” The demon held up a clawed hand, staring down his liege.

“There’s no way you’ll be able to hide this from him, my lady, and doing so will only anger him further. I suggest going to him soon as the sun comes up, or sooner if you can convince yourself. A few hours’ rest will put some color back in you and dull the pain; once you’ve eaten and slept some I suggest you go back to him. He’s already in a foul mood as it is.”

Before Jemima could request details about her husband’s mood, Vetis stood and strode to the window, leaping out into space without another word. Vader watched him fly away, then turned and folded his arms with a flat look at Jemima.

“Well?” His surly tone brooked no objections or arguments. Jemima sighed.

“He’s sending a few small creatures along to clean up, things that take orders well enough but can’t speak.” She shrugged, then shot him a mulish look Vader wasn’t entirely sure he deserved, considering she’d only continued to invade his space when he’d made it clear he didn’t want her around. The woman threw up her hands.

“Don’t give me that look! It wasn’t as though I knew that thing was lurking outside your window— I don’t even know what it is. Besides, you get your wish now; I’m in no shape to keep pestering you and I’ll be out of here as soon as I can make a convincing show. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to do as directed and get some sleep.” That said, she shoved herself upright and swayed around Vader as his hands came up to grab her shoulders, stumbling just a little on her feet but otherwise remaining upright. She refused any and all attempts at aid as she walked back to where the tunic lay discarded and pulled it on; moments later Jemima had fallen face-first onto the bed and, by the looks of things, passed out immediately after downing all three of the vials at once.

On his side of the bed.

Vader shook his head, gave it up as a lost cause, and went to get a datapad from his desk, figuring he could at least enjoy the promised meal and, in the meantime, come up with a better defense system for his room. He didn’t want any more damn sand-dragons or whatever the kriff that thing was busting in to attack when he was least prepared to deal with it.

— end (?) —

V.

Frustration bloomed. Vader growled, eyes raking the room, but Jemima was nowhere to be found— until moments later, anyway, when the distant splash of water told him she’d gone to the bathing room and ostensibly closed the curtain. The black silk dress she’d first worn this evening lay discarded in a corner, barely visible in the dim light against the black marble, and for a brief moment Vader saw in his mind’s eye the figure of another woman in a similar garment.

He pushed it away and stalked back to bed, fed up with his guest and longing desperately for sleep. It was slow coming, drifting with teasing fingers over him and sneaking in between bursts of furious thought, claiming him between one breath and the next. As always it tempted him with dreamlessness; his body relaxed, his breathing evened out, and for perhaps an hour he slept easily.

Then the dreams came— the nightmares. His past mistakes, looming again stark and terrible in his mind, relived again and again. Fear, rage, hate. Death and agony and pleading and broken love, romantic and fraternal. Anguish. He saw Padme’s face, begging him—

He woke in a sweat, suddenly and absolutely. The lights were out again, black velvet curtains drawn across the windows to afford him absolute darkness. There was no sound, nothing; absolute void had crept into the room and for a moment, it scared him. Was he to be denied even a physical reality? But no, he could feel the soft fabric of his sheets, his skin pebbled with goosebumps, the scruff on his chin and cheeks. Moments later a slice of pale, whitish light cut the room in stark sections, lancing into the unrelieved black like a breath of cold winter air.

Vader realized it was, in fact, cold, far colder than he’d have expected with lava just outside. He looked up and blinked, teeth grinding tight and close together. A woman stood at the window in a long and loose gown, the cut and drape somehow familiar in a distant sort of way. In silhouette she looked almost like…but it couldn’t be. She was dead, and wouldn’t be here in any case. Vader’s throat locked, his eyes wide; he felt like his body wanted to tremble, and only his iron will blocked its doing so. She looked so much like…even to the cascading fall of her hair, though as she turned her head he saw it was straight instead of curling, tucked up in a pair of loops like drooping butterfly’s wings…

Jemima turned her head and looked at him, the pale white light gleaming strangely in her brilliant blue eyes. Vader felt his traitor heart sink and he wanted to cry out, to scream at her for tricking him like that, but yet she didn’t seem conscious of it and he was tired, so tired. This whole night…he was tired, and so finished with it. Let the woman do as she pleased, he didn’t care.

The man lay back down and turned on his side, eyes sliding closed; he hoped Jemima would just leave. She didn’t, however; by the faint light beyond his eyelids it seemed she remained gazing into the night, if night it could even be called. There was, of course, no sun or moon here, no stars or celestial light. It was claustrophobic, pure agony to a man who literally lived among the stars, but then again, it was Hell; that capital ‘H’ meant a lot. 

The color of the light vaguely intrigued him in a tired, ‘I-don’t-care-to-get-up-to-investigate-but-it’s-curious’ sort of way. Typically the light ought have been red, red for the blazing lava and pure heat of Hell, but who knew? Maybe more of those strange witch-lights burned outside. Maybe some of the lava had cooled. Maybe Lucifer had decided to throw a damn garden party and had redecorated. Maybe—

“Is it like this every night?”

Vader blinked and frowned, sat up and turned to look at Jemima. She had fastened the curtain aside, letting the light in; now she leaned against the arch of the window, arms crossed, frowning at him as though he were a strange puzzle. It was uncomfortable and distinctly different from any of their previous exchanges tonight, leaving Vader uneasy and off-kilter. With the strange white light pooling at Jemima’s feet, the encounter felt surreal, almost dreamlike.

“What—”

“The nightmares. You were thrashing, talking in your sleep. Sweating. Is it like that every night?” Her voice was low but, for perhaps the first time tonight, not taunting or sultry or sarcastic. She sounded genuinely…curious. Perhaps even concerned? Still, Vader felt old defense mechanisms kick in and he simply shrugged, having no wish to admit to the fact he couldn’t sleep a night through.

Jemima took that as confirmation; her eyes glittered as she considered the infuriating human who had vexed her so much recently. To be perfectly honest Jemima had no idea what to make of Vader; he continued to defy expectations, thwarting and throwing aside every contingency plan the demon-woman had come up with for the evening. She had not in any way wanted sex with this man, but she was ruthlessly loyal to Lucifer and refused to allow anything to hamper him, even surface at inopportune times, and viewed the ill-taken bet as little more than an inconvenience for her best dealt with quickly. That Vader would then refuse her advances had not entered into her plans, and in turn she refused to be relieved at the reprieve.

Now, however, the driving emotions from the previous night were rising again. Earlier Jemima had been at the tip of savagely telling Vader that he had not, in fact, been visited either in dreams or reality by the kindly spirit of his deceased wife but, in fact, by the very woman he refused now to even hold a civil conversation with. What small, withered remnant of compassion remained had driven her to walk away before that happened— perhaps because she didn’t think she could stand to see the crushed look in Vader’s eyes Jemima had no doubt would appear should he realize whatever small hope at redemption he’d gained was nothing more than an illusion.

Watching him toss and mumble in his sleep, sweat-slick and agonized, had tipped the scales in favor of sympathy. Nightmares Jemima understood; she’d had her fair share, after all, and lost people she loved both to her own machinations and to the ambitions of others. There were separations looming in her future that she feared and which haunted her sleep many a night (not that she would tell Lucifer as much), and so in some small way the once-human could empathize with the former Jedi. He wouldn’t appreciate it, Jemima knew, but that was beside the point.

“There is a fallen angel who acts as a healer here, surprising as that may be; she lives not far from here. I could ask her to brew a sleeping draught for you, if you wish.” At Jemima’s quiet offer Vader looked up, gaze shuttered, but he only shook his head. A tiny thread of frustration once more took root; Jemima closed her eyes and breathed out for a few moments before seeking the man’s gaze again. “Otherwise, I could convince Lucifer to drive the nightmares away for you, or you could perhaps gamble with him for it.” A challenge lit Jemima’s eyes, a reminder of why she had locked herself in Vader’s chambers for the night, but the man only shook his head again in silent refusal. At that, a displeased sigh burst from Jemima’s lips.

“Why? Is it simply that you’ll take nothing from me? For morning’s sake, not everything I offer you is laced with poison! I am genuinely trying to be gracious. Must you throw everything back in my face?” Jemima now glowered at Vader, arms folded tight across her front, but she sounded more cross than truly angry— almost petulant. It brought a tired smile to Vader’s mouth.

“No. Why does it bother you?”

Jemima opened her mouth, then narrowed her eyes. She stalked forward several paces, stopping once she’d reached the edge of the bed, and the white light fell strangely on her black hair and the soft folds of her gown, backlighting her where she stood leaning on one hip.

“Don’t try to change the subject. You—” Suddenly her head whipped back toward the window, arms unfolding to curl into fists at her sides as though she clasped blades. Everything in her had turned tense, and instinctively Vader himself tensed to run or fight, following Jemima’s gaze to the empty, open window arch. Nothing. After a few moments the woman relaxed somewhat, although she looked uneasy. Slowly she turned back to Vader, but he could see from the taut musculature in her neck and shoulders that Jemima was still prepared to whip around and fight at a moment’s notice.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Vader stated bluntly before Jemima could press the issue. He stared the woman down as she glared at him, but finally she just threw up her hands.

“Fine, fine. Only I’m bored out of my mind watching you sleep and there really is nowhere else comfortable to curl up, or I’d simply plunk down there and give it a rest.” Now Jemima really was pouting; it was almost cute, and might have been if Vader had genuinely been in a mood to laugh. At the moment he was too emotionally exhausted to do more than sigh tiredly.

“You can’t just sleep on the couch?”

Jemima wrinkled her nose, hands going to her hips. “Unless you’ve got some other blankets lying around, then no. It tends to get cold when Lucifer is angry and he is very, very, very angry right now— the weather is beginning to show it, if you can call what we get here weather. Plus I wouldn’t exactly call a stone block comfortable, although I’ve slept on worse.”

Vader rolled his eyes and pulled a grimace. “You really aren’t going to give it up, are you? I told you if you wanted a quick fu—”

“I’VE NO WISH TO HAVE INTERCOURSE WITH YOU, DAMMIT!” Real anger had crept into Jemima’s voice by this point, and her eyes had narrowed to brilliant sapphire slits. “In case you’ve missed the broad plank I’ve been bludgeoning you with this entire evening, I never wanted that. I just want to sleep, and you’ve charmingly decorated this place with nowhere but the bed to comfortably sleep on. I’m asking that at least one of us get at least a partial night’s sleep.”

Vader stared at her, fuming and confused, not quite sure how to respond. Jemima glared right back, hands at her hips and her lips pulled tight. Finally— eventually— the man growled and started piling pillows down the middle of the bed beneath the blanket, leaving only a couple for them to lay their heads on when he was done. Jemima rolled her eyes and muttered something about childishness under her breath but offered no other comment before she stalked off, acidly biting out a thanks, to presumably change into sleep attire. When she walked back in, Vader took one look and climbed out of bed.

“No.” Before Jemima could protest, Vader was digging through his wardrobe until he came up with a worn tunic; this he tossed to the woman, growling, “You’re at least going to be properly dressed.”

Jemima caught the garment one-handed, looking exasperated. “Really? Pillows and bulky clothes? What next, should I put a swo—” 

Whatever she had been planning to say was cut off as something the size of a good-sized dog came hissing through the window, landing upon the woman’s shoulder and pinning one arm to her side. Two and a half foot wings lashed her face and buffeted her head while a stinging tail whipped around, darting in here and there as though seeking a vulnerable spot to strike. Jemima stumbled and cried out, dropping the tunic given her in favor of grabbing the tail as it swung dangerously close to her neck, but in doing so she left herself with no other defense as the creature sank its teeth into her throat. Her pinned arm scrabbled wildly at the thing’s haunches to no avail; it had hooked its claws in her back and sides, clutching tight as it struggled to get its tail free from her grip.

Vader wasted no time. The thing was at this point officially on his turf and he had no compunction carving it to bite-sized pieces with his lightsabers in defense of himself or anyone else; it was, after all, in his kriffing bedroom. The red ‘saber sailed into his hand with ease, appearing with a satisfying hum; one leap and an easy swing had the tail’s stinging end loose in Jemima’s hand. The thing, whatever it was, gave a screech through its locked grip on the woman’s throat; Jemima, no longer having to fend off the tail’s strikes, locked a now clawed hand on the creature’s throat and brutally ripped it loose— claws, teeth, and all— from her body. She flung the dazed, screaming thing at Vader; it landed in pieces on the floor and that was that. The entire episode had taken maybe two minutes.

Bleeding at the throat and sides, Jemima stumbled and hit her knees.

IV. 

Vader woke some time later to utter stillness. As per usual he was unable to sleep through the night, and with a grunt he passed a hand roughly over his face as he sat up. Sleep, for now, had been banished, but in the half-woken grogginess he did not immediately register that something was amiss. It took a few breaths— dispelling the nightmares, as it were— for him to remember that he was supposed to have a guest.

He couldn’t feel her— not in this room, at least. In his bedroom all was quiet, dark, and still: a perfectly restful place, for all that it was in the heart of Hell. In fact, now that Vader thought about it, Jemima had been oddly…quiet…ever since she’d been left facing Vader’s back. In fact the once-Jedi Knight had somewhat expected the Queen Consort to make a nuisance of herself: sit on him, for instance, or poke him, or try to force the issue at hand. But she did none of these things; after a few moments the weight on the bed had lifted, and receding footsteps had indicated her departure from the bedroom.

Unfortunately, with a woman who had willingly married the Devil that really didn’t bode well for Vader, so he closed his eyes and concentrated to see if he could feel her nearby. Sensing ‘people’ in hell was rather different to sensing people as he was used to in his home universe, as they were tied somehow differently to the world, but some individuals, such as Lucifer and Jemima, gave off such strong signatures they couldn’t help but be recognized to the practiced ‘eye’. It was, fortunately for them, an ability here unique to Vader, so far as he knew.

Perhaps that was why Lucifer kept him close, rather than flinging him out into the reaches of the Pits.

Vader’s mind returned to the present with positive register he noticed, indicating Jemima was indeed nearby— in the next room, in fact. As he concentrated he realized he could hear soft sounds, though odd in the context of the black of night: quick footsteps in strange patterns, heavy breathing, and a metallic swishing that came as barely a whisper, so faint he could hear it only due to years of training and partially-restored ear mechanics.

A soft grunt, a hiss.

Was she…fighting?

Eyes narrowed, Vader quietly slid from his bed and reached for his lightsaber, but common sense said to leave it sheathed for now; opening it would not only blind him but announce his presence. In near silence the man crept to the door to the next chamber, counting his breaths, trying to determine who the attacker was, or at least how many. It was difficult, because he couldn’t sense it—them— although that didn’t necessarily mean anything; he couldn’t sense many of Hell’s denizens, which made things especially frustrating, particularly in this instance when even his mundane senses were failing him. Too many footsteps oddly echoing in the marble room, and was that a weird white glint, almost like firelight?

As Vader edged around the open arch framing the portal between the rooms, he paused. Balls of smokeless white fire hung disembodied in the air about the room, giving it an eerie glow despite the fact their light only extended a few feet around them; the polished black marble drank in and reflected back the light in strange and uncomfortably distorted ways. Among them flitted a dark shape, although as it neared one of the witch-lights he saw the gleam of pale, sweat-streaked human skin. Though he strained to catch any indications of attackers Vader saw only the one person— one woman— dancing on light feet about the chamber.

She’d obviously shed the heels, he noted dazedly (although she’d apparently neglected to put anything else on), eyes trying to track her movements, although it was proving hard. One moment she’d be in one place, then with a brief red flash she’d be in another, always moving, never still. She sliced around and through the witch-lights, using them as targets, remaining by and large out of the immediate spheres of pale light they emitted. Flashes of metal revealed the twin blades Jemima wielded with skill born of years using them, or blades like them.

Suddenly the show ended; Jemima landed between two lights close together and swung her arms out to either slide, slicing them neatly in twain and plunging the already dimly-lit room into utter blackness. She’d apparently closed the velvet curtains, so very little light filtered in, and Vader was momentarily disoriented. He groped blindly for his lightsaber, but before he could activate it a stronger will-o-wisp blew itself into existence, this one a pale blue in color. It hung close to Jemima’s face, and Vader found it a mask of grim ferocity— and all of it now focused on him. The woman’s voice came out a snarl.

“What do you want?” Accusation and bitterness sang harshly in her tone and some part of Vader— ruthlessly quashed— wanted to cringe. Sprung upon him, Vader had no time to assiduously avoid the vision of her feminine form, but it wasn’t what he’d expected. Staring blatantly, not awestruck but simply surprised into it, he found her whippet-muscled, supple and lean and curvaceous all at once. All the same she bore the hallmarks of an old illness— sharp bones evident at her hips and wrists and collar, probably in her shoulder blades, in the lines of her face and the ever so faint stretching scars on her belly and hips.

Sweat gleamed on her pale skin, dripping and sliding along and over scars upon scars all down her hips and belly and legs, scars that curved behind her and slid up toward her breasts. Two particularly livid ones stood out, one across a shoulder and the other biting her side; they had the look of wounds recently healed, although she didn’t favor them. Vader realized, for perhaps the first time, that Jemima was a fighter, not just of necessity here but for years and years of her life, presumably as a mortal, and the sudden understanding brought along the uncomfortable thought that he, Vader, didn’t actually know very much about Jemima beyond the fact she was Lucifer’s wife.

The cold touch of unease drifted featherlight along his spine, but he couldn’t immediately answer her. He wasn’t afraid, but the harsh bellicosity in Jemima’s voice had both surprised and unsettled Vader; he wasn’t sure what he’d done to deserve it, except state his intentions to leave her be— as was her wish. Silence stretched between them, tension ratcheting higher with each passing heartbeat; the only noise in the chamber was Jemima’s exhausted exhalations and the occasional drip of sweat upon the gleaming marble floor. Finally Jemima’s lips peeled back in an unfriendly grimace as she straightened, blades falling slowly to her sides— although Vader could see, faintly, that her knuckles were turning pale and bone-white, such was the force of her grip on their hilts.

“Well?” The cold fury evident in her tone brought Vader to bristling; she had no right to be angry. Jemima had been the one to barge in here, inviting herself and throwing her body at him and pushing for something he simply wasn’t willing to give. The biting sarcasm Jemima had displayed from the first returned to Vader’s mind and his own lip curled, his arms folding before him as he glowered menacingly.

“What are you still doing here?” The man countered, voice gruff and black and, as always, rude. Jemima twitched, blazing eyes narrowing, and a sharp burst of air through her nose suggested the woman wanted to snort but hadn’t quite that level of disdain…yet. It didn’t keep the dripping sarcasm from her tone, though.

“Did I wake you up from your little nap? I’m so sorry, you wouldn’t even let me tuck you in. Unfortunately I’m not going to go crawling back to my husband for a quick fuck tonight, and there is not exactly anywhere else to sleep in this chamber save the cold stone floor. It seems your hospitality is as dead as your cock.”

Vader gaped; Jemima, point scored, snorted derisively and turned, displaying the simple crowned plait she’d redone her hair into, and took a half-step toward the bathing chamber. Blinding fury took hold of Vader then. He found his lightsaber in his hand; in a heartbeat it was blazing in the still air, arcing toward this infuriating woman. A flurry of motion— the saber was knocked aside, though he managed to keep it in his grasp, and Vader found himself facing down the length of one of Jemima’s blades, the other carefully balanced against his wrist in a warning to keep the lightsaber down. The man glared at his assailant, the rage still pulsing white-hot in his veins.

“You forget,” Jemima breathed into the tense silence, “who I am. Who I am married to. Or perhaps you never really understood. Did you think me a glorified whore, to be bandied about as a favor, as a toy?” Her eyes narrowed. “Would your wife have stood for such treatment?”

Vader ground his teeth. “Don’t. You. Dare. Speak. Of. Her.” This woman, this demon knew nothing of Padme, yet she dared profane that sacred memory? A growl slid past his teeth, but the cold prick of metal—he knew not what kind—at his throat meant he dared not advance if he valued his life.

And, coward he was, he did—even if it was a poor half-life spent forever waiting, never acting, never needed. They stared in deadlock at each other for several long moments until Vader cautiously backed off, reining in his anger with immense effort. Slowly, slowly, he drew away from the (still) naked woman facing him, face smoothing slowly into an unreadable mask, and eventually he turned away. The lights came on, whether by his will or Jemima’s he didn’t know or care, and by their dim glow he made his way to the sideboard and leaned against it, tension cast in his shoulders. Rage still pulsed beneath the surface, hot as the lava that cracked the rock and ice outside, but Vader pushed it ruthlessly away.

“It happened once,” he growled finally, eyes fixed into the middle distance of memory. “She was spying on someone…an old acquaintance. Posing as available and…willing…though we were wed, even if the union was not…publicly known.” The man grimaced and would have turned to glare at Jemima had she not still been naked, so far as he could tell; instead his grip tightened on the table’s edge. “You should be glad I have treated you so civilly; by the end of that episode Padme had been poisoned and I barely got away with both her and the antidote in hand.”

He had no way to read Jemima’s emotions now, not that he cared to, with his back turned. The woman had proven infuriating even at the best of times, when she wasn’t wholly forgettable, and dragging Padme into this had only fueled his anger. Vader didn’t particularly give a damn if—that—Jemima had been offended by what was little more than a jest.

The silence stretched again. Vader had been prepared for a scoff, a snort of disdain, any sign of derision, but there was nothing. Save for the prominent register of strange power the Force designated as Jemima, Vader would almost think she had gone. He refused to break the standoff by looking at her, by betraying any unease at the boring stare he could feel digging into the back of his head.

When she spoke, Jemima’s voice was soft, hardly a breezy whisper in the otherwise dead silence of the dim room. “Did you know,” she breathed, and from the sound of it she’d finally turned her face away, “that for centuries I’ve been gifted with the ability to change my appearance? To clothe myself in the face and body of another, illusory as it is?”

No. He hadn’t. 

Why had she bothered to say it?

Unless…

Finally, finally Vader turned, but it was too late; while he was wrapped in confusion Jemima had disappeared.

III. 

Jemima thought she felt the temperature drop as Vader’s blue eyes snapped to attention, the air fairly crackling with tension as the muscles along his shoulders grew taut and his hackles rose. In response the woman crossed her arms and leaned casually against the black marble wall next to the door, unimpressed with his metaphysical posturing even as she felt something press angrily at her throat, brushing forcefully as though thinking of strangling her. She smiled sweetly.

“What?” The man growled, leonine mane standing a little on end as he rose slowly, all the grace of a great cat in the single smooth motion. Jemima raised a brow, roseate lips tipping up toward her eyes as the sweet smile turned a touch feral.

“The night, Vader. With me. You requested the bet, and now you’re going to collect. Otherwise I’m walking out with this—” she produce the holo-disc between two fingers, held securely there for all the careless ease she displayed— “right now.”

Vader paused, caught— although he clearly didn’t like it. Jemima laughed softly, the sound low and crooning and threatening in her throat. “Shall I unlock the door?” Her hand waved idly closer to the jamb and the reappearing glow of a strange set of symbols; Vader released a soft, inarticulate noise and edged barely closer to her. Another soft laugh spilled silkily from the woman’s lips.

“I thought not.” Now she pushed away from the wall and stalked into the room again, silk gown rustling behind her on the smooth stone and plush rugs underfoot. Slowly she spun, arms held wide, displaying the curves of her body for him to see, using the motion to hide the tension in her proud alabaster neck. 

“All yours for the night. That’s what you wanted, correct? A way to satisfy, what was it, twenty-five years of…frustration?” Her smile could have cut glass by this point, her eyes diamonds, and a little of the demon lurked just beneath the surface. She curtsied mockingly, sure to give him a long look down the bodice of the gown as she did so. “A commodity, at your service.”

As Jemima straightened, Vader gave a contemptuous huff and strode out of the chamber altogether, making his way to a room adjacent to it.

Several seconds later, Jemima managed to overcome her shocked outrage enough to stalk, seething, after the ungrateful bastard, though still careful as ever to safeguard the disc even from her own irritation. She found the man pouring what looked like some sort of oddly-colored alcoholic beverage into a glass; as Jemima entered, Vader stopped pouring to look thoughtfully at the liquid, then just took a healthy swig straight from the bottle. The noise Jemima made in quiet response drew the man’s narrow-eyed attention, but he only arched one bushy brow in a contemptuous question.

“You need to be drunk to sleep with me?” Jemima snapped, brilliant sapphire eyes glinting dangerously. In response Vader’s grip tightened noticeably on the still half-filled glass. It took considerable control for him to pry his fingers away before the fragile container buckled under the pressure of his hand, and by the time Vader managed it Jemima had placed her pale, slender hands to either side of her shapely hips. He had to admit she was a looker— she just wasn’t Padme.

The man sighed.

“I need to be drunk to have this conversation,” he grumbled, pale blue eyes flashing icily. Jemima huffed and her lips pursed as her cheeks heated with ire; Vader thought he could see the feral demon still lurking in the hollows of her cheeks and just beyond the plush surface of her lips.

“What conversation?” Her voice had dropped now to a threatening purr that raised his hackles; Vader swallowed a frustrated growl.

“The I’m-not-going-to-sleep-with-you conversation. ‘No means no’ and all that.” At that point Vader awkwardly shoved around the woman with the bottle still in hand back out into the sitting room they had just vacated— or meant to, until Jemima’s hand shot out with blinding speed to clutch his bicep. The ex-Sith tensed, reflexes screaming to twist, defend, attack; only the light touch Jemima maintained, rather than a forceful grip, kept Vader from turning this into a battle.

He didn’t have to like it, though. Almost immediately Vader pulled away, turning to face Jemima with a deliberate ponderousness to the move— taking his time to impress all of the presence he’d earned as Lord Vader of the Sith upon this upstart human-demon queen consort.

Jemima never even flinched; at that Vader had to fight back a rueful smile. He’d forgotten, for a brief moment, who the woman had claimed for a husband, and at this point she was proving she was apparently up to snuff on that point. He had to give her that, even if she was being slightly infuriating at the moment.

“Not going to sleep with me?” At this point it sounded like Jemima was grinding her teeth; her voice had that half-swallowed, half-dammed quality. “You convince my husband to put up a night with me as a bet and you’re just going to shrug me off?”

Very slowly, very deliberately, Vader shrugged. Pointedly. And grinned condescendingly when Jemima went red, then white, and it looked as though that beautiful face— marred only by the harsh cut of an old scar across one eye that traced nearly from her hairline to an inch shy of her lovely lips— might break back into its inhuman form. Vader raised his bottle in a mocking salute, quirking a brow as he spoke gruffly.

“And here I thought you were angry about having to sleep with me,” he drawled, gravelly voice scratching through Jemima’s ears in a screeching chorus that sat perfectly in hell, “what with all the posturing earlier. Did I miss a point hidden in all that blinding sarcasm?” At that Jemima bared her teeth, but he could see some genuine confusion filtering in. Her mouth opened, closed, opened and clicked shut; finally she pursed her lips and backed off a little, brows furrowed.

“Then why force the bet in the first place?” At last that nerve-grating semi-hysteric razor edge had gone from Jemima’s voice; Vader felt his headache recede. Slightly. He shrugged again, saw her tense, and grunted to forestall another biting assault.

“I mostly just wanted to try and piss Lucifer off. Seemed a good enough idea at the time, until I won the hand. Then it was an even better idea until he…”

The man’s face darkened, storm clouds rolling across his expression as the memory of what Lucifer had done to get even surfaced. Jemima blinked, and when she spoke her voice was surprisingly…soft. Gentle, even.

“…got you to bet the disc?”

Vader gave one curt, succinct nod. The urge to turn and walk onto the balcony rose nearly to breaking point, but something compelling had washed into Jemima’s eyes. It wasn’t pity; he would have sneered at it and walked away. Nor was it sympathy. No… Vader saw some reflection of his own pain, an understanding he hadn’t expected from any kind of woman who would marry Lucifer, Satan, the Fallen One (although it was a mythology he’d had to learn). It unsettled him, but before he could do much more than grunt uncomfortably Jemima looked down and made a strange movement with her right hand, producing the holo-disc as if from thin air. She held it flat in her palm as though offering it to him, and Vader had to use considerable effort not to fall for the bait.

“Here,” she said softly. “This is yours. It should never have been taken from you.”

Hardly daring believe her, Vader inched his fingers up to close gently around the disc. Still Jemima didn’t move; didn’t vanish the thing or taunt or tease him, and even her eyes had lost their mocking, abrasive edge. She seemed genuinely…remorseful. Sorry. Compassionate, even.

It was uncomfortable. Vader all but snatched the disc from her and turned aside to check it for scratches or cracks, any hints that the thing was in any way damaged or— worst-case scenario— unusable, but it looked…fine. He couldn’t check it here, not in front of her, but the fact that there was no visible damage was a small relief, a tiny raft in the flood of anxiety he’d been experiencing since being made to give up the disc to the devil himself.

By now Jemima had walked away, hands tucked under her arms, to gaze out the open window. Her shoulders had a familiar hunch, the inward curling bespeaking some unspoken need to protect her inner self. Some wordless emotion hung heavy on her mind, and it lurked with ponderous weight in the air between them. There was a past gathering at Jemima’s shoulders that Vader wanted no part of. He had his own issues to deal with, and he didn’t want to spend the rest of his night listening to her sob stories, even if the broad white scars now visible on her back piqued his interest. 

A little. Not enough to ask. Apparently Jemima felt the moment stretch too long as well because she sighed and rubbed her neck, turning to beam a rueful smile on him.

“So you just made the bet to pull one over on my ass of a husband, huh? Knock him down a notch or three?”

Taken aback, Vader nodded again. “Er…yes, actually, that was the plan.”

Unexpectedly, Jemima laughed, the act transforming her face and her posture; her arms went around her middle, her eyes closed, her cheeks flushed. The wide smile looked nearly out of place, but the sparkling mischief lighting her eyes when she opened them again looked as though it had always belonged there. In that the old Anakin found a kindred spirit— the wanton exhilaration he got from the race, from the fight, from the sticky situations he invariably got into (and sometimes out of). He hesitantly found himself cracking a bare smile himself, though it was confused and small.

“Well then, shall we do the thing properly?” His smile fell for a brief instant until Jemima giggled, her voice dropping low and barely audible, “Fool the servant demons, I mean. We don’t have to do anything, just make them think we did. Lucifer will be livid for days.”

While Vader’s jaw was still flapping, Jemima sauntered to the door, unlocked it, and sent a demon running. She winked at Vader even as she collected a silk bag from the thing and shut the door snappily in its face, dropping the bag unceremoniously to the floor. Her hands reached up to undo the ropes of rubies in her hair, and her voice had taken on a breathless quality when she spoke again.

“Do you mind if I use your bathing chamber to change? This corset gets hot.”

II.

Exactly what she was going to do Jemima didn’t yet know; she paced her room, the strange silver disc safely set on the smooth stone dressing table off to one side. Her hair hung loose and silky around her shoulders, the black strands drinking in the red firelight from both the lamps and the lava glow outside, shifting restlessly with each turn. Now and again she perched on the windowsill, tail whipping to and fro like an agitated cat’s while her wings tucked loosely around her body, fingers dancing a tattoo on her knees or her arms.

It wasn’t as though she could march back in there and hand him back the disc like some sort of charity; Jemima doubted Vader would much appreciate it, although she didn’t think he would turn her down outright. To her mind it would make him feel somehow indebted, or as an affront to whatever honor code he followed— men were typically stupid like that (a mental note, on her part) and given to stubbornness when challenged upon the point. Given the amount of time Jemima had spent in the vicinity of the poker games played between her husband and Vader, she had, she felt, a fairly good read on just how bullheaded the man could be, and a direct line of attack in giving back the disc and getting the night back or paid simply wouldn’t work.

The demon-woman grimaced and sighed, running a clawed hand through her thin veil of hair— thinner, at least, than the thick head of hair she sported as a human— caught upon the problem Vader presented. The obvious answer was to make some sort of challenge or game of it, but what? Her only experience in ‘games’ tended to end in death for the players; that was what an executioner did, after all. Worse, they typically involved ‘let’s see how long it takes for you to scream’ while she dug a knife or a blade or a hot poker into their bodies.

Not particularly how she wanted to go about this.

Her gaze fell on the deck of cards Lucifer had been using, and a tired smile graced her lips. The answer was so obvious, so simple…she reached for the cards and paused, brows drawing together. If she took them, Lucifer would know exactly what she was up to (or deduce as much, in any case), and she wouldn’t put it past him to interrupt or somehow tilt the odds in her favor. Furthermore she had no idea if this was an honest deck.

Grumbling, Jemima summoned her own deck— brand new, as it was, and printed with Old Irish designs— and shuffled through, making sure it was complete and clean. Once finished and satisfied she rose, set the deck down, and went to dress. She had time, anyway, to figure it all out just so; Vader needed time to think after last night’s episode. So what to wear? 

By the time she was done what served as ‘dusk’ in this land had started to fall, settling and pooling in corners and crevices, creeping up from the abyss and seeping over the land in the shade of the lava’s ever-present glow, heat billowing up to battle the nighttime chill and shimmering lazily through it all. She chose black as those shadows with deep red and blue tints, a leathery corset that hugged her lovely (now human) torso with shimmer chiffon straps that ran to a choker on her neck. From the same choker hung a ruby drop of a pendant so dark it nearly looked back, drinking the light and flicking it back in blood red flashes and flickers. Jemima took the time to comb out her long hair and put it back in cascades reminiscent of the half-length cut of the dress, pinning thin ropes of rubies in her hair at each sweep to drink the light. 

Satisfied, the devil’s wife took up the silver disc and the deck of cards in her hands and swept from the bedchamber, neatly sidestepping the glowering blonde waiting on the other side, and breezed from Lucifer’s chambers as though she hadn’t even seen him sulking on the other side of the door with his arms crossed, looking well and truly pissed. However, it took the entire walk to Vader’s residence to school the smirk on her face from one of victory to something a little more…well, mysterious. Interesting, she supposed— or at least, that was the plan: entice. 

The man who answered the door looked like he’d been brooding, although the shadows under his eyes had noticeably lightened. Jemima quirked a brow, lips pouting as she crossed her arms and tapped long fingers on her smooth, pale bicep. ”Something on your mind?”

She received a blank stare in response, rough as the volcanic stone outside and just as sharp, too. “What do you want?”

Jemima shrugged. “I have something you want, and I’ve come to give it back to you out of the goodness of my heart.”

At that, Vader snorted, looking unimpressed; he didn’t bother to hide the way his eyes raked her body or the leer that touched his craggy mouth for a brief moment before he caught the full import of her statement. Confusion hit.

“…back?”

“Yes, back.” The silver disc suddenly appeared between her fingers, catching the red light; Jemima noted the way Vader’s knuckles whitened as his hands increased their grip on the door frame, the prominent vein in his neck from a tightened jaw, the furious flash of his eyes. He fairly glared at her, rage spiraling up and up until he finally managed to grit out a response.

“And what, exactly, do you want for it?” He spat finally, baring his teeth in a feral grimace. “My soul? My freedom, minimal as it is?”

She could see him struggling to figure out what this would cost, the staggering price his heart would beggar him into; she held up a hand, afraid he’d hurt himself with all that thinking. “Please. I’m not my husband. You have something I want, too.”

That stopped him a moment; Jemima continued before he could blurt out some other ridiculous attack. “Lucifer tells me you aren’t planning to collect on that one little bet that happened to involve me, but I’m not really inclined to trust either of you on that point, knowing the manipulative little twits you are. So, I’ve come to play a little game with you with simple stakes: we bet what the other wants— you the night you won with me, and I this fascinating little device. Fair enough?”

She could have laughed at the imitation he was making of a fish, but she didn’t. Vader eventually cleared his throat, glowering still, and pinched the bridge of his nose for a moment before peering down at her from beneath rough-hewn brows.

“What game?”

Another smile on Jemima’s part. She held up the cards, let him see the faces, tucked the pack out of his reach again. “The same thing that got the both of us into this mess. New deck, no cheating, otherwise same game. Seem fair?”

Vader raised a brow— the obvious question of whether Jemima even knew how to play poker hanging in the air between them— but stepped aside and waved her in, dragging out a table and two chairs with the Force. He watched, sunk in thought, as Jemima neatly perched in one of the chairs, cut the deck, and dealt; it took the man a moment to sit down, and the game was on but for one small detail. Jemima looked up as Vader sat down, one elegant finger held to the air to indicate a pause.

“One more thing: the victor collects all winnings immediately, no holding for the most ‘opportune moment’. Otherwise, all bets are off. Understood?” Slowly Vader nodded, eyes locked on Jemima’s brilliant blue irises, and picked up his cards.

One thing became clearly obvious as the game progressed: Jemima, though not incompetent, was nowhere near as skilled as Vader. Though she was a good sport and not terrible— particularly concerning her facial expressions, which tended to remain cool and highlighted with an insufferably immovable smirk— she had absolutely nothing on either Vader himself or the block of ice that was Lucifer. The ‘chips’— rather little bits of colored stone— quickly piled at Vader’s elbow, and with a sigh Jemima laid her hand for him to see, lips now pursed in a distinct pout.

“Damn.” It was satisfying just to finally see the smirk slip; one took its place on Vader’s face as the man leaned back, hands going behind his head in what was undoubtedly a swell of ego. Jemima glared and sighed again, set her hands on the table, and got up; Vader opened his mouth to protest, thinking she was on her way out, until she simply stood at the door and spoke quietly to a demon she’d summoned scampering to his door.

“Lord Vader is not to be disturbed, and please tell Vetis I won’t be in for our usual conversation tonight. Go on, go; Lucifer knows where I am.” She waved the little gremlin away, then shut the door and waved her hand idly over the jamb. Vader thought he saw it glow faintly, and his eyes narrowed.

“What was that?”

Jemima fixed a pointed look on him. “I said all winnings are to be collected, Vader. That means you’re stuck with me for the night.”

Lucifer had about three seconds’ warning before his wife’s hand cracked across his face. Even with that much he was able to turn a little and reduce some of the impact, but the woman hadn’t pulled the blow and with her enhanced strength from regular training it hurt, drawing a pout to the blonde’s lips. He fixed a flat glare on her which Jemima met eye-to-red-eye, her own silver irises positively blazing in response.

“I am not entirely certain I deserved that,” the Devil drawled, twitching one elegant brow toward his hairline with a small frown. Jemima sneered, driving a clawed finger into his chest with bruising force.

“You. Are. An. Ass.” Tail lashing, the woman-turned-demon spun on her heel and started pacing, her wings flexing and unflexing, her face a mask of irritation and something Lucifer couldn’t quite get his finger on, although he noted idly that her glamour had not been taken up again. His gaze lingered on her sharp angles and prominent bone structure, an effect still somehow beautiful to him— probably due to the musculature that allowed her to stalk gracefully, a predator rather than defeated victim. She looked otherworldly; alien, even. And angry, although that was more arousing than anything.

A soft, sneering laugh drew Lucifer’s attention back to his wife’s face, finding her eyes fixed somewhat downward. He followed her gaze and shrugged, lips twisting into a subtly suggestive smirk that tumbled back into a frown when Jemima dismissively waved one clawed hand.

“Forget it, Master of Seduction. You’re still in trouble.” The warning tone in her voice did not for a moment deter him, instead drawing up irritation.

“What do you mean, ‘still in trouble’? I told you he is not going to collect!” Frustrated with days of rejection, Lucifer reached to seize Jemima’s shoulder, intent upon convincing her to end this foolish tantrum, but she spun neatly and snapped an arm against his wrist.

“That isn’t the problem! You know exactly what this is and you bullied it out of him!” She held up a smallish silver disc, one Lucifer recognized as having come from Vader, and a scowl twisted his lips. 

“So? He’s in hell, Jemima. It’s my job to torment him. Have you forgotten that fact?”

Now it was Jemima’s turn to frown, caught. Then her gaze sharpened. “He won his soul back, though.”

“I…”

“And you still bullied him into betting this thing.”

“Jemima…”

“It’s his last memento of the woman he loves!”

“…”

“Might as well actually rip his heart out while you’re at it, can’t hurt much less!”

A sigh. “So…shall I make up the couch again?”

Jemima paused, glaring at Lucifer, her mouth open to deliver a resounding ‘yes’ when a new thought occurred to her. An unholy smile lit her lips for a brief moment before she wiped her face clean of expression, fingers closing gently upon the little disc, keeping it safe. “I’m keeping this disc, and do not bother making up the couch; you may sleep in the bed.”

Lucifer’s face lit up, until Jemima continued, “…as I will not be sleeping in it.”

Now the devil opened his mouth to protest; his wife forestalled him. “I will resume our usual sleeping arrangements tomorrow night, but this night I have business to deal with.”

Lucifer blinked; remembering the brief smile his wife had produced, a trickle of unease hit his spine. He took care not to show it. “And what, may I ask, might that business be?”

Jemima’s answering smirk would have put ice to shame. “Vader might not have chosen to collect last night or tonight, but that…winning…is still in his hand. I must either win it back or force him to collect, and you are not allowed to do anything about it.”

She marched out without another word, leaving Lucifer to stew in his own brewing— and at this point somewhat impotent— rage.

It had been a long day. Aki rubbed her face and sighed, staring morosely at her broken phone. That had not necessarily been the best decision, throwing it at the wall, but at the height of frustration she’d only acted instinctively. Idly, her fingers pushed at the pencil lying across the sketchpad, a few useless lines dragged across the paper’s otherwise pristine surface as though to mock her completely inability to produce anything she could stomach.

The light in the art room had shifted since the girl had last looked up, night falling claustrophobically around her and swathing the quiet forest in deep velvet darkness. Snow gleamed eerily outside her window, reflecting back the moon- and starlight, and with a jolt Aki realized she’d hardly seen her husband all day. At that she bit her lip.

To be perfectly honest, she’d expected a better show for Valentine’s Day. The sick frustration came welling back up. It was bad enough that her parents had picked today of all days to harp at her about college and coming home— for her dad to give her grief about getting married so young, for her mom to rant that her only daughter had abandoned the family and forgotten them. It wasn’t true— Aki hadn’t been able to handle the environment in that house anymore— but their accusations stung nonetheless, and it was made all the worse by the fact that her room, the room Adam had made for her specially dedicated to producing beautiful and creative things, felt empty and disused.

That, coupled finally with the almost absolute absence of her husband, finally made Aki drop her face into her hands, a few traitor tears escaping the fierce squeeze of her eyelids to wet her palms. A choked sob let out a few more, and it took little more than a breath to break the dam entirely. The sad attempt at a Valentine’s drawing for her best friend slowly accumulated teardrops as she cried, the graphite lines smudging as her arms and elbows moved across them. She’d given up on it already anyway, so it didn’t matter.

The soft creak of the door temporarily arrested her attention, but the floorboards didn’t follow in their soft groans, meaning Adam hadn’t come to check on her. To be honest Aki didn’t even know if he was in the house; he’d seemed oddly preoccupied lately, his gaze distant and unfocused. He was as attentive as always when she wanted him, but not necessarily as engaged, and it hurt a little bit. The man had insisted he was fine but Aki wasn’t sure, and the anxiety gnawed at her stomach.

A soft mew, followed by a little tug and the pinprick of claws, drew the girl’s gaze to the floor. A watery smile graced her lips at the big kitten eyes that beseechingly sought her own, the little creature begging for attention from its mommy. They weren’t so small anymore, the kittens, but still fully adorable, and this one at least had not outgrown its cuddlebug nature. Aki wiped her face and bent to pick the kitty up, hugging the purring cat close in her arms. It— she, this one was a she— responded by headbutting Aki’s chin gently, rubbing softly, tickling her cheeks with her whiskers and bringing forth a slightly wider smile.

“Aki?” The girl jumped, startled by the suddenness of the sound. This time she hadn’t heard the floorboards creak, though creak they had, and now she looked vulnerably up at her husband. “What’s wrong?”

Damn. Caught. Aki swallowed. “N-nothing. I…” But her gaze skittered across the room to where her phone lay, screen black. Adam’s gaze soon followed suit.

“…what happened to your phone?” Though the question was not at all accusatory, Aki gulped.

“My…my parents called.” The soft admission brought a new wave of burning tears to her eyes, lessened somewhat by the instant understanding in her husband’s eyes. Gently he pulled her into his arms, the cat let down to the floor once more, and Aki sighed as her forehead came to rest against the crook of Adam’s neck. He smelled clean, with that vague hint of something other that she could never quite place, a hint of a long-ago time or place or person he had once been. It soothed her, but it also reminded her the other reasons why she’d been upset. Swallowing, she pulled away from him, trying not to look hurt or angry.

“You know it’s Valentine’s Day, right?” Maybe he just didn’t know..? Although..she thought he’d done something for her before… Adam’s brow creased.

“Of course I know.” Now his tone held a bit of a reproach, remind her he had been attentive in the past. Aki bit her lip, the hurt driving deeper as she watched him blink, his expression turning. “Did you think I didn’t do anything?”

Slowly, she nodded. His shoulder slumped a little, but he only laughed gently and shook his head, then pressed a kiss to her forehead. “Silly. I was hoping to surprise you. Come on.”

He took her hand and led her, not to his workroom, but to their bedroom. She noticed immediately that the bed had been made and strewn with rose petals, leading her to think he’d come up with some sort of activity related to that, but no— instead he took her to the closet, opening it to reveal— what else?— a dress. Aki blinked.

This one, departing from Adam’s usual design, was rather thoroughly modern, the fabric a lightweight deep crimson satin that drank the light. The straps, wide at the shoulder and gathered where they met the bodice, came down into the v-cut of the neckline, the fabric all sweeping to the right— on her it would be the left— and then falling away once more, almost like a wrap. Also unusual for Adam’s designs, the dress was not formal length, not a ballgown; no, this was a tea-length evening dress, albeit with an A-line skirt.

“I thought you might like something different,” Adam observed quietly, watching her face. Was that anxiety in his voice? “I modeled it on something I saw online, modified the length and cut to suit you better. If you don’t want to wear it I can—”

Aki smiled at him. “Oh hush. It’s beautiful, as always.” The relief on his face made her giggle; all the gorgeous dresses he made her, and Adam thought she would ever disapprove? Hardly.

“Alright,” he breathed, smiling. “Put it on. I’ll meet you downstairs.” With that he slipped out the door, and Aki heard him going down the stairs, presumably to his workroom. The girl turned to her newest garment with a smile, then went about getting ready for whatever her husband had in mind.

She discovered, once the dress was on, that there was jewelry to match it in the bathroom, including ear cuffs— rather than earrings— set with small red stones. In the end Aki elected for no makeup and merely ran a brush through her short pale hair, then anxiously went to stand at the top of the stairs. Was Adam ready yet? Of course he was, guys didn’t take that long…but still, she was strangely nervous. Hesitant, Aki took the stairs a step at a time and peeked around the corner into the kitchen, then blinked. 

The overhead lights were off, the only lighting a tall silver candelabra on the table. Aki hid a laugh— Adam had gone full-out romance tonight, then— for the table had been set with a white cloth and set for two, rose petals strewn about it and flowers set in vases to either side of the candles. There were red ribbons around her chair, and on what Aki presumed was her plate was a little parchment card with her name scrawled elegantly across the front. As she reached for it, Adam came round the other corner and paused, looking at her with a soft smile.

“You look beautiful.” His voice caught a little bit and Aki blushed, her fingers withdrawing to curl at the curve of her neckline, fiddling with the pendant of her necklace. After a moment Adam came forward and gently took her other hand, kissed it with a gentleman’s grace, and sat her down at the table— deftly plucking the card away as he did so.

“Hey! That’s for me!” Aki looked at him indignantly, lips pursed in a pout, but her husband only laughed.

“Dinner first.” And he commenced to serve her, right from the counter to her plate, and Aki tried not to stare at the— by all appearances— delicious-looking food appearing in front of her. Adam had gained notoriety in their small family for his terrible cooking skills, and she didn’t trust any of this for a second. Adam apparently noticed her hesitation and laughed.

“I picked up catering. I hope you don’t mind.” Then Aki relaxed, and dinner went well.

When they were (mostly) done, Adam sprung from his chair and started music on the little radio-cd player on the counter, then whirled Aki into an impromptu waltz around the kitchen, grinning the whole time. He had her laughing throughout as he first danced her gently— letting her adjust— and then led her in increasingly ridiculous dips and whirls within the tight space, whisking away their plates in the process, leaving the table once again pristine. Aki found herself once again in her chair, the card slipped into her hands as Adam curled almost like a cat behind her chair.

“Now read it.” Curious, Aki broke the wax seal holding it closed— smiling at the gallantry of that— and read over the few short lines within.

Aki,

I have always been a man of grand gestures, rarely of words. I shower you with gifts because I know no other way to tell you what must be said. I love you. I love you. I can never say it enough. You breathed fresh life and new hope into me when I felt myself lost entirely. How can I thank you enough? There are not words, and so I say them in silk and satin.

To you, my beloved, happy Valentine’s Day.

She looked at him, smiling softly, and Adam kissed her. His hands lightly cupped her jaw, fingertips just barely brushing her ears and her hair, and then they traced their way down her arms to her hands and drew her up again.

“One last thing.” Without a word, Adam drew Aki— moving compliantly, curious what else he had to give— to the stairs, round to their back. The girl blinked; where there had once been a blank panel of wood she now saw a door with a brass knob. Adam drew something from under his shirt which looked like— and turned out to be— an old-fashioned key, which he fitted neatly into the lock and turned it, then led her down the plush carpeted stairs to a room she hadn’t even known was here.

It all looked new, and when Aki cleared the wall obscuring her view she blinked and smile. Here bookcases lined the walls, handsome dark wood panels holding shelves upon shelves of books, all within easy reach. She picked out immediately names she recognized, titles she knew; another shelf she found held the glossy covers of all her favorite manga (at which she blushed). From the bookshelves her eyes swept to a sheltered, cozy nook populated with plush chairs, an extraordinarily comfortable-looking couch, and elegant lamps with emitted a soft glow which hung at a good height on the walls to give an almost perfect reading light. Though there was no real fireplace, an artificial one had been set up, and from it a comfortable heat seeped into the room.

“I thought you might like a retreat,” Adam supplied finally at her shoulder, his lips at her ear. “Here.” Aki felt something cold and metal press into her hand, and when she looked her lips curved into a curious smile at the ornate curves of the old key. A ribbon threaded through the loop at the end came up to a knot, evidently meaning it was to be worn around the neck.

“This used to be the focus of my magic. Normally I destroy such things, but…I entrust it to you instead. It’s the charm to get into this room. This place is…safe. Nothing can harm you here, nothing find you which you do not wish to find you.” Adam came around, meeting her gaze. “Not Subordinates, not your shadow, not even Lucifer.” He held her gaze a moment, thumbs rubbing circles in her arms.

Aki kissed him, hands threading around his waist, curling comfortably into him. 

In the end, they didn’t make it upstairs at all that night.

Mix took a deep breath and sucked her bottom lip between the rows of her teeth, trying to halt the scalding tears that had begun to gather along the lower edges of her eyes. In the mirror, a starkly pale girl, framed in a spill of dark chestnut hair that tumbled and curled around her naked shoulders, stared back with a sort of blunted terror, her soft doe’s eyes wide and fringed with long charcoal eyelashes. The vitamins had begun to take effect, the hormones in her bloodstream clearing her skin and the nutrients enriching her hair, her nails, even her color. She still managed to look a little wan, although that could have been due to the fact she was still spending most of the day curled unhappily around the toilet or grimacing against sharp heartburn.

The girl in the mirror had her right hand splayed across her stomach, which at first glance barely looked different. Though no shirt graced her shoulders, dark jeans hugged her hips and lay unbuttoned just below fingers that nervously plucked at their thick hem. Mix swallowed and continued to chew her lip to keep it from trembling, resisting the urge to call out to her husband but not sure what to do.

Warm hands slid around her waist to join her hand over the barely-perceptible bump as Ralph appeared behind her, wringing a tiny gasp from her lips that became a soft, rueful smile. The man rested his chin on his wife’s shoulder, tucking her close against his body as he observed her reflection thoughtfully in the mirror. He didn’t fail to notice the anxious way she chewed her lip or the faint glint of unshed tears in her eyes.

“What’s the matter?” His lips lightly brushed the skin of her neck and Mix sighed softly, relaxing a little, her eyes slipping closed. She leaned into him with a small sound of contentment, head resting against his, enjoying his solid warmth along her back. It served to ease both the tight nervous band around her chest and the nauseous ache in her stomach, the one that proclaimed it didn’t like this new cocktail of hormones pumping in its bloodstream and could she please make it stop.

“I can’t fasten my jeans.” She felt Ralph blink, his fingers sliding down to touch the buttons, the zipper, then slid around her waist as though to test the span. She giggled; his touch tickled.

“You’ve already grown that much?”

“No…well. My jeans have always been a little tight—otherwise they wouldn’t stay up—and now I’m afraid…they’re just a little tighter and it suddenly occurred to me…what if I’m squashing the…the…the…”

“The baby?”

“…yeah.” A faint flush touched her cheeks. Why couldn’t she say it? She was nineteen, nearly twenty. She was allowed to have children. She was physically mature enough for that. Mix knew she was happy, she knew that, but she was scared. Ralph, thankfully, didn’t comment on her hesitation and her stumbling.

“Have you asked your mother about it?” His soft tone gave no hint of the consternation he himself felt, and for that Mix was grateful. She knew Ralph had misgivings about his own abilities as a father, but that he would set them aside for her right now meant everything. She shook her head.

“No. I only just thought of it. What if I’ve been squishing the baby the whole time? What if there’s a problem because of that?” Alright, it was silly. She knew it was silly. The baby wasn’t even three inches long yet, supposedly, at her eleven weeks. She wasn’t ‘showing’, not like people would consider it; Mix just felt…thick. She’d already given up on some of her jeans, but these had a comfortable elastic waistband already—she had her mother’s wide Hungarian hips and lacked the petite waist her sisters possessed—and had been her last bastion of normalcy. Now…

Ralph pressed his lips to her neck again, and the brunette smiled a little. Mix opened her eyes and met the unrepentant wonder in her husband’s green eyes, wide and intent where they stared at her belly in the mirror. He hadn’t noticed her watching him yet, and Mix’s smile widened at Ralph’s expression. She hadn’t seen much of this yet—the abject astonishment, the naked wonder, a sense of hopeless longing, like he wasn’t sure yet that it was real. Life had been rough for him, even since he had married, and she couldn’t blame him for sensing only surreality in all this, but she found it rather cute.

“Just think,” she whispered, threading her fingers with his even as Ralph jumped a little and snatched his gaze up to meet hers in the mirror. “In a month we could be finding out whether we’re having a little boy or a little girl.”

Ralph’s mouth cracked into a wide smile and Mix felt an answering one stretch her own lips for the soft moment before Ralph buried his face against her neck, nibbling and tickling her sides with his fingers. Mix jerked and gasped breathlessly in laughter, eyes watering again—this time in response to her husband’s nimble fingers dancing on her sensitive skin. She managed to swat him and twist away, hands finding her hips to glare at him in mock ire, her full lips pushed out in her signature pout.

“That wasn’t fair!”

Ralph only grinned unrepentantly at her and lunged again, always careful of her wellbeing, but there was no escaping his determination to cheer her up and make her feel better.

That night, with Ralph presumably asleep beside her, Mix felt her anxiety return. Her fingers idly traced and retraced aimless patterns on the low swell of her belly, cognizant that something was inside, wondering what it would feel like when her baby started to move. She wished, suddenly and desperately, for her father, but he was far beyond reach and her wishing only led to the hot sting of tears in her eyes once more. For the sake of her sleeping husband Mix tried to be quiet; she stuffed a knuckle in her mouth and bit down hard, driving away the tears, trembling, trying to calm herself for the sake of the life she supported within her own.

Still, the questions continued to pile up unbearably in her mind.

What if I’m not a good mother? What if I mess up? What if something goes wrong? What if the baby hates me? What if…What if…What if… They tumbled around and around her mind like clothes in the dryer, making just as much racket and battering her confidence to bits. She felt like crying again, and the liquid heat of her tears refused to abate; a few traitors slipped down her cheeks to wet her pillow. Mix was glad she faced away from Ralph.

She’d done some research, which of course had only served to freak her out even more. There were findings to suggest that a depressed mother caused depression in the baby, caused attachment issues, caused premature birth and low birth weight—which were later linked to depression and obesity; there was the ever-present reminder that her mother had never had an easy birth and her older sister had not been able to complete a natural birth, meaning Mix herself would likely have complications which would threaten her own life and that of her child; there was even the quiet threat of her own abilities, which Mix had refused to use since she’d discovered her pregnancy. She knew they worked by drawing on her stores of energy, but she didn’t know how they might affect the little one. Even if the healing vacuum didn’t directly pull from the baby, what of the after-effects of a healing?

She always slept for hours after healing something relatively big, and even small cuts would leave her feeling drained. Did that mean fewer nutrients got to the child? What if it happened during some critical stage of development? What if she accidentally killed her child?

Mix wasn’t sure Ralph would forgive her for that. He hated her powers on principle anyway; they had already killed her once, and although tempered in her…absence…that didn’t mean they weren’t dangerous. She couldn’t risk using them; couldn’t risk harming her son or daughter when so much was already at stake. To do so would be entirely unforgivable—even if Ralph was willing to do so, Mix never would.

A light fluttering, like a tiny paintbrush drawn across a sensitive membrane deep inside, caused Mix to catch her breath. Her fingers stilled their motions, her lips trembling as she stared wide-eyed into the darkness. It was probably just gas, she told herself, but even the remotest possibility of it being her little one brought a tiny, tiny smile to her lips. Suddenly, the panic and fear seemed small and far away, eclipsed by the total focus she suddenly had turned within. Mix held her breath, then sucked it in slowly, smoothly, trying not to deprive the baby, trying to feel if it would happen again.

Another brush. A breathless laugh escaped her lips; Ralph stirred, murmuring questions against the nape of his wife’s neck while his hands slid up from her hips to smooth soothingly along her arms. She wound her fingers with his, arresting the motion of those calloused hands, and whispered quietly what had happened—what she thought had happened. Ralph paused as well; Mix could feel his smile against her shoulder where he’d pressed a kiss. Hesitantly, Mix slid their entwined hands over her stomach, right over the place where she’d felt the movement, even knowing they would feel nothing externally.

“You know,” Mix murmured softly into the quiet, still shadows of their moonlit bedroom, “the baby can hear things inside the womb. I don’t know about right now, but…” Ralph pressed a soft kiss to the hollow below his wife’s ear, and Mix laughed gently, shifting a little bit so she could catch his lips in a real kiss. He edged up enough to fulfill her intentions, his fingers stretching to span the expanse of her belly, lightly stroking a small circle there without exerting pressure. Then he pressed himself along her back, arm looping securely around her, and rested his forehead against her shoulder as they adjusted their positions back into something comfortable.

Together they started to hum a tuneless melody, shifting and sliding around each other’s tones in a sweet harmony that swelled softly in the gossamer curtain of the night, spiraling down deep, deep to the little one cradled in her mother’s womb. Her parents sang themselves to sleep and she listened, as much as something at her stage of development could listen, to their drifting, fading song.

It would be a ritual oft-repeated after that night, even after her birth, and Irene would remember their songs and the still warm softness of the nights throughout her life; the songs touched something deep inside, thrumming gently, ready to drift out once more when called upon to soothe another anxious heart.

When first his kingdom and his castle had come tumbling down around his ears, there had been no thought at all. So close, so close to losing it all to a girl who knew nothing of words or power, no—and to have it all ripped away in a heartbeat for the sake of her heroic little story. To have offered everything, not for love of her but for love of his kingdom, and to have that very last hope smashed to crystal shards because she had to, she had to act it out to the very end…he had not withstood that final moment well. His mind, to save itself from utter madness as the world it was connected to shook and trembled and fell, fled to a form it found achingly familiar, a simpler shape with simpler needs and fewer wants.

And as an owl, he had lived in her world for a time. Nothing existed by the hunt, the rush of air beneath and over his wings, the moon and stars upon his softly gleaming, deadly silent form winging in the night. The faint squealing terror in his claws, the final breath of life and the hungry crunch of bone, the bright spurt of blood on snow-white feathers oh so brief before the morsel slid down his hungry gullet—this, this he knew and this alone. He watched without seeing the celebrations that very same night and winged away into its empty summer silence, never knowing what it was he fled amongst that bright array of joy and raucous abandon. He never saw the eyes that followed him, nor did he feel the hungry gaze that searched the skies in vain for his absent shape and form.

At first there had been no thought, only instinct, only escape. The pain drove him both far and near again, roaming and restless in a world that couldn’t hold him and slowly drained him of the power he had forgotten he even possessed. He felt that drain, a fainting sort of illness eating him up inside, but couldn’t understand it; could only fly and rest and eat to preserve his own existence. There was nothing left of him, not then, not enough. He could not recall his own true shape, knew only feathers and beak, hollow bone and moon-bright eyes. The draw, the summons that brought him near again he did not know he felt and certainly could not understand; he found himself once again outside the window, now dark, without ever knowing why…and then he knew a name. One name.

Sarah. Sarah. Sarah sarah sarahsarahsarahsarahsarahSARAH.

It called him back from the very brink of madness, the precipice of absolute dissolution into the animal mind he had fled into; the name, her name breathed life and cunning into his mind once more…and slowly—with that single word, that name his only guide—he knew himself again, suddenly, abruptly, almost painfully. He came to one starlit snowy night months or years after he had nearly lost it all, staring at a shut and blank and dark window whose shape he realized he knew all too well.

He nearly burst to human form right there, so strongly, so suddenly and without warning did he grasp his name and knowledge of himself, but he held—just barely—to the winged form he wore, a reflex borne of the flavor of the world around him. It had no tang of magic and stank of iron; to spend too much of his already depleted personal wellspring would leave him stranded here without any hope of returning. He’d wasted too much time already.

He needed a wish. Without one easily forthcoming, the kin could only wait and watch…and he realized, slowly, what had saved him at all, why he had come back to himself so sharply and in so strange a place.

His name. His name upon her sleeping lips had drawn him back, back, both to her side—as close as he could get, at any rate—and to himself. She dreamed, and dreamed of him.

With nothing else to do, the Goblin King kept watch upon the very brat who had nearly cost him all. He sought to hate her, bound as he was so shamefully to this world she’d dragged him to, but he quickly realized she too could grant him his escape. It was absolutely galling to know she had such power over him while he, as she had so righteously proclaimed, had none the same over her with which to balance the scales set between them, the power she so easily and disastrously wielded. He was left watching, waiting for a night when she might exercise her power and open up a portal to his kingdom, at which point he would have to sneak back into his realm, his own castle, like a common thief. It grated in the worst way.

To wear the owl-form had its own sort of danger, a certain loss of self always at the edges of perception, but this he knew and brushed aside with ease because he had such practice in wearing its shape. To take a form that suited his need held more danger still, more magic to be bound and kept in check while he pressed his cunning mind into a shape it could not long support. A moth, a spider, perhaps a fairy might turn the trick, but he had one chance alone to get it right. He had to wait, and plan, and watch.

In the end, it was absurdly easy to accomplish his goal. Coaxed by the general warmth in her room one particularly rowdy night, the girl—contemptible child that she was, he reminded himself—opened up her windows to the winter chill. The goblin king, in guise of a small and glittering fairy such as the ones drifting about the girl’s room, slipped inside with ease and managed to hide himself amidst the cluttered trinkets still lying about the room, though clearly a reduction from the mess it once had sported. He did not fail to note, brushing off a few stray snowflakes, that a greater number of creatures than usual had populated the room and filled it quite to its brim. He wondered at what the occasion might be, if there was one, until in passing he heard some foolishly genial well-wisher call out a ‘happy birthday’ to the grinning girl in question. The king paused momentarily in his mission; it mattered little to him, he told himself, that this should be a special day for her, but occasions must always be honored.

He pondered, for a brief and bitter moment, whether he ought to leave a gift as some snide reminder of his existence and, he justified, in grudging thanks for calling him back again (however unintentionally it might have been) to a place where he could reenter his kingdom. Unfortunately that single moment he took to consider nearly cost him his hiding place, guised though he was as a fairy like those that populated the gardens about the labyrinth gate, but the revelers passed over his small shape without remark. He had to wait to depart until nearly all the well-wishing revelers had nearly gone, but when he finally did manage to make his way to the faintly glimmering mirror he left a single, small crystal for the girl to find.

He took fiendish glee in thinking it might leave her with no small sense of consternation, even if it was only a charm to keep away bad dreams. Didn’t he owe her that much, at least? Sarah’s dreams, after all, had been the sole governance of the goblin kingdom in its king’s absence and, at the same time, the single magical sustenance he had received during his sojourn in the mortal world. The girl, the wretched, stupid, oblivious girl had given him just enough magic in her dreams to keep him alive, just enough magic to bring him back, just enough belief to hold onto his place as the King of the Goblins despite his defeat until he could return.

Still, that didn’t keep Jareth from plotting his revenge.

‘The theme of this story: epic transformation. The main characters: heroic grave robber and optimistic hunter. The start of the story: spiritual experience. The end of the story: death.’