Price of a Boon

The fey are drawn to the strange and the dark and the wanting, and so when the war between the city and the demons was well past ended, there was still that draw to the forbidden that tugged on one particular fey on the continent of Levis. So it was one night after the 'summer' heat that permeated the air.

Astrid had braided her massive mane of hair, slid on a pair of walking tights and a nice blouse, and a deliberately tattered looking dress over it all to maintain that mysterious witch vibes. She laughed as she picked up a chosen walking stick and moved outside her ancient and gnarled stump of a witch's house. She moved her hands in gesture, locking it with a glowing purple pulse.

Pushing her stick into the pressed mud, Astrid headed through the fern clearing towards the forest and her destination with the demon. Her pulse raced with energy, toes curling in this foliad form, though her ears were longer and her skin was a human shade of black. Birdsong grew wisely quiet around her on her journey, as smaller animals left the path. It was not that Astrid was a threat to nature, her aura was just giving off a ripple of danger this night.

The bug life had not gotten the message, as Astrid had felt a bite on her shoulder and she had stopped to give it a swat and a scratch, drawing blood with her sharp fingernails. It briefly glowed blue, before leaking into the dress. She frowned and continued forwards.

Soon the deep parts of the Forbidden forest had arrived and Astrid was stopped by a long cart covered in a greshire tarp. horned Bison-like creatures grazed nearby as several tents were constructed in a circle. Jutting stone and iron and flesh demons wandered the area as she watched, the tug coming from the largest of the tents.

<It is not nice to pry> came a gravelly voice in her mind, even as the fey witch felt a heat pool in her stomach.

Mental projection was a cheap trick but not one strange to her and her hands made the gestures as she built the connection. <We are neighbours, and your men carry new fangled weapons into my forest. I could solve that if you think that is better than prying and talking.>

Astrid felt a wave of heat as the patrolling men nodded as one and headed north, into the forest. The tent opened easily and Astrid recieved the pull to come into the demon realm. An invitation to pry by the leader of this gathering in absentia.

She moved with certainty, making a gesture to hide a little insurance lest it went poorly - lest the water boiled as she dipped her toe in to bathe. The inside of the tent was briefly obscured as she ducked her head, her limbs briefly unnaturally long before fey stretched back into their foliad proportions.

"Neat trick" The voice had come in the flesh this time, attached to a oiled and dark body covered in parts in black fur and hair with horns upon his head. A gold chain adorned his neck, while he lounged on a carved wooden chair that faced her. She had bristled at the sight of the chair, and of the carved wooden cup in his hand - affronts to the natural order she was a champion of. Even if her championing was adopted.

Knicknacks and doodads laden the tent, mementoes from the invasion of the lands that surround them. And there the incubus lord had sat, drinking Starberry Wine as Astrid found her place within the tent. She had breathed deep and smelt the cloves lacing the air as she felt his magic try to press into her mind, like hard stone and wet iron.

"What is your purpose here?" Astrid had managed to growl out as her navy eyes had stared into his vibrant ones. His smirk had been wild and yet with a charming smoothness, and it had intrigued and infuriated her both.

"I am trapped again, locked to this realm and distinctly aware of how toxic the politics is here and yet so much like home." He had motioned as an iron throne had pushed up from the soil for her to sit her sacrilegious ass upon. Astrid had sat upon the iron, and the spells woven upon it had ripped her from one look into another. A long dress with a corset made from iron and lace, and a dress that bloomed at the hips more than anything seen on Levis. she had growled as she had been violated and disrespected, even as his control over metal held her in place. Cuffs had slid over her wrists to stop her gestures, as the incubus lord had stood with a deep and victorious smile.

Lord Xylos had hooked a finger under her chin, forcing her head up to look at him. Rings adorned his fingers in all shapes and sizes and designs as he played his tongue over his teeth as he watched her with a sucking sound. "What to do with the witch who invades my space, this annexed place, and her iron heart?"

Astrid stared back with murderous glare, now wanting him from the forest, away from the place they were and indeed all of Levis. Let him boat northward for all she cared. "This forest is for the people of this land, not for you and your demons. Now, tell me what you need to make you go." Power welled within her, the fey within her bubbling to the surface as her veins glowed with cyan power, as her face elongated and her features became sharper. The shackles around her wrists shattered with ice and chaos, for the witch and the fey within her were two different sources of magic within her.

The demon cackled in delight, the challenge set as he straddled her knees, hands pinned her wrists down as he moved into her personal space. "What makes you think you can offer anything to make me leave?" His black, lightless eyes stared at hers and she puffed up her chest, bracing herself for a retort. But she had stopped when his nail dragged over her jaw, breaking skin and letting blood flow down from the cut and over her throat. Astrid had swallowed hard, trying to think of any other tricks she had to deal with the demon.

Then the strange happened, for glimmer had started to sparkle in the tent around them and Astrid knew - beneath her fear sprung a deep well of joy leading from the need to feel a new challenge in her life. The demon was this cause, even as her limbs had lengthened and she had shrugged him off of her, sending him stumbling back into the wooden throne he had constructed. Before he could move her hands had thrown the gestures, a bark of power leaving her, powered by the blood he himself had shed. Soon he was bound to his wooden chair with swirls of pulsing purple magic.

What followed was a barely contained battle of magic and wit. Terms were offered, countered, rejected. Threats were made, parried, made flesh. As the tent exploded and the battle became physical, mental, and a matter of pride, demons were scattered into the forest, leaving the incubus lord with a court of none, even as the demon took pound after pound of flesh from the witch until her fey form lay stripped of glamor and her body marked with purple runes trailing up her thighs from each spell blocked. Blood ran from her body, but she had surveyed the equal ruin she had left the demon in, despite his body being unmarred.

Instead he lay in pact with her, his forces barred from forming under him again, and his camp no longer allowed to lay claim to land within the Forbidden Forest - not that that guaranteed he would leave. But they were now connected, the shards of their fight slicing both ways, and should they need to recarve the details, it would be upon her body that the lines would score. For the dark had called and Astrid had answered.

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Just a little piece describing how Astrid got her demon runes and how the demons were turned to raiders. In the first draft Astrid had traded for power, but she no longer feels that woman.