Yusaphine

Someone had discovered they had been having sex, and the discovery of sex had never led to anything good. Just more babies. Boys and girls and others in between. Siblings that ate one another. Each believing their next’s would be better than the rest’s. This rock was a cannibalistic one. Filled with souls that convinced each other to kill and be killed. No love. Only consumption.

Turning a problem into a boon was not something she had expected to do. She left Heavens to Euthymia and swiftly left the house. Someone had led that boy there. And that someone was problematic. Now that someone knew of her relationship with Euthymia, she was a on a strict time limit. Either Heavens would go off and tell the knighthood, or Euthymia would be indited on the ground of pedophilia.

Down the stairs were three Solare warriors. One knelt. Captain Akemi. Yusaphine recognized her as a particularly close ally of Moon Selv. Or perhaps his whore. What other reason would a commoner Solare be cause to closeness with a King’s son? She was a pretty woman. Too good for some old man.

“We’re here for you.” Akemi said. “It’s over now.”

“Huh?” Yusaphine did not understand.

“You’re safe. We know what’s been happening.” The warrior to her left said.

The other mumbled. “You two are right. Lunare nobles really are the worst.” 

“You don’t need to worry. Euthymia will be taken into custody, and she’ll never touch you again. All you have to do is come with us. The boy will be our witness.”

Ah, so they did it.

Yusaphine began whimpering, clenching at Akemi’s body in an embrace, she pointed to the darkness of an alley where a manor ended.

“My- My stuff… Can I go get it?”

“Yes, we’ll escort you until your safety is secured in the motherland.”

“Really? You’re amazing…” Yusaphine led them to the alley and then rummaged, struggling to find her things within the shade.

That’s because her stuff wasn’t there. And that’s because the girl was not Yusaphine.

Her breasts grew. They bounced out, jiggling and rippling all over the place till they were nearly the size of her head. Her hips widened until she looked like some artist’s radical rendition of the perfect female form in all of its rectangular glory. Then, she narrowed. Until she was a woman with sage hair, high cheekbones, and eyes like sapphire.

The warriors drew their katanas. Yusaphine cleaved through them, sending the steel sliding across stone. She watched as shock settled in. One even fell into the wall, knees shaking.

Akemi managed to speak, face muscles twitching, neck tense, and broken sword raised. “I didn’t know the Pryshtan Master’s daughter had a taste for demon cooch.”

“She doesn’t know. And I prefer it stay that way.”

“If you kill us, the entire Trustknighthood is going to be investigating this place for the next five fortnights.”

“Because a couple Solare whores went missing?”

“Because I told Moon Selv to release the nature of my post upon my slaying.”

“Ah.”

“Why are you here, having sex with a Noblewoman’s daughter?”

“I am here for the Grand Instrument. Euthymia has a surplus of faces that guard it. Its rather simple.”

“How did you secure a place in this palace?”

“I’m tired of fulfilling the suppressed kinks of palace bosoms. Does that answer your question?”

Akemi grunted. “You will bed them no more. This behavior will cease, and if I catch you out of line or in any other form than the girl whose form you dare take, I will have the Blade Masters deal with you myself.”

“Imagine threatening someone with someone else’s sword.”

Yusaphine stuck her arm straight through one warrior. She ripped out innards and ribs, then clawed at the two women to her right. They both ducked. Akemi was quick. Yusaphine blinked an her arm was sliced off. The other warrior thrust steel through her neck. She kneed the woman then smashed the top of her skull into the jaw. Akemi tumbled over, pulling her slain ally’s blade through Yusaphine in a valiant attempt to cull a quarter of her shoulder out.

Instead, Yusaphine smacked her to the floor, pulled the broken blade, and knelt. “I don’t care about your cuck Moon Selv. I leave you alive to do one thing. Take the Solare from their station. You will guard the entrance to the Sound Pools. Do this, and Xina lives.”

“Why would I care about some Gemblood?”

“So easy to forget a sister.”

The adamance in Akemi’s face faded with Yusaphine’s smile. Her pointless stance to fight, lowered. All will to argue, muted. The signs of a broken will. Yusaphine leaned in to smell the woman. Breath, hair, sweat. A precautionary measure in the case she needed to later transform into Akemi herself. A Solare captain would be quite useful.

 “You don’t think your little pansies speak in bed. Adopted. Sisters, by all things more important than blood. Of course, you can let her die.”

“No. I’ll do it.”

Yusaphine’s eyes crinkled. “Weakness is a woman.” She began feasting on the carcasses of the Solare warriors as her flesh reshaped itself.

Breasts shrunk. Shoulders widened. Hips narrowed. She had to find her reflection in a window to get the nose just right. Her bone, blood, and even brain twisted until she was the spitting image of Moonprince Jamal.

This form would be most suitable. It was easiest to traverse the palace without question, and Jamal, being the workaholic he was, never left his working quarters. He was not a people person, and easy to forget small conversation. All the gaps he left behind were like steps in the snow. Perfect for Yusaphine to fit right into and follow. 

Showing this form to Akemi discouraged premature betrayal. If she wasn’t sure who she was reporting to, she wouldn’t report at all. The Starblood also had no clue if there were others like Yusaphine herself, wormed inside the palace, which of course, there were.

But right now, all Yusaphine needed was herself. She was everyone in the palace and no one at all. Anyone that someone wanted her to be. She had worked hard to get into this position. The wedge betwixt power and discrepancy. Ten years it had taken. Learning every relationship. Every act committed. From childish secret to royal adultery. Songbird Shanai nodded to her as she walked by.

“Stop.”

Yusaphine stopped, turned, and grinned. “I’m surprised you noticed.”

Shanai prodded her back sharply. “I feel sorry for the poor man Enesca will marry, taking after posture like yours.” She growled. “Jamal, do you really feel it’s safe to have your child go outside? This is the only place Vyce can be moderated-”

“And so it is the only place he will decide to operate. You know how the Cardinal likes his challenges. Besides, Enesca’s husband will become a future Moon. That is more important than Vyce, I, or Enesca.” Yusaphine quoted Jamal’s shitty overused proverb. “People through purpose. Purpose before people.”

“Just go bother Thalane already.”

“You knew where I was heading?”

“I know she is guilty of a great crime, but she is Enesca’s friend. Don’t give your child reason to spite you in her later years.”

“I’ll do no such thing.” Yusaphine smiled.

Shanai smiled back. She didn’t have a clue.

Deep in the palace prison, Yusaphine’s cartilage and sinew began to shift. She shrunk. Condensing herself. Her form became Enesca’s. She found Hel speaking with Thalane at the other end of the hall. They stopped the back and forth, staring.

Hel sprinted at her, yelping, flailing, shouting her name. “You have to tell your father I’m no threat! I don’t want to be Diva! I never did! Please tell him to drop this nonsense about what happened with Heavens and the trumpet!”

Ah, yes. The trumpet-saliva situation. Yusaphine had heard some vague rumor about that.

Yusaphine sighed. “I wish I could. But my Dad really fears for my future. I have no say in what he does…”

Thalane was glaring her way. “Why? Why didn’t you tell me your father was Moon Jamal? All this time? You know what happened then. My mother’s death”

Divine be damned. Yusaphine had overlooked that sometimes she was closer with lovers than they were with themselves. For the past two years, Enesca had never told Thalane of her father. Situations like these are dangerous. They forced Yusaphine from discrepancy and into saying something meaningful. Saying something someone could say was right or wrong. The one weakness in her ability to change forms as a succubus.

“I was scared you’d hate me.” Yusaphine answered.

“If you’d told me… If you’d told me we might not be here right now. Stuck.”

Yusaphine gave her a regretful glanced but kept quiet. She would let the real Enesca continue this conversation later. Coming here by itself was a risk, Enesca had never visited the prison and if that came out in conversation with her and Thalane, Yusaphine would lose two key characters in her scheme against Lunare.

Even so, nobody believed children anyway. If they reported an imposter to the guards it would be dismissed. Much like how a parent waved off that headless man staring from the imagination of every child’s closet.

Right now, Yusaphine needed Hel and Thalane to work together.

“Get out.” Thalane snapped. “Both of you.”

“See, you do hate me.” Yusaphine said.

“No. We failed. I hate your father, but he wants what I do. Your future secured.”

“That’s it?” The real Enesca would display a rising anger, and so Yusaphine did too. “You’re just giving up? You’re going to let me marry off to some boy I don’t know?”

Thalane’s face darkened. “Look at where not giving up has brought me.” She punched the brick of the wall, bloodying her knuckles. 

“I don’t care about being Diva!” Hel reasoned, for what seemed like the dozenth time. “We want the same thing! We both want to leave the palace. We both want out.”

“Yeah, sure.” Thalane mumbled. “You’re just a self-serving pissant, trying to get your servant boy freed from trial.”

Hel frowned.

“And what if she is?” Yusaphine asked. “What does her selfishness matter? We are too. Let’s not pretend we’re doing this for more than ourselves!”

Thalane sat angrily. When she didn’t speak, she was listening.

“It’s another month until marriage.” Yusaphine continued. “I can get my Dad to change the knighthood rotations. I think I can also do some other things so we can get safe passage from the mainland.”

The kids seemed to be in agreement at that. How funny. That something as simple as a child possibly know the meaning of the word love. The arrogance of these kids would be the downfall of an entire economy.

Investigations into the two disappearances of the Solare warriors began the morrow. Yusaphine crossed the investigators and Cardinals several times up and down the stairs. She spread rumors. Bad spirits. Bad luck. Bad anything. Make something bad and people turned to faith. And faith? It would do all the work. The deaths were blamed on a Devil that did not exist in place of one that did.

Yusaphine found herself drifting through the palace halls before the birds awoke. A door in the nymphaeum, meant only for the Priestesses, was unlocked. Unlocked doors. They always led to such interesting things. It was Yusaphine’s first time here.

The Sound Pools.

Dark halls and dark doors opened to tiled white squares spreading expansively across bizarrely shaped chambers and pools. Little froth gathered at the edges of the transparent blue and green. Some doors were partially beneath the water, shaped like circles, triangles, or squares. Some rooms were connected through stairs or bridges. Nothing was symmetrical. Nothing was predictable. The Sound Pools seemed indefinite and beautiful, yet plain and pure. Yusaphine kept turning corners, thinking the next one was where God is. She had a couple questions to ask him. About her sister. About her homeland. About her ruined people. All that answered was a heavy scent of lavender.

The dawn’s glory poured into four large pools forming an incomplete diamond. At the center was a staircase stretching to a porch. At the top was a woman in a series of smaller bath-shaped pools. Dark skin. Plump lips. Thick thighs. A crisp, completed glance mixed with a triumvirate of knowing, pondering, and curiosity. The look of a true scholar. The look of Xina when she didn’t have her makeup on.

She looked surprised. Back arched straight. Her expression went from a fawn’s to a fury’s. “I could have you slain.”

Yusaphine jumped, then transformed back into her usual form. “Apologies.” She had forgotten she had been walking around as Jamal.

“Oh, you scared me.” Xina said, easing back into her bath. “I thought Jamal had lost his mind.”

“These waters sound good for the mad.”

“Yes, lost minds tend to find themselves when they stop thinking.” Xina’s expression became stern as she reached for a soap-covered sponge. “That’s right. This is your first time here. How does it feel, being a Priestess?”

 “Good, surprisingly. This place brings out the peace in me.”

Xina humorously smirked. “And now you see why I didn’t want you here.”

Yusaphine took that as an invitation up the stairs. She leaned over the bath and began helping Xina wash. The woman took her hand and nuzzled it. It was nice having no midnight knocks or royal deliveries to disturb them. Here, only people stupid enough to take the word of the Divine could arrive.

The movements of her hands became circular, moving more and more in their orbital movements down Xina’s stomach. Yusaphine’s lips hung over the woman, speaking. Of her day. The mundane. The transformations. Even the murdering of two Solare warriors. Xina made a pleasured grunt, aware, but not quite caring.

“I killed two people today.” Yusaphine whispered louder.

Xina mumbled something incoherent, then turned over as if this was some kind of fucking back massage. Several knots of aggravation formed in Yusaphine. She turned the woman back as her mouth dived for a tit. Xina let loose a moan, then back to mumbling. Yusaphine  kissed her deeply. hands slipped into the woman’s inner thighs. That’s when Xina stopped and pulled her lips away.

“Here?”

“Here is all there is.”

“We can’t do this-”

Yusaphine slipped her middle finger into Xina and curled it. A silk cascade poured through the fingertips, feeling very different in texture from the water. Xina was soaking. She flipped out and raised her legs. Yusaphine buried her face between them, licking at layers of flesh. Her own layers quivered at a lick from below. Xina stuck her tongue inside. There was a wet release of tension. 

Yusaphine jerked, hips buckling, knees sliding along the tiles. “Oh yeah, like that.” She felt a powerful building deep within, scraping pleasurably against her insides.

“Oh yeah, you wanna use me? You like that?”

“Yeah, use me baby.”

“Use me.”

Xina took a breath and it felt hot. Burning. A wave of pleasurable fog. She was licking faster now, Yusaphine matched the depth with a low and slower pace. Both their thighs were quaking. She began flicking her tongue, then Xina buckled. Yusaphine grabbed her legs, kept them open, and quickened her movements. Xina kept licking, but slowed as she orgasmed, struggling to breathe. Yusaphine’s entire body stiffened. Her groin dropped into Xina and her tongue penetrated the best corners of her. A rain of intense ecstasy reverberated from every particle of Yusaphine’s body. It centered on her cervix. She took a breath and realized she was cumming. Mind blank. Gasps ragged. She felt her heart drum to her beating loins, both blooming like two tulips in spring. The chamber was filled with deep breaths and longs sighs for the next several minutes.

Yusaphine’s mind cleared, then returned to what she had dismissed at the time to be dirty talk. “What was that about using you?”

“I was just thinking about how many other women you do this with.”

“The only other one was Euthymia. You know that. And it’s not because I want to but because I must.”

“Yeah, right. I can tell which woman you’ve been with by the way they stare in the halls, you know.”

“I did nothing with them. They’re angry. You’re different.”

Xina raised a brow. “Am I now?”

“You’ve supported me since my quest began. You’re the only one who’s ever seen the true me and liked her. If it were up to me, I would sacrifice my journey, just so we could spend one more month here.”

“There are other places. We don’t need this one.”

Yusaphine smiled at that. Perhaps it was she who was being used. For company and companionship. To fill the fragmentations left behind Xina’s shattered past. She was mysterious, more mysterious than the Moonking himself.

Xina continued. “The Lunare economy has made its wealth off children, Skybloods, and people like your sister. It is time for it do die. Just one more week.” Her grip around Yusaphine’s forearm tightened, suds slid down their knuckles from the sponge between them. “I trust all is well for the morrow?”

“Mostly…”

Xina raised a brow. “Mostly?”

“I threatened Akemi like you said I might have to…”

“And…?”

“Those Solare warriors who died…”

“Worry not. Probably some patriotic feud.”

“Um… I killed them.”

“You what.”