-The bright, wet, warm spray shot across her face and painted her cheeks & lips red. The Nymph Goddess spread the red mist all across her bloody face in a rather poor attempt to wipe it off. When she opened her closed eyes to stare at her bloodied hand, it was instead water that trickled through and down her fingers into an amethyst singing bowl.

  [Night of the Strawberry Moon

  Her eyes watered, though she did not shed a tear for the dearly departed soul; he had, after all, satiated both her homunculus hunger and thrall thirst. Succubi—as Shyera is surely a succubus—are archaic & powerful female Demons, wholly erotic in nature, appearing to men in dreams or the physical realms to seduce, steal, and kill them; as the whole of their ilk feed solely upon the life fires of men. Shyera Starshine swallowed down the spirit & seed of the dearly departed soul with heartless haste. Decapitated & castrated by the end, but only at the end; the beginning & middling parts were arguably worth what came next.

  [Present Day

  When she opened her closed eyes again to stare at her bloody hands, it was instead water that trickled through and down her fingers from the Black Orc’s canteen. He’d cleaned himself up and then her as best as he could while her mind traveled back to another time and place. The two were soaked & equally distracted from the true danger for a time.

  “We must go from this place! You will not be safe among my kin, Tree God!”

  Orobos grabbed her by the hand and nearly took flight with the Fae Deity cupped in his strong arms by his third stride. He’d managed to literally sweep Shyera off of her feet to save her light & life from his own people.

  “Why are you doing this, Uruk?” she whispered over the fast & cutting wind pressure to him. Her words were as loud as any he’d previously spoken, regardless.

  “Do you know what I am?” she queried to the blood-smeared orc. “Do you know how what I am came to be?”

  Nightshade didn’t bother to respond to her. He only stared in shameless wonder, intoxicated by the sound of her sultry siren voice; among a number of other unquantifiable qualities & quality quantities she possesses. He did not, however, slow down until they’d reached the eastern T’Lerian shoreline half a day later. They’d been beset upon several more times along their trek, and the Orc Commander had slaughtered and nearly been slaughtered a dozen or more times since then. Nightshade was dealt a great many wounds and leaked a great deal from the greatest of them many. They’d breached the treebrush, and his legs gave out beneath him. Orobos collapsed, and the Nymph Goddess tumbled for a time before springing to her feet and then to his side. Shyera performed a feeble pull on his heavy orc arms in vain.

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  “Get up! We have to keep moving,” she pleaded to him.

  “I fear that I have gone as far as I can, Tree God,” he struggled to utter.

  Shyera darted her head every which way frantically.

  “Shyera,” she yelled at him. He was suddenly completely alert again.

  “What,” he said with a bewildered expression on his face.

  “My name,” she sneered at him.

  “My name is Shyera Starshine.”

  She was smiling down at him now, if only for a moment. “Orobos Nightshade,” he responded.

  Shyera smiled a devilish smile. The pact or pledge between man & she devil is initiated with a mutual exchange of true name and true self. Nightshade had unknowingly fulfilled his portion of the pact, and the two quickly gained extensive carnal knowledge of each other. When the deed was done, she had not fed upon the Orc Commander; she had instead healed his every wound and wear. Orobos had expected to die and go to the 7 heavens–Though not in that order, necessarily.

  “I’m still alive,” he quipped as he sat up straight.

  “Do you know what I am?” she asked him again. “Do you know how what I am came to be?”

  Antiquity does not remember which preceded the other, Nymph or Succubi. Whether or not they were demons cleansed or corrupted fertility gods made no matter to her makeup—as Shyera Starshine is surely a succubus—purified by the Dé Danu Convent as a former prisoner of war. She became known as the Hand Maiden for her discovery, mastery & tutelage of Layhands Healing, to & by all learned Nymph kind. An ability that can only be activated after true intimacy has been shared between the Fae and their intended targets. The Convent had sent her out into the world to join the races of Kundra for the coming calamity and to find the star in the dark. The peoples of Ketu-Kélé call it the Dwarf in a Flask, while the ?gir can at least be credited for referring to it as a Star in a Jar. By any given name, it is a Heart Stone Homonculus: The Heart Stone is an ancient and extremely rare variation of a Philosopher’s Stone. In creating it-Via the voluntary induced ascension of a Kundra Rainbow Blood–The Corn Kings–Another dimension was formed, wherein the late monarch and all his direct heirs live in eternal, uninterrupted states of bliss. In death, each monarch could continue to commune with their living successors via the Heart Stone. Through “Wayism”-The literal Golden Path to ascension-All descendants of the First Corn King are able to ascend into his dimension in exchange for their eternal devotion, which powers the Heart Stone. Homunculi are synthetic Thran, forged soulless as vessels for the Aeons to explore the mortal realms via the power of the Heart Stone. Through the Heart Stones' power, Shyera Starshine had ascended as a she devil and returned to the 7 Planes as a goddess of nature.

  “My power is useless unless I share that which is sacred with others in need,” she whispered.

  “What you wish will break us both.”

  He stood up defiantly, turning his back to her, cross-armed, before speaking.

  “I have killed my own for you, Tree God.”

  “Shyera,” she snapped, and he only chuckled hard.

  “I have killed my own for you, Shyera! There is nothing I will not endure to have you!”

  Nightshade turned & dropped to a knee before her, placing his weapon across his knee. “I am yours, Shyera Starshine–and you are surely mine!”

  Shyera beamed with glee and grabbed his face up and kissed him fiercely.