"Desire is not merely about sex." The voice purrs behind him, silky and feminine.

"I am aware, yes. Thank you."

- from Mabari and Magus, 'Reach'

10. Welcome

.o0o.

The light had a greenish, brassy tone, and the air itself felt strangely heavy, a momentary clinging when he turned as though brushing across a pool of syrup. The landscape stretched oddly, warping perspective and rendering the distance into blurred streaks of false motion.

This is . . .

Not the customary helpless horror of his nightmares, nor the simple randomness of sleeping imagery. It felt more like that threshold between sleep and waking, where one might direct the course of a dream with conscious intent. Except – Sabhya toed the yellow grass and watched it part and sluggishly return upright.

Not my intent.

He had crossed – or had been brought – fully into the Fade's unreality.

How strange. He could feel his Gift shimmering throughout his dream-self, as if his veins and bones now thrummed with pure mana rather than blood and marrow. Which may well be the case. He wondered what spell casting would be like in this situation, and looked at his palm, tempted.

Better not. I might set the bunk on fire or something. Regretfully, he resolved to discuss the experience with his mentor Ines, or perhaps with Senior Torrin before experimenting. At a flicker of motion in his periphery he turned.

A figure strolled toward him, the speed with which it approached greatly out of sync with its languid pace. It – no, she came to a stop a few feet away and surveyed him from head to toe.

Very much "she."

The statuesque creature's ornaments accented rather than disguised her nakedness. A webwork of fine copper and silver chains wound about her neck and swung across her breasts, wrinkled pendants of freshwater pearls glinting against ebony skin. The series of scarves hanging low on her rounded hips were as sheer as steam rising from a teacup, an impression reinforced by the way that the transparent substance gently waved and clung to her legs with no apparent relation to her movements.

Horns with delicately coiled tips swept from her brow to either side and shone like polished abalone shell. The dark iridescence was echoed across the surface of her lower legs, where the increasingly pebbled texture was reminiscent of a skink's finely beaded hide. Violet and indigo flames rose from her skull, intricately woven as any exotic hair-dressing, to flutter smoking at the end like an untrimmed lamp wick. Her eyes were solid jet, centered, goat like, with a silvery spindle.

"Good evening." Sabhya broke the silence with wary courtesy. "Did you want something of me?"

The Desire Demon's lips curved upward. "That's my line." She tilted her head, eying him speculatively, and began to circle him with the grace of a reed undulating in a river's current. "I merely felt it was past time we met face to face."

"I'm sorry, should I know you?" He held his ground, turning his head to follow her progress.

"Mm, perhaps not as yet. Names are either meaningless or altogether too binding, don't you agree, Sabhya Amell?" Her voice was rich and insinuating, like a cat winding itself around his legs. "But I've been watching you for some time now, ever since you arrived at this thinly Veiled place. Do you wish to give me a name?"

"No, thank you." He switched to look over his other shoulder as she continued her circuit. "I wouldn't like to presume."

She chuckled. "Very politic of you." A movement in the grass drew his eye as she came to a halt before him, and he realized she was possessed of a tail, dark as her eyes but otherwise disturbingly reminiscent of attenuated, naked vertebrae. She noticed the direction of his gaze and twisted to give him a better look.

"Do you like it?" She spoke coyly.

"It . . . suits you."

She ran her hand over her backside and slowly drew the tail through her fingers, stopping to grip it perhaps nine inches from the end and raising it to her lips. Keeping her eyes on his, she put out her tongue – shiny-black like a snake's – and licked the tip, then made as if to tap him on the chin with it. He drew his head back and she released the appendage, unperturbed.

"I must say," she said, extending her arms with a dancer's grace, "I do like this skin you've given me."

"I beg your pardon?" Sabhya asked, startled. "That I've given you?"

Disregarding him, the Demon ran her fingers admiringly over the faint dusting of light under her skin, like the shimmer of distant stars in the night sky. "Do you think I'm beautiful?"

"I do, yes," he said honestly. Like a lighting storm, or a master's sculpture, she was indeed beautiful, although Sabhya was no more drawn to her than he would have been to a force of nature or a work of art. She met his eyes knowingly.

"I so look forward to our getting to know one another. We have plenty of time, and we understand patience, don't we?" Before he could react, her hand darted out to caress his face. "Such an intriguing morsel that you are."

She pulled back and laid a finger alongside her nose. "Dear me." She lowered her eyes in mock repentance. "I mean to say, 'mortal.'"

Sabhya swallowed. "I suspect it comes to the same thing."

The Demon looked him in the eye, her spindled pupils expanded to nacreous discs, and her laughter echoed from the turgid air, lapping at him like the wavelets of an incoming tide.

"Time to go, little mortal."

He opened his eyes to see his bunk's framework and blinked, trying to regain his bearings in the waking world.

That was . . . disconcerting. Interesting. Weird. I'd definitely better ask Ines about it. Do I need wardings? Can I cast spells if it happens again?

Preoccupied with all his questions, he began to sit up and abruptly became aware of the sticky mess in his crotch.

Wonderful. He let his head fall back to the pillow with an exasperated thump. So, Torrin it is.

.o0o.