"See that little jersey girl in the see-through top, with the peddle pushers sucking on a soda pop, well I bet she's still a virgin but it's only twenty-five 'til nine, you can see a million of 'em on heartattack and vine."- Waits

Out the door then, into the WestEnd night that confused and, in some very private and primal way, frightened her. Of course no fear shows in the measured metronome of heelstrikes, Magenta can cross a grated storm drain in heels, never glancng down, the points of her stilettos always striking cleanly on a solid intersection of grating. And not a trace of concern is allowed to flicker to the surface of her proud face. A good dom knows how to put up a front, and she is a very good dom, indeed.

She pauses in the light of a magicked streetlamp, notes with distate that, rather than the hiss and buzz typical of such illumination at home, this one seems to be singing in an identifiably human voice, just a few decibels shy of decipherability. The light it throws, too, seems to not so much beam down from the lamp as to pool up from the pavement beneath it, lighting her from below like a face held over a flashlight to frighten. An exploratory kick with one red pump and, yes, something bright and insubstantial does seem to splash momentarily and settle to brief ripples.

Magenta surpresses a shudder. It is perhaps this pervasive magic, more than anything else, that disturbs her about RhyDin. Oh she knows, as anyone involved in the sex trade soon learns, that all magic is 90% belief and 10% stage business, but here the belief is so pervasive that her skepticism is ineffective, too small a dose to poison the pool.

Paused in the strange pool of light, in her retro-vamp ensemble, she could be a poster for a film noir feature, or the cover for a hard-boiled detective pulp. She is no one's damsel in distress, though, at least not so anyone could see.

It is true that the sheer number and variety of, well, she would not try to put too fine a point on it, of monsters here has also caused her concern. She knows what her lover Alma is, of course, but in Vienna Alma was one of a number that were both few and well hidden, in general a goddess among insects. Here, every second citizen is Kindred, or were-something, or worse. The thought of the Embrace she covets, and the restrictions still placed upon it, flickers through her consciousness like a bat through a pool of streetlamp light and is gone.

"Patience, Mags," she mutters the words to herself as she strides on into the night, quick clicking heels adding their sharp punctuation to the thousand stories being written, some painfully, in the buildings she passes, within the pools of darkness between them. For now, there is Alma to aid as she is asked to, a wealth of new drugs to explore and experiment with, and perhaps even a plaything or two of her own to dally with. For now there is the old night music of lust and fear and craven need; and where there is night music, Magenta will dance.

"Early in the morning I feel a chill; The factory whistle blows loud and shrill: I'd kill my wife or she'd kill me: But we gotta go to work in the factory"

Again.

A pair of them this time. Young, almost indistinguishably pretty. Even Magenta, who knows her so well, is surprised by the seeming depth of Alma's appetites, her sensual voraciousness as she seems bent upon plucking all of the bright blooms of RhyDin's gardens and bringing them all to her demanding bed. It is surely tied to her hatred of the Artsblood creature, whom Magenta avoids at all costs.

But first, of course, all of these conquests must be trained. Thus first they come, all of the little birds with their nervousness and their fleeting boldness and their hidden perfumes of fear; first they come to Magenta.

"Treat these two as one," her mistress instructs. "They are to be used always in tandem, to come to feel that, in all things sensual, they are a single organism. Each of them bears a given name beginning with the letter "D," from this moment those names are gone, and they together become Deedee." The little blond allows a wry smile to burn across her perfect mouth as she gives Magenta the brief blessing of a glimpse of her startlingly pale blue eyes, momentarily unhidden by the tint and thickness of her glasses.

"As for the rest, darling Magenta, you know as well as I. Teach them unhesitating obedience, instruct them in the subtle spices of pleasing and being pleased, and make them come to know the pleasure that waits to blossom deep in the heart of pain. When they are ready, dress them in identical red silk gowns and bring them to me."

Emotionless, opera masqued and leathered, strapped and buckled, Magenta is in uniform and in character. She only nods, not deigning to glance at the girls, her burred voice soft.

"As you will it, Mistress."

But Alma turns in leaving, and lowers her glasses again, her voice offhand, it is all the crueller for its apparent casualness.

"Oh, and Magenta darling, make them fully familiar with both of your natures...."

Only her rigid self control keeps the statuesque beauty from recoiling at these words; even that is not enough to hold back the whisper, not of protest, she is not that daring, nearer to a plea, if truth be told, and pleading is dare enough.

"But Mistress, but Alma..."

The little blond cuts her off with a sinple raise of a gloved hand. "Do it Magenta. Do you think I have left you whole this long to do nothing more than prettily fill your panties? I will expect them in two days, fully...and I say fully....trained."

And of course they will be and are. Though there are moments in the instruction when Magenta must hide deep within her mind, a sustained mental screaming shutting out as best if can what her body is doing almost without her bidding. The black leather opera mask fits tight, and that is just as well. It might confuse the girl beneath her, after all, if her own eyes weren't cinched closed at the depth of pleaure being inflicted upon her, to see the dominatrix stretched above her leaking tears.

"Talking the talk, walking the walk."

To say that Magenta loves Alma might be putting too romantic a spin upon the relationship, but it would not overstate the fierceness of the attraction. As the little blonde slips on her glasses and rises from the bed they have shared, Magenta's pale grey eyes follow her, eager as puppies, wet with adoration.

One might assume that such devotion is the result of Alma's reliance upon Charisma or some other form of Kindred trickery. To assume such would be a mistake. She would consider it beneath her to use such tools in a seduction; other than as candies, perhaps, offered in the form of glimpses of the power of her unshielded eyes during the early stages of the pas de deux that leads to conquest. No, Magenta's adoration is equal parts respect and admiration; entrapment by physical beauty and simple lust. Those ingredients prove more than enough to create a cocktail potent enough to all but enslave her.

And so her dirty-rain-gray eyes adore as the little blonde assembles herself beside the bed, and her long body, tangled in sheets damp with sweat and more, still savors the brief, fluttering tremolos of post-orgasmic pleasure. It is into this vulnerability that Alma chooses to toss her latest incendiary request.

"See if you can turn them toward me, will you, Mags" The Lenika woman, I mean, and the girl Tina, spawn of Artsblood. The former might be susceptible to an offer of friendship. Though supposedly in a relationship, she seems draped in a perpetual cloak of loneliness and vague sorrow. Earn her trust and affection and the doors I intend to assault will open all the more easily.

"The girl is another matter. She is on the edge of her blooming, and knows it. She is also unsure of her sexuality, her mother being almost militarily lesbian contributing to that confusion. Tina is enamored of one of the Bloods, Lucifer, but I cannot think that her crush will come to fruition. There are too many, including the sweet, mad Tara, who seem to have interest in opposing it. A girl's first heartbreak contains magic of a terribly strength and , love, I think you might be capable of exploiting it, of attracting the girl on the rebound, as it were." Alma pauses, a slow smile shaping her carefully crafted mouth. "And whatever she decides concerning her sexual orientation, you should be qualified to attract her?"

Magenta curls her long body, knees drawn up involuntarily.

"But Alma, darling, isn't the girl quite young..."

The small blonde's "tsk!" cuts further comment.

"Can it be that I'm about to hear a moralistic objection from my dear Mags?" she says.

Carefully pulling on a glove first, she reaches out and lays a finger on the tip of Magenta's nose. It is a soft, gentle, even loving gesture. But for all that is has the subtlety of a whiplash. The finger still there, Alma whispers.

"Trust me darling, such morality clashes with your eyes...."

"You'll come in a sweetheart and you'll go out a stranger Well you try to love her but she's so contrary Like a chainsaw running through a dictionary So get your mind off the sweet behind of our little angel" —Costello

Deedee trained, and of course there is another. These days Magenta's mistress seems immune to the charms of her conquests, merely tasting them to determine their value as tools, as weapons, before off in the fevered pursuit of the next.

But no, not this time. If that were the case Magenta would be less disturbed. She has, after all, nursemaided Alma's growing madness thus far; if anything, it has cemented the little blonde's need for her statuesque second in command.

This one, though, she was not invited to train. This one she was instructed to allow in, to indicate the unlatched (unlatched! for another!) door to the room where her mistress waited. This one is different.

Perhaps worse of all, this one is all that Magenta is not: dark where she is fair, delicate where she is robust, bottom to her top and fem to her butch...and, of course, the crucial difference, the one that rankles.

Alma has plans for this one; that is certain. Certain, too, is the devotion this Asian flower already has for the mistress, and she still yet, when Magenta saw her last, to share Alma's bed. No, the mistress has plans for this one, and she might very well be willing to be molded to suit those plans.

And then, should those plans reach fruition, will Magenta suddenly be second rather than first...or whill she be cast away like the other beautiful husks Miss Alma has tired of.

No, there is too much at stake, too much invested. Magenta is, for all of her costumed dominatrix duties, a gentle girl at heart, but something hard is forming in the heat of her heart, like a black pearl soothing its layers around the heartache there. It is a jewel of great cost to its bearer, and its gifting will be a dark ceremony indeed.

"You're looking skinny like a model with your eyes all painted black Just keep going to the bathroom, always say you'll be right back Well, it takes one to know one, kid, I think you've got it bad But what?s so easy in the evening by the morning's such a drag

I got a flask inside my pocket, we can share it on the train And if you promise to stay conscious I will try and do the same We might die from medication, but we sure killed all the pain But what was normal in the evening by the morning seems insane." —Bright Eyes

The edge of control is where control is prettiest, where it flashes out from beneath its rock time and again, frantic, red eyed, chittering in near madness, each time only barely managing whatever actions can at least postpone the onward hurtle of disaster.

It was like that with the razor, with the Lotus's hair. For a moment there, one hand wrapped in the dark, silken weight of it, the other barely holding back the eager blade, when Magenta had danced on the edge. And though she will get no credit from her almost-victim, it was she alone who stayed that hand, whose trembling will walked that razor closed. Were it to have tasted the black river of that hair, how would it ever have stopped there?

It is in part the powder. She knows this of course, she is a professional, andshe truly believes (and who would know enough to call her wrong) that she controls the careen that the tan dust has leant to her evenings. Even when she sits alone, apparently quiet, big, beautiful wallflower lost in her own lonely thoughts, her mind is flashing off glimmers like a disco ball.

It may be the powder, too, that has attracted the Ancient to her. It may well be so, at least in part, Magenta admits to herself under personal prodding,. She is, of course, also not blind to her own beauty, for all that certain aspects of Sid's apparent attraction to her have already left her more confused and conflicted than normal.

Another reason, then, to sniff just a bit more. To let it fuel the flights of fancy, her plots and surmises and simple girlish wishes-on-a-star. It is a drug of her own invention, this, and it partakes of the magic powders of her dear Vienna as well as the more exotic intoxicants of this new world.

Like Magenta sometimes feels, it is a thing with roots torn from both cultures and thus rooted in niether. As constant a companion, now, as the silver-anodized razor set with sandlewood scales, it is also, she knows that keening blade's equal as a weapon. In the right hands.

And her hands, though she thinks them unsightly and large, have ever been so very capable.

"If you had just a minute to breathe and they granted you one final wish Would you ask for something like another chance"

Or something similar as this" Dont worry too much It'll happen to you as sure as your sorrows are joys.

And the thing that disturbs you is only the sound of The low spark of high-heeled boys" —Winwood

The head shaving, Alma's punishment for Magenta's threatening the Mistress's new favorite Sakura, had hurt the statuesque beauty far more deeply than anyone, except perhaps Alma herself, would ever understand.

Magenta is, after all, adept at hiding her feelings, be they fear or affection or humiliation, behind the unchanging cruelty of the dominatrix's mask. It has been, she thinks with a bitter little pride, her best performance; showing herself in public so shorn, without the long, tousled waterfall of hair that she has always belileved was—even moreso than her augmented breasts—the single essential component of the disquise that is her life.

She has managed to maintain her composure, however, holding her head high, even in conversations with the woman Natalia and the creature Von Locke, even through her discovery of her rival-become-Mistress Sakura, wounded and frightened after as assault by some self-proclaimed demon in the service of the latter.

And so today she has rewarded herself with a pair of projects. First, the white-blond hair has grown back to little more than a peach-fuzz that seems to halo her skull in backlight. Working carefully, large hands clever and precise, she died it into a leapard skin pattern, the background a rich golden yellow, the rosette markings glossiest black. Finished, she admired it in wall and hand mirror, turning to examine the precision of each spot. It seems to make her pale eyes paler still, and all but begs for a matching opera mask.

The second undertaking was perhaps more practical. Magenta knows the dangers she faces when interracting with the likes of Natalia and Von Locke, and of course the spidery Artsblood...whom she has not yet spoken with but to whom she has dared send a message via Charna. Any of those would have the power to grant her deepest wish, or to leave her cooling corpse behind, as casually as a discarded wrapper. For all her physical presence, she is nothing more than a big, strong girl with a straight razor.

No longer, her little purses will be heavier from here on. Nestled next to her razor now is a small pepperbox pistol, charged with black powder and percussion caps. Its six barrels not loaded with lead but with short dowels, each tipped with a tiny ampule of holy water; two each of oak, and rowan, and hazel.

For all that she believes that she still holds her Mistress's trust, Magenta fears that Alma might not approve of her having this thing.

But a girl, after all, is only made more alluring by her secrets....

"Holly came from Miami, F-L-A Hitchhiked her way across the U-S-A Plucked her eyebrows on the way Shaved her legs and then he was a she She says hey babe, take a walk on the wild side Said hey honey, take a walk on the wild side"—Reed

Rising from the black hole of anaesthesia is not the same as slipping into slow consciousness still trailing the torn tissues of dream. Instead, for most the first sensation is a panicked struggle toward a vague goal; as if a swimmer somehow suddenly found herself deep beneath a faint-lit ocean's surface and desperately fighting back the deadly surrender of a too-early drawn breath.

Thus Magenta flailed herself awake, mummying her long body in backless gown and starched institutional sheets. Even in this, however, she managed some degree of control. As memory burst its flashbulbs in her mind she calmed her limbs, keeping her eyes still carefully shut, and took a careful, blind inventory of what was knowable.

Professional matters first; she catalogued the tastes in the back of her throat, the lingering chemical burn in her septum, the residual cotton furring her cortex, and made an educated guess as to what sort of chemical coctail had kept her unconscious, estimated how long its effects might have lasted.

Listening, then, she collected clues to her surroundings: The soft-throated whirr of diagnostic equipment, the rhythmic chirp that counted pulse, or heartbeat, or some other metronome of the flesh; and behind them the tiny movements of sole on floor, the whispered complaint of upholstery against clothing, that indicated that she was not alone.

Only then did she inventory her own pain; tiny, distant...little jabs of discomfort only reaching her attention as if by way of some sort of sensory telescope. They were, however, concentrated.

"Yes," she thought, "it's been done."

Still, though, she was unwilling to open her eyes and make the new world fully real, nor to explore her violated body with her hands. And so, unseeing, she stilled herself, forced her voice toward nonchalance out of a throat somehow raw with anaesthetic aftermath or lack of use, and spoke.

"So, somebody there?"

"Now if you see Saint Annie Please tell her thanks a lot I cannot move My fingers are all in a knot I don't have the strength To get up and take another shot And my best friend, my doctor Won't even say what it is I've got"—Dylan

The soft voice, the chill brush of hand, these are as welcome to her rising consciousness as a sip of cool water would be to her throat, scored and scraped as it feels post-anesthesia. Carefully, each new clue is assimilated. Magenta is a cautious girl. Even now, eyes still closed, she lets a hand fall and"feigning the loose-limbed exploration of someone rising from the blackness of drug-induced sleep—manages to pat the pocket formed by the underside of the fitted sheet, feels the little hanging weight of the straightrazor she hid there while counting down the breaths of gas.

Eyes still closed, she catalogues what else she can know about herself, her surroundings: Strands of her hair are sweated damp to her face, her neck. She knows that the wet will have darkened these from their usual white-blonde to a pale honey. The volume of florescent buzz, and of course the presence of Natalia, indicate that is is evening, and that she has slept through an entire day. The latter suspicion is reinforced by a gnawing hunger that, as she slips futher away from the clinging rags of the anesthetic, suddenly announces itself.

More distant, she can pick up the rattle of silverware, the slow "thunk" of ice on plastic pitcher. Somewhere on the same hall where she remains abed other patients are being tended. Served a late dinner, perhaps, or at least brought fresh water, more precious and sweeter in this setting than even her beloved port.

Still the sensations of her lower body fail to bring her any real answers, only the gradual surfacing of a dull ache, its background rhythm broken by quick guitar-solos of sharpening pain. Natalia's word choice, her sibilant emphasis on the "Miss," do not, of course, slip past even her somewhat muddled attention.

Sid's presence, sensed close if not actually in the room, also serves to reassure. At any rate, all seems as well as she can know at the moment. Well enough to open her pale eyes, blinking them in the sudden light , their surfaces feeling gritted against the sliding lids, and, though a vague apprehension still ticks somewhere in the undusted corners of her awakening attention, to smile a thanks to her watchers, and to speak again.

"Hi there, can a girl get a sip of water around here??

"O the sisters of mercy they are not Departed or gone, They were waiting for me when I thought That I just can't go on, And they brought me their comfort And later they brought me this song. O I hope you run into them You who've been traveling so long."—Cohen

Though the stark neon shocks her unaccustomed eyes; though her world is still perceived through the screen-door filter of lingering anesthetic; Magenta smiles upon hearing Sid's voice. And, despite her discomfort, her uncertainty still about what has been done to her, and a lingering unease that has yet to speak its name, she responds to the Ancient's offer in the manner hardwired into her system. Magenta is a creature of the senses, after all. So the bright wound of her mouth parts, soft lips encircling Sid's fingers and the proffered ice. As she sucks the chip in, a practiced swirl of tongue caresses the departing fingertips in a tease and a promise.

And then she can only close her eyes to the simple pleasure of the melting ice in her dry mouth, of its flowing like liquid silver down the strained length of her throat. Her cheeks go gaunt with nursing on the little chip until it is gone. Slowly, then, she opens her pale eyes once more, breathes a sigh that stirs the white sheets above her breast.

"Water." She whispers. "Is there anything sweeter than water when one really craves it' There are times when, after hours on the treadmill to tone these thighs, I'd gladly trade my current lover and two future prospects for just a sip of sweet, cool H20. Remind me never to forget the little pleasures, huh??

At that she hesitates, the still-uncertain eyes go even more distant as she looks from Sid to Natalia, realizations slipping into her recovering mind like snowdrops starring a spring lawn. Before she can speak, however, before she can explore the tracks that lay ahead of this train of thought for landslides or engines approaching from the opposite direction, a frail shadow flits across the doorway and Magenta turns; all lingering traces of the drugs burned sudden from her mind in the first white rush of fear.

Natalia was the first to pipe up, taking mechanical steps across the room. So free, so open, so obvious in what was said! The Italian ducked her head out of the room for a moment to check for anyone standing nearby in earshot, and then, satisfied, she pulled back into the room and closed the door. Privacy, indeed, was the main ingredient in keeping some things away from the ears of those that need not know.

As for Sid? Well, she had to have known by now. A late, late night of violin music attested to that, once upon a time.

She turned about to listen to the veritable filibuster from the horribly skinny woman. In many ways, the emanciated Artsblood reminded her somewhat of Marcella Giovanni. If, perhaps, Marcella could be even more painfully thin, starving to death during her embrace that she was, and stretched well out over a foot in height. Natalia had never met Alma, but Magenta had told her several times of her appearance. Not nearly as....insect-like as Artsblood is.

Such a shame; it seemed Natalia would not have the chance to ever meet the Stuart woman, once she was well and truly back home. And so it seemed that her very own Janus complex could be resolevd without ever seeing the other side of the coin. She just had to wait for Magenta to be well enough to travel, first.

In the end of all things, though, she didn't give one damn about what Alma would or would not approve of in regards to her dealings with Magenta. A lady of refinement and fine raising such as Alma, rumor told her, should not have made such a rude gesture as to never respond to her cordial invitation to meet-and-greet. And, to think, she had made such delicious plans for hosting miss Stuart!

But that is neither here nor there, for the now.

"The change in Miss Grail's body would be severe to her, I will admit. But it is something I tried to tell her, as well, when our bargain was first struck. It had been in my plans to insist she make love as a woman, first, to fully appreciate that which would be denied her once she became as we are."

And then, a beat later,

"...But you are correct. Your kind," the Toreador. The degenerates. The hedonists, "do have a decided advantage on anachronistic desires such as lust and pleasure. Perhaps not as keen as the mortals possess, but refined nonetheless."

"Ultimately," she turned toward Sid and Magenta again, "I have no great desire for progeny of my own. That decision will be left for you, Miss Grail, to make. I can fullfill my end of our bargain, and you will be sired Ventrue. Or you can take claim to the line of our lithesome friend here, and be sired Toreador."

"There are pros and cons of either choice, but if it is the pleasures of the flesh you wish to cling to, I would recommend taking Miss Shusberg up upon her offer."

"A worried girl with a worried mind No one in front of me and nothing behind There's a woman on my lap and she's drinking champagne Got white skin, got assassin's eyes I'm looking up into the sapphire tinted skies I'm well dressed, waiting on the last train..." from Dylan

"La morte c'est la morte et l'amour c'est l'amour; mais la morte c'est solement la morte, et l'amour c'est l'amour" Magnetic Fields

The talk washed over her and gone, like a wave retreating, leaving small things to pulse and scuttle on the sand, to dig for their lives or feed the gulls. In the sudden silence Magenta let her lids fall, hiding the pale-water beauty of her irises.

The drugs were wearing off. Indeed, her long body is adept at dealing with the weakening grip of pharmaceuticals, having been trained, as it were, with far greater weights than the hospital would ask her to lift. As the anaesthesia flees, the soreness between her legs grows, now like a washcloth soaked in bee-sting and dragged over her shaved skin.

When she opens her eyes again it is to study the three woman above her: Sid, whom she desires, and hopes will be the first to take her as a woman; the beautiful Natalia, the founder of this feast, whose intercession has already fulfilled one of her long-held wishes; and the strange, almost grotesque Toreador, for whom Magenta has never felt ought but fear. When she speaks, her voice holds a little of the singsong of her lost chemical sleep, but the weight of pupose in it is clear, its rhythms almost solemn.

"I owe you all, and I'll repay those debts in whatever coin I can. Sid, I could never have braved this without you, and I think I'll need to call on your protection at least once more.

Miss Natalia, you've made a dream come true. I suspect that is a rare gift no matter how long one lives. As soon as I am up I will fulfill my part of the bargain. I have the necessary keypad hidden in the inn; magic jumping between the amoebic swell and ebb of its biochips. I will take you to Vienna, and there offer you what else you might want of me in return. I know, you see, what poor currencies I have.

But though I will gladly allow that intimacy, and though I'm no stranger to the sensuality with which you indulge your own pleasures, I was trained as a human by another clan, and even after my Embrace hope to not be done with exploring the pleasures and pains of the flesh."

She turns to the last, and does not hide a shudder.

"Miss Shusberg, if you would consent to the gift of this self, if you would so demean yourself by making me childe, I ask that you do so. But only after I have fulfilled my pledge to Miss Gioconne, and if Sid will consent to watch over me once more while it is done. Because, truly, you scare the living hell out of me."

Eyes close again, the post anaesthetic weariness almost obscuring the burning pain below. Her mouth, bright paint surprisingly intact yet, curves toward a shy smile. A decision made is as sweet as a kiss.

Your long white fingers slither and glide No gloves will hold them They cannot hide They frighten children and they make dogs howl They glow in darkness and fill the faithful with doubt Your long white fingers Passion and grace Gesticulations from some dark place They look unnatural, faintly obscene They loom large in all the strangest of dreams—Magnetic Fields

Artsblood preens noticably under the Ancient's attention; a fey lift of the delicate bone box of her tiny chin, a quick brush of one hand, freakish fingers spread into a crude rake, through her ruined dandelion of white hair. Great brown moons of eyes move, as slow as chilled syrup, from Sid to Magenta and back. In the course of that leisurely migration, their flat mirrors shift and withdraw, hunger rises like a thing awakened in their bottomless depths.

"A trio rather than a duet, dear Sid? Why yes, I think we could menage that quite nicely. Her ruined voice, straining from lack of use, barely above a whisper.

"And dear Magenta, though you flatter me with your fear, I have fond hopes of raising other emotions in you, and equally strong. And now, though my needs urge me to linger, I will honor your wishes. Heal, beloved to be, and fulfill your pledge to the winsome Italian. Then, free of obligations and, perhaps, having proved your transformation complete by bedding my darling Sid here, come to my bolthole in her company, and we shall finish with your crysalis, and unbind your wings."

She slips to her feet, a vine reaching for a wire, and—huge eyes lingering on each in turn, few kisses as intimate or, indeed, as invasive—she strides from the room, improbable legs scissoring, the few colors within the sterile, institutional walls seeming to fade further with her passing.

(note: The following is a very lightly edited live RP, thus will differ a bit in form and flow from the rest of this thread)

'You come right inside of me, close as you can be you kiss my blood, and my blood kisses me" The Incredible String Band, "Air"



Again Sid's search for the missing Seer Viki had proven futile. On the road since she left shift last night at the Red Dragon, she had explored the west of Rhy'Din's continent; seeking entrance to shadows when the opportunities presented, though her workings were iffy in that area.

Irrykin—he who by all reports held the Seer captive—owned magics akin to those of Viki's lover Domikai, and Sid knew that simply riding about was unlikely to yield the results she sought. Still, the Ancient had to do something, she was in desperate need of the distraction because the edge of that Abyss that whispered to her was growing ever closer, calling ever sweeter.

The wheel-less mage bike's throaty purr resounded throughout WestEnd as Sid drove from Stars End Sector into the district she calls home. Whipping the rag from rusty clattering elflocks, and Lennon specs from glamoured blue eyes, her gaze travelled the rubble of buildings and life surrounding.

Nearby, dressed in no more than she needs to be, micro-mini and a sleeveless Triumph motorcycle tee, Magenta stalks through the night with a leggy strut that is half "fuck me now" and half soul-killing bitch.

Her casual cascade of white blonde hair rises softly from her shoulders with each step. Though her pale eyes are alert, there is no fear in her carriage; it is almost as if she were already more than just a big, athletic girl with a silver-coated straight razor.

The leopard-groan of the mage bike as it neared earned only a raise of one perfect blonde eyebrow, though one who could read the songs of blood would know that pulse rose for all her sang-froid. She stopped beneath a flickering mage light, Dietrich-leaning, waiting.

And thus the Fates present Sid with a lovely, fortuitous distraction! Haloed perfectly by flickering spell light, delicious in all the lean-muscled curves of her. Tempting angel, fevered demon.

Cutting the bonded ride to silent mode, narrowing slanted eyes on the leggy beauty, Sid crept along the busted cobbles from around the near corner; stalking prey with hungered intent.

Magenta is no shy girl thing, and this meeting was as much ordained as wished. But she is a different creature now, and Sid was one of very few lovers, as opposed to clients, who had experienced Magenta's "other" self, her gone forever self; who had been pierced by the big blonde, had seen the shame and passion swell her as she thrust almost despite herself, spilled the scalding orgasm that was denied at the very moment it was jetted, clutched pelvis to clutched pelvis, within.

The memory of that encounter touches Magenta unsettling, there is perhaps a blush that the yellow light will not find, but she straightens, hip cocked, and smiles, a passable Edith Piaf impression, "Hey girl, you come with me?"

"Follow ye willin', loverly flower." The Trueblood's grin fox lit and cunningly sly, for Magenta was a flower. One who has yet to see her true blooming. Sid intended to be the first to see such a beauty unfold.

"Clamber on behind me, m'loverly," reaching back to give Baby's bitch seat a pat with a leering glance over the big blonde's form. "Ye can be whisperin' the directions to me ear as ye hol' tight."

Magenta is not dressed so differently than she was before the change, except that her mini is now softer fabric, contriving to reveal rather than bind. Consequently,"a small, soft pillow of public hair mounds beneath it, electric as it is compressed against Sid's backside when Magenta snuggles on. Her voice not so much spoken as poured into the ear, opium instead of dread hemlock, elflocks painted with the red of her mouth. "Jus' turn right at the milky way an' straight on through till mornin', love....or take the third left, three blocks, second building on the right...."

A cackle lit the air, all honey darkness and whiskey-tinge as Sid pressed back into Magenta's straddle, wriggling the seat of rider-worn jeans to soak up the fire nestled there.

Jerking the throttle, the wheel-less Panhead takes off with a lurch into the night streets, pointed in the direction the lovely's whispered words indicated; long fingers of her free hand taking the moment to explore a strip of pale, silken thigh.

The snuggle against the wind and the speed is surprisingly vulnerable. Dominatrix, professional, once star of Miss Alma's menagerie of deviants, Magenta is new-made now, and pulls herself against the Ancient with all of the eager hesitation of a virgin ready.

Her whisper is more mouth on ear than it is breath. "There's"my door, you can park anywhere. And baby, you probably know this already, but I have to play bottom tonight, lil Maggie gotsta be the girl..."

A look from the tall drink of water behind those handlebars and the door opened of its own accord. Baby didn't get parked on the street.

Just inside that portal the mage bike shut down with a shudder, spellbox slid from its holder and the Ancient turned all in one fluid motion, slipping from the leather seat and gathering the budding blossom to surprisingly strong arms.

Pale lips pressed to the crook of neck beneath a fragrant fall of white-blonde waterfall, words vibrating in murmur as she moved to bring them forth into Magenta's home. "An' ye will be, m'loverly. All woman for me, for yeself."

Almost every inch of Magenta's long body has been trained and conditioned and used to entice and please and tease, except for the most crucial little folds of flesh beneath a regrown thicket of blond curls, all fragrant and moist and untried. She gasps in Sid's arms, almost a whimper, backpedals away and falls, loose limbed and hair a halo, on a simple mattress on the floor—simple, though taut with blood-red cotton sheets (satin, after all, is for poseurs)—and opens her eyes wide, her arms wide, her mouth a vulnerable "O" of kiss upon the air.

Like some silken thread puddling with gravity's pull, the Ancient sprawls beside the blonde beauty; leather of Hellballs chaps hissing along the span of Magenta's leg until thigh draped over thigh, knee just the barest tease against that mound still barely covered by miniskirt fabric.

"Ye 'ave the mos' luscious mouth, m'loverly flower," fingertips tracing just outside delectable paint. "Tell me, sweet beauty," short nails of her free hand trailing slowly along the flesh of inner thigh. "Be ye ready for me?"

Magenta's lids droop heavy over her pale, cruel eyes, and her pelvis lifts, seeming all involuntary where it has so often played a similar part in the past. One hand drags her Triumph tee over her head, tangling her hair in its wake...."There are mouths and then there are mouths, lover, and oh yes I am so very ready."

The white blond mane is a sprawl of hair, reckless across the mattress, the pale eyes hooded. Unbound, her unlikely breasts still firm atop her ribs, though their weight does cuddle them as she turns on one shoulder to face Sid. A quick hook of thumbs drags the miniskirt off as well. Beneath, white cotton panties, surprisingly girlish, pillowed slightly in front by the soft suspension of pubic hair. "I've never, ever been so ready, love, and I've ever been a ready girl."

Sid's short nails drag light from the hollow of her throat in languid trail down within the valley of those cuddled breasts. Glamoured eyes flick to the sight of the girlish panties and sly grin rises on pale lips. "E'er the ready girl, aye, lover?"

Softly, up along the mound of one breast, the silken pads of index finger and thumb latch on to a pebble-hard nipple as her body slinks over and between Magenta's spread legs. Passion's fire sparks quicksilver flash in the Ancient's eyes and her look is a feral hunger.

The blond's big hands twist fingers among the elflocks, hips rock up, questing, like a seedling toward sunlight. The feral mouth brushed by perfect ruby lips, spread softly, breathing sweet breath into the kissing mouth, whisper of lip on lip. "Everything works love, the plumbing and the electricity..."

Sid gives a pinch and twist to that nipple, teeth pulling at Magenta's lower lip as cunning eyes peer into rain grey depths. A tug of ruby flesh as she pulls back, rising up on one hand looking down. "Do it now" I be 'avin' to check this for meself."

A dip of that elflocked head, lips suckling where fingers had just teasingly tortured, up to her knees the Ancient drags the tank top over her head, tossing it to the side. Kneeling between her lover's ankles, one hand slipping her denim's button from its slotted prison, her tongue drags over pale lips, eyes a pointed look to those cotton panties. "Show me," voice rough-edged with building need.

Magenta hands still snagged in the ringing locks, her own lower lip caught in pretty white teeth now, breath quick across it. Rather than strip off the white cotton, she arches the long elegance of her body, lifting it toward Sid's sandpaper voice, lily-of-the-valley perfume on the panties, faint, delicate, perfect. Her purred voice a tease and a beg. "Use your teeth, tear them away...."

Pushing at rider-worn jeans, Sid sends them down boyishly slender hips, a crafty smile blooms at her lover's words. Slithering out of the rest of her clothing, she maneuvers between those creamy thighs, fingers curling into that tender skin, pressing outwards.

Slinking up, mouth open, she is hungered and Magenta is the banquet. Gripping the elastic edge, chin giving pressure to the pillow beneath cotton, she gives one quick snap and twist, rending the undergarment to nothing but a shred.

Before Magenta can even catch her breath from that, fingers slide eagerly forth, parting slickened folds to begin a needy but gentle exploration as panties are tossed to the side with a turn of her head. Magenta has placed perfume there, but the ocean scent overrides it; She is a rose open, petals soaked in warm oil, drawing touch of tongue and finger within. Her hips offer, lift, knees falling to the side, a bud of clitoris, carefully made from what was before, holding all of the sensitivity of the earlier organ, peeks slickwet from the glossy lips. Above, eyes closed, lip bleeding between her teeth, Magenta begins the ritual chanting of her lover's name.

Glamoured eyes lift to watch the blond's face as Sid's head lowers between the precious offering of parted folds. Fingers tenderly spread the flower further, the tip of her tongue rolling just across the sensitive tip of her clit before sweeping around it in a circle.

A tease, a tempt, fingertips fluttering at a newly created channel, teeth grazing atop the hardening bud. Pushing her body up further her free hand lifts one leg and braces under thigh with her shoulder as first one finger enters and then another, teeth nipping down on Magenta's throbbing clit with a flicker of her tongue across its head.

In an agony of pleasure, Magenta's big hands force Sid's face into the heat and wet, hips moving in slow lift and roll, positioning, her voice between a whisper and a whine, chin pointed at the ceiling, cords of her neck drawn like a bowstring.

And eagerly the Trueblood delves into that moist pleasure. Teeth draw at her clit, lips encircling it until she is suckling upon it, her tongue a deft dance to bring her lover's cries to split the night.

Fingers pump and flutter inside liquid fired depths, her free hand reaching up to take one rock hard nipple to hand, roughly tormenting in twists and pinches.

It is too much for Magenta. Used to pleasing for pay, and not for such unilateral indulgence, her voice gasps now, whines, buttocks clenched, quads hard atop spread thighs, she lifts herself, lifts again, and on the third lift locks and spreads and the tremble takes her from her spine to her hips, flexing and flexing and flexing, and then caught in the peak of offer, her voice only a squeal of name.

Sid replies with a hard push of fingers as the tremble takes Magenta, holding deep inside, her tongue a soft lap over throbbing nub. Slowing, slowing as she shudders beneath. Hand cupping tenderly at her breast, Sid helps her lover ride out the crashing waves.

A sly light in glamoured blues, head lifting with a drag of tongue over wet lips. "Well, now, an' wha' be ye goin' to do for me?" A teasing chuckle and tickle of kiss atop Magenta's quieting clit.

Magenta almost manages to stir a laugh into the gasps that still shake her, involuntary shakes rippling the muscles of her long thighs, her taut stomach. As her breath comes back under contol, she meets Sid's lifting head, kissed her hard on the mouth, tasting herself on her lover's tongue, and then, eyes open and mouths still touching, speaks against the brushed lips. "Somehow I have confidence that I'll think of something, beautiful, why not just relax for as long as you can while I figure it out.....?

"The huntress is coming, slow, breathless, and pale, Her blond locks streaming all wild in the gale; She stops—and the breezes bring balm to her brow— But wolf-dog and wild deer, oh! where are they now" On R?"idhl?"n-Tigh-an-E?"rla, by Avonmore's well, His bounding heart broken, the hunted deer fell; And o'er him the brave hounds all gallantly died, In death still victorious—their fangs in his side!?"from Edward Walsh

"And I'm not sure what the trouble was that started all of this The reasons all have run away but the feeling never did It"'s not something I would recommend, but it is one way to live Cause what is simple in the moonlight, by the morning never is" -Bright Eyes

For all the chiseled interminglings of beauty and cruelty that mark her face, it is perhaps surprising that the predatory duty of her new state has proven the most difficult for the big blonde to come to terms with. Certainly she was Miss Alma's primary dominatrix while starring in the small woman's seraglio; but even a dom, in that very special corner of the 'service industry." is more pursued than pursuing, is, when the leather and lyrca are stripped away, really only a product sold. In the erotic chase, too, she has seldom been the pursuer, content to spread the webs of scent and sight and pluck the prettier of those entrapped for her pleasure. Now the conquest takes upon itself a bloated and she almost thinks unseemly importance.

Perhaps this is why her feeding is so careful, so secretive. It would be unusual if any of her little string of kissers and cuddlers remembered anything but the encounter's erotic heat. It soon becomes almost easy, and her chemist's training reminds her of the dangers of the easy.

Though certainly familar with the ways of Kindred and Clan, walking on the other side of the street has surprised her in many little ways. For the way that, for instance, a nose so much more finely attuned renders fragrances once rejoiced in to the equivalent of an air-horn at two paces. It is only though an act of will that she retains and tolerates her signature perfumes. She's never been short in the "will" department, though the 'way' occasionally wanders. When the change eventually demands iit, she applies the perfumes from memory. Nothing could notice any difference.