Fiction

It begins with whispering; thin, rasping words just beneath recognition in the back of my head, scratching at my soul. It was always hers, my soul. My life-givers consecrated my egg in her name during fertilization; the one who guarded my egg's growth pledged both my body and soul to her at the time of my birth. At adolescence, when I joined my first hunt, my soul was dedicated to her again; it was the medium through which I gifted her the blood of my first kill.I have always belonged to the lich-queen.

“You always did have an appreciation for subtlety my beloved. I like to think that it brought a smile to your heart, if only a scream to your lips when centuries of the same led me to the ultimate lesson you taught me. The choice was mine dearest, but you cannot deny that it was a test of your own making you set me upon. And now, as always, you are my light in the darkness, piercing through even the deepest shadows to illuminate my work. One way or the other. And no, I never did answer your question did I?”

The characters involved here may be familiar to those reading my storyhour, and this story takes place seperate from that. Some of the same characters, but a wholly different timeline/continuity, especially with respect to events in Carceri.

This was originally part of a larger piece that gave an overview of the Waste as a whole, but I'm not sure if that will ever see light, so here's the opening flavor text/fiction for it.“Oy, yer a new one dearie. Strug’lin mightily, a fat price ye’ll fetch from the Baatezu, or the Tanar’ri, whot ee’r getcha firs’…”