Attending to an Incubus

This story is a long buildup with an extended payoff. Sex doesn't start until about 10,000 words in, but continues for a long time after that. It may be better not to start this one when you're feeling impatient.

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Buffing out the last spots on a silver candelabra, I place it back on its table, and breathe a quiet sigh of relief for the army poised outside the gates.

Just a few minutes earlier, Lady Loralani passed through the room while I was at work, without even giving me a glance. A couple weeks ago, that would have been unthinkable, but she seems to have finally decided she has more pressing things to worry about. Even though there's never been a time when it's mattered less, I put my best efforts into cleaning all the parts the castle I've been assigned to. After all, we're going to have new occupants soon. I can't imagine they'll care too much about how well the place is turned out when they get here, but it's still nice to think that after all this time, I'm finally doing the work for someone else.

I'm still dusting up when Ceralin shows up looking to talk. It's no surprise if she's finished her work before me, she probably had a much lighter workload to begin with, and she has less reason to worry if she rushes the job. But she helps me finish setting the room in order as she brings up the subject that's been on all our minds.

"So how do you think the demons will treat the place when they get here?" she asks.

"Well, I haven't heard of them burning any cities to the ground so far." I say.

That's an understatement of course. If there's one thing everyone's heard about the Demon Lord of the West, it's that he takes an extremely light hand with commoners. It's been three years since his army first appeared in this country, and he's seized control of nearly the whole Western half, almost bloodlessly. They say he makes surrender an extremely attractive option, for everyone except for the ones at the very top.

Her ears twitch as I say that though, and she gives me a worried look.

"Still," she says, "we'll have demons living in the castle. I'm sure the people in the town will be fine, but do you think we'll be safe here with them?"

"I think we'll be alright." I say. "People are still traveling from the lands he's taken over after all. If there weren't anyone to bring news, it'd be almost as bad a sign as waves of refugees, but so far no one's bringing any horror stories from the occupied territories. We might be stuck inside for a while, but I doubt that'll last long. It might even be an improvement."

"I guess that's true. Sorry."

Her ears dip a bit in embarrassment. Ceralin's kept her head down and gone mostly unnoticed by the masters of the castle for all the decades she's worked here, but she knows I haven't had it as easy. It only takes a moment for her to perk up again though.

"Do you think he's going to conquer the whole kingdom then?" she asks.

"Maybe. It doesn't seem like anyone's trying very hard to stop him," I say.

"That's true. I guess I can't blame them," she says. "Then we'll probably have an incubus for a king soon. Do you think he's going to rename the whole country then?"

The fact that our country is on the verge of being taken over by a demon lord, and her first concern is whether he's going to change its name, says a lot about why he's been having such an easy time of it. Our current king, Aleoras, has been on the throne for well over a hundred years, longer than I've been alive, and until three years ago I'd never heard anyone discuss whether he was a good king. I guess I'd always assumed he was a normal one, but now that there's someone else to compare him to, it seems like no one really feels any loyalty towards him at all.

Maybe because the Demon Lord of the West is an incubus, it's not in his nature to be especially violent. He doesn't seem to be especially wicked compared to what people already expect of their lords, so nobody sees much reason to fight for their sakes except the lords themselves. Probably quite a lot of people are actually happy seeing their lands conquered to spite them. Since this isn't how war usually goes in stories, I guess Aleoras must not be much of a king after all.

It doesn't matter much to me one way or another, but I give her my best guess off the cuff.

"I don't know if someone who's called the Demon Lord of the West is the type who'd care much about naming things." I say.

To my disappointment, she doesn't even crack a smile at that. Instead, she just cocks her ears and looks thoughtful.

"Hmm, I guess that might be true." she says.

It's at that moment that we're interrupted as the head maid slips through the door and beckons to both of us.

"Lady Loralani is making an address to the castle staff" she tells us. "Everyone is to attend."

I'd much rather muddle through a conversation with someone who doesn't pick up my jokes than sit through whatever Loralani has to say to us, but I suppose we don't have any choice. We hurry to put away our things and head to the lower hall to wait for her address. The whole domestic staff is there, not just the other maids, and we line up by rank and station to wait. Ceralin and I take our places behind the head maid, near the back.

It's not long before the last members arrive, but it takes a while still for Loralani to show up after us. Since we're not allowed to speak among ourselves while we wait, I can only wonder what she might have called us here for. Some sort of speech to keep up our morale under occupation? Maybe, but Loralani has never shown any sign of worrying about the feelings of her staff so far, just like her father before her. A farewell address? It'd make sense, but I don't think she has the nerve to face us all and admit that not even two years after the death of lord Loriel, her father, her time as the lady of this castle is already coming to an end. And if, against all odds, she has some brilliant plan to resist the demon lord's invasion, she should have shared it a long time ago by now.

When Loralani finally arrives, long after she has to have known everyone would already be assembled, late enough to impress on us that she's making us wait on purpose, she takes her place in front of the staff. She gestures for our attention, as if we've had anything to do this entire time other than wait for her to show up, and begins to speak.

"I know that many of you are worried," she says, "about the demon's army which encroaches upon our lands. You fear that his forces will overrun us, destroy our way of life and take away everything we hold dear."

That sounds like a fair description of what she's afraid of. It's why her father drank himself to death rather than face up to what was coming for him. Hopefully she knows better than to think that this applies to the rest of us.

"I am here to reassure you," she says, "that that will not happen. The demons may be strong, but they can certainly be defeated. Our men-at-arms have served for hundreds of years, and fought through fierce battles before. They will not submit to the enemy. And when the demons bring the battle to us-" she glares at us as she makes her pronouncement, "We will triumph."

I let my eyes flicker across the surrounding crowd. Everyone's faces are holding steady, but I can see several sets of ears start to twitch. Is she serious? This is more than delusional, she's basically feeding us bald-faced lies. A few of the castle's men-at-arms may have served for two or three hundred years, and fought under her father's banner for some earlier king, but most are much younger, and have never seen battle in their lives. Facing the demon lord's forces, led by biesi, demons of war, they have absolutely no reason not to surrender.

"Our men will triumph." she repeats. "They will repel the demon's forces and turn him away at our gates. Because they understand that that is their role. That is why they have remained in service to this land for centuries. They understand the meaning of loyalty, and they will prevail."

She pauses, looking over the assembled staff before she speaks again.

"All of you should hold yourselves to the same standard." she says. "Just as our men-at-arms will not waver in their duty, neither should any of you falter in your work out of fear or uncertainty. You bear the same responsibilities today that you always have, and the same as they will be in years to come. By upholding your duties, you serve as examples to each other, in good times and in ill."

Despite my position near the back of the crowd, as she looks over us, I can see her eyes linger for a moment on me in particular.

"It is as important as ever to remain steadfast in your duties. Who was it," she asks, "who was was responsible for tending to my room this morning?"

The head maid steps forward and bows her head.

"It was Nalina, your ladyship."

Of course, there's no way that Loralani doesn't know that was my job. I receive that assignment more than anyone, because Loralani has specifically instructed the head maid to ensure as much."

"Come forward, maidservant Nalina." Loralani commands.

I walk to the front of the assembled servants, doing my best to appear calm. This isn't the first time she's called out to me in front of the other maidservants, but it's the first time she's done it in front of the entire house staff. She steps closer, within arm's reach, and glares at me with undisguised venom.

"Do you feel," she asks, "that you discharged your duties appropriately? That you cleaned and turned out my room as you were expected to?"

Of course I did. I put in the same effort as I do every time I'm assigned to it, which is more than it took before her father died and she started constantly looking for reasons to find fault with my work. I've spent most of the last two years looking for ways to deflect her anger, and she comes back to this now, on the eve of an invasion from a literal army of demons?

I bow my head.

"Yes, my lady." I say.

She slaps me across the face.

With my eyes turned towards the floor, I couldn't see her hand coming until the last instant. Loralani may not have done a day's physical labor in her life, but the blow had all her strength behind it. Not only does my cheek burn with the impact, the heel of her palm clipped hard against my nose, leaving the back of my throat tingling. I raise my face, my ears aching with the effort of holding my expression steady, but when I look at her, I can see her pale golden eyes brimming with tears.

"How dare you!?" she yells.

"My room was left a complete mess! As if nobody had attended it at all! Because you neglected your duties! Because you did nothing! Because you were useless!"

She balls her trembling hand into a fist. I flinch inwardly, expecting another blow, but when it doesn't come, I realize she must have hurt her hand as much as my face.

"You do nothing for this household!" she continues. "It's because of people like you! You and your mother! People who are disloyal! Who don't understand your responsibilities! Because of people like you, everyone else is afraid, that our soldiers won't do their duty! But they..."

She looks across the rest of the staff arrayed behind me.

"...Are not like you."

She turns on her heel, and storms out of the lower hall.

"Remember that, everyone!" she shouts behind her.

I feel dizzy, less from humiliation than sheer disbelief. This is her last night as lady of the castle, and in front of everyone, she takes her frustrations out on me? For "disloyalty?"

And my mother, again. For years now, Loralani has been insinuating that my father was a human, a visitor the castle decades ago. A vain effort to start a rumor which has never stuck. I'm as much a full-blooded elf as anyone in this castle. My curves are fuller than those of the other women on the staff, but I have my mother's wine-red hair, and ears as long and slender as hers. Loralani tells the others that I'm ugly and disgusting, as if that might erase her knowledge of how her father looked at me.

As the rows of household staff break apart as the people return to their usual duties, I receive words of consolation from the other maids. Even the head maid gives me an apologetic look. But before long, their attention drifts to the topic weighing on everyone's minds, the Demon Lord of the West, and to the question which has carried me through the last two years of this treatment.

"What is he going to do to her?"

~~~

To the surprise of no one but Loralani, her soldiers offer their complete surrender before noon the next day. No one resists, and there are no casualties. Her men- or rather, the men formerly in her service, open the outer gates and allow the demon lord to enter the town unimpeded. I watch through a window with several other maids as his retinue makes its way up to the castle. The castle gate is already open when they arrive. I don't know who opened it; anyone might have.

I'm only slightly surprised to realize that the demon lord's retinue contains more elves than demons. It sends a message, or several, not the least of which is that conquering his way across the kingdom hasn't reduced his forces at all. He'll probably leave this castle with more soldiers than he arrived with.

We assemble for another address, in the grand hall this time, accompanied by many of the men-at-arms who met the demon lord's forces at the gates this morning. The Demon Lord of the West himself isn't there; instead, it's one of his elven retainers who delivers the address. He tells us that none of us should expect any threat to our safety. We're free to move about and to maintain our usual routines, inside the castle. But for the next few days, none of us are permitted to leave. The castle and its staff will be closed off from the town and its surrounding lands until the new lord has investigated its management and made some organizational changes.

Organizational changes. Lady Loralani is not mentioned, and she does not show her face.

The castle has more than enough supplies to last for a few days of lockdown. I continue to receive instructions from the head maid, who's probably now receiving her own instructions from one of the demon lord's retainers, but the volume of my work is greatly reduced, leaving me with plenty of time to wander the castle and discuss our new circumstances with the rest of the staff. A member of the demon lord's retinue asks me about my work. I have no reason to hide anything. I never catch sight of the demon lord himself, although I do run into several of the demons under him. They're bigger than the largest men in the castle, their skin ranging through shades of brown to red, charcoal black, and even deep violet, with curved horns atop their heads. I don't approach for a closer look.

It's still frustrating not being able to leave the castle. My mother died decades ago, well before the old lord ever took notice of me, but I still have family living in the town, and I wish I could talk to them and let them know we're okay. The castle is easily big enough to spend all day inside, but you wouldn't want to have to. I don't think the demons need sunlight like we do, but they know we can only take being stuck in here for so long.

I haven't seen Loralani even once since the demons arrived, but I haven't been assigned to tend to her room either. Where the rest of us are confined to the castle, she might be afraid to show her face outside her room. I'm sure she's still alive, but I can only guess what kind of state she's in.

I only have to wonder for so long though. Four days after the occupation began, we're summoned to meet in the grand hall. The entire household.

I make sure to arrive several minutes before we were told to be there. I definitely don't want to give the impression that I think my work is important enough to keep me away until the last minute. Besides, if anything interesting happens before things officially get started, I want to be there to see it. Of course, most of the household had the same thought, so there's already a crowd by the time I arrive. Even if our old hierarchy might be meaningless to the demons, we still assemble by rank and station to at least avoid falling into a disorganized mess. That leaves me near the back, but I can still see from there that a large and ornate seat now occupies the center stage of the gathering. It's solid black, maybe all a single piece of ebony. Definitely not something that Loralani or her father used to own. It's still unoccupied, but there's no doubt that it's where the demon lord will sit.

All my years of working in this castle have left me completely unprepared for the fact that he arrives exactly on time. At the very minute that we were told the meeting would take place- it might even be the very second- he makes his appearance, descending the central staircase flanked by two of his biesi.

Even if he weren't the one who called this whole meeting, and the one who's conquered the town and castle where I've spent my whole life, I don't think I'd be able to take my eyes off him. His skin is a dusky brown, not nearly as exotic as the clay red of the demons at his sides. While they're clad in imposing armor, he wears only a simple tunic of deep crimson. And although he looks tall and strong even compared to the human men I've seen sometimes in town over the years, he's not as toweringly huge as the biesi. His hair is the same jet black as his seat, a color that doesn't exist among elves, but not far from shades I've seen among humans before. If I'd seen a drawing of him in a book, I might think that demons don't really look so different from elves or humans.

Even so, seeing him in the flesh, it's impossible not to tell that he's a demon lord.

If he had stood aside and let one of the biesi take his seat, and let him carry out the whole address, I would have wondered why the demon lord was letting one of his subordinates do the talking. If I'd seen him wandering alone through the castle, I would have recognized him instantly, and thought that he must not need anyone to accompany him through his own domain. I don't know where demon lords come from, but if he was born like this, I could believe that he might simply have walked into a castle of demons and told them that he was their new lord, and they would have accepted it.

The Demon Lord of the West sits down in the black seat, and casually crosses a leg over his knee.

"Good afternoon, everyone." he says. "I hope these last few days haven't been too hard on you."

A murmur rises up from the crowd, scattered no's and denials. I shake my head as well; it feels wrong to just not respond.

"I know the lockdown has made your lives more difficult," he says, "but we've needed to keep the castle closed down for a while to gather information so we can properly reorganize."

He gives a smile wide enough for me to see from my place near the back.

"It seems that very many of you had complaints about how this place has been managed so far. I hope that I can address those to everyone's satisfaction." he says.

He scans the crowd, then lets out a soft huff of dissatisfaction.

"Is Loralani not here?" he asks.

Even though I rarely afford her that dignity in my head, this is the first time I've ever heard her name without a "lady" attached, and I get a slight thrill hearing it. Another murmur of no's from the audience.

He raises one hand and gestures towards the back of the hall.

"Go and fetch her for me, will you?" he says.

A shadowy demon guarding the door bows and quietly slips out.

The demon lord runs a hand through his hair, and shakes his head at us.