Ch. 02 - Mind Games

"Why did you leave the farm?"

It was like thunder. Terrifying in its might. Unquestionably true in only the way nature could be. The young mage felt as though it might destroy her.

And yet she wanted to hear it again, unworthy as she was.

"You're too weak to be a mage, Aster. Too dumb."

A crushing weight crawled inside Aster's chest and curled around her heart, squeezing it to death. Isobel spoke her words with motherly warmth.

"You're worthless. A pathetic disappointment."

Like thunder.

"That's why I left."

Terrifying in its might.

"...you don't deserve a mommy, do you Aster?"

Unquestionably true.

"...n-n-no..." The mage's lips trembled as she spoke, spilling out little sobs and snivels. Tears stung her eyes and her chest heaved.

"Why?"

Sobs and snivels became weeping. Aster's body shook as tears fell from her eyes and snot ran down her lips. She couldn't bear to look Isobel in the eyes. Those horrible, beautiful green eyes, so full of contempt and disgust.

So full of everything the motherless mage deserved.

"...b-b-because I'm w-w-weak and w-worthless and...and s-s-stupid..."

Aster spoke only the truth. That foul, repulsive truth, hung up like a diseased animal the day her mother disappeared and left to rot just a little more every day since. That terrifying truth, mutilated and stuffed so far underground that Aster forgot it existed. That overwhelming, undeniable, horrifying truth.

Aster remembered it now.

It was her fault mommy left so long ago. It was her fault that daddy had to live without a wife and her brothers had to live without a mom. It was Aster's fault that her family was incomplete.

Because a girl like her - a girl so utterly useless and disappointing - didn't deserve a mommy.

A girl so stupid.

And just like that everything was sucked away. All the pain and humiliation and sorrow. All the hatred.

And Aster knew she should be relieved. Happy, even, to be freed.

But she would endure a lifetime of misery if it meant hearing her mother's voice one more time.

"Were almost done, Aster."

Her mother was gone. All that remained was Isobel. Beautiful but dispassionate. A doctor talking to her pitiful patient. Nothing more.

And then the world exploded.

Two of Isobel's fingers - the middle and the ring - had slid between the halves of Aster's brain and burrowed themselves deep inside. And deep inside they began to touch - rubbing and stroking and stirring up that squishy pink control center. Every movement sent a deadly surge of electricity straight into Aster's bones, making her warm and happy and limp. Her body convulsed wildly. Her face, covered in snot and tears and drool, was a picture of brainless rapture. Tonge falling out her mouth and eyes disappearing into her skull. Twitching and grinning and grunting and dribbling. Aster thought she could hear squelching.

The loss of her mother became an insignificant detail, then a forgotten memory, then nothing at all as her thoughts were blended to a pulp. And without thoughts, all Aster could do was enjoy the excruciating joy of having her brain fingered.

Where once there was a woman - full of hopes and dreams and life, capable of love and pain and new experiences, whole and autonomous - there was now nothing more than mere physical matter. Squishy pink matter.

And for a moment, Aster Tol no longer existed.

But Isobel sucked that away too - a sensation Aster wasn't even capable of experiencing, and she still took it away.

For several minutes, all that remained of the purple haired mage was a twitching, drooling mess. A lesser sorcerer may have been concerned that they caused permanent damage, not Isobel. She was always certain to administer just the right amount. Then again, a lesser patient certainly would have suffered permanent damage.

For only a split second, Isobel considered the possibility of keeping Aster for herself. The sum of money she was paid to let her go was that of a small kingdom, and yet it paled in comparison beside the prospect of obtaining a creature as strong as Aster.

Breaking her would be truly exquisite.

But Isobel knew that Demeter would have her dead long before she got the chance.

Shoving the thought away, the sorcerer regained her wandering composure and turned her attention to the softly awakening patient before her.

"It's time for the last step, Aster."

The mage, lying deflated in her chair, looked slowly around the room. She was trying to remember exactly where she was. A finger pressing cold and slick against her butthole seemed to jog her memory, but she was hardly given enough time to piece everything together before it slipped inside.

She tightened instinctively, but a soft caress from Isobel's other index finger helped lull her back into soft relaxation. To Aster's surprise, the intrusion didn't hurt at all. In fact, it didn't feel like much of anything. She expected it to feel sensitive like the inside of her vagina or her head, but what little sensation she felt was faint and unremarkable. Even as Isobel's finger began to move, searching the inside of Aster's butthole the same way she searched the surface of her brain, there was no more than a faint tickle.

The mage was almost disappointed.

Isobel searched all over until she found just the right spot - deep and on the roof - and then began to rub. Not hard. Not fast. Just slow, little circles.

The faint tickle became a slightly stronger tickle, still nothing exceptional, but then it became something more. A warmth. Not the kind of warmth that seeped into her muscles and made them weak. A real warmth. On the very tip of Isobel's finger. As though the sorceress had just removed her finger from a hot bath.

With every circle it grew just a little warmer. Circle after circle after circle until the warmth became a heat. Aster started shifting uncomfortably in her seat. Circle after circle after circle. It was becoming painful now - like charcoal pressed right against Aster's skin - but Isobel had already taken away Aster's movement, leaving the mage unable to do anything but scream within the confines of her own mind.

Circle after circle after circle. Hotter and hotter and hotter. It was like a glowing iron, now.

Aster had never felt such pain in her life. Such horrifying, excruciating pain. Her skin was searing and her brain screeching. She would cut off her own limbs to escape her restraints if only she could move.

But she couldn't. She was stuck in this basement. Stuck in these restraints. Stuck in her own brain.

It was simply too much. So, doing the only thing it could anymore, Aster's brain began to shut down - turning her world black in an attempt to escape the pain.

And then Isobel pulled on her threads.

But she wasn't sucking anything out, this time. No, this time, she was putting something back inside.

In her final moments of consciousness, Aster's brain was flooded with every last sensation that had been stolen away from her.

The buzzing of the pepperwood sap on her clit. The deep, sensitive throbbing of a finger buried inside her vagina. Sweetness on her tongue.

The overwhelming love of a mother. The horrendous reality of a mother's abandonment. Wet, sticky sloshing, as fingers stirred her brain to a messy pulp.

The crushing weightlessness of orgasm.

Aster felt it all at once.

And it was bound to an examination chair deep underground that Aster nearly died.

Pleasure beyond comprehension annihilated her brain in an instant as electricity enough to arc across the sky flooded her fragile human body and 100 billion neurons exploded simultaneously.

Cerebral destruction, beyond that of a wilt. Beyond that of a pop.

Utter decimation.

She couldn't see anymore. She couldn't smell or taste. She couldn't feel the warm liquid leaking from between her legs. She couldn't hear it trickling to the floor beneath.

She was left with nothing. Not a single functioning cell. Her breathing and temperature and heartbeat - her very heartbeat - were all maintained perfectly and entirely by Isobel's nimble fingers.

All Aster was capable of anymore - the one, single function she had been reduced to - was the experience of pleasure. Incomprehensible, unending pleasure.

***

When she awoke next, Aster wore even more restraints than before - adhering her entirely to the examination chair. The rag around her face had been removed.

Isobel, the architect of her destruction, stood in the corner of the room cleaning and organizing her various implements.

At the sound of stirring, she turned around and approached her patient.

"...wh-what are you doing..."

Aster's fear had returned, bringing with it everything else - control over her limbs and voice, the urgent desire to escape, the regret of ever becoming a mage. Her memory.

She could remember every last moment of her procedure. All the things Isobel had done to her. All the things Isobel had taken from her. Aster fought the dissonance of recounting terrifying moments experienced without fear.

The only moment she didn't remember was her last. She remembered the excruciating pain in her rectum - now entirely absent. She remembered being stuck within her own body. But then...nothing. Not even black.

"I apologize for the restraints. I didn't want you to thrash about during this next process."

"N-No. No! I don't want any more!"

With complete dispassion on her face, Isobel pressed the pad of her forefinger against Aster's butthole a second time.

"No!"

Aster fought as hard as she could, but the restraints served their purpose well, fixing her legs and hips in place.

"Stop it! Please! Just leave me alone! Just luh...luhhh...leeeave mmm...muhhh..."

Aster's thrashing had slowed to a faint tugging and the blazing fire in her eyes had been reduced to the flicker of dying candlelight. She opened and closed her mouth in an effort to speak, but no sounds came out beside little moans that slowly grew louder.

Isobel's finger - buried knuckle deep in Aster's butt and gently caressing the same spot as before - no longer burned. It felt incredible.

Beyond incredible. It felt transcendent.

As her new butt button was clicked, the memory of Aster's own destruction rang throughout her body. In her muscles. In her bones. In her brain.

No more than a sliver of what it had been, it was still enough to melt Aster's limbs and thoughts to jelly. Soft, gooey, pliable.

Her body tingled with sensitivity, begging to be touched. Her insides twitched and fluttered, begging to be filled. Her tongue tasted like honey.

She was slow and the world was distant.

She was drowning.

Sinking beneath a murderous sea of motherly love and motherly contempt. The warmth of an embrace and the crushing truth of her inadequacy.

And from deep within her stupid, brainless home, the young mage finally understood the heavenly beauty of a mother's love. Wondered how she had ever lived her life without it. Trembled in fear at the thought of losing it.

In this very moment, Aster knew - unequivocally and within her very soul - that she would do anything to experience just a single moment more.

Anything she was asked.

Anything for mommy.

"How do you feel, Aster?"

The mage stirred from her brainless trance as a sweet, silky voice slipped inside her brain. She swam through mushy thoughts in search of the words she wanted.

"...ghu...ghu...ghuuud..."

Isobel picked up her needle quill - the only item which remained beside Aster's chair - and pressed its point against her patient's neck.

"I'm afraid my client requested that I kill you now, Aster."

Fear flickered behind purple eyes. Fear that fought to be heard over the deafening sounds of humming skin and unyielding devotion and gentle schlucking. Fear beyond that which a single one of Isobel's other patients would be capable of feeling right now.

But it still wasn't enough.

Aster's brain - soft and slow - no longer conceptualized the importance of life or the permanence of death. She existed solely within the confines of her present experience - like an animal, but dumber. All she feared was the loss of Isobel's rubbing. The loss of that gently destructive pleasure.

Desperately, the purple haired mage began to pout - sticking out her bottom lip and flashing big round eyes as she desperately ground her virgin asshole against her murderer's knuckles, trying to rub that special spot even harder.

"...bhud..." she slurred, tongue limp and eyes clicking in and out of focus. "...bhud I wand moreee..."

The motherly warmth of Isobel's voice returned.

"But what if mommy wants you to die? What if it will make mommy so, so happy?"

Aster's eyes widened and her breath sped up. Isobel could feel her pussy clenching through the walls of her asshole. Could see her head - strapped firmly against the seat - straining to break free. Could see how desperate she was to impale her throat on the deadly quill.

How desperate she to make mommy happy until her dying breath. With her dying breath.

Even when the finger slid free, Aster's desperation persisted. She remained soft and hopeless. Not for long - Isobel presumed - but certainly long enough to infect her with more magic if need be.

With a nod of approval, the sorcerer gently plucked the needle away and set it back down.

"Good girl, Aster."

A single tear fell down the mage's cheek as an overjoyed smile spread across her face. Her pussy throbbed on the edge of orgasm.

And for the second time that afternoon, Isobel smiled.

Even by her standards, this was exceptional work.

***

"Darling, are you alright?"

Aster awoke on the floor of the room where she was first knocked unconscious. The one filled with nothing but cabinets and drawers. Her head was resting on something soft, and there was a gentle, slender hand caressing her hair. She shifted uncomfortably in her heavy clothing.

"Oh, thank the gods. You gave me quite the fright."

Aster looked lazily around her room until a pair of emerald green eyes entered her vision. Strikingly beautiful eyes on a strikingly beautiful woman, towering above her. The young mage flushed.

"I was fetching your mezcle in the other room when I heard you fall to the ground. It must be the air in here."

Mezcle. That's right. Aster was buying Mezcle from this beautiful woman.

And of course it had been the air that made her faint. That made perfect sense.

"Let me help you up, darling."

The beautiful woman, with raven hair that cascaded in mesmerizing waves around her sharp face, rose to her feet, taking the fallen mage with her.

Strong. Warm. Soft.

Aster nearly melted into her embrace, forcing herself to back away instead - leaning on her staff. She felt unsteady on her own feet and her muscles felt strangely sore.

They ascended the stairs slowly, the beautiful woman trailing close behind Aster to make sure she didn't tip over backwards and stumble all the way down. The room at the top was filled to the brim with shelves and towers of books and decorated with various scraps of paper. At the sight, Aster's memory seemed to clear. Her feet felt steady beneath her, now.

"I believe I overheard you ask that postman about greenbough, too. Is that correct?"

The postman. Aster remembered him. Head like an egg and mustache like a forest. She couldn't quite remember their conversation, but if the beautiful woman said so, Aster was sure she had been asking about greenbough.

"Y-yes. I think so."

"I feel so terrible about this whole incident, I thought I'd give you some, free of charge." The woman spoke with a kindness that soothed Aster's tired body.

"Oh," Aster took a small glass bottle and a thick yellow root from the beautiful woman's outstretched hands. In her delirium, she didn't notice that the bottle's label bore a different shop's emblem. A shop right beside the post office, in fact. "Th-Thank you. That's terribly generous."

"Of course."

The mage was having trouble keeping her eyes on the beautiful woman's beautiful eyes. She wanted to stare at her plump, ruby lips. Her firm, sculpted body. Her long, slender fingers. Shamefully, Aster wondered what they might feel like.

The woman flashed a smile and Aster suddenly realized she was staring. Flushing deep red, she searched nervously for the exit and took a clumsy step in its direction.

"Oh, darling!"

Aster quickly turned herself around, eager to spend just a single moment more with this woman.

"I'm afraid I still need you to pay for the mezcle."

The mage blushed once more, cursing herself silently. Obviously, she had to pay. She hoped the beautiful woman didn't think she was stupid.

Placing the bottle and the root in her satchel, she reached with shaky fingers into her pockets and fished out the requisite coins.

The beautiful woman took them with a smile, her fingers brushing momentarily against Aster's. They were so soft.

With a nod, Aster took a step towards the exit. She hoped desperately that some other incident might occur. That maybe she would faint again so she could awake in the woman's loving embrace once more.

But sadly, no such incident occurred on the short walk between the stairs and the exit. Slowly, Aster pushed the door open and welcomed the cool evening air. Demeter was probably back at the inn by now.

The inn.

It suddenly occurred to Aster that she had no idea where she was, and she spun quickly and happily around.

"I'm very sorry, but you wouldn't happen to know how I might get back to the Yellow Feather?"

"Of course." The woman's smile was warm and kind and Aster did her very best to sear its beauty into her memory. "Follow this street north until you reach the intersection with the orio-rose patch, then take a left. That street will take you all the way there."

The purple haired adventurer nodded, taking a single step out the door before turning around one more time.

"Um...w-which way is north?"

Aster felt a little spark between her legs at the woman's patronizing chuckle.

"Left, Aster."

The mage smiled gratefully, blushing.

"Thank you...um..."

"Agatha, darling."

"Thank you, Agatha. For everything."