Drow's Dilemma Ep. 131: Rubella

"Gradually, however, Nirza developed an idea. She had read that succubi and faerie could inbreed without any genetic degradation whatsoever. Brothers with sisters. Fathers with daughters. Mothers with sons. Among the fae, these pairings never resulted in inferior offspring. And succubi and nymphs were just a summoning ritual away, to say nothing of the Lampads that lived in the caverns with them. I decided to help Nirza summon succubi who knew my mother. And my mother herself, of course. As you can imagine, succubi, when called on specifically to succubize pregnant women so that their children could be cambions, were more than happy to comply.

"Nirza turned a third of the women of her clan into succubi before all was said and done. She further struck bargains with the Lampads and some surface Nymphs to build them a special home in her dark caverns and offer them free access to every male of the clan - including her own husband - in exchange for them bearing daughters and very rare sons for the clan. It was an impressive endeavor.

"I assisted with the plan for a century by finding various fae and succubi, but though the succubi offered to turn me as well, I said that I should get pregnant first so that I could also bear a Cambion, as I myself had been borne. But I did not want to just get knocked up by any man, but by a special man.

"So, I set out to find such a man. I had talked with many of the succubi and learned what sorts of traits a man needed in order to be incubized. The easiest traits to find were iron will, personal power, and extreme aversion to succubi and depravity. To be an incubus, one needed to be the sort of man to resist transformation every step of the way. For if he did not resist, he would instead become a succubus. The best sorts of men for this are, of course, Paladins." She smiled fondly.

"So, I went adventuring again to find a paladin. I had quite a few adventures, and in the process, I fell in love with Clachleom and its people. I also had my eyes opened more and more to the plight of succubi in this world. Hated. Reviled. Hunted. Skulking in the shadows, afraid of gods who declared them abominations because we steal souls from their finite grasp and send them to infinity, where souls of the dead truly belong (not in those drugged fever dreams they call 'after-lives').

"I realized that my mother's adopted people were leaderless and homeless. Scared of the gods, they had taken refuge in Hell of all places. And Hell is an awful, awful place. Mostly due to all the demons, of course. But the succubi, for the most part, seemed content with being hunted by their inferiors. We are smarter, tougher, sexier, more magical, and longer-lived than any of the mortal races. And yet, we hid from them and their gods. The gods who had also sabotaged The Incomplete and cursed Deusterra.

"I learned that our people had not come from Hell at all, but were a relative of the Nymphs, the Valkyries, and Bansheekind. They had merely been forced into Hell. We were not demons. Why were treated as such? Because we threatened the little gods of this world, that was why! Because we had no use for them, for their fake 'afterlives'. We, with our sisters, are the Daughters of Eternity, the One God Above All. And we were gifted with the powers to send souls to Him. Each of us are little gods like they are. No wonder they revile us!"

An awful grin blossomed over the succubus's face. "So, I came to a decision. I knew what I had to do. I had to create a Domination of Succubi such as this world had never seen. I would carve out a homeland for our people, that they could walk the streets openly under the light of the sun, not the hellish glow of demon-twisted magma. With such a powerbase, we could wag our asses at the gods themselves without fear. But to do that, I needed a base. Mortals to feed on, to judge, to reward, to sustain us, to replenish our numbers. I needed allies. Sisters. A Seduction. A Domination. And I needed an incubus. I resumed searching for my paladin."

She licked her lips. "I eventually found one. Malcolm the Pure. The first son of a Count of Clachleom. He had left his inheritance to his feckless, wastrel of a younger brother and given up everything - including the touch of a woman - in order to join the church, to protect the innocent. In those dark days before the Byzromine brought order to this region, he had made a name for himself for his ceaseless heroism. I decided to join him on an adventure. I helped him with a number of quests, smiting demons, cleansing undead, all that fun stuff. I propositioned him a few times. He always turned me down, of course. He was sworn to chastity, as you know." She sighed happily. "Ah, what a turn on. Eventually, I could stand it no longer. I made a deal with some of the succubized Blackdawn clan members. They looked up to me as a leader as - despite my still being a cambion and not yet a succubus - I was still their senior. We formed a pseudo-Seduction, along with some human and elven women from Clachleom we won over. Soon, we reached the required sixty-nine members in our group: thirty succubi, thirty-eight mortal women, including several with some significant power in their own right, and one Cambion: me. I instructed them to find an isolated village and began kidnapping and raping men and women, making them have sex with each other, all the usual stuff."

She let out a fond sigh of recollection. "The village sent messengers to find the two greatest Demon-Hunters in Clachleom. Sir Malcolm, and Baroness Rubella Siverwisp. Sir Malcolm of course was more than willing to go to the village to save them and I did not persuade him not to. Of course, he was walking right into a trap." She smiled happily. "I will never forget taking his virginity in full view of my entire Seduction. Once I was pregnant, I allowed my Sisters to turn me into one of them. And so with the thirty-eight mortals we had recruited. Plus a few of the village women who had fallen to us. We got fifty-one cambions out of him, all told. Sometimes I almost felt sorry for him..."

Her expression said otherwise. She trailed off in her story for a few moments.

Caleldir was interested in Rubella's story, and despite being pushed backwards onto the couch where Mirjana sat on his lap with her back to him and his cock inside her, managed to follow it. At this point, he looked horrified. He glanced towards Dahlia, noting her reaction. The fact that he could feel arousal coming off of her did not make him feel better about his present company. Succubus morality was alien indeed.

Then again, he had become aroused by the story too, so he did not have much room to judge.

Rubella shook her head, getting back to the important topic. "Anyway, I set up my Seduction in my Demesne: my sisters and I hiding in full view. My Cambion daughter took over for me as Baroness, and I pretended to grow old and die. I was four hundred years old when I finally 'died', and I am still remembered as one of the greatest Sorceresses of Clachleom. The story that went around was that I had in the end finally seduced Sir Malcolm mere weeks before he was slain by demons I flushed out and my grief over his death caused me to waste away. I have heard a few songs about our romance. It is always hilarious to listen to 'The Beautiful Tragedy of the Paladin and the Sorceress'.

"Anyway, it was about then that the Byzromine Empire came in and pacified the place, and I lay low for quite some time. My daughter married after a few centuries, had her Cambion daughter, was succubized, then finally 'died'. Her daughter married after a century, had a daughter, was succubized, then also died. Her daughter married a powerful Duke, had a daughter of her own, succubized, then 'died' as well. Her daughter, now a Duchess, married the Crown Prince. The Prince became a King. It was then, when the secretly succubized Queen was pregnant with her Cambion daughter, Iseabal Griffonheart, that we found out that a powerful Dragoness whose pawns we had been opposing for centuries had shapeshifted herself into a likeness of my great-great Granddaughter and gotten pregnant by the king as well, producing a powerful pretender to the throne: Deirdriu Scionlost. Things became complicated after that. I had staged this takeover for centuries, and I was not about to let some dragon beat me to it. We kidnapped the King - leaving the Throne in the hands of my great-great-great Granddaughter - and tried to boot out the dragon and her pawns, including the Pretender. That sparked a civil war."

She shrugged. "We were victorious for a while, but Ms. Scionlost is impressively formidable and with her draconic mother supporting her we could never root her supporters out of the hills. They kept coming back stronger. Many of the Houses of Clachleom began to suspect Iseabal of being a Cambion and defected to the Pretender's faction. We poured our all into building a massive army to conquer Clachleom once and for all. It was then that the unexpected happened."

She gave Caleldir a broad smile. "All of a sudden the Aelsunite and Ellistraean armies I had ignored succeeded in their goals! Deusterra was cleansed! And out of Deusterra, came a half-giant man with lightning fists."

Caleldir's eyes dawned with recognition. "Storm-Fist the Monk."

"Indeed," Rubella said. "King Storm-Fist now. He confronted the Queen and the Pretender Princess and - through an amazing series of events I would happily relate if my story were not already overlong - had a threesome with them. And married them first. Like, two minutes before, I am told. With both Iseabal and Deirdriu married to the same man, the civil war ended. I ended up negotiating with Storm-Fist, one of the few people I have deigned to meet while they were clothed in the last few centuries. We signed a treaty that declared half of Clachleom a haven for my succubi so long as we follow the rules that I had determined we would follow anyway. And now we walk openly in the lands we have secretly been building control of in the shadows since before the Byzromines came, let alone since they left two hundred years ago."

With that, she finished her story. "Any questions?"

During the story, Mirjana enjoyed being the only woman who got to 'play' with Caleldir. Orgies were nice, but it was also nice to sometimes have him all to herself. Well. Sort of all to herself. Ylene, in her own shy way, partially participated by stroking Caleldir and nuzzling up against him. She clearly wanted in on the action but wasn't assertive enough to force her way in. Too bad for her.

But even Mirjana got distracted from what she was doing after her first orgasm. The story became interesting enough that she was content to sit in Caleldir's lap with his dick still buried inside her.

"Relatives, you say?" the rusalka asked. "That... makes sense, actually. That explains the kinship I felt with Dahlia. Normally, my kind, a subset of Banshee, can't endure the thought of operating without some of our kind around." She grinned and laid her head on Caleldir's shoulder. "I guess I am not too aberrant."

"Indeed not!" Dahlia agreed. "In fact, I think you are proof that your race can make positive change. You might be able to organize, to stop being so wasteful!"

"Wasteful... Says the one who doesn't even finish off the bodies of the men you punish," Mirjana mumbled.

"Yes, relatives," Rubella confirmed, ignoring Mirjana for the moment. "To be precise, there was a Primordial Nymph race from Faerie, under the rule of the Ur-Nymph, the Archfey Astellodia." Caleldir started at this. Rubella smiled and continued.

"The Primordial Nymphs, named the Nylameia, were a different race than the Nymphs of today, in many ways more similar to modern Light Elves than the pseudo-elemental nymphkind nowadays. Impossibly beautiful, nigh-immortal, and unaging, yes. Bond with nature and faerie, yes. Exclusively female, yes. Preferring nudity and simplicity, also yes. But they did have a civilization. A great one. They built with stone and wood, carved statues, and forged steel from the iron so dangerous to them in its raw form. But the Nymphs were betrayed and invaded by Hell. I do not know how the betrayal went down, but in the end, many of them were killed, some were taken as slaves, some sought refuge in the Celestial Realms, and others fled their ruined civilization into the depths of faerie to hide among the elements.

"Those that bonded with the Elements of Faerie to stay free became the races of Nymphkind: the Nymphs, the Dryads, the Naiads, the Nereids, the Lampads, and so forth. Those who sought refuge with the Gods became the Valkyries, training in war eternally to eventually seek their revenge. The dead, well, our race leaves for eternity when we truly die, but we do not always die when killed. The dead came back. They became the first of the Ban Sidhe, and from their ghostly nature, they spawned the Baobhan Sidhe, the Lorelie, the Mermaids, the Sirens, and the Rusalka. The greatest of all of the Ban Sidhe remains our mutual undead forebear: Astellodia.

"Finally, those of the Nymphs taken as slaves into Hell were twisted and mutated by their demonic masters, but we were smarter than them. And very soon, too powerful for them to control. We burned away the souls of our masters and became the Succubi. For, Mirjana, Daughter of the Ban Sidhe, we do not 'waste' the bodies of the mortals we judge."

She extended her hand out, palm flat. In it, a wispy, ghost-like humanoid figure writhed in pain. She smiled. "We steal the essence and leave the wrapper. We have no need for the bodies of the dead. You rusalka waste what is inside, letting them flee to the afterlives their gods have set for them. We take Souls." She closed her hand. "I have claimed the souls of tens of thousands of mortals, and burned the souls of even more demons."

"Astellodia," Caleldir said in a whisper. "Is that-"

"Yes," Rubella said quietly. "I eventually confirmed it. The Banshee Queen, the Ur-Nymph, the Undead Archfey, the Betrayed Primordial Goddess, is your mother. That is the real reason all we of the four races are so powerfully drawn to you."

"That... makes sense, actually," Dahlia said thoughtfully. "It would explain his power, his magnetism, his stamina." She couldn't quite contain the excitement she felt through her bond with Caleldir, though she tried to keep herself as outwardly calm as possible.

Dahlia's excitement worried Caleldir just a bit, but he also kept his worry from showing. Mostly, he was worried that Dahlia might start getting Ideas with regard to his ancestry. He already had Althaia making obscene plans for breeding him, he did not need Dahlia to do the same. At least, being a succubus, Dahlia would be inherently more selfish than Althaia.

Hopefully. Succubus selfishness was very different from human selfishness.

"It would also explain why my old sisters and I never thought seriously about killing him once we were done. After he was free of Goelon, that is. Before, we didn't kill him because the ghost would have been too much for us to handle. Rosti was seriously tempted to keep him, actually, but decided against it because that is Not Done in our homelands," Mirjana explained.

Rubella shook her head. "While I will say that keeping Caleldir was never a viable plan for your sisterhood - because Mistress Dahlia has the far better claim to him - I will say that the rusalka will be far better off if they do start keeping viable males for long-term breeding. But I suppose that sort of reform would be best done along with a number of other ones. Anyway, when I have Clachleom better secured for the succubi, I will happily invite any Rusalka who wish to civilize themselves to come live in one of our less-inhabited watery regions."

"Thank you for all that information," Dahlia said sincerely. "And the work that you've done here in Clachleom for succubus kind. Now I think..." She turned to Caleldir. "That Selene probably wants your attention for a while. Rubella and I need to talk alone for a bit, too. Just Seduction and Domination politics."

Rubella turned to Dahlia with a nod. "I was just about to suggest the same," she said seriously. "Unless Caleldir here wants to be the table over which we conduct diplomacy, it would be better for him to go give his Dark Elven Mistress some attention."

"I would rather not be a table," Caleldir said dryly. "Now, Mirjana, if you would kindly get off of me so that I may go find Selene."

"Fine," Mirjana responded with an amused look. She kissed him in a surprisingly tender fashion for a Rusalka. Then, finally, she pulled off of him. "Mistress Rubella?" Mirjana asked, turning to the succubus. "Would you mind if I explored a bit? I will adhere to the rules you have established."

Rubella waved Mirjana away. "I do not mind at all. You do not give off the aura of malice that most of your kind do, so I trust that you will not cause any problems. Just do not walk the streets naked. The treaty says we can only do that at night in this city." She turned to Dahlia. "There are different rules for each city as to public nudity. This is a moderate city that allows scanty dress during the day and nudity at night. The capital is the same way. Ainsburgh is more permissive, allowing nudity at all hours, while Coillgaeta mandates more modest attire in public. My own demesne of Highfen, of course, mandates nudity."

"Got it," Mirjana said before flowing away.

"I can lead you to Selene," Ylene offered softly while Rubella chatted and Mirjana left. She, of course, knew exactly where her mistress was at all times.

And so, the non-succubi left the room.