Moon's Shadow Ch. 02

"Make one for me now, then. I want to see how you do it, and we can use the privacy," Kirlin demanded, and Beryl finally saw a bit of the relation to Analisse in the other woman.

"I, uhh..." Beryl paused, feeling at her connection to the Moon through the Crest. No, it wouldn't quite work properly, not like this. "I can't right now."

"What does that mean?" Kirlin scowled a little at that, like Beryl was lying to her.

"The Moon isn't in the right place, it's different in the middle of the day. I can try, but..." Beryl rubbed her chin a little, trying to puzzle out how she'd replicate that Sorcery at this time of day. "Maybe if I could use a Glyph?"

"You're saying the time of day affects what Sorceries you can do?" Kirlin asked, sounding fascinated now. Before Beryl could answer though, she raised a finger and then moved off to grab a thin slab of slate and chalk for Beryl. "Go ahead. And explain what you meant."

"It's the Moon's position and phase," Beryl explained, looking up and at an angle behind him, towards where the crescent moon was currently hidden by the sun's brightness. She could always tell where the Moon was, just by feeling. She paused for a second to think through what she needed, and started tracing a few lines and expressions onto the slate to form the Glyph she needed. "During the day the energy is, uhhh... slower?" she tried to explain.

"Slower? You mean that you can't pull as much energy for your Sorceries?" Kirlin asked, watching Beryl draw her glyph intently.

"No... well, yes, but, there's so much energy I can't even begin to harness it all anyway. It's more like... if the energy was music, it's a flute during the night, and drums during the day?" she smiled nervously, convinced that she sounded crazy. She decided to distract herself by focusing more seriously on the Glyph. It wasn't a complicated one, it more acted as a way for her to convert power, but she'd still never drawn one like this before.

"Fascinating... the frequency differs..." Kirlin murmured to herself, pulling a small notebook out of her bag and scribbling some notes down. "This will be more complex than I thought."

Beryl didn't answer, and instead finished up her Glyph and then placed her finger in the middle of it to channel the Moon's power into the vacuum bubble Sorcery. She... felt the air around her shift, and the bubble formed, muting out even the tiniest bit of sound that was buzzing through the walls from the rest of the Academy.

"Amazing," Kirlin gasped softly, looking around her. A moment later, she evocated herself and a purple shimmer appeared around her. "An actual vacuum bubble with so simple a Glyph. It should be impossible. It doesn't make sense."

"Sorry," Beryl murmured, blushing.

"No, this helps," Kirlin replied, still writing furiously in her notebook even as she paced the room to get closer to the edges of the bubble that Beryl had formed. "Information regarding the Crest and how its Sorcery differs from ours is so scant. The Imperial family destroys all the information they can. I've been working with bits and pieces of contraband, but with you, I can just write the material anew." She looked up at Beryl and smiled. "Ana told me you were born a boy? That the Crest made you look like this?"

"I think so," Beryl admitted with a bit of a blush. "That's what the stories say is supposed to happen, and thats what happened."

"Well, it could be that this is just your body's natural hormonal balance; Such things happen sometimes. I suppose that would be quite the coincidence, though. I wonder what it means..." Kirlin watched Beryl thoughtfully for several moments, then finally nodded and went to the big desk in the middle of the office to start looking around. "Ana said she'd leave me... aha!" She pulled out a small box and walked over to Beryl. "Roll up the sleeve of your dress."

Beryl followed her instructions with some trepidation, but when Kirlin withdrew an empty syringe from the case, it was all she could do not to shriek.

"No! No, no no, no," Beryl wailed, backing up until she was pressed up against the bookcase, shivering in terror at the sight of the needle. The Sorcery she was holding onto warbled for a moment as she removed her finger from the Glyph but it sorted itself out and stayed active.

"...Really?" Kirlin giggled. "You're scared of needles?"

"No... no..." Beryl whined, trembling, eyes fixated upon the thin, pointed piece of metal that wanted to stab her and drain away all of her fluids and leave her a dry dessicated husk that would—

"Yeesh," Kirlin put the syringe away and placed the box on the table. Beryl's trembling stopped almost immediately, and she took in a gasp of air, panting softly and realizing that she'd barely been breathing.

"Sorry, Ma'am, I can't help it." Beryl looked away, embarrassed and still a little scared. Her eyes flickered to the box where she knew the needle was, and her heart thumped in her chest so hard it felt like she'd burst. It was beyond discomfort, it was painful.

"No problem, I'm not as good as Ana is at this stuff but I can help you out," Kirlin walked over to Beryl's still-trembling form and placed her hands on Beryl's neck just below her ears. "Just relax," she trilled.

Beryl suddenly felt her fear start to melt away like it has never been there in the first place. It drained out of her and left her with a sort of strange, empty numbness instead. "Wha...?" she stared at Kirlin, dumbfounded as the horrid feeling in her chest slowly dissipated

"Alright, I'm gonna take a little of your blood, that sound okay, Beryl?" she asked with a honeyed voice, looking at Beryl like she was an infant.

"Umm... yes?" Beryl thought about it. She was scared of needles, wasn't she? It didn't seem like she was as the moment but she did remember being scared of them. Even when Kirlin went over and pulled the syringe back out of the box, her heartbeat was perfectly calm, and she held out her arm obediently like she'd been doing this her whole life. There was a slight pinch as she inserted the thin needle into a vein and allowed the little hollow glass part to fill up with her blood. Kirlin placed a little piece of cloth over the vein where she'd poked her and withdrew the needle slowly, humming to herself. She fiddled with the syringe until the needle and the glass vial came apart and stashed the two parts separately inside the box it had initially come out of. Beryl marvelled at how easy it had been.

"How did you..." she asked, staring at Kirlin bewilderedly as she pulled her notebook back out and started taking more notes.

"How did I what?" she asked.

"Did you... cure my phobia?"

Kirlin snorted at that one, and closed her book again. "Wow, Ana wasn't kidding about you being naive. No, you're not 'cured,' what I did is temporary. Fear is just a chemical reaction in your brain, sweetie. I just suppressed that reaction for a bit. You might feel a little weird for an hour or so until the Evocation wears off but that's normal."

"Okay," Beryl nodded, noting that she did still feel somewhat numb and unrestricted. She thought about telling the whole Academy about her Crest, and the idea had a strange sort of emotional appeal to it even as she understood that she couldn't.

"So, tell me about the teleportation Sorcery you used. The vacuum bubble is something that's doable even if it's very difficult for normal practitioners, but teleportation is a far-off crackpot of a theory as far as most academics are concerned." Kirlin flipped a page and looked up at Beryl expectantly.

"It's not... I did it. I know how," Beryl answered earnestly.

"Yes, sweetie, I believe you. Tell me about the details," Kirlin smiled at her with the look of a patient mother.

"Oh. Well, that's one that doesn't rely on the Moon's phase. The main idea is you sort of... make two different places resonate together, and they become the same place for a second, and then..." She stopped as she saw the look on Kirlin's face. "Maybe I should write it down..."

"That might be better," Kirlin smiled patronizingly, and went over to the desk to pull out some blank sheets of paper and a pen. Beryl spent the next two hours trying to explain how the Sorcery worked. Perhaps more accurately, she spent the majority of that time explaining her notations, explaining why she used the numbers she did, and how she came up with her formatting. Most of the time she had to pause and wonder how did she come up with the numbers she did. Most of them just made sense to her. Kirlin was extremely detailed and thorough and by the end of it, Beryl was drooping in her chair, exhausted.

"I guess that will have to do for now," Kirlin said with a sigh when she saw Beryl yawning. She continued to scribble down things in her notebook for a few moments before she shut it with a snap and then gathered up all the notes Beryl herself had made including the granite slab she'd made her Glyph on. Beryl noticed that Kirlin actually placed the book down upon the table and locked it shut with an evocation on the latch similar to the one on the door before she stashed it away in her bag. "Try to think about this, we'll be resuming this conversation later." She stood up and checked the clock, clicking her tongue when she saw it was late afternoon already.

"Are we going to be making another teleportation Glyph?" Beryl asked.

Kirlin gave Beryl a very displeased look for a moment before she hrmph'd softly. "Something like that. Ana doesn't want to worry you with the details. Plus, you can't accidentally blab a detail you don't know." With that, she walked over to the door and opened it, then looked back over her shoulder at Beryl impatiently. "I need to lock the door behind you."

"Oh, right..." Beryl blushed a little and scampered out, letting Kirlin lock the door as she'd said. There was an awkward pause, and then Kirlin reached over and put her arm around Beryl's shoulders to give her a brief hug.

"You'll be great," she murmured softly, not sounding convinced herself, and then walked away. Out of the entire exchange, that embrace had been by far the most disconcerting and Beryl wondered why it had happened the way it did. As Kirlin left, the memory of her barely-started literature assignment burned in her memory and she sighed as she knew there was no way she'd get much more done today. She decided to simply head... "home," to her little room in the Trecorya estate.

As Beryl walked through the city, she thought of Analisse. As always, thinking of her Mistress both made her heart ache at her absence but also filled her with a sort of euphoria. It had only been several days, but her Mistress was becoming more and more of an obsession that dominated Beryl's thoughts.

"I'm not as good as Ana is at this stuff..." The thought came to her. Kirlin had said that, just before she'd tampered with Beryl's emotions. Could Mistress be doing that to her? Could that explain why she was feeling the way she was? She didn't want to believe it. Her feelings for Analisse couldn't just be completely manufactured. It just didn't make any sense. The very first time she'd met Mistress, Beryl had thought she was captivating, even if she was somewhat terrifying. Kirlin had touched her to perform that Sorcery, she'd said it was chemical. That made sense, an Evocation like that probably would require contact. So, it didn't track that her feelings for Analisse were completely manufactured. Mistress... had obviously touched her afterwards, and several times, subsequently, but...

Beryl shook her head. No. Even if it were possible, Mistress wouldn't do that to her. She didn't need to do that to her. Why control her mind and then leave room for Beryl to doubt it? Why bother controlling her like that at all? She was completely at Mistress' mercy anyway.

"Excuse me, can we help you, Miss?" one of the soldiers in the antechamber to the Trecorya estate stopped her. She paused and blinked at them, confused.

"I live here? I'm Lady Trecorya's... umm..." She trailed off, remembering what it was Mistress had told her but not wanting to say it. She reasoned that maybe they would know what she meant.

"Her what?" the soldier accosting her scowled at her, crushing her hopes.

"Her slutty submissive little bitch..." Beryl mumbled, reciting the phrase exactly as Mistress had instructed her to. The soldier who'd questioned her frowned like it was a joke.

"Oh, right, we got briefed on this, remember?" one of his companions spoke up with a bit of a smirk on her face. "She's Lady Analisse's, look at the earrings and the choker."

The soldier accosting her looked over at his companion, then back at Beryl. "Oh, that wasn't a joke?"

"No, they don't give us prank briefings, moron," the female soldier sighed, and then gestured to Beryl. "Come on inside, Miss. Sorry for the inconvenience." The man stopping Beryl stepped aside and opened the door for her. She ducked inside, blushing furiously.

She tracked down one of the servants and asked them if 'Lady Trecorya' was around. She was told that she was probably in her quarters, and Beryl headed there with some trepidation. She knew that the moment she saw Analisse, she'd end up asking her if she was controlling her mind. She didn't want to ask, but she also wasn't really supposed to be wandering around the manor on her own. She moved through the hallways to her room, placed her hand upon the handle, and paused. She could do this. If it wasn't true, if Mistress wasn't doing anything to her mind, it wouldn't matter, would it? It would just be a question about Sorcery, and that was a perfectly normal thing for her to ask, right?

Her room was empty and quiet, and the adjoining door leading to Analisse's was cracked open. Mistress had made it clear that she wanted the door left open unless she closed it herself. There was a soft thrumming noise coming from inside and a narrow wedge of light spilled into the darkness of Beryl's room. She softly moved through her room into Mistress', and saw her holding a brooch in one hand, tendrils of Sorcerous power connecting to it from the fingertips of her other hand. Beryl watched for a few moments, and saw a trickle of blood flowing down her palm from the hand that held the brooch. Beryl watched quietly as Analisse evocated, standing off to the side so as not to interrupt. She continued for several moments, and finally snarled at the brooch, her Sorcery flickering out. She spun and tossed the brooch onto a nearby couch with a grunt of exasperation. A moment later, she noticed Beryl.

"Ah, precious. Be a good girl and bring me that medical kit." she spoke quietly, pointing to a spot on the shelf and then stalking over to her desk, sitting down and holding the cut on her palm that was the source of the bleeding.

Beryl did as she asked, easily finding the kit and setting it down in front of her Mistress. "Was I interrupting, Mistress?" she asked.

"No, I'm working on something and it's proving very difficult to get it just right." Analisse answered tiredly and wrapped a bit of gauze around her hand. When she finished, she pressed two fingers to the cut and there was a soft glow as she evocated to help close up the wound. "It's nothing you need to worry about," her eyes flickered to Beryl's. "And nothing you need tell others about, either, of course."

"Even Kirlin, Mistress?" Beryl asked quietly, shrinking away from her gaze.

"There's nothing you can tell Kirlin about what I'm doing that she doesn't already know. I'm guessing that she had a chat with you today?" she asked, sounding a little annoyed.

"Yes, Mistress. I... cooperated with her, I hope that—"

"No, that's fine. I wanted Kirlin to wait a few more days before she started to squeeze you for information but I guess she couldn't help herself. I'll have some words with her about boundaries but it's not your fault." Analisse packed the gauze away in the kit and closed it up before handing it back to Beryl with the unspoken command to put it back where she'd found it. Beryl took it over to the other side of the room, and paused as she placed it on the shelf with a quiet scuff of tin on wood. The question burned at her, and she turned around slowly.

"Mistress?" Beryl asked, conflict raging within her.

"Hmm?" Analisse gave a disinterested acknowledgement.

"Are you... controlling my emotions with Sorcery?"

"The term you're looking for is 'influencing', precious." she replied, sounding like she'd just answered a question about theory rather than one about Beryl's autonomy.

"So... are you?" she asked with a frown.

"What?" Analisse finally looked up at her.

"Are you influencing my emotions?"

"Of course I am," she scoffed. "Everything influences a person's emotions. Eating food, seeing a pretty flower, being cold. I have done several things to you to encourage you to trust me and to make you feel safe around me."

"Including... using Sorcery?" she pressed.

"Of course I am," she repeated, her brow furrowing in confusion. "What is this about, precious?"

"I've... I feel like I love you and that I can't live without you, Mistress, and I don't understand... It doesn't feel normal to me." Beryl fidgeted, looking down at her hands. She knew she'd feel foolish bringing this up, she knew she'd regret it. She cursed her own stupidity and her inability to just leave well enough alone.

"The whole point of Sorcery is to redefine what is both possible and normal, Beryl." Analisse heaved an annoyed sighed and rolled her eyes. "I suppose this is a cultural conflict that I should have anticipated. Do your feelings right now bother you?"

"Sort of... it's confusing." she admitted.

Analisse rose to her feet and walked over to Beryl. She placed her hand on her cheek, and Beryl looked up into her eyes. "Just relax a bit. Mistress wants you to feel better, gemstone," she whispered soothingly. Beryl watched her Mistress as she started to glow with Sorcerous power, wondering why she was smiling now in contrast to her earlier annoyance. She suddenly felt a sort of a cold shock fall upon her mind, soothing and smothering her thoughts and feelings with a sort of pleasant numbness. She opened her mouth to protest, but she couldn't think straight enough to form words.

"I'm using a bit of a heavier touch this time, precious. Don't try to think. Trust that Mistress knows what you need." Analisse's smile seemed to grow a little as she turned Beryl's mind to mush, drowning out everything other than her. Beryl felt her love for her Mistress blossom within her. She owed Mistress her life. Mistress cared for her, Mistress accepted her, Mistress needed her. Mistress played with her...

Beryl moaned softly, her body flushing with passion and arousal. Mistress was so pretty... and she made Beryl feel so good. Her cock throbbed with need. So lucky. She was such a lucky girl.

"Missstresssss!" Beryl wailed, falling down to her knees and looking up at Analisse with a reverence that felt so incredibly right. She needed to be on her knees, she belonged there.

Analisse smiled down at her, running her fingers gently through Beryl's hair. "How do you feel now, precious?"

"Gooooood..." Beryl mumbled, nuzzling her face up against Analisse's leg. She had never felt so at peace and so loved. She could only vaguely even recall that she had been feeling any trepidation at all and certainly didn't fully understand what it was about anymore.

"That's a good girl. Now, come over here and show your Mistress how appreciative you are," Analisse gently gripped Beryl by the hair and backtracked several steps to her chair, forcing Beryl to crawl along with her. She sat down and hitched her dress up, exposing her panties to Beryl's hungry gaze.

Beryl mewled needily, crawling forward between her Mistress' legs and pressing her face into her pantied crotch. She lapped at the impeding silk and whined, flailing about a little bit, knowing what she wanted but not sure how to proceed.