Shifty Characters Ch. 05

"Oh!" Balabar sounded delighted, and Suisshu cursed herself. You gave him an opening, you idiot! Rule Four: Do not tell him anything! "Well, you must care very deeply for her if you would dare risk becoming my cute little toy."

Rule Five: If all else fails, get mad. And get him madder. She was almost sure he was within range now. She just had to keep him uncertain for a few seconds more—she was pretty sure the scytheman wouldn't hear if she managed a one-hit kill. "You will never catch her," Suisshu growled, her tails twitching furiously. "She is already left. Neither of us will ever see her again—and you go to die before you have chance to prove me wrong."

There was a pause. "...my, my. Such devotion."

Suisshu frowned. Balabar didn't sound angry, or even that amused. He sounded...pitying.

"You do know, of course, how many she has loved over the years?" Balabar sighed. "She's as whorish as any succubus, my delightful pet. You aren't the first she's gone down on."

"My history is not clean, either." Again, Swish cursed herself for giving up more information. He was starting to get to her, but she just wanted to shut that stupid slick voice up.

"Of course not, dearest little...why don't I call you Suki? I think it fits you."

"My name is—" She stopped herself.

"Anyways, silly eastern girl, of course I know your dirty little past. You are a slut, remember?" His voice lowered to a whisper. "In case you don't know what that word means, let me clarify: It means you like...let's call it 'sucky-sucky', my giggly, lusty pet. You like sucky-sucky very much, and—"

"I know what it means!" she hissed. Her fists clenched. She looked straight ahead, forcing herself not to look at Balabar. In the campsite, Sinthia seemed to be trying to get away now, but the human woman wasn't letting up.

"Good girl!" he cooed. "It's important word to know for you. So smart!"

That was it. Swish was done. She was just going to cut this bastard's head off and wing it from there. Rule Five: End the conversation as soon as—

"But anyways, pet, I wasn't talking about Mier's past. I was talking about Mier. Mier personally. She's had thousands of partners, darling. What silly thoughts got into your little brain to make you think you're any different to her?"

Swish's grip on her katana loosened slightly. She hesitated. What? she mouthed to herself.

Foxes were good at identifying lies. She'd believed Mier. But then...Mier hadn't ever made any promises. And this man wasn't lying.

"Oh, how sad. You poor girl. You must be just off the boat, Suki. She's using you, just like I'm going to use you." No. False. It couldn't be true. "At least I'm honest about it. Doppelgangers don't mate for life, they mate for convenience and fun. She wants new experiences. She fucked the baron behind his wife's back. That's why we're hunting her."

Swish swallowed. She knew she was being played. But...

She'd been bluffing when she said Mier had already left. Hadn't she? A vision entered her head: Mier waiting for her to go, to distract Balabar and his group...while she ran for it.

Mier had seemed so sincere. But... "Doppelgangers live and breathe lies, Suki."

"It's not true," she whispered.

"You know it is."

The voice was smooth, convincing, but the words themselves...

Swish felt tears trickling down her cheeks.

Foxes like her preferred to mate for life, but they formed attachments far too easily. She'd fallen for Mier in seconds. The doppelganger's bizarre charisma had overwhelmed her—she'd been so lonely, so desperate for a friend...

"Oh, my poor little dear," Balabar murmured. "My poor little lost lust sprite."

She jerked to attention. "What?" Her cheeks had gone bright red, not that he could tell. Or maybe he could. "I'm not—"

"I've met lust sprites before. You're so horny. Horny, horny. But no grasp on the language."

This had not been what she'd expected. "I am not—"

"You don't know, you dumb little sprite. You forgot. Isn't that what a lust sprite would do?"

Yes, she admitted inwardly, annoyed. "Yes, but I am—"

"Horny. Confused. You fell for a shapeshifting freak. You're such a silly pet."

"I—no, I did not!" Indignant, the fox spun to face him, raising her sword.

He smiled at her. And in the split second she hesitated, she caught a glimpse of the pretty spinning disc. She saw her reflection flash by in it. Was it just her, or did her ears look a little like horns?

She'd fucked a lot of lust sprites. Why did she do that?

"You're going to hurt yourself with that," he said, giggling. "What were you even going to do with it?"

"I will kill you!" she snarled. But at the back of her mind, a rational-sounding voice spoke. He's right. I don't even know what this thing is. The pocket watch twirled.

It looks sharp.

So tired of killing...

...so tired of fighting...

"...so tired of resisting," Balabar murmured. She snapped back into reality, realizing she'd spaced out.

She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to wipe the pocket watch from her mind. But she kept seeing it. Kept seeing that reflection. "I am..." she growled, "...not so easy..."

"Me."

"Me?" She barely kept her eyes from opening in confusion.

"You aren't speaking right. You still think you're a nymph."

She frowned. "I do not!"

"Then what are you? A lust sprite? A horny...needy...slutty-wutty horny lust sprite?"

She heard herself a little giggle. The image was still in her head. Horny. And I—I mean, they have horns.

"Yes. Isn't it funny how confused you are? So funny." His voice rambled on, melodious. Suki gave a little sigh. It was actually quite pleasant to listen to. She couldn't remember why she hadn't wanted to listen before. "You're just so confused, and so wet, and you just want to touch yourself but you're so dumb and horny you can't remember how. You silly slutty sucky Suki."

She giggled again at the rhyme—that was a rhyme, right?—but his words troubled her. "Stupid," she muttered. "I do remember how."

"Oh, do you?"

She heard Sinthia's near-helpless moans in the background, mixed with the slobbery sound of the human slave's licking. For a moment, she was almost afraid she wouldn't be able to remember, but the noise helped her.

She shoved three fingers into her moist cunt, smiling triumphantly. She opened her eyes expectantly as she started to piston in and out, staring at Balabar's cute face and imagining his big cock between her lips. She showed him!

No. Wait. She frowned, confused. This wasn't right. She had to fight him. Had to help...Mier.

Memories started to return, along with the tears. Balabar looked at her, again with pity. "It hurts you, I know," he said softly, reaching forward. He took her hand and helped it along, masturbating her through the sorrow. "But you're just a silly little lust sprite. You'll forget aaaall about it soon enough."

She knew, then, what was happening. Through the confusion, through her horniness, through the fog of the hypnosis, she saw what was happening to her. She was being offered a choice. And with her confusion, with her horniness—because she was so horny, so wet, so fucking desperate—it wasn't a choice at all.

She found herself continuing to masturbate—almost managing to convince herself it was purely reflexive—as his hand crawled along her other arm. He peeled back her fingers from something cold and metal. She wasn't sure what it was anymore. He leaned close, grinning at her. Nimble fingers ran through the soft, silky fur on one of her tails, and she gasped at the sensation. Betraying its owner, the tail wrapped around his hand. Eagerly. "How do you feel, Suki?"

"I..."

"Me."

He gave her a wide, smug smirk. This was it. He'd picked out her greatest source of fury—the bigotry she'd faced since arriving on this continent, the snide looks, the rude remarks—and forced her here. To give it up. To humiliate her.

She felt the anger boiling in her, but every time it tried to rise, she thought of the pain of Mier's betrayal. And every time she tried to hate Balabar, she thought of how good her fingers felt inside her. How good it would feel to suck him off. How blissful Sinthia was. And how good it had felt over those months to just be the lust sprites' fucktoy. Constant pleasure flooded back to her as she remembered—kisses, licks, moans, gasps, screams, again and again...never have to think about pain...

Would it be so bad to be a lust sprite?

And the moment that thought came to her, he had won. She knew it. He saw the look of defeat—of hot, needy, desperate defeat—and he knew it, too. His smirk only widened.

She tried to rally some last resistance, but once she'd started to break, it was already over. She felt the orgasm coming. She started moaning. He leaned close, kissing her neck, and her spare arm wrapped around her beloved Balabar. He whispered sweet nothings in her ear...At least, she assumed that was what they were! She giggled. She couldn't remember, but she knew they were important because he was telling her them!

She was so lucky to have a master like him!

Suddenly, his hand shot down. It grabbed hers, pulling it out of her drooling pussy, and she whined, struggling feebly."How do you feel?" he asked again.

"Oh...horny..." Suki the lust sprite trembled, rubbing her naked body against his clothed body, moaning. "Horny, horny. Me so horny!" For some reason, it felt amazing to say that. She giggled, not knowing why, but when something felt good it meant it was good to do. "Me so horny! Me so horny!"

He pulled her away from him and smiled at her. A beautiful, smug grin. He leaned close and kissed her roughly, possessively. "And what do you want?"

She stared blankly. "Um. Me not know! Um."

"What do you want, Suki?" he cooed in her ear. "What do you want, Suki, you adorable horny little eastern slut?"

It was her name that made it clicked, and she started tittering as she realized the similarity. "Sucky!" she squealed, and she found this felt even better to say. "Sucky-sucky! Me so horny, me wanna sucky-sucky lots! Please, Master, let me sucky-sucky!"

He gave a cruel laugh, and to her it was the sweetest sound in the world. "Are you wetty?"

"Ooh, yes!" She beamed. "Me wetty-wetty! Super wetty-wetty! Please, Suki sucky? Fucky-sucky?"

He looked at her for a long moment, and she felt terrified he would say no.

Instead he reached down and began undoing his belt. Suki moaned with longing. She felt somethings behind her flicking frantically, but lust sprites didn't have tails, so she was just being silly again! She rubbed against her master, anxiously waiting. But he took his sweet time.

At last, his trousers were down. She stared at his fully erect cock with utter longing. She fell to her knees. She would worship her master. She would worship his cock. His perfect, wonderful cock. She looked up at him with wide doe eyes. "Sucky-sucky?" she whimpered.

He considered it for a long moment.

"I suppose you may," he said slowly. "But you'll have to make it up to me later."

Joy swelled in her breasts. "Oh, thank you, Master! Thank you, thank you, thank you! Me love you forever an' ever an' ever!" She leaned forward and kissed his cock reverently at the base with her big, plush lips. She gave it a little lick, then began kissing her way all the way to the head.

She slowly took it into her mouth, sucking—sucky-suckying, she thought, giggling—as she went. She heard him moaning, and felt ultimate joy. She was pleasing her wonderful, perfect master!

She sucked. And licked. And sucked. And sucked. She sucked his wonderful cock like a delicious sweetmeat, moaning along with him. Almost of its own accord, her hand started masturbating again, and she came four times before he did.

But the real pleasure came when he did. He jerked in her mouth, and she nearly collapsed from the wave of pleasure she felt. She swallowed obediently when he told her too, and thanked him eagerly. And when he suggested she 'thank' him by sucky-suckying again...well, she thanked him extra for that.

Suki the lust sprite had never been happier in all her very short life.

~~~~

"So you caught another," Snatch muttered as Balabar returned. The hypnotist looked very disheveled—his suit had been slightly ripped, one of the buttons on his trousers had been lost, and his gait was that of someone very, very tired of standing.

Behind him pranced a petite eastern woman. Three fox-like tails twitched excitedly behind her, and a pair of orange fox ears rested upon her head. Brilliant spiky red hair hung around her shoulders, though it looked like until recently it had been more styled. That fit. Balabar hated his slaves showing too much pride in their appearance.

Snatch sat against a boulder right outside the camp, sharpening his battered scythe. Lapis, a tiny dark-skinned woman with enormous solid blue eyes and four mirror-like insect wings, sat on his shoulder. He glared at Balabar. "You think you're clever, don't you?"

"Extremely." Balabar grinned. "I've captured three truly winning creatures in less than twenty-four hours. How many can you claim?"

Snatch spat to the side. "Thought we agreed that Larya was off-limits. You have a lot of nerve."

"Hey, this one," Balabar gestured to the beaming fox-girl, "was out to kill us. I did us a favor."

He didn't say anything about Larya. Part of Snatch wanted to push that issue. Part of Snatch knew he needed to push that issue. Part of Snatch understood that if he didn't push the issue now, it would send him down a path he might not like.

Snatch didn't push it.

"Anyways, I have bad news," Balabar said. "It sounds like our quarry has fled the forest."

Snatch froze. He looked up, eyes bulging. "The doppelganger is gone?"

"Afraid so." The hypnotist coughed. "We can give chase, but...well, it's back to square one."

"You've gotta be kidding me." Snatch buried his face in his hands. "You goddamn idiot; now we've gotta start all over! If we'd left before now—"

"Oh, please." Balabar rolled his eyes. "Don't blame me for this. You walk slower than a two-legged elephant. If anyone's at fault, it's—hey, where are you going?"

Snatch had risen to his feet. "I'm going for a walk, asshole." He moved through the camp briskly. As he went, Larya—presently occupied fingering Sinthia—looked up at him, blinking. Her eyes were glazed over with desire, face sticky with fey juices.

He did not dare meet her gaze.

~~~~

Mier sat alone in her cave, thinking bigger thoughts than she'd dared in years.

Currently, the shapeshifter's face was totally blank. Literally—aside from two enormous silver eyes, her face was as smooth as porcelain. She leaned back against the cave wall, staring into the dying embers.

Everything had gone so wrong so fast.

Baron Bisem had betrayed her. The proud, stupid man had decided she was too much for him and sold her to eight-legged flesh peddlers. The cruelties she'd faced for the several weeks spent as a slave of the stars had been nightmarish, but they paled before the realization she'd undergone the first day.

And she'd gone for revenge. Like a stupid idiot. She'd thought herself a grownup, a worldly traveler. But she wasn't any of those things. She was a stupid child. She'd fallen into the oldest failure a mortal woman could make, and now she'd sentenced yet more innocents to death.

Suisshu was going to die for her. Or, worse, get her mind split open and rewritten. Mier realized this. She'd realized it when the fox-girl had left. Even before then. And she hadn't said a word.

Mier had never hated herself so much in her life. Tears were not reflexive for doppelgangers, but she consciously shed them now. It felt good. It felt real than anything else she'd ever done. She buried her face in her hands, whimpering.

Suisshu was going to die for her. And she was too afraid—for herself, for the last speck of agency she had left—to do anything about it. She looked down at her belly—the wound from Bisem had been from her own knife, and she had deliberately poisoned the blade without bringing the antidote with her. She'd wanted to give him a slow death.

Well, she was reaping what she'd sown now. And maybe that would be alright if it was just her.

Through her fingers, she stared into the embers. Suisshu, the fox-girl who hungered for new things. The fox-girl who was so infatuated with a stranger she would put her life and mind on the line for her, would return to the business she hated most for her.

Mier lifted her face up, lowering her hands. There were no easy answers here. There was no right or wrong path that she could see.

She'd never been very good at that sort of thing, anyways.

She looked back at the slowly dying embers and decided to take the brighter path.

~~~~~~~~

TO BE CONCLUDED.

As always, feedback, votes and comments are hugely appreciated—and encourage faster updates. ;P