The Bird and the Bucket

The Lace look-alike showed no signs of recognition as she urgently began to probe at the younger girl with the middle and little fingers of both hands, starting at her neck and slowly making their way down to her upper stomach, at which point Abby let out a strangled scream.

With a sympathetic murmur and a knowing look in her eyes she knelt over the younger girl until her lips were within an inch of Abby's ear.

"Without proper treatment you will begin... Rotting from the inside, it is a painful way to go but I can make it stop, but first you have to explicitly give me permission to change your being, and you must mean it!" her voice was hesitant and catchy, as if she didn't think that any good would come out of any answer she gave.

Abby clutched at the straw of hope, and mustering all her strength she was able to get her vocal cords to obey her.

"I... Give you, permission to-AGH!-change my being!!" Her voice was strangled and tainted with pants and half buried screams, but clear.

As soon as the last word left her mouth the other lady cupped her right cheek in her left hand, forcing her to look into her dark eyes, dark eyes that seemed to go on forever... Abby soon lost herself within those eyes, the pain and the room fading into non-existence, her reverie only pierced by the oddly cold feeling of the woman's hand on her cheek, and the calm, steady sound of her voice.

"The pain is gone, you are calm, relaxed... My name is Delilah, you trust me and you will remain still until I say otherwise..."

What she said was true, Abby was indeed relaxed, too relaxed to move, she trusted this being that looked like Lace with all her heart, why wouldn't she?

These thoughts went sluggishly through her head as Delilah slowly shifted herself so she's sliding under the blanket, becoming little more than a feeling of cool, wet lips and velvety smooth cold fingers tracing down the bare flesh of her stomach, and then her thighs.

Abby wondered idly why she was naked, or what Delilah was doing, but it didn't matter much to her. She trusted her too much to question her methods, and besides, it felt good.

The last part of her argument would only strengthen as the cool lips brushed against the delicate lips of her flower, followed smoothly by a tongue that felt like melting ice and left a trail of cold saliva against her smooth flesh where it teased, and traced the puffed up mounds of her sex.

Abby was too relaxed to let out a moan, but the slowly leaking nectar of her pussy declared her arousal loud and clear, not that the other lady really needed such a sign for her tongue was already delving deep within the orange haired girls folds.

Delilah explored her depths with probing licks and curling flicks that left Abby moaning softly and her pussy squeezing around the still cold tongue, building up to a slow climax.

Icy fingers began to slide up the inner left thigh of Abby's leg, their touch sending small chills of pleasure that contrasted to the constant velvety pleasure provided by the tongue.

The slow progress to her climax would suddenly be broken when the raven haired girl tilts her head to the side, her tongue dragging up the silken depths of Abby's left wall before disappearing from touch, replaced instead by the feeling of plump lips and sharp teeth.

Normally having the edge of her pussy nibbled on caused small sparks of panic to stab through her, however due to the trust she had in her companion, the sensation simply sent small waves of pleasure through her, small waves that abruptly stopped when the contact was lost.

"Sorry, but a bite here would change you significantly... But don't worry, you'll only lose a little of the pleasure that may of come,' Delilah's voice was little more than a silken purr as she lets her lips graze against Abby's inner left thigh.

The words had little to no meaning to Abby, but she enjoyed the sound of her voice. It reminded her of Lace, and in her current state her heart warmed at the memory of her sister, cooling the ice that had coated her heart since the night she was abandoned.

Seconds after the words had left the other ones mouth she felt the sharp teeth of her companions teeth graze up her thigh, a pleasurable feeling that didn't come close to what came next.

Delilah made sure to bite exactly three inches down the girls' thigh, too much further and it would just be a bite, and any closer the girl risked 'infection'.

After judging the distance was correct she let her teeth slowly sink into the soft flesh, creasing it and finally cutting cleanly through it like the edges of tiny daggers, the small movement created two effects, one was to coax a stream of sweet, sanguine liquid to flow into her mouth and down her throat, the other was to inject a light stream of venom into the girls thigh from her incisors.

The mixed sensations of her blood flowing out and an icy substance flowing in caused Abby's muscles to lock up, knowing she isn't meant to move but unable to stop the reflexive motion as her pussy spasms and leaks a copious amount of thick, clear liquid onto the bed sheets.

Her orgasm would last four long minutes, in which the other lady would slowly emerge from under the blanket, her skin flushed, lips coated with a dark crimson and hair streaked with orange.

Abby's last sight before drifting into sleep would be a face that looks identical to her own, save for a more delicate visage and dark eyes.

Murderer, Thief, Saviour.

Abby woke up sluggishly; the sun was low and the light in the room pale and comforting.

The first thing she would notice would be a woman sitting cross legged next to her, her hands resting in her lap and her face tilted towards Abby.

She was dressed in a plain black dress that hid all save for her handsomely featured face, decorated with dark ebony eyes and fiery orange hair.

Abby blinked twice, meeting the persons stare before sitting up slowly, so as to imitate the others posture.

The only clear differences Abby saw was the richer colouring of her hair and the slightly more delicate features, but before she could say anything the other spoke in a voice eerily like her own.

"I am still Delilah, but unfortunately the act that saved you, did this. Now I'm sure you have questions, but one at a time please."

Abby slowly digested this, her usual impatience gone, her thoughts clearer. She thought of asking if this figure meant her harm, but figured if she did there was little she could do to stop her, and so settled on the next most pressing question.

"What are you?" She asked it politely, her eyes gleaming with intrigue.

"A vampire, one breed of many that are scattered across this plain," her answer was short, curt but not impolite.

Abby once again digested this for a few seconds, but her next question was a simple one and came out with no lack of politeness or intrigue.

"How does your breed differ than the breed well known to the masses?"

To this Delilah's lips quirked up into a small smile, her voice tainted with a tone of slight superiority.

"My breed is more in-tune to the life force than many, because of such we are able to operate during the day and our feeding habits leave a more... Intimate mark on our physical bodies."

Abby took a few minutes to filter through the questions she wished to ask, and the questions she must ask.

"You bit my sister, Lace. I wish to know why," the polite tone was gone from her voice, replaced instead by a slight barb as the icy pain clutched her heart anew.

"We were consorts," Delilah's answer was short and curt once again.

"Why did she forget about me afterwards?" Abby had tears in her eyes as she asked, but her voice remained firm.

Delilah took a minute to process this, her features impassive.

"I'm afraid that was me, your sister reacted... Badly to our last session, and has been missing ever since," Delilah's tone was truly apologetic by this point, despite how her features remained stony.

"Why did you let me get arrested, is Lace ok?" Abby could barely stop herself from screaming or crying at this point, but managed to keep most of the quiver out of her voice.

"Lace is ok; she will seek you out when she's ready to mingle with society... And rather simply, I had no idea who you were, other than being a pervert of course," the apologetic tone had left, replaced instead by one laced with humour.

"And the tapestry, the rugs, the courier?" Abby's voice had lowered, shock numbing the pain.

"Missing, burnt, buried," Delilah obviously wasn't eager to elaborate on this, her eyes closing as if fatigued.

"You killed him, and stole the tapestry. Why did you let me leave with it? Why did you want it?" Abby was close to tears again, barely resisting the urge to throttle her look-alike.

"I didn't realize you had it, and I wished to find a map that is hidden within it."

With this impassively said sentence she abruptly turned on the bed and began walking towards a door built of the same stone of the surrounding walls, it faded at the woman's approach and just before she walked out of the doorway she turned.

"You must leave by tonight, you are no longer to be executed but you still have a bounty on your head," and with that said she walked out.

Torment or madness?

What happened after the vampire left was a blur to Abby, she remembered crying for many hours and eventually falling asleep, but her current surroundings didn't attest to that fact.

She was curled up into a small ball near a stone well, lying down on a small well-trodden dirt path that was surrounded by well-maintained pale green grass.

She was draped in a long red tunic that was stained with dirt and an odd crimson substance near the collar and along the legs.

She stood up slowly on wobbly legs, her head was pounding and the tunic kept threatening to slip off her small shoulders, forcing her to keep her left hand clasped around the collar of the tunic as she stumbled away from the well, the warning of having a bounty long since forgotten.

She stumbled down wide cobbled streets, past large yellow buildings, smaller grey ones and finally into a densely packed market street, complete with wooden market stands and the occasional stone building that marked either a brothel or a tavern.

She almost vomited at the smell of so many close packed bodies, and in turn the bodies seemed to move out of her way, their owners eager to get away from the small girl that swayed drunkenly and smelt like blood and vomit.

Continuing with her unsteady gait for close to an hour she heard many snippets of conversation about guards murdered and an escaped convict, she payed these little mind however, simply following a little voice in her head that urged her down many different streets, and finally stopped in front of what appeared to be a bathhouse.

She had no idea what to do from this point and her head was throbbing loud enough to force her to her knees now that she had no purpose, her hands falling limply by her sides as she sobbed silently, tears cascading down her cheeks to land on the red tunic.

She wasn't there long before the feeling of a familiar hand dropped onto her right shoulder, coaxing her into looking up at a well-washed and clean shaven version of Leon.

The sight of the man she saw dead less than two days ago made her eyes go wide, forcing her to try and stumble backwards, tripping over the long tunic as she let out a loud, high pitched scream and abruptly passed out... Yet again.

When she awoke it was on her stomach in a dimly lit cell block, but unlike the previous one the bars were only the gate, and her room was furnished with a small stone bed draped with thin blankets, a hole in the ground that she assumed was the toilet and, a bucket of green laced water that smelt putrescent.

Her initial reaction to all this was to push herself onto her hands and knees, the act revealing she had on a virgin white gown that fit perfectly and felt like silk, her initial joy at this turned to confusion when compared to her cell, and suspicion as she crawled to the bars, peering out at what appeared to be imitations of her own cell.

The inhabitants of the other cells were lanky and unwashed, gender was determined by if they had a beard or not decorating their hollowed out faces and skeletal frames.

The sight of them intrigued her until the man opposite her charged the bars, causing a loud wet crunching noise to be audible where his skull smashed into the unyielding metal.

He seemed not to care about this development in the least; instead he thrust his left hand out to point at Abby, his eyes gleaming with manic glee.

"IT IS HER!! THE WRAITH OF THE ILL-BEGOTTEN QUEEN HAS COME BACK TO THROW THE KINGDOM INTO CHAOS ONCE AGAIN!" His voice was as manic as his facial and echoed along the once silent corridor.

His screaming was met by much jeering and applauding, that is until a steady stream of blood leaked from his cracked skull, down the steel bar and into his line of vision.

At this he jumped back, going ghostly white and pointing at the bar as if it was the embodiment of his darkest fears.

"THE METAL IS ALIVE!! It bleeds as would a man!" His voice was lost to Abby after this as he turns to scribble odd runes into the walls of his cell.

She leaves him to his ramblings and chooses to sit cross legged in front of her cell, awaiting a guard of some sorts to help her.

Her wait doesn't last long, within the hour an elderly man begins walking down the corridor, he's draped in a grey robe and is decorated by a long, black beard, bald head, wrinkled sunken features and a hump on his back that forces him to bend over a small wooden cane for support.

He stops by Abby's cage and stares down at her, his eyes milky but filled with intelligence.

"You are not going to try and attack me from the cells?" His voice was clear and unperturbed by age.

In response Abby simply shakes her head, distinct confusion clouding her features.

"Do you know why you are here?" His tone had gained a condescending element, yet remained kindly.

To this she once again shook her head, thinking it was easier than trying to talk through the lump growing in her throat.

The old man shook his head slowly and took a deep breath before beginning his speech.

"You are here because you assaulted and killed three guardsmen before escaping into the night, you were then found a month later by an off duty guard outside a bathhouse wearing one of the deceased guards uniforms. Do you remember this?"

Abby's eyes grew wide as she thought over the implications, the more she thought the less she was unable to resist the urge to scream until finally she lunged at the cages, her hands gripping the cold steel and tears streaming down her face.

"It wasn't me! The vampire did it! She killed them all, and burnt down the metal door and took me with her! Leon was dead, I saw it!" The rest of her story was drowned in sobs as she collapsed onto her knees with her head resting against the bars.

This outburst triggered little more than a sympathetic shake of the old man's head.

"Leon is quite alive, my dear. As is everyone else other than the three you assaulted, now don't worry Leon made it perfectly clear what happened previously, a month of being raped daily would drive many of us to do those acts, and in an act of kindness His Grace has spared you from execution"

To this Abby simply whimpered, and looked back up at the man with a tear streaked face.

"But they stopped after Leon... And then she... I remember it all; she looked like my sister and she killed them all..."

The old man once again shook his head sadly.

"You never had a sister, let alone a vampiric one. You were abandoned on the steps of the Imperial church and were raised by the priestesses, after which you escaped into the farmlands surrounding the city, killed a courier and well... I've told you the rest."

Abby shook her head rapidly, her hair flinging against the bars as she did so, unable to let out any vocal protests over her heavy sobbing.

The old man would eventually leave and she would eventually fall asleep. Only to be awoken with a yelp by a bucket of icy water thrown over her head by a passing guard.

She was about to question him when she saw the process repeated by another guard to the man in the cell across from hers, she assumed this was what accounted for hygiene here and didn't protest.

She occupied her time by lying back on the cold ground and counting cracks in the roof above her, when she grew bored of that she began exercising, doing small laps of her cell intermingled with sit-ups, squats, push-ups and any other type of exercise she could think of.

Her first meal arrived a few hours later and consisted of green slop and a mouldy piece of bread in a bowl which she ate gingerly.

She fell asleep later on the bed and awoke covered in small itchy lumps from where bugs had transferred from the blanket and onto her, she scratched at these furiously but found little release.

The next day, long after her meal she tried to drink some of the water, the result giving her violent diarrhoea for the next few days, which resulted in her drinking more of the disgusting water and so on.

In between her stomach aches she continued to exercise, seeking the pain as release.

She fell asleep at random intervals, and was never asleep long before an icy bucket of water was thrown on her.

This continued for four weeks, in which she had gained considerable muscle tone, her hair had grown longer and her stomach constantly felt weak. That coupled with the numerous itchy bites and burning rashes lacerating her and the fact her only hygiene came from the icy cold buckets thrown at her once she had fallen asleep led her facials to become haggard and drawn out.

Her white robes were soaked with sweat, dirt and blood, her cell smelt like faecal matter and her teeth constantly ached.

At the end of the four weeks she felt ravenous, and her mind constantly itched, causing her to have random violent outbursts which led to more than one broken knuckle.

But this day isn't worth mentioning because of that, the reason it's singled out is because the monotony broke, although it broke in an unpleasant way.

Led by an excessively tall and muscled guard with broad features, deep set brown eyes and similarly coloured hair was a group of five men.

Each one was dressed in a uniform dark green, their features blurred under white veils.

They each held a long stick in which they used to poke at passive in-mates until they lunged at the bars or until the guard stopped them.

When they stopped at Abby's cell she instantly jumped to the end of the cells, desperately crying out for food or help, rambling about the vampire, her sister and the dead guards.

This provoked little more than laughing and a cautious step back from her cell before walking off when it grew boring.

This, like everything else eventually became a part of the daily ritual, reducing her to doing little more than sleep when there wasn't food, her stomach wasn't rejecting food or when she wasn't being stabbed or water thrown on her.

Saviour from Madness, or Madness: the saviour?

This had gone on for well over six months before something new happened, and as with everything else new, this was unexpected.

It was a bird, sitting on the water bucket in her cell.

And not just any bird, but a familiar bird, coloured with brown and black spots, long black tail feathers and elongated talons that dug into the wood of the bucket.

It stared at her with bright yellow eyes, its beak dripping with a scarlet liquid, and for her part she stared back at it with mild confusion from where she sat squatting on her stone bed.

They simply stared at each other until the bird broke the silence, in a way most unusual for a bird, it spoke, in a lilting, feminine accent that carried an air of authority.