The Light Within Ch. 02

"But she begs for it,"Shadow sounded transfixed and I felt his soft, fat tendril slide over my asshole again."I can feel her oozing arousal from here!"

"That is why she is so sweet,"said Perikos traced a tendril barely smaller than my hand over my lips."That's right, Jayn, open your mouth and let me silence you. I said I will not punish you, as punishment among my kind is a harsh affair and I doubt you would survive. But physical discomfort and embarrassment are something of a punishment on their own, are they not? You may bite as hard as you need to and if you let go of your pretensions to control, perhaps my Second and I will reward you when you have learned some humility."

My heart was pounding so hard I could feel it in my throat. Perikos dipped into the slick pool at my pussy and bathed himself in it. He avoided my clit, slowing his movement whenever he got close. I moaned into the tentacle in my mouth and then nearly swallowed my tongue when I felt Perikos squirm into my ass. He stayed very still inside me a moment before swelling lengthwise. Outside my body he laid perfectly still along the crack on my ass, down between my legs and over the curve of my spine where he held on tight to my hair and kept me from moving. Inside me he vibrated, squirmed, wiggled and burrowed. It was obscenely serpentine. At once it hurt enough to tear me apart and felt painfully shallow. It felt wrong, intrusive, disgusting and gloriously full all at once. I was absorbed in the strangeness I didn't hear what Perikos whispered to Shadow.

I felt Shadow come down hard on my ass, so hard it shook my body and everything inside it. Before I could think to shift my hips Shadow spanked me again, this time landing directly on top of Perikos, who allowed Shadow to push him deeper inside me. I screamed into the tentacle in my mouth, though the next spank was so loud I could barely hear my own scream. Then there was another. And another. How many times had Shadow hit me? More than ten? More than twenty? Perikos withdrew almost entirely, until just his tip was still inside. I felt its tip broaden, stretching me while I howled into my gag. Shadow's blows didn't slow as more landed at the tops of my thighs now an impressive red heat was rising off the rest of my ass. I felt Perikos try to withdraw entirely but the wide blunt tip of the tendril stopped him before I could, like a plug, and I shrieked into my gag, my tears falling hot and heavy into the cool, deepening water around me. Shadow's blow landed squarely on the tendril and Perikos was pushed back inside me painfully. I felt Shadow coil around my waist, his hold surprisingly strong. He flipped me over easily. Perikos took his cue and let go of my hair and instead propped my head so that my eyes were only just above the surface of the water.

Shadow folded my legs crosswise against my stomach so my ass was still exposed. I felt water splash on my thighs and tummy from the force of him hitting my ass. Another tentacle began to slap my breasts and instead of screaming I tried to focus on the feeling, however uncomfortable, of Perikos lodged in my ass.

"That's right, Jaynling, let go. Perhaps if you are very good I will keep it in there just as it is. Would you like that? To be led around on a lead extending from that hole, wedged and plugged so tight it will only come out if I wish it to? I could keep you close, I could grow so wide and heavy I could nearly hobble you. You could only move if I wished it. What do you think?"

I opened my eyes again when I felt Shadow slap my breast again. Had he been doing that the whole time? Judging by the way I ached, I supposed he had. I took a deep breath and tried to relax as the water got deeper and my skin got sorer and then I saw the red light in the sky.

"Stop! STOP!" I shrieked into Perikos' tentacle.

"Ah, Little Shade, just when you were beginning to learn to cooperate - "Perikos twisted the tentacle in my ass and I shrieked into my gag again.

The red light was moving fast, getting bigger. Shit, I was being so overwhelmed I couldn't think straight. They couldn't see it, couldn't hear it and they weren't listening to me either.

I tried to block out every other thought, from the aches to the throbbing arousal, to my broken wrist, to the cold water beginning to lap over my eyes. "Kragosi ship!" I whispered into Perikos' tendril, trying to focus on remembering on the sound it makes when it gets close enough to hear. Much too close.

There was less than a half second when the red light above us blurred and seemed to swell as the light refracted off the water in my eyes. Something, maybe just the feeling in the air, changed absolutely. Before my body could register the movement, Perikos was holding me out of the water and Shadow was right behind me.

"The sea!"Shadow hissed though I felt an edge of hesitation follow from him and Perikos. My eyes flickered up towards the ship above us. They were close enough I could see their port windows and judging by the way they slowed as they approached, I bet they could see us too.

Perikos' blackness clamped over my nose and mouth again as he submerged us. I took my first gasp of air through his tendrils when Shadow wrapped a thin tendril around my right wrist but I didn't have time to appreciate the sentiment.

"Deeper! We are too shallow, weapons will reach us at these depths!"he said, though there was no point in telling me. Perikos seemed to almost dance through the blackness, which was even more disorienting than usual since I couldn't breathe for myself, or swim with a broken wrist, or even make out anything at this depth. Maybe I was caught up in the flight, but for a moment I panicked, twisting and reaching out my hands and feet for Perikos.

"Stay calm. Breathe normally, Jayn. I'm right here. I'm holding you."I felt Shadow squeeze my left hand.But where are you getting the air from?I wondered. I felt myself begin to shiver from the cold and fright. No answer. What if they shot light at the surface?

"Deeper," Shadow's song would be been incomprehensible if he weren't holding my hand.

My retinas seemed to explode as the surface blossomed with light. It wasn't even bright where we were but now I could make out the dim outline of Shadow beside me.

"Perikos!" I screamed into the blackness that covered my nose and mouth.

"Jayn, be calm. We're going deeper so it will not hurt us even if they choose to stay there and attempt to root us out."

My words were stunted, unformed garbles but Perikos and Shadow seemed to understand me all right. "What about the air -?"

I didn't have time to complete my thought before Perikos' tones filled my head."I can pull air from the water around us for a time, which should be sufficient if you can remain calm."

I took long, steady, measured breaths and vowed that I wouldn't be responsible for any more deaths. I couldn't stop shivering from the cold but didn't that lower your heart rate and breathing? Wasn't that a good thing?

We waited, perfectly still, for the better part of ten minutes. The light was still trained on the surface but down here it was so dim I could barely make out the blurry edges of Shadow's form.

"Your body temperature is too low, Little Shade,"Perikos told me after another couple of minutes. I'll get right on that, I thought, saying nothing as my teeth chattered loudly. Shadow let go of my hand and pressed what might have been the whole of his body against my front, squishing me between him and Perikos.

"Good," Perikos whispered to us. "Jayn's body temperature is rising. Without depleting myself, I anticipate I can pull air from the water for another seventy minutes provided we do not move vigerously."

I took another long, slow breath and just I was about to exhale I saw something like a vast pendulum plunge down into the water from source of the light. I narrowed my eyes to try to see it properly though the water but Perikos was suddenly moving swiftly through the water.

"What happened to not moving vigorously?" I mumbled into his tendrils.

"That disturbance in the water was a Light or I am a fool!" Shadow held me head so I was leaning it against Perikos. No comment on the fool thing. Besides, I was pretty sure he was right.

"I believe we are deep enough, Leader. Perhaps we should go west along the coast a while or else..."

I could feel something complicated pass between them. The smell something rotting like it had washed up on the beach, while overlaid I could hear a hollow, ghostly tune wail softly in the back of my mind. Next was something more abstract...more the idea of cold and a vacuum than the physical sensation of being pulled and sucked and trapped. There were other layers too rich to deconstruct quickly. The only thing I could be sure, besides the fact that I wasn't meant to have heard it, was that it was bad.

"Perhaps if we both move south?"Shadow said. He sounded smaller, softer than usual. Less arrogant.

They both wrapped their mass around me and I felt us lurch to the side for a moment before continuing straight ahead. Finally the ideas exchanged between them earlier clicked and clunked into place.

"Are we caught in some kind of undertow?" I mumbled into Perikos. Neither of them said anything. Great. I escaped Kragosa, Rebels, Loyalists, and mercs, all to die in a water current. Shouldn't Perikos and Shadow have been able to escape this? Couldn't they alter their mass or something? I took another deep breath and tried not to freak out again. "Tell me the likelihood that all three of us live through this."

I could feel it now, a curiously strange pull downwards. I would have noticed ages ago if I wasn't being held, if they hadn't seemed so in control. The water here was so cold.

"Second? Please go, head for the surface and see if there's anything we can try to utilize..."Perikos' tones were empty but steady.

"We are now half a kilometer beneath the surface! What could I possibly utilize?"Shadow felt furious suddenly.

"Do not question me, Second. Go as I have asked."Shit, this was starting to sound serious.

"And how do you expect me to carry out your work? I will stay with her and you can – "

"Wait, is it because of me that you can't get away? I'm too slow, too heavy against the undertow. Perikos will die because of me?"

"Not if he leaves now. I will stay with you,"Shadow said, which was at once touching and absolutely morbid and terrifying.

"Yes, I agree," I heard myself whisper before I could try to talk myself out of it. No sense in three of us dying.

"No," Perikos' tone was soft, empty like before.

"Yes, yes. You alone understand how necessary this mission is to us,"at first I thought Shadow was talking to Perikos and then I realized he was talking directly to me. "You know he must live at all costs. You are prepared and so am I."His song was a little shrill and a touch fanatical but he was right. I understood what had to be done.

"No!" Perikos' melody was literally sharp enough to cut a clean, brutal line through my certainty. I didn't want to leave him. I felt sick to my stomach and my eardrums felt like they would burst any second. "I will not leave Jayn again."

"That's suicide," I mumbled into him. It really was awfully cold. I couldn't feel my fingers, wrists or elbows anymore.

"No, it was a promise,"Perikos whispered. He stroked my head and pulled me tightly against him as though he thought Shadow might get funny ideas otherwise."I promised to protect you. I have failed again but we are not dead yet. I will stay with you until this is over, one way or the other."

I didn't have the energy to feel remorseful. To be unselfish, to stand outside myself enough to know that in my right mind I wouldn't want this. He was supposed to live. I felt oddly giddy, like a huge burden was lifted off my shoulders. I wouldn't die alone after all. If I was going to die now, my last thoughts would be grateful ones.

"Please, Leader,"Shadow said, but it felt numb. I knew he was asking Perikos to abandon me and leave me to drown and normally I would have agreed with him but I felt my heart lighten when he relented.

"Second, go now, just for a moment to catch your breath. You are not as young as I am and you tire more easily. If you truly wish to stay with us you will need your strength. Go now so you can return quickly."

I don't know what I expected but it wasn't for Shadow to let go of my hand, to coil into the barest sliver of himself and rush for the surface. Perikos correctly interpreted my surprise.

"Please don't think too harshly of him, Little Shade. Under normal circumstances he would have caught the lie. He would have realized he wouldn't be able to find us again, but we need oxygen just as you do and he wasn't able to pull enough from the water. He will look for us, but I couldn't risk him needlessly."

I nodded. That made sense but I couldn't help thinking that if Perikos had left and Shadow had stayed with me I'm sure I could have relied on him to make it quick. He wouldn't have waited until we ran out of air or until the pressure crushed me or hypothermia set in; he probably would have snapped my neck cleanly and headed for the surface. Not a happy thought but it had some dignity to it. I wouldn't have blamed him.

The water was even colder and I felt like someone had taken a red hot pin to my eardrums. I tried not to scream but the pain was unbearable.

"Little Shade," I could just hear Perikos over my heaving sobs. "To save you suffering and both of our air, I'm going to temporarily flood your lungs with enough nitrogen to make you sleep. I will keep oxygen in your system after that."Hmm. That really wasn't that different than what Shadow would do.

"I've got you, Jayn. Don't be afraid, I'm not going to let go."