Theo and Sandra

My door cracks open just after sunset, and for several moments I just breathe in his scent, feral and hungry.

I feel him climb onto the bed and cradle my body, streaked with sweat.

"Where do you want me to start?"

I don't have to think. "Everywhere."

I open my lines to him, and I surrender.

...

I wake up on top of a thoroughly-shredded comforter, my body sore. And tense.

The room can be refurnished; we can replace the slats of the bed frame. I'm just glad the intricate headboard I bought when I first got here is still intact.

I hesitate when I go to slide off of the bed. We're still connected, and I can feel him here. But he's not.

"Theo?" I call out, sitting in a wrecked bedroom filled with afternoon sunlight.

He appears. And he's breathtaking. Thick, strong legs, scuffed black hooves. The trunk and arms of the man I love, the same round face, but with a thin, sandy beard trailing to his chest. And the horns. Rolling backwards and tips neatly curved below the lobes of his ears, rising strong and brown out of his forehead. The color his eyes used to be.

I remember clutching them, running my fingers around the hard swirling length of them as I directed him over my body.

"Hey, gorgeous," Theo smiles. I quiver on the bed, and our lines sing.

That's why we're still connected. I can feel it now, as his hooves clop over the already scratched wood. Several of our threads are fused, thick and vibrant against the rest.

His smile grows bigger at the look on my face. "It's okay. I know you like what you see."

He bends over onto the mattress and offers his face to mine, and I press a kiss onto his lips. "Where'd you go?"

He mumbles against my mouth before breaking away. "I was here, just resting more... comfortably. In a place I found."

I pull away, and he pulls me back to him. "Theo? You came out of a rip in the air. You were-"

"In a different place, just a layer or two away," he finishes, easing his body over mine. "It's fine, it was safe. I wanna take you there next time."

I yank myself away from him and off the bed. "Baby that weakens the divide between dimensions, you can't do that."

He's sitting quietly in the middle of the bed, over where he had laid my body down. Looking dangerous. My stomach clenches, and I fight to stay where I am. I should be under him.

"I did it, and everything's fine. Come here." His horns and the sleek, thick fur on his legs shine in the sunlight. Everything on him is reflecting the light of the sun except for the black depths of his eyes. But they draw me in too.

"The fucking... god damn it. Baby, just hold on, I need a minute." And I need to find my phone. I wonder if he called my mother before he... we completely lost it.

"Sandra, no."

I turn back to him at the commanding tone in his voice, pissed. And I falter. He drags me back onto the bed.

"I know you like me like this. I can feel it." He presses kisses onto my chest and collarbones, and for the first time I notice faint scratches and bite marks across my skin. Feeble lines criss-crossing on his back and disappearing into the fur on his hips, too, as he rises above me. The sight drags me even deeper under the spell.

"Tell me I'm a whore," I whisper into the sunny, still air. He grins against the sheets.

"My whore." His dick meets my open mouth, and I breathe in the warm, musky odor clinging to his fur. When he hits the back of my throat, he eases himself back out and leans my head over the side of the mattress, stuffing himself back down to feel my cheeks and lips constrict and gag around him. I'm drooling down my face by the time he pulls out again, on the brink of coming.

"I wanted to taste it."

"You can help me clean up after. I want to breed my whore."

I tremble as he arranges me to his liking, ass snug against his hips and his hand secure around the back of my neck. He sinks into me, lovingly, and even though I'm tender at every point of contact, I croon underneath his weight.

"Yes," he sighs, winding and braiding our lines together. Like he's weaving at a loom. It's so very, very...

Wrong.

"We're in so much fucking trouble," I pant, closing my eyes with his sudden acceleration.

"It doesn't matter." He's allowed me to lift my face up off the bed to take the assault of his thrusts on all fours, but either way, nothing is under my control. The last few moments have me shredding sprouting claws through the sheets, and I realize it was me that ripped the comforter apart. Theo gently lowers his mouth to my ear.

"Come for me, Sandra. My dirty little slut. You're already covered in my cum; you're saturated with it. I'm just stuffing you full one more time to show you how much of a whore you are for me. Filthy little bitch. I love seeing you bred and leaking cum. You gonna come for me and show me again?"

The lilting voice that I know so well pushes me over, and he topples our bodies to cradle me tight as his hips slam against mine, each thrust pushing more cum up into my warping pussy. He drags his dick out of me, and I savor the feeling of my pulsing, used hole and his hands wandering idly over me. I can't regret it.

...

My mother arrives a few days later. By then, I've called her about fifteen times. Theo doesn't turn back, but his eyes sometimes do, for several hours at a time. He frantically tries to repair things before bending me over them again. It's whiplash. When she walks through the door, most everything is cleaned up, back to normal.

Except for the goblins chasing my chickens around the yard. The slight haze of magic swirling in the air. And the seven-foot tall satyr agitatedly stalking around and through my home.

"Now, this is a situation," she giggles, as she steps into the room, unafraid of the black-eyed beast sulking at the dining room table in a loose shirt and shorts I made from the sturdiest fabric I had on deck.

"Ma, you said we'd lose our minds, not that we'd start turning into cryptids."

She sits at the table, and a few wafts of magic rush forth to greet her, running under her palms.

"So you were okay with losing your minds, then?" she inquires, holding a ball of amassed magic in her lap.

"Wasn't on purpose," Theo says, hunching uncomfortably in his chair with swirling brown and black eyes. I guess both of him are fighting to say something to her.

"Well, I patched up about six or seven leaks on the way over here, so you've been enjoying yourself well enough," she says mischievously.

"Ma, can you just... please help. We can't do this for much longer." I feel Theo's eyes on me and reach for his hand, but he pulls away. I look towards him, but my mother stands, drawing in a deep breath.

"Alright, kiddies. Let's do it."

"Do what?" Theo asks, standing.

"Fight."

Theo and I stare, dull and shocked for a long moment, while my mother removes her earrings and begins coaxing her hair into a barely-contained ponytail.

"Ma... why would we-"

"Him," she says, stretching and winding one arm in a limbering circle, pointing the finger of the other at Theo. He stares dumbly at her still. "Not you, dear. Him," she says, pointing at his chest again.

I follow her outside, and Theo follows me. "I'm not fighting your mother."

I stare into deep brown eyes. "You're not," I say, beginning to understand. I place my hand on his chest, and black overtakes them. "You are."

My mother stands across the yard, laughing at the enthusiastic rushes of magic milling about her like eager chicks. Theo steps in front of me, and I'm confused by the desire to cheer him on and see him lose. I want my man back.

"Ready?" my mother smiles, the calmest I've ever seen her. I think that's how I know it's serious.

Theo nods, towering over me. An ugly rip in the air opens next to us, and he pulls me through.

...

Once I finish vomiting into the grass, I straighten back up, back against the rough bark of a tree the size of a mountain.

"I'm sorry, Sandra," Theo grovels, hand on my shoulder as I breathe through remnants of nausea. The summer air flutters around me. But this isn't summer. I doubt whatever dimension he pulled me into ever changes seasons. Every breath I take is swimming with magic.

"Coward."

"What?" he asks, sitting up to look at me.

I stare into swirling eyes. "You look so magnificent and so strong, but you ran away from a fair fight. The only person you've ever gone up against is me. Knowing full well that I'd whoop your ass. So maybe not a coward. Maybe just stupid."

He looks strangled. He reaches for me, and I shrink away, for the first time. I feel my body pulling back towards him, the lines that connect us winding taut and strained.

"Sandra."

"No, Theo. Take us back."

His face sets. I know he can feel the truth and the lie in my words, but I know how hurt he is all the same. Another ragged tear appears next to him, and I step into his arms.

I dry-heave against his chest, knowing only the rustle of leaves for a couple precious seconds. And then the rush of screeching cars and thudding feet. Shit.

"Theo?"

His beard brushes over my head. "She wouldn't fight out in public. We can hide here until she leaves."

I stare at him. "Theo, she absolutely wou-"

We're blasted apart. The trees above us bow away, some of their trunks at ninety degree angles. Shrieks of magic flatten the bushes at the edge of the little forested area we're in, and now the general human commotion consists of running and shrieking. I hear snapping and growling, and the clatter of claws on the street.

I shift into my fox and press close to the ground. Theo's on his feet in the middle of the blast site, torn between looking for where I landed and keeping an eye on my mother hovering in front of him.

"What did you do?!" he cries, as her feet alight onto soft, brown leaves.

She looks towards me, and wiggles her fingers in greeting. "She must've told you the dangers of traveling like that. Probably when she first saw you do it. But I doubt you'd remember or care, seeing the week you both just had. Are you trying for more kits, Sandra?"

I can't see Theo's face as he lunges for my mother, and I don't want to. She rises into the air, letting his momentum carry him stumbling onto the open street. I dash after him, and my mother drifts after me, humming.

The few people I can see are swatting away stout, short creatures with matted sphagnum moss wrapped around their gray bodies. I hear screams at the sighting of Theo crumpled in the road, and total silence as he rises to his full height. The goblins start breaking the glass of the storefronts, waddling in and dragging out anything edible.

"Just come here and let me help, Theodore. I don't want to be unwelcome in another town, especially the one my only daughter lives in."

"Stay away," he says, in a gravelly, rough voice. This is the first time fear rolls through me. Because that isn't either of him.

My mother knows, too. She takes a measure of wind from the air and uses it to punch whatever it is in the face, and I wince at the sound it makes.

I begin to sprint after them when I'm snatched back by my tail, yelping.

I whip my body around to see one of the little lumpy creatures attempting to carry me away, just like they did my chickens. I deliberate what to do with a growl, but at the sound of further blasts and a shrieking bleat, I snap at the goblin's forearm, which it snatches back. The others that were approaching scatter back to the storefronts, content to raid inanimate sources of food, and the one that grabbed me squeals, a tiny stream of blood rolling down its stubby wrist. I feel bad only for a moment, streaking after my brawling family.

"What's that in you?" my mother asks, terribly curious. She's hovering parallel over Theo's prone body, before he swings an arm out to punt her to the side. The wind thickens around her to cushion the blow and she somersaults over the waves, returning to her spot with a little snicker. "That's not you or you, Theo. One of your relatives trying to live it up in there?"

"Get the hell AWAY FROM ME!" the furry mass shouts, standing again, spittle flying. My mother summons a wind to direct it away from her face with a subtle flick of her hand, and she swirls, fascinated, around the irate satyr.

He strikes out again with little warning, and this time my mother takes most of the force, tumbling through the air. He follows after her, and I race towards them, trying to see his face.

He charges but his body glances off a solid shield of air, and he thuds to the ground. She's crouching, thinking. She looks down at me as I arrive.

"Baby girl, did your boyfriend ever say anything about the rest of his family tree? Powerful satyrs on Mina's side?"

Well, not on her side. I start to shift and she immobilizes me with a compact wind, standing. "Not here, Sandra, a simple yes or no would do! Wouldn't surprise me anyway. She was a pretty nasty bitch, she'd fuck anybody. But I'll take care of it."

Theo, or the satyr, charges again, completely enraged. He swipes for me this time, the fingers familiar to me, the urgency completely foreign. My mother retracts her winds, but he's got me by the scruff. Similar to how this adventure all started.

"Change," he urges, frustration leaking along the lines that I'd been able to ignore through pure adrenaline. I feel my body beginning to grow heavy.

A solid blast, hitting him square in the stomach, and we're thrown back, airborn for a few seconds. He doesn't let me go until his body hits the ground, and I shake myself after I've retreated a safe distance from him. I look back to where we started, and several trees are blown through, splinters and lime green leaves littering the pavement. My mother will probably feel bad about them later.

"Okay," she huffs as she drifts over to us. She picks me up and I refrain from squirming as she looks me over. "I suppose I could've gotten here before all this started, huh sweetheart? That woman's been dead so long that I forgot how it felt to fight her."

That's Mina Ytho?

Of course it is.

A crowd isn't exactly forming, but I see faces peering out from the sides of the street. I hear the satyr's breathing change before I see it rise. "You're fucking irritating, ☋⬺⥁ꃼ."

My mother's face isn't smiling now. A clean line appears behind her, scalpel-straight. Any and all magical creatures that were cruising around town start tumbling back, dragged towards their own dimension like waterlogged crumbs going down a drain. Many of them holding loaves of bread, one holding a cat that wriggles away and hisses before streaking off into nearby bushes.

"What, are you sending me back? To where? Certainly not the grave," the voice croons from Theo's body. He's heavily bruised. I feel a sharper fear than before.

My mother smiles a bright, blinding smile. "Your parents."

And then the last three magical creatures in town are dragged into the dimension. My mother, Theo, and I.

...

We're in front of a cabin, I observe when I stop retching.

A gigantic, nice-looking cabin, but still. And it's in the middle of nowhere. The hobble of creatures we brought back with us are nowhere to be seen either.

My mother looks around, impressed. "Who'd've thought you were Fae, Mina? And here I thought you were a scourge set upon the earth by entropic forces."

She chuckles, and the Satyr sits up, groaning. Theo's body has got to be hurting. I lift a paw from the ground and he glances at me, scornful, as I consider creeping over to comfort him. But he's not the only one in there. His obsidian eyes return to the ground, and I feel foreign threads cautiously examining the fusion of our lines. I can't even snatch them away.

The doors to the house creak open, and a man strides through. With skin dark as a plum's, harvest green wings, pointed ears, and a pretty, heavily pregnant lady behind him. What I can see of her looks pretty, at least, dewy with sweat and head shorn almost to the scalp. And human.

"Who are you?" the man demands, half-pushing the woman back into the house. My mother sucks her teeth.

"Your daughter's nemesis. At least she thinks so, she keeps trying to come back from the dead to fight."

"I'm not dead, you sloppy bitch!" the gravelly voice interjects. The man and woman look to the wholly male satyr slumped on the ground.

"Well let's see if you're right," my mother says, finally exasperated. She summons a crackling handful of magic that the man and woman step back at, and blows it with a gentle breath towards the satyr.

It lands on the body and pops like a bubble. The screaming is almost unbearable. When it's over, I'm trembling, naked and human on the ground, and my mother is kneeling in front of Theo. Still a satyr, but unconscious. She rises up, and there's... a baby.

She looks pleasantly surprised. "I guess she wasn't dead," she intones. She turns to the couple, but the man's face is completely closed off to the squirming child, even as he holds his frantic wife back. She snatches her arms from his grasp and runs into the house behind her, and I realize then what's happening. These are Mina's parents. That woman may be pregnant now, but it has to be her second. Her version of this baby... is she in there?

She must be, because the woman comes tripping back out a few moments later. He catches a hand around her waist without looking.

"Aram, Mina's... it's her. She's in there, but that right there is her!" He only pulls her closer.

My mother looks agitated. "Look, I just threw an origin spell at her, once to bring her back where she came from, and once more just now to pull her out of my daughter's boyfriend." She looks down at him. "He didn't look like that before, it's just been a rough couple of weeks. But this is your kid."

"Ma, I don't think they want twins." The couple looks at me anew, and I expel a bit of magic, clumsy and unused, to thread the long, windblown grasses around me into a rough covering.

My mother shrugs and tucks the baby into her arm. "Listen, I already raised mine, and I'm not doing it again. Take your kid."

The woman pushes past the man, finally, and although he stares daggers at her, she stands tall. "Won't she already have memories of this event and her past life? And what's to stop her from becoming..." she stares at Theo, still keeled over on the ground. I stumble to his side, and determine that he's only absolutely knocked out.

"A warlord?" my mother finishes. I want to drop my face into my hands. She's not helping the situation at all.

"A wa- how?" the woman asks worriedly. "How do we stop this?"

"It's time for you all to leave," the man interjects, wings rustling and settling behind him as he drags his wife back behind him and into the corridor of the wooden house. I wonder what it's like to drag those around all day.

"I should've just killed her," my mother mumbles, before glowing jagged splinters start flying from out of nowhere to surround us, suspended and threatening in midair.

The baby starts fussing. Theo groans. My mother rolls her eyes.

The portal behind her reopens, and she gestures me through. "Change back, first, sweetheart. We're going back through town, and I'd rather they think I had a familiar than a daughter."

"They already know you have a daughter. I've been living there for over a year, Ma."

"And you told them your real name? I'm starting to think you really do just like trouble."

The wooden daggers begin to close in, and my mother sends them fidgeting to the ground with an irritated growl.

"Do you mind? I'm over here solving your problem. And this is your family, you know." She points out the banged-up satyr on the ground to the furious wood fae and his wife. "Your great-great-grandson, possessed by his own grandmother. I wonder what happened for her to be such a menace," she says sarcastically.