Toofy Ch. 18

Toofy wasn't sure why she'd expected that Mia's invite would only go out to salamanders and not all of the dragonkinds, but she was sure that she didn't even know all the kinds that had turned up.

The creatures, naturally, had split up and brawled until there were a half-dozen challengers for her dragongirl when she returned.

Toofy frowned. She wasn't sure if Meerakeilian was still a dragongirl. Was she in the middle of transitioning into a dragonboy? Were the tits a temporary thing, now?

Dragonboys were just as capable of laying an egg as the girls. The sex organs were sort of... Incidental, to the point of fertility. Dragonkind used sex to either dominate, or be dominated. That was their only purpose.

Toofy was still quite frightened of Mia.

The lizard might be in love with her, or as close as dragonkind got to love, but even if the cat was willing, the new organ of Mia's was... It would hurt, just to fit it.

She knew that she would need to be on her guard around the salamander. That Mia would find it difficult to know when Toofy was coming on to her, or not.

The obsession to make an egg together wouldn't be an easy one to ignore.

Especially as Toofy was currently caught up in a confrontation with one of the would-be challengers. The thing was all annoyed that Mia hadn't been waiting, and more annoyed when the cat had said it was because she had sent them off.

The male in front of her was a guivrik. His face was framed by little blue scales that glittered in the sun, but unlike Mia his wings and arms were the same thing.

He snarled at her, mouth dripping a foaming acid everywhere, saying something boring about how she was an insult to his existence, and he was going to kill Mia, and then Toofy would be his appetiser.

The cat blinked her golden eyes slowly, got bored, and pounced.

The guivrik threw her onto her back with a roar of burning spittle. He lifted a hand to strike her, and Toofy growled around the ear she currently held in her teeth.

He hesitated, and she slipped free from his grasp, ducking backwards and onto her feet. She spoke around the thing she had stolen, "Attack Toofy, she swallows."

He sneered at her, "Cat want dead. I grant."

"Toofy not eat your ear, idiot." She snarled, eyes sparkling, "Toofy devour it. Just like Toofy is Mia's Devourer. Is snakeboy stupid enough?"

The creature hesitated, staring at her, "Summoner. You devoured summoner?"

"Mmm. Her tail. Cooked with peppercorns." Toofy smiled happily and frowned, "Mmm... Ten years ago? Something like that. Toofy didn't much like. Very chewy, all muscles, no fat. Much prefer fish."

He stared at her.

She tilted her head a little, threatening to swallow the pointed ear.

He took a step backwards from her, with a small puff of white smoke.

Toofy spat the ear onto the ground, and rolled her shoulders, looking around at the crowd. The catgirl smiled, "Toofy really doesn't mind if you fight each other. But threaten Toofy, or her toys, again, and she will hurt all of you. She is not in a good mood."

"Just a neko." Spat one of the others, a blue salamander, and stepped towards her.

She rolled her eyes and flicked a fireball from her hand and into his face. "He should really think before he attacks the granddaughter of a nekan bucktooth. Little blues are easy to hurt."

The man screamed, clutching the burns on his face. Not nearly as brave as the guivrik that hadn't even reacted to the pain of having an ear torn off his head.

She sat down cross-legged, instinctively holding her stomach as she did. Toofy looked around at them all with her glittering eyes, and then over to the other army, and the two elves screaming at each other.

She giggled.

Astadia was cuter than she thought she'd be. So desperate to protect her family, and willing to do anything at all to keep them safe.

Orli was also adorable. Still holding onto Trician's hand tightly, even though the human was practically shitting themselves, being so close to a highly skilled necromancer.

The cat briefly wondered if the princess knew just how much of a shine the human had taken to her. Probably not.

Toofy looked back to the dragons, some of which had taken her hint and had also sat down. Showing patience, one of a soldier's best skills. Those who didn't, had just failed her first test of them.

She played with her golden bell idly, noting which dragons caught the motion. The ones that saw any treasure and just wanted to own it. Not necessarily a bad trait, but one that was easy to manipulate.

It was true that Toofy would need the most powerful army ever assembled if she was to take on the emperor.

However, if she was going to attack the palace, then what she needed was so much more than just someone who could fight. She needed those who could play politics whilst the world around them burned.

Know when to save the frightened minister waving around a sword, or when to end their pathetic existence.

Mistakes would be made. That was inevitable.

Toofy was determined to do whatever it took to make the palace hers. She didn't know if she was remotely ready for it, but soon she would have her cheating Sai back by her side.

She swallowed nervously as she realised she needed to tell him about the kittens. Even though he had cheated on her with a fucking fox, he deserved to know.

After she had slapped him.

A lot.

---

Efina stepped out of a shadow, returning to the world of solidity with a quiet sucking sound as the darkness tried to cling onto her.

The priestess viewed her empty private room, noting that the nearby desk had been disturbed differently than the rest. The floor by the legs was scraped, repeatedly.

Someone had used it for sex.

The smell was also another clue, but Efina wasn't sure what to make of it. One of the participants was probably an elf, but she she had no idea what the other was. Too subtle a smell for her.

That was one of the things she had always been jealous of Twenty Four for. The catgirl could walk in anywhere, take a single whiff, and tell you a full day's history of the place.

She was fairly certain both were female. Men didn't smell as musty.

Efina reached behind the desk, wondering how close to discovery the latch had come whilst a couple of her temple girls had made use of her absence to enjoy themselves.

The floor beneath the desk creaked, and then sprang open.

Efina preferred to use magic to hide the ordinary, so that when people hunted for enchantments, they would find that.

The truly precious, she hid with mechanics. Most would think little of an alcove beneath the floor, dismissing it as a place to hide things because no enchantments were in use.

The box inside the hole was extremely small, no larger than a jewellery box.

Efina lifted it onto the desk, tapping a series of draconic runes on it in the right order. The lockbox was older than she was. As old as the gateways, utilising the same difficult-to-detect magic.

She removed the lid cautiously, and looked at the green pearl inside.

At the end of the war, when Sai had first brought it to her, she had promised to find a way to destroy it.

The surviving fragments of Menes' soul were held by those the warlock had twisted, but this was more than just a fragment. Sai had found it, when he dug up the orc's body.

The orcs had done their best to ensure Menes couldn't return, and had been successful, as far as Sai could tell. However, they had also failed to notice something critical.

A core of a soul.

It wasn't Menes', but it wasn't not Menes' either.

Two souls existed in this small pearl, joined to the point where nobody and nothing could separate them. For all of her attempts, Efina had never been able to destroy it.

She was grateful for that, now.

Efina picked up the pearl, intending to swallow it, and bind her own soul to it. It might be foul magic, but she had need of evil.

A hand caught her wrist, and deft fingers plucked the pearl away.

She glared over at the calm-looking Lord Han. Minister of Justice. He was eyeing the artefact with a dispassionate eye. He made it disappear to somewhere, and then released her wrist.

She seethed, glaring at him, "Today is not a good day to attempt to prove your manly strength, Lord Han."

"Perhaps not. You are quite pursued." He agreed, "However, I am the one who sent so many to dog your path. The warrant is not for your arrest, dear Efina, it is for your execution."

She sneered, "The emperor sends his loyal dog, to end the life of one who has done more for the empire than he ever has. He's a fucking bastard! In both the meanings of the word."

"His lack of a pure bloodline means nothing to me. As for the other meaning," Han smiled at her, "The ministers are considering whether or not to depose him over the recent unrest. The plague spreading through the farmlands is of worrying concern, but the emperor has not addressed it."

Efina glared at him, "You should be afraid of me. I have had a very bad time. The goddess cursed me, stole my womanhood. So... Unless wish to die an agonising -"

"The goddess of mischief." Han stated to her surprise, "Seems she has quite the number of plans for Ambassador Twenty Four. Plans that you knew of, for quite some time. I found her drawing. Assembled it."

The priestess sighed heavily, "True. It took a number of years, before that drawing was completed. It wasn't even drawn in any sensible order."

"Twenty Four was chosen by the goddess of mischief, a betrayer god, to resurrect the old empire, wasn't she?" Han raised an eyebrow.

Efina smiled, "Yes. Yes, she was."

"Why do you hate humanity so much, dearest Efina?" He asked her curiously, "Is it so hard to support your own?"

She smiled at him, "My entire life has been spent in the temple, Lord Han. An entire life of watching, and hiding, corruption. It stretches from the highest peak of the empire, to its lowliest denizens. I have covered up sins for too long."

"Are the beastkinds so much more moralistic? Less prone to corruption?" He scoffed.

Efina smiled broadly, "They eat the ones who betray their pride, their honour. They don't pretend and hide behind propriety. They are proud that they killed to get where they are. They are honest. Something you would know little of. How many have you killed? How many have you bribed? How many times have you looked the other way? How many innocents have been destroyed by your word?"

"One hundred and twenty seven." Han answered without hesitation, and shook his head, "Soon to be one hundred and twenty eight. I must fulfil the warrant, dearest Efina. You have created an enemy of an emperor, who we are not yet ready to depose. Time was against you."

The priestess smiled and nodded, "I do understand. I hope that you understand that I won't be coming quietly."

"Of course not." He shrugged, "However, though you have not asked it of me, I will give you this promise. As I have thus far, I will continue to do my best to protect Ambassador Twenty Four, to the very best of my abilities."

Efina frowned, rolling the thought around in her head, "Lord Han... Did you manage to confirm if she killed Isaac? Intended to kill Lord Castelle until that became... Bad timing?"

"I have not. If I were to, I would be required to report it." He replied diplomatically.

She nodded sadly, "Indeed. I must confess that I was surprised by her actions. I was not aware that she had quite so... Ruthless a streak, in her character. Let us pray that whoever survives here, does nothing to have that wrath turned against them."

"Your confusion is unsurprising. There is ample evidence that though consuming Elatham's spirit saved the neko's life, it has also corrupted her soul." He said grimly, "Our precious ambassador's soul is as dark and lost as your own."

Efina frowned, considering it.

She did know that the death magic of the deceased elf was as dark as the most bitter places of the void. It was an evil that had eluded Efina's attempts to discover even an origin.

Elatham's death magic was unique, in all the world.

Almost as unique as Menes' magic, though not quite as soul-rotting. The priestess had failed to learn even a single spell of this less dark magic, and yet the neko had stolen it - even whilst she lay dying.

Efina smiled sadly, "Do you know from whence it sprang, Minister Han? I know a little of the elf's misdoings. His... Experiments. He dared to steal a few of my girls. Yet I could not find where his inspiration came from. Is that not a danger to the empire, as well?"

"I do know it." He replied flatly, "It is draconic in origin. Well, the dragons are all that have a memory of it. The magic is likely older yet. From a time when all races were not born with magic, but gifted it by the gods."

Efina chuckled, "Ah, everything always goes back to the war of the gods. Our gods we call betrayers, who were exiled away, who dared to give power to mortal kind. Who dared to dream that we could walk alongside them."

"It is so." Han nodded, and then spoke quietly, "Your neko, who dreams of the future, and has luck untold... Also holds in her palm, the magic of the gods. Our precious little Twenty Four... Born as a slave, unable to rise by mortal custom, and yet... I would be committing treason to name what I believe she was born to do."

The priestess nodded, "It is so. She was born as the granddaughter of Resic. Do you recall that name?"

"The hooktooth. A nekan warlock who caused no end of problems in the war." Han said hesitantly.

Efina smiled slowly, "If I must die, then I will grant you one last little secret, Minister Han. Our Lady Twenty Four, is not the last of her bloodline to have survived the emperor's genocide."

The priestess gasped quietly as she felt the blade of ice slide smoothly between her ribs and into her heart. She looked at Han with a flash of green in her eyes, but her magic didn't come.

A familiar voice whispered in her ear, "Did you think I let you go, so that you'd stay alive? You think we're predictable. That I, of all the fucking things, am predictable. I do what I like, my little bitch."

"Goddess." Efina breathed her last, closing her eyes.

She heard Han distantly, as if speaking through a pillow, "I am sorry, dearest Efina. I cannot know what it is that you were implying, or I would have to take action."

As she slipped into the void, she felt the chains wrapping around her, as the goddess claimed her soul.

Chose it, so that she could punish it, for the rest of all days.

---

"Lord Castelle." The half-elf said nervously, speaking to the man who was supposed to carry her fate. She wasn't supposed to raise her voice to him, unless he first spoke to her.

The man looked up from one of the books in the library, looking at her in surprise. He turned his head sideways, "Does my mother call for me, wench?"

"No, sir. But she has sent me." Xivian bowed her head towards him, "May I approach, sir?"

"I'm bored. You're being... Intriguing." He replied and waved at her to approach. "Though I doubt my mother would indulge my less couth desires. So, tell me. What is this about?"

Xivian walked up beside him, "It would be better to show you, sir."

The knife slipped from her sleeve and she clumsily thrust it into his side, grazing a rib and seizing with a notch.

He tossed her backwards to the ground staggering for a moment before he sprinted bleeding from the room.

"Shit." Xivian cursed and ran after him.

The younger Castelle led her on a winding and staggering trail out and into Elizabeth's gardens. Down and passed several different and extremely poisonous flower beds, and to the altar of the goddess where Arina had worshipped.

When Xivian caught up to him... He'd vanished.

The woman seethed, looking around the space desperately. The blood told her that he had taken shelter here. The room was tiny. Barely encircling the statue in the centre, and yet... He was gone.

Xivian's hands tightened into fists.

She rolled her jaw, looking around desperately for any sign of where the man had gone. There were no convenient scraps of torn cloth, nor bloody fingerprints.

The elf kicked the altar angrily.

A dull thud echoed backwards.

She breathed in sharply and crouched in front of the space, and examined the symbols on the surface. She ran her hands over the square of stone until she felt a click and the door swung inwards.

Inside, she found a small tunnel, barely the wider than her shoulders. She could see dirt shifted by a desperate and fleeing man. Blood from the wound she had inflicted.

Xivian dove in head-first. Skittering down the tunnel and noting fresh wood, reinforcing the channel. She could see tiny claw marks on it, claws that she recognised.

This was Toofy's work.

Where in the hell did it lead, and how was it that Castelle knew about it?

The half-elf slipped from the end of the tunnel, landing on stone as her eyes adjusted to the total darkness in a way that human eyes couldn't.

She smiled as she saw Castelle leaning up against a wall, trying to hold his breath. Frightened and alone.

He would bleed out here, if she simply guarded against his return... But Xivian was filled with a ridiculous number of questions. How was there a freaking city beneath her mistress' estate?

"Will you run, m'lord? Try and hide in this vast place? Or do you have allies waiting to end me, for my great offence?" She spoke more confidently than she was feeling.

Castelle coughed, "I've never been here. Apparently I can't hide from you, here, either. Say what you want to say. I'm doomed all the same."

"There's a city. Beneath the city." Xivian said tightly.

The lord laughed weakly, "Lady Twenty Four... Told me... That it was built during... The purge. Dug in... Under the city. Hundred years ago. Didn't... Believe her."

"She does lie, as often as she tells the truth." Xivian agreed, looking around, "I don't recognise any of the symbols in the architecture. They look almost... Elven. But not. I don't recognise any of it."

He nodded tiredly, "I... Was intrigued... Researched. I... I think it... Is ancient. Very ancient."

The elf looked at the symbols embedded into the archways of the buildings. Looking like shop signs, maybe. The symbols had the familiar curves, similar to the written language of the Golden Mountain, but it was... Nonsense to her.

"Not elven." He coughed weakly, "Draconic."

She raised an eyebrow, "Not salamander. Another of the dragonkinds? Dragons built a city, here?"

"Older." He coughed weakly, "One or two symbols... I've seen. On the gateways. Are you going to... Put me out of my... Misery? This freaking hurts."

Xivian sighed heavily, "I've never killed anyone before, sir. I... Am not in a hurry to commit that sin. I love Lady Elizabeth, and so I will do as she asks, but... It is not something I wish to do. The city is as old as the gateways?"

He closed his eyes tiredly, "A journal... On the desk. I was writing... In it. You'll find... Answers... There. Another empire. Old as the sky... Please. End the pain."

"You don't want to know... Why?" She asked hesitantly.

He laughed with a spray of red mist, revealing a punctured lung. "I already... Know... Why. I am a pain. My mother... Wants her... Freedom. To have you. To have the estate. She can't... Whilst she has... Me. In her... Way."

Xivian pulled a second knife slowly, "The Castelle name will not be forgotten. I will carry the banner of that name proudly."

He just nodded tiredly.

---

Domina Florence began with what looked like a deep curtsy, before her knees found the ground, and she transitioned into a bow, her head briefly touching the ground.

She stayed bent over, waiting for the voice hidden behind the curtain to speak.

At length, the eunuch made a show of exasperation before speaking. "His grace acknowledges you, Domina. For what reason do you beg of his indulgent mercy?"