[RP] The Tree, Part IV

It feels anticlimactic to post the conclusion of Libby’s story so late. Since it all went down, I’ve had time to think it over. I have some regrets, sure. Fenn and Libby were a sweet, adorable couple and it wasn’t very fair to do what I did to them. On the plus side, it inspired character growth in Fenniel and some excellent fic from Verdus, who has become sort of a self-appointed investigator on the case to find out what happened to his friend. Maybe he’ll let me post his stories here so you can see how excellent they are.

If you’ve not seen the Libby stories in a while and want a refresher, here’s a chronological list as they appeared on Blogspot:

Moving: Parts I, II, III, & IV
The Tree: Parts I, II, III

Authors: Me & Hammy(Cersei/Fenniel)
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Cersei spent weeks planning her games and weaving her fel threads into the stupid cow’s head. Now all her tedious work, all the nights spent coaching her demons would come to fruition. She smiled at no one in particular, deeply satisfied with herself.

Her victim lay sprawled across the desecrated earth of Mannoroc Coven in a bloody circle of Cersei’s own making, marked at critical points with deeply-etched demonic runes that burned with the sickly green glow of fel magic.

Normally she would prefer an altar for such rituals, to keep the subject elevated above potentially disruptive spirits. In fact, there was a suitable altar not more than fifty paces to the northeast, but it seemed so much more appropriate to do her here, on the very earth the druid missed so terribly. After all, it had enabled her swift, easy abduction.

It was safe enough. The land was thoroughly corrupted and had been abandoned by the elements long since. They would not be interrupted.

Libby shifted slightly on the crisscrossing lines of the binding circle. Each of the lines and runes were written in the druid’s own blood. Puncture marks that lined up neatly with the serrated maw of a felhound marked her arms, legs and torso. The concussive blow that had rendered her senseless left her open to Cersei’s bloody gathering; she’d held large vials to each seeping wound, gathering the ‘ink’ she needed for the ceremony that would purge her little brother’s mistake from this world.

Now the bitch was bound firmly to the earth, weak from the bloodletting and only periodically conscious. Cersei would wait to begin until she could stay awake long enough to feel it. Mercy was for the weak, and Cersei would not be weak ever again if she had any say in it.

The tauren’s low whimpers brought a satisfied smile to the warlock’s face.

“Would you like something to eat, sister?” Cersei’s smile grew as she stepped closer to the prostrate woman, taking care not to cross the outer limits of the blood-sketched circle. Sytai took Cersei’s signal with a smirk on her full, pouting lips and stalked slowly to the center, lifting her barbed hooves carefully over each mark to prevent breaking the spells woven therein. In her smooth, tattooed arms she carried a bowl of bread pieces, torn and soaked in milk.

The succubus bent low over Libby’s prone form and whispered in her ear with a voice like smoked silk. “Thirsty, love?”

Of course she was thirsty. Libby couldn’t remember ever being so thirsty in her entire life; her tongue was dry and stuck to the roof of her mouth, her lips were deeply cracked, and every part of her body that wasn’t singing with the dull, throbbing pain of festering bite-wounds felt like hot, dry sandpaper. Please, she tried to say, but no sound came and her mouth barely moved.

Cersei clucked her tongue. “She obviously doesn’t want any, Sytai, why don’t you leave the poor thing alone?” She laughed maliciously. The succubus giggled in a cruel mockery of her mistress and left the tauren lying on the ground, taking the food with her.

Why, she tried next, and was equally unsuccessful. Simply trying to speak sapped her and she was forced to rest as she drifted in and out of consciousness. After some time she remembered that she was far from home, and in trouble.

“Fenn,” she said.

“HA!” Cersei sounded more furious than amused. “That worthless fool doesn’t have a competent bone in his body. My brother is a failure. Do you really think he of all people could save you?”

Sytai whispered, “Though it would be so romantic if he did, mistress Cersei.” The oily, silky quality of her voice made Libby shudder, which was too much for her strained body to bear. She blacked out for a few merciful moments as the warlock and her demon looked on.

The Mannoroc possesses an unnatural twilight at all times of day, a product of the fel emanations that remain from catastrophic demon rituals long past. Libby had no way of knowing how long she lay on the unyielding earth. When she had the strength to open her eyes, she was greeted with the sight of an eerie gray atmosphere in which demonic shapes sometimes coalesced briefly, then disappeared. The ground was baked, cracked, gray and infertile, covered with a layer of pale bone dust that made her eyes itch and water.

Sytai called her master at the sign of movement from the captive tauren.

“Enough time wasted, you useless cow,” said Cersei, picking up the last vial of Libby’s blood as she drew close to the circle of binding. “I’m going to show you what it means to cross me and mine.”

It’s only a dream, thought Libby in her delirium, and began her long, torturous descent into darkness.

Only a dream.