Midnight's Bride.

I have never understood the devotion people show to the sun.

It hangs in the sky, burning, hating, screaming, scorching the endless, twilight plains stretched out before me. Verdant fields of blue and black flowers ignite in little puffs of flame as the sun's punishment crawls forwards, destroying everything it touches. I know I am not safe here, even though the burning pillars of light are as of yet a long way off. The sun is inexorable, and it will not be satisfied with simply destroying the umbral gardens outside. Its hateful light will eat through the walls of my domain here, chewing through the sweeping, gothic arches and gargoyles like an acid, tearing down the shadow-stone walls until I, and everything I have created here, have been reduced to ash.

I know this because it has happened before. Time and time again, I stand transfixed, staring dumbly like a rabbit stares at the truck bearing down upon it, until the walls burn away around me and the first horrid rays of light wash over my ivory skin -

- and I awake, shaking and sweating, at home, in bed.

This is a dream. If I focus, if I let my perceptions slip beyond the comforting darkness around me and the howling light devouring everything outside, I am dimly aware of my body lying asleep in the Freehold's shared Hollow - the warm weight of the sheets around it, the pillow beneath its head, the way the mattress depresses as I shift and stir in my sleep. But that awareness is dim and hazy compared to my surroundings, which stand in sharp, detailed relief - I can see every flower and blade of grass as it is consumed by fire, feel every bump and crack in the dark stone column I lean upon, hear every soft whisper and gentle surrous sound behind me.

A small smile creases my thin, sharp face, and I glance back. Behind me, across a floor paved with secrets, there is a staircase; large and ornate, with elegantly carved wooden bannisters. It winds its way down into a darkness so deep even my eyes - made large and pure black, to penetrate the faerie-gloom my keeper plunged me into - cannot see the bottom. It pulses like a living thing, umbral tendrils curling and uncurling around the bannisters like vines, shifting and groping across the floor. The darkness sings to me, whispering in words I don't know but cannot help but understand, like a mother calling her daughter home.

For a long time, I have resisted that call. I have stood and let the cruel, screaming light tear me apart, night after night. I don't know why. Some lingering attachment, one last thread left over from my mortal life, perhaps. But no more.

Tonight I will give myself to the darkness.

The sun has reached the walls of the dream-enclave I build every night now. Flakes of stone crumble away under the howling gold-glare, igniting like fireworks as they are consumed. Light pours through the open windows, obliterating the secret-tiles with the harsh brilliance of truth. For this is the true face of light - in its hate, it refuses us the chance to be who we want to be, cutting through the secrets, lies, and masks we all hide behind to throw us, naked and shivering, into the view of the world. It rots out our bodies with cancers and burns away our skin, and all the time it laughs, and screams, mocking us as we worship the very thing that is killing us.

One of the windows, superheated beyond tolerance, suddenly cracks and then explodes in a shower of crystal fragments, each one reflecting a billion sparks of light as it tumbles to the ground and evaporates. The wall of light pours in like the soldiers of an invading army, sending me cringing back as the shadows begin to evaporate, and I quickly scurry over to the lip of the stairs. The umbral tendrils grope blindly upwards, wrapping lovingly around my legs, their touch like soft, warm silk against my bare skin. They crawl ever upwards, more and more with every passing moment, swallowing the bannisters and flowing across the tiles like oil.

I stand, teetering on the lip of the stair, caught between the shadows below and the sun above.

Light and Dark.

Another window explodes. The heat is crushing, overwhelming, like a physical thing that strangles the air and turns breathing into an ordeal.

Death and Life.

Flowers begin to bloom out of the shadows, blue roses with knifelike thorns that loop themselves lovingly around my outstreched arms, gently pulling me down into their embrace.

Truth and Secrecy.

One by one, great, lambent eyes open within the gloom, staring up at me as I linger upon the threshold, silently encouraging me to take that final step. The walls collapse, chunks of stone floating off into the screaming heat and fire before turning molten and vanishing from sight. The floor crumbles away, inch by inch, falling into an endless, searing sea.

My body tenses, rocking backwards, a heartbeat from falling. Shadows crawl along my body, encircling me like a lover's arms, encouraging me backwards. They could simply pull me off balance and drag me down into their embrace, but I know they will not. The choice has to be mine. The Sun will take me whether I wish it or not, but the dark does not take the unwilling.

I teeter on the edge, my heart hammering madly in my chest with fear and anticipation. And then, a moment before the cruel light consumes me, I fall. And as the darkness closes in around me, as the stairs evaporate and the last of my dream-fortress is crushed into nothingness by fire, I hear the sun screaming in fury as the shadows claim their prize.

Falling -

                                                              - falling -
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                -falling.

Or not. I am lost in the dark, surrounded by movement but berefit of anything to help me orientate myself. There is no up or down here - the eyes have closed and the flowers are gone, burned away by the sun, leaving me adrift in an endless, umbral sea. I don't feel afraid, though. There's an immense feeling of peace, letting myself drift through this never-ending dream-space, luxuriating in the velvet touch of the shadows playing across my skin. I reach behind myself, clawed fingertips grasping at the laces holding my dress in place, picking them out and letting the garment flutter away from my naked body, spiraling away into the gloom in a flurry of dark lace. The darkness flows in without hesitation - I can feel, if not see, the boundaries of this dark place closing in around me - running across my slender, petite form like a thousand invisible fingers and tongues, touching and tasting, whispering teasingly across my bare skin.

The sensation of movement around me begins to change. Other shapes resolve themselves out of the black - I can sense them swimming past me, long, thick shapes, like serpents or eels, that briefly caress my skin as they pass my drifting form. One slithers across my torso, brushing against the undersides of my small, pert breasts, while another passes between my legs, its slender body curving past my inner thigh, tantalizingly close to my nethers. A warm flush rushes through my body at the sudden stimulation, my soft, sudden breath echoing off weirdly through the gloom.

They loop back, criss-crossing my body and winding their way around my limbs, and begin to gently pull me - down, I think, though the nature of the dreamscape makes it impossible to tell the precise direction. At the same time, the...texture of the place begins to change. What was once ephemeral and endless begins to take a solid, defined form, becoming leathery and textured, heaving and throbbing, curling up around me like the walls of an enormous organ. The shapes cradling me resolve into view as well - long, smooth tendrils, warm to the touch and very slightly slick, that ripple with a peristaltic motion as they gently lay me down upon the pulsing ground. Organic heat blooms up through my body at the touch, and I can feel it shift and squirm around me.  The tendrils flow away, tracing their way agonizingly across my skin before slithering back into the ground, leaving me flushed and panting, alone in the fleshy darkness.

One by one, the great, lambent eyes open across the walls, casting their soft, moonlight glow down upon me, like stars hanging in the sky above. Unbidden memories begin to play through my mind; as a child, lying awake at night, staring at the moon; my first kiss, in a graveyard at midnight; running through a dark forest, painting a shadowed landscape, and finally, sickeningly, fleeing through the black streets from my Keeper. The visions fade, and under the darkness' loving gaze, I realize; I have always been a creature of night. Even before my abduction, a shadow has laid across my soul. All my Keeper did was cut away the pieces that tied me to the sun. As brutal and horrifying as it was, my durance purged me of that - stripped away the sun-blindness and left me...pure.

At once, it feels like a great weight has been lifted from me. Laughter echoes out into the darkness as I flop down onto the shifting, fleshy ground and lift my arms up towards the glowing eyes above.

"I am yours," I say. "As I have always been."

The ground shudders and squirms at those words, tendrils slithering here and there beneath me. One runs down my shoulder blades, another ghosts between my buttocks, a third curls briefly around my ankle before making its way up the inside of my leg. A thin smile creases my face, sharp teeth gleaming under the moonlight-glow from above.

"Take me."

At once, the ground around me suddenly sinks, the mass of tendrils writhing madly away before surging back upwards in a living, pulsing wave, rolling me up onto my knees. The throbbing, black walls seem to contract around me, the great eyes drawing closer, drinking in the sight of my pale form as the black tendrils squirm and slither around me, tracing around my narrow curves. One passes across my breasts, dragging its long, slick form over my stiff, sensitive nipples. It feels like a long, greedy lick, sending little jolts of pleasure shooting through my body. Almost without thinking about it, I shuffle my legs open wider, strings of wetness already gathering within my folds.

This is a dream, I remind myself, as one of those wonderful shadow-tendrils begins to creep upwards from the mass, swaying back and forwards, bumping wetly against my thighs as it inches closer towards my folds. This is a dream, and none of this is real. But as the tapered tip bumps against my entrance, the wave of pleasure that rushes through my body feels real - the desperate, needy beating of my heart feels real, the heavy, anxious breath feels real - and as it slowly penetrates me, pushing my damp lips apart and easing itself into my hot passageway, I realize I don't care whether this is real or not. The tendril works its way deeper, contracting slightly so it doesn't hurt going in, then slowly expanding inside my body. It feels almost liquid - like it's flowing inside me, creeping into all the dark, sensitive little places my fingers and toys can never quite reach, rippling and pulsing with warm, fleshy waves.

It pauses for a moment, leaving me stock-still, rooted to the ground by the thick length of meat that has slithered inside me. Clear drips of arousal trace down its shuddering length as it throbs inside me, drawing my breath out in short, lusty gasps. It doesn't even have to move or thrust and I can feel my body singing in time with its simple undulations. Others crawl across my body - I'm being touched everywhere at once, a hundred different soft stimulations, like warm, wet little tongues kissing and lapping at my shaking, panting body. One curves around my leg, slithering up across the spread lips of my pussy, before wrapping around my narrow hips like a snake. It crawls up my belly, through the shallow gully of my breasts, finally coming to a halt in front of my face. The tendril has no head, just a narrow, rounded end, like the one anchoring me to the ground. It bobs back and forth, brushing against my thin lips, as if asking for permission.

The tendril anchored between my legs suddenly pulls out, then thrusts back into my  aching depths. I can feel every pulse and twitch, and as my mouth falls open in a cry of sheer, alien pleasure, the second takes it chance and flows between my lips, congealing into a comforting, fleshy mass atop my tongue. It has no taste, but it feels so, so right - to give myself over to the darkness that has shaped me, held me, guided me in such a total and carnal way, to let it flow inside me, to accept whatever benediction it might grant. My body arcs and convulses as the shadow-tendril fucks me, thrusting in and out in time with its fleshy pulses, waves of pleasure coursing through my body as I eagerly suckle upon the one in my mouth. More lash themselves to my kneeling legs, and then to my arms, pulling them up above my head holding me helplessly stiff as the tendril lodged in my cunt suddenly gives a massive, twitching jerk and floods me with - something, I don't know what, it's at once silken and wet, and I can feel it trickling down my legs as the tendril slithers out of my thrashing body. Barely a heartbeat passes before a second rises from the mass to replace it, thrusting into me with a single, inelegant shove, the shadow-stuff leaking from my slit mixing with my own fluids to allow it easy access. The force of the penetration tips me over the edge and my body bucks, convulsing in time with the pulsing mass around me, the new tendril pummeling in and out of my drooling slit even as wave after wave or orgasm pulses through me. I can feel the mass of tendrils squirming around me, and the thought suddenly flicks through my head - are they all waiting for their turn? There are so many, so very many, writhing and pulsing against my back, groping at my breasts and things - it would take forever to satisfy them all.

But this is a dream. A dream, I tell myself, with a mixture of dread and delight. Time has little meaning here. I could tear myself back to reality at any moment, but as I tip my head back and the length of umbral flesh in my mouth slips down into my throat - no gag reflex to worry about here, hah! - I don't know if I want to. I suckle upon it as best I can, working the slick, pliant shadow-flesh with my tongue, feeling a dirty thrill of satisfaction as it too pulses and ejaculates, dragging itself free in a spray of saliva and dripping black fluid. It has no taste, no real warmth, just a perception of wet texture that is easily swallowed. Two more rise up to replace it, and my heart jumps as a third prods against the tight pucker of my ass.

"Oh, god." I moan, my voice reverberating from the black walls of flesh that surround me. "Do it. Give it to me. I want it all."

This is not submission.

I gasp and squeal as the tendril probing my ass begins to push more insistently, the blunt head narrowing as it squirms through the tight ring of muscle, slowly billowing out inside me, stretching and loosening my body so the rest of it can creep deeper and deeper into my bowls. More of them push urgently against the base of my cunt - I can feel them sliding over one another like a nest of vipers, grinding across my clit and outer lips, and as soon as the second finishes pouring its shadow-seed into me and with draws, half a dozen tendrils surge forwards, squirming and fighting for the right to get inside me. I grind against the pulsing mass as the one in my ass continues to creep ever deeper, filling my tight body with its twitching bulk, the relentless pummeling motion against my clit finally making me come for a second time. Even as I crest me second wave, one squirms into me, curling and writhing within my hot, slick depths.

This is consummation. This is a wedding night. The shadow has been everything to me - father, brother, protector, nurturer. It has taken so very long for it to become my lover, and I will deny neither of us a second of that lost time.

I can feel them - both of them, rubbing against one another through the thin walls separating my pussy and ass, their twin pulses like a pair of heartbeats hammering alongside my own. The tendrils lack the muscular impact that comes from having a solid body thrusting above or below you, but they never seem to end - they ooze and flow inside me like to mortal man or toy ever could, always finding another inch to creep into or another spot to grind against. I cry and gasp and squeal as I'm stimulated unto madness, my slender torso wriggling back and forth in my shadowy bonds, toes curling and hands clenching madly at nothing. More wrap around my small breasts or slide between them, hanging in front of my face to be licked and sucked at will, or brushing through my hair, under my armpits, against the soles of my feet - every inch of my body is a tool to touch or be touched, aflame with lunatic passion as the tendrils take me, again and again, what bits of pale skin can be seen under the writhing mass running slick with black shadow-fluid, until the peaks and troughs of individual orgasms blend together into one long, endless howl of monstrous bliss.

"Sable."

A name drifts down out of the black nothingness around me. The glowing moonlight-eyes do not so much as blink, never tearing their loving gaze away from my rapture for as little as a second.

"Sable."

A name. My name? It's familiar. But I don't know. I don't care. I feel another rush of liquid pouring into my bowls, followed by the horrid, empty feeling as the tendril withdraws, only to be replaced with another, and another, and anot-

"Sable!"

I cry out in shock and confusion as rough hands shake me awake, physically dragging me upright. I thrash madly, eyes wide with fear and panic as I try to redefine my reality, and only a sudden, last-minute impulse stops me from letting my Razorhand kith-claws slide free to cut deep into the figure holding my shoulders.

From a dream to a nightmare, I stare dumbly at the figure. Pustulent green skin, shot through with dark veins and framed with long ropes of greasy black hair. Bloodshot eyes stare down at me with a mixture of contempt and confusion, the other woman's blunt, patrician face creasing into an expression of artificial concern. A moment later, the stink hits me - like burning tires and old petrol, like exhaust fumes and chemicals left out to mix and grow stagnant. I cough and gag, shoving the other Changeling away.

"Don't *do* that, Tox." I whine, glaring at her. My pajamas are stuck to me with sweat, my hair hanging in semi-solid strings not too different from the fluids cascading over my dream-body not a few minutes before, and I'm very glad the sheets hide the hot, slick wetness between my legs. The Elemental - a Blightbent, one of those Lost forced into alignment with faerie pollution - stares at me for a few long moments.

"You were thrashing around and crying out. I was concerned." She said. Her voice is strangely stiff and devoid of emotion; and I know she isn't entirely telling the truth. Tox lost her ability to empathize with other people a long time ago; the gentry stripped that from her, leaving her struggling to emotionally perceive the difference between people and objects. I usually feel sorry for her. She has nothing - no real friends, no family, no mortal connections, even the other Changeling avoid her - but right now, I resent her for having dragged me back to wakefulness.

"It was...it was a dream. Just a dream." I gasp, waving her away, trying not to choke on the awful stink that clings to her. She gives me another hard look, then turns and marches out with a shrug, dismissing me from her thoughts without a backwards glance. I stare at the door until I'm sure she'd not going to come charging back through, then kick off the sheets, strip off my sodden underwear, and flop down with a huff of irritation, my dainty fingers already slipping down between my pale legs.

Still, I think, as I slide a finger through my sopping, aching slit. Lucid dreaming comes so very easily to the Lost, and there'll be plenty of long, dark nights to look forward to in the future.