Sinner in Blue (one-shot)

A hooded figure stumbled through the dark town, hobnails klacking on flagstones, slipping and sliding on the hard stone surface where there was no dirt to bite into. Leaning against the wall, it took a moment to catch its breath and hobbled over the empty street. A dull thud after another rang through the streets and the house as it banged its fist on the door around the corner from a bakers' sign, until finally weak lanternlight shone through the slats of a side window, and the door opened.

"Sister?" The young man's voice was drowsy and his wits dull. "Sister! You're injured!" He shone his light into the face of the hooded figure, shocked at the pale countenance that stood at his door. "Why are you here? Please, we have to go to the convent!" The hooded Sister pushed his lantern down with a firm hand clad in a heavy leather glove. "Nevermind, Hans. I wanted to see you first. Can I come in?" She slammed her eyelids shut as the world swam around her. "Yes! Of course!"

Soon the pair sat in the modest living quarters, both on a halved-stockwork bench along the wall. "Is... Is that your own blood on your cloak, Sister?" The young man leant forward, obviously upset to see her hurt. "Will you listen to the day I've had, Hans? I need a sympathetic ear right around now." His face betrayed his apprehension - the convent had healers, why would she not go there first? How bad could it be? A black though filled his mind, making him shiver with anxiety as he imagined what had happened. "Please." The Sister groaned as she began: "Remember those reports about Monsters in the salt mines? The whole business is making short work of our tax flow...



"...And then I felt a sudden flash of pain in my side. I fell to my knees, then to my face onto the salty floor. Those monstrosities cackled as they watched me fight to breathe with a hole in my chest. I wished I could just tear them to pieces! I only remember the hate as I lost consciousness. I can't tell how long I was out, but I eventually regained my consciousness. The Monsters were long gone, content to loot my purse and sword and leave me for dead.

"But I didn't die, Hans. I pulled the thorn out of my side. It had only penetrated my flesh for a few lines, less deep than my ribs. It had to be the thump that knocked the wind out of me. After that I made my way here." She groaned as she leant back to the timberwork wall. "Sister Maria..." Hans began, "If it was just a nick, why are you so pale? You're almost blue! You're obviously in pain!" She forced a smile as she patted the stained mail and arming coat over her wound. "Do you want to see?"

Hans struggled to pull the hauberk off Maria, who was barely strong enough to lean forward to help him pull it away. Finally it fell to a crumpled heap on the floor, shortly followed by the heavy cotton padding. Hans' heart raced as the injured Sister sat in front of him, half-dressed in only her linens. "M-Maria... Are you sure this is alright?" He forced himself to look away from the slit under her short raised collar. Maria did not answer.



Slowly she hiked her shirt higher and higher, as if deliberately teasing the flustered Hans. As he found the courage to look, he recoiled in horror - Maria's side was as a web of throbbing, purple veins, her flesh blue as indigo around a fresh stab wound. The corruption spread before his eyes, and he realized that the purple web had already extended itself to her neck. "Maria! My Maria, what happened to you?" Hans freezed mid-blessing as Maria's eyes flashed red, beaming as lanterns in the night.

"I lied to you, Hans, I'm sorry. I actually died in that cavern." Maria stood with difficulty, leaning against the wall just above his frozen form. "There is poison coursing through me, killing me, filling me with evil." She gently pushed him over, off his feet and back onto the bench. "This is why I couldn't go to the convent." She watched tears of sorrow and terror well in his immobile eyes as she sat back next to him. "I'm sorry, Hans..."

"...But I've actually liked you for a long time now." She sighed as the fetid web extended itself to her eye. "Or should I say the late Sister Maria liked you? It's so hard to tell now. It's like a veil has been lifted, baring the evil desires the good Sister had always kept under control. I would have been yours, you only had to ask and I'd have left the Church in a heartbeat. But now, Hans, now it is too late."



"The evil inside me is boiling over, Hans. I feel so alive, so perverse! It is as if a floodgate was smashed open when I died!" She looked him in the eye, and he saw the black clouds gathering inside her eye. "I cannot wait a moment more, Hans! I cannot stop myself, I will not stop myself! I needed you, Hans!" The urgency in her voice almost surprised herself - she had never felt comfortable being this honest to her old friend. "My soul is already lost, you know? There's no reason for me to hold back anymore..."

"Ah... You kiss tastes so good..." The former Maria's pale blue lips lingered at the touch. Hans fell limp as the spell upon him faded. "It's no sin to be attacked, Hans, don't worry. You're under my control. You can tell them I bewitched you. You'll get a penance or two at most for letting me in." His hands rose tentatively, as if pulling on imagined shackles, and wrapped around her jaw. He planted a new, greedy kiss on her lips just as the blackness settled over the entirety of her eye.

"I was a fool to control myself. I see it now, I always wanted you. Would you have accepted me, I wonder...? We could have married and lived a happy life." She pushed him onto his back on the floor. "But I never asked you, did I? And now my soul is burnt and scattered like ashes in the wind." Her voice rang with melancholy, incongruous with the vile transformation taking place inside her. "I wish I could have truly loved you, with my soul intact." Her gaze turned to steel as she straddled his hips, her bottoms already strewn on the floor. "But this will have to do. Have no fear, Hans. Still will hurt me far more than it will hurt you."



With a deft movement Maria raised her hips, positioned him at her lips, and effortlessly plunged herself down upon him. She surprised herself, working as if practised. The hellish corruption obviously came with ready skills to use it. All the better, she thought. She held her hands at Hans' collarbones as she began to ride him. The feeling was divine. It felt so right, better than being a righteous warrior ever had. Would it have been this good in life? She would never know.

"Maria, please...!" She snapped back to reality to see the pitiful expression of the man squirming under her. "Ah... I'm sorry, Hans, but I won't stop. Don't even try." He shook his head as he struggled to raise his arms. "No... I mean... Kiss me, Maria!" She giggled at the thought and gave him the first smile after her demise. "What are you thinking, Hans? You're being violated by a Monster! It's no time for sweet kisses!" Hans gasped under her with every stroke as he struggled to speak. "What if the Church finds out you asked me for a kiss? You'll be flogged~!"

"I loved you too, Maria! I'll always love you, even if you're corrupt!" Maria let her eyes fall half-closed, both the white and the black. "Is that so, Hans? How could that be, are you a cultist? There was a nest of corruption festering under my eyes all this time!" She grinned as her voice boomed through the empty bakery in a sinful mockery of the righteous fury she had once called upon. "Please! Right now!" She humored him, bending over to touch her increasingly blue lips to his just as she felt his seed flood her insides.



She ground to a halt, still enveloping him, and spoke with a sober voice: "Hans, if you really mean that, I'll make you my unholy groom. Are you sure you want to give away your soul for someone who has already died?" He struggled to raise his arms to pull her closer: "Yes." Maria enjoyed the long-awaited embrace for a moment before pulling away. She looked Hans in the face as the purple web enroached upon her second eye. Both eyes again flashed red and she felt him harden inside herself. "Now you've done it, Hans. You always did like to blurt out stupid things."

The dawn broke upon a foggy town. Inside, the parched Hans desperately pleaded his old friend to stop. The former Sister Maria, now painted blue as the night, did not. Her black-and-red eyes flashed once more, and he was forced to commit yet another sin with her in the dawn gloom. Short nubs of ribbed horns dug into his jaw as indigo lips teased his neck and collarbones below. Hans briefly considered that he had erred grievously, but the thought disappeared in an instant. It was all worth it not to lose Maria - even if he'd have to go through this gauntlet every night.