legend_fic_smut

Legends tell of a devil that walks this town at night.

It consumes anyone unlucky enough to cross its path, first sending them to pleasure so pure, they never even feel themselves die, before melting down for the devil to take in.

Few have managed to catch a glimpse of it in the middle of its meal, but they all say the same thing: the cries of that devil can deafen whole towns, and its footsteps can go from being imperceptibly soundless to a rumble that can shake barrios.

Those who claim to have seen it face-to-face and survive recall being lost in its azure eyes and golden hair, marveling at how much of a giant it is. Yet it was also peculiar: it had four legs, four arms, and four globes of flesh on their chest, with horns like tree branches made of glinting bone -- and often soaked in blood. From the front, it presents like the woman dreamed of only in sleep, but between the hindlegs is a wild animal in every way.

And it was said that the devil cared not for what it victims were; man or woman, with child or sterile -- your being did not matter to the devil, for the devil only wanted absolute satisfaction over everything else. It didn't care if one was alone or part of a group, they say -- the devil is capable of making many reach the height of bliss before becoming mere food for itself.

With the passage of time, more people -- people far removed from those fortunate to escape intact and unsullied -- told its story in ways that warp its perception. Midwives say that those who die during childbirth or miscarry more than once become the devil right away. Some have suggested that it can choose not to kill its prey, but turn it into an acolyte, conscious yet enslaved, subservient to the devil until they too turn into a mirror image of that devil. Others claim that it hunts the elderly, rapturing them until their youth is restored, then sent back to the world renewed, but as corrupted strangers destined to become one of its kin. Still others have suspected that it could hunt during the day, detaching from its hindlegs, retracting its horns, and wearing a wooden mask to pass off as a human, copying speech but never truly understanding it.

Eventually, legend became myth. Myth, inevitably, became fuel for culture. It has become a symbol of unbridled, uncontrollable desire.
The allure of a devil that brings apotheosis could sell bottled elixirs bearing an artist's rendition of it to disheveled men by the crate -- because it does. At one point, white men with big rifles have come to this town to hunt this "reindeer" as they called it, to no avail. In the farms and coasts, mayors past and present have long since turned the devil into a fable, the kind of cautionary tale parents tell their children. It is enough to scare them away from exploring their bodies.

Sister Hilda Reyes used to be one of those children. As she grew older, she came to accept the myth for what it was -- merely a story. "But it's still useful," she thinks out loud to Mother Superior, "because it is integral to understanding the culture of the town."