and you, false love, will weep for me, when I'm gone, when I'm gone, when I'm gone

((RP MODE))

Tch. Little girl so lost, will she ever find her way home...

I remember the ritual that joined us. Her unfortunate once-swain decided to travel homeward, and found someone just young enough, just hungry enough, to make any bargain to get out of the pit. That someone was me, of the Lilitu, demonesses, succubi and sirens, and Lilit serves well enough for a name.

The ritual was arduous, tortuous, convoluted and long. It was meant to empty her, make her a vessel, soul set free and body waiting. But...either she doesn't have a soul, as the traditions understand, or it's bound to her, flesh, bone and skin, because she was not an empty shell when I arrived. She was very much there. And she very much fought back, tooth and nail, and--only through my utter surprise, but still--managed to cage me, deep within her mind, set me to sleeping that lasted years.

I might never have awoken at all had it not been for that spur-of-the-moment curse, so casually tossed from the lips of the departing monk, sent with a breath of his essence and his power. That power called to me, woke me, pulled me up and out to the very limits of her form, and poured my awakened energy, raw and undiluted, into her body, into the body of the young Hunter in her arms, and the strange combination of her shapeshifting ability, and my energy manipulations, compelled to curse him as well, to be partially neko, as she was.

Wonderful. As if there wasn't drama enough in her life.

We fought, at first. Of course we did. She feared me, I resented her...she wanted me gone, I wanted her dead. Of course we fought.

Once in Lumindor, long ago, she'd taken as much pain as she could, been turned from too many doors, been denied by those she adored...She gave up, and I took over, using her knowledge of the world beyond Lumindor's shores to contact my once-love, flying to his side in the deeps of the tunnels he lived in. We shared...what only two demons can share, who are not engaged in battles to the death, but...what I had of his heart had turned from me, and from her, for all my efforts elsewise.

So I returned, and let her live her life. Slowly, the fighting stopped. I maintain I've been incarnate in her flesh for too long, I'm...tainted by her emotional state. But even with that uncomfortable knowledge, I find I do...care...in spite of things.

In spite of everything.

This morning, she awoke under a bush by the garden gates in Lumindor. She heard a voice she recognized but grew distracted before she found him. She laid down by the wooden sign, gently petting baby bunnies on the grass. And Death found her.

I knew him, old adversary, and it's no disservice to say even I trembled at his nearness. But he said it was not my time, and pulled away. Then she heard the Eastern lad's voice again. She rose, trembling, and flew to his side, stopping just short of contact, and held herself there, wary, uneasy.

She had never been uneasy around him before, and I could not ascertain why, until the demon he carried smiled with the lad's mouth, enticing her through casual cruelty, tears in the lad's flesh that drew her on with the addiction raging within her. She still remembered enough of plant and leaf, flower and vine, she held back. Until he dripped blood from a wound onto the back of her hand, and...

...I had to take over, the despair in her was too great.

I begin to think Valruna is doing a damage to her, beyond the toxins in the air. I begin to wonder how long she can remain in that tainted land, where time runs faster, where the streets echo with emptiness and faint screams.

I begin to wonder how long I'll have to live her life for her, until she is ready to stand on her own again. I wasn't designed to be her. I was pulled in to be a demon Queen, chief among the clan, strong by the side of my King.

I was never meant to be the little phouka, the shifting fae.

I worry for her.

And I was never meant to feel worry for her. So...I worry for me, too.