Judge Not - Chapter 12: Finding the Watcher (MF Mff inc father/daughter creampie oral D/s bond ws)

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Chapter 12: Finding the Watcher

My first breath failed and I panicked. It was something like the first seconds in joining Lek in Dantos, the sensation of suffocation so real I could barely react. I squeezed every awareness I could into the essence and my own growing powers. I drew strength from them. My panic subsided, then I remembered Tristan, reaching out to calm him, his presence very close to mine.

I felt more than heard him gasp and sputter. For long moments, I tried to adapt myself to the new reality and found it both absurd and fundamentally chaotic. It wasn't so much a place capable of physical descriptions as an impression of ideas, of rapidly-diverging possibilities. Each time I tried to define what I experienced, reality shifted much too quickly for me to apply human senses to such descriptions. But it began to grow discernible as I used the essence to center myself. There was nothing to see, or hear, or smell. Not really a time to watch pass or dimensional qualities to populate.

I calmed Tristan further, feeling his discomfort at our surroundings. I sent him, I'm working on it...

I know... Hurry.

I let myself relax, and I was immediately aware of the endpoint. Again, it was less like a thing than a shifting set of possibilities. But it was distinct, whole, with clearly drawn lines within the fuzzy landscape of the moment. Like Tristan, I could feel a watcher attached, something directly monitoring the endpoint for information. I took hold of the incoming trace and followed it, dragging Tristan with me as I left the beacon's position and moved us slowly back to the source of the watcher.

Time held no real meaning as we went. There were moments where human senses seemed to work and could make some sense of things, but mostly, it was more like distinct instances of where the endpoint had been located.

But slowly, reality began to feel more comfortable, deliberately constructed. I saw fuzzy grey and then more colors. I snapped fully into things when I reached the source of the monitor signal. I was in a small, lush circle of grass and trees, something like an oasis, beyond which were storms of light and a fury of heavy, almost industrial whirls and grinding noises. I spun around, Tristan kneeling beside me, holding his head. I saw no one around us. We'd reached the end of the line, but for the moment, it felt like a dead end.

But a boom knocked me down, more a force of will than any sound or movement. I steeled myself, wrapping Tristan and me in whatever protections I could create while I projected outward.

The anger and surprise I felt was deep and profound. Something was very familiar about it, I thought. On instinct, I pounced where it was most strongly located, forming sticky ethereal ropes from nothing and binding the one whose hatred and shock I felt growing with each tick of reality's clock. I tied the ropes tight, lashing down where I felt a threat emanating.

"Oh, for fuck sake... This explains the 'stupid' part..." I heard Tristan breathe as soon as I looked to the source of the anger and surprise, located very nearby.

"What?" Then I realized what was so familiar. "Maggie?"

The woman, if that's what she really was, was writhing on the grass, suddenly visible after I tied off her access to whatever power she sought. Her mouth was gagged, her eyes covered, a large fluffy black and red hat fallen over nearby, Maggie's wild grey hair sticking out all over her head. The woman's orange eyes radiated fear and hatred.

"It was you all along!" I exclaimed. "What do you want with me? Who are you working for?"

I waited a moment, greeted only by silence.

"Uh, Tera," Tristan said as he stood up finally, "I don't think you've left her room to reply..."

I realized I had locked down literally anything which the watcher might use to exercise power, including her voice. I loosen my grip just enough to allow words to come out, but not enough to do more than give voice to thoughts. She gasped several times, "Please! My girl! Please! I didn't know!"

Tristan knelt down rapidly, driving his knee into the woman's stomach. "Don't lie, witch!"

"I swear it!"

"Why were you listening? Why did you try to trap Tera with the Spirit-Binder?"

Maggie's lip trembled.

"Spill it, witch!"

I sent Tristan, Why are you calling her a witch?

I'll explain later.

The woman tried to speak and broke out in a long wail, her eyes filling with tears. "He knows everything!"

"Who knows? Why were you trying to capture Tera with the binder and the bracelet?"

"I didn't know!"

I put my hand on Tristan's shoulder and eased him from Maggie's body. I knelt in his place and rested my fingers on her cheek. She trembled as I stroked her skin and sent calming projections into her.

She said weakly through her sobs, "You've learned much, child..."

"Why are you trying to kill me, Maggie?"

"I'm not!"

"Then who is? The Spirit-Binder would have accomplished much the same thing..."

Maggie shook as she sobbed, then she rolled her head back, "He knows everything..."

"Who?"

"The one who always seeks vengence."

"The fallen one? Daedalus?"

"No," she moaned, "the one who seeks all power so that he can control everything..."

Tristan let out a sigh, "The Paladin..."

Her eyes went wide. "Yes!"

"What does he know?" Tristan growled, "and what does this have to do with anything? Start talking immediately, or Tera will bind your soul the way she did the assassin... I'm guessing you're well aware of that being, yes? The one sent to Tera's past to kill her?"

Maggie nodded slowly. "The Paladin... knows things about me.. about what I've done... he could destroy me with it!"

"Then tell us now," I offered, "and we can offer you our protection... if you help us understand what's going on..."

"Protection?" the woman said with clear fright, "not from that one. No, not from that one..."

"Then what choice do you have?" I asked. "Trust me, or trust The Paladin to not destroy you when he's used you as he will... At least am not actively considering killing you... yet..."

Maggie gulped a few times, shook herself, and began to explain quietly, "I was very young, by immortal measures... I didn't know any better and I... I took a lover... A lover who threatened me and made me do his bidding... I did things... terrible things... to please him. His carnal desires..." Maggie shook herself and closed her eyes. "I only sought to please him. I tortured and killed and worse for him... all so he could laugh and lust and seek some terrible pleasure from what I did."

"Who?" Tristan breathed.

"Daedalus..."

I nodded, already beginning to connect her visceral reaction to the man during our earlier interaction with her story.

"I came to hate him. I feared him all the time, but the hatred for him grew stronger until I tried to kill him. I failed, badly, but I got away from him. The Paladin found me, or, rather, one of his... agents... and he offered me a deal. He would, one day, seek the host directly and he wanted me to be one of those who kept watch. I didn't know for sure it was you, Tera, but there were ways of detecting a host which The Paladin taught me, and you caught my eye as clearly as any other. He gave me a device to use to search for something he believed was related to you." Her eyes drew down my arm and went wide when she saw it bare. "You have removed it!"

I nodded, not explaining the details. "But it was not looking for me, right? It was looking for a device..."

Maggie nodded, "I don't really know. I was told to attach it to you, or someone like you. I didn't know what it would do."

Tristan spat, "But I bet you damn sure know what the Spirit-Binder would do."

Maggie cast her rosy eyes away. "Yes. But, I promise, I thought it was only to protect you!"

"Bullshit," Tristan growled, shaking his head, "utter bullshit, witch!"

"The Paladin only wanted to keep you from Daedalus, he told me. To keep the essence from being found by the wrong being."

I said evenly, "The Paladin seeks only to grow his own power. He would have ripped it from me and tossed my carcass before I stopped breathing."

Maggie's mouth moved a few times, "I... I swear, I meant no harm!"

Tristin spat angrily, "But you proclaimed innocence as soon as we arrived, you had to understand there was harm for Tera in what you did... your defense makes no sense otherwise..."

"I... I..." Maggie swallowed, then relaxed in clear defeat, "I suppose... some part of me... knew it might be so... You coming here... it was nothing I expected. I was just listening.. hoping Tera was safely bound, until..."

I spat, "Until you could tell The Paladin that I'd been trapped."

Maggie didn't respond, but her shameful expression might as well have said it was true.

"Why is The Paladin seeking a Time Tester?" Tristan asked firmly. "Surely he has no need and could care less about such devices?"

"I don't know. I swear..." Maggie answered meekly.

She started to sob again and I sent Tristan, Well, we have a few answers, but not many. What do we do with her?

We can't take her to our safe place. Bind her and put a trace on her. We'll see if we can get a glimpse into The Paladin's ways when he tries to check on her.

I concentrated on drawing a connection between Maggie and myself, a one-way stream of information which only I could detect without a great deal of work to unravel my knots. I tied it off in such a way that Maggie would never detect it, and I felt some hope that even powerful beings such as The Paladin might miss it without a careful investigation of the woman. It was a lot of guesswork, I knew, but as I completed my tracer and closed Maggie's form, I knew of no other way to do what Tristan suggested.

He nodded to me, and sent, That looks well done. Now send her away. Somewhere she'll be found... eventually.

Since I couldn't directly travel anyone too easily against their will, I used the shortcuts I knew to convince reality she was in the wrong place. Maggie blinked away. If I pulled on the thread of the trace, I could make out subtle hints of her state of mind, of her surroundings, and her burning hatred and fear, both of which now included me as well as Daedalus.

I looked at Tristan. He shook his head with his lips pursed but added nothing more to our conversation. I blinked us back to Caracus' realm.

- - -

Skip.

Seeing Starla dancing on stage in Dad's loop made me feel both frustration and sadness. We could have saved her, I believed, but we'd been told not to bother. I hadn't asked Tristan why we'd abandoned the woman. By the time we came back around to her, she'd died from her wounds in the hospital.

Starla swayed and moved like a professional, offering sensuality and naughtiness I supposed was expected from a stripper.

Skip. Starla was kneeling, bent over a low bed, bound by ropes, panties shoved into her mouth. Dad stood staring at her. He looked like a predator, none of the gentle softness I knew. He dropped down, licked the woman a moment, then covered his cock with a condom before slamming himself inside her vagina.

Skip. Starla was on her knees, facing Dad, swallowing as he came down her throat.

Skip. The woman was back over the bed, Dad behind her, towels on the floor below her. I heard Dad command her to "Piss." I was in a bit of shock, honestly, to see Starla begin to urinate forcefully against my father's body.

Skip. Dad was inside her again, no condom in sight. He held still and it took a moment to realize he was pissing in Starla's cunt. I was in shock, yes, but I also felt a raw, animalistic sort of desire to be used by Dad the same way.

Skip. He was in her ass, fucking the woman hard. Then he slowed, peeing in her bowels, then he was fucking her hard again, soon filling her butt with another load.

Skip. Over and over I watched Dad humiliate and dominate Starla, and instead of being disgusted or feeling revulsion, it turned me on to see a very different side of my father. A more powerfully-driven one, a man who took what he wanted, with consent, I thought, but roughly, more like a beast than my father. I would have been fingering myself if I'd been able right then.

- - -

"So," I asked my dad as we sat together, alone for the moment, not long after my visions of him and the stripper, "what brought on what you did with Starla?"

Dad was quiet a long time, looking at his hands. "I'm not really sure... I think... I think I was losing control, then, Tera. Like... it was about taking back control... I hated myself for what I did to Starla..."

"Did she consent?" I asked, a little worried that maybe she had not.

"Yes, yes, for sure," he replied, "and... she rather liked it, honestly, once we got past the trust issues... She liked being tied up and used like that..."

"And you liked using her?"

"I did," he confirmed, "not something I'd done before, or since... I don't know that I ever want to do such a thing again, honestly..."

"What about the piss, Dad? Where'd that come from?"

He shrugged, "My bladder?"

I chuckled, "You know what I mean..."

"Not real sure... it was just... raw, Tera. All of it. It just kinda went with what we were doing... She was being used, and I was using her... she was in my control and I... It just sort of came out of nowhere..."

I took his hand and leaned against him, saying quietly, "Not saying I'm real sure, Dad, but... It really turned me on... all of that, you know... Like... Maybe... maybe one day, when our heads are right... I trust you enough to tie me up and piss inside me..."

"Tera... I dunno that that's a good idea... I... I don't see you like that..."

"What, able to take it rough? Willing to try something new and extreme?"

"No, just..." Dad sighed. "It depersonalizes... It's humiliating... Domination is not what I want to do to you..."

"I know," I replied, "and I'm not saying right now, or often, but... Maybe we could try something along those lines... one day... just ease into it a little... I trust you, Dad... And... I want to do all sorts of crazy things with you... if you'd like that..."

He stared at my neck then looked up briefly, "We'll see, Tera... We'll see..."

- - -

The situation with Maggie had at least drawn a couple of answers out of the situation and gave us a little more direct view into some of the mysteries we'd sought to solve. We had now connected The Paladin to two different threads of our situation, though that certainly gave none of us any cheer. The being sounded like a cruel foe, one willing to do most anything to get his way. Of course, the way Maggie had explained things, it seemed that Daedalus was perhaps the worst of the two. It was a high bar, for sure, but Maggie seemed at least a little optimistic about The Paladin's role in things, even if just marginally so. Daedalus was a personal horror to her, and her fear and hatred of that one seemed to far outweigh what she felt about The Paladin or me.

The trace remained in place and I kept myself mindful of it, even if passively. Nothing much changed. She was still bound and isolated, unfound and unable to escape her momentary prison. I had no sense that The Paladin or anyone had even come close to her location. I almost wished she would be found, if only to be able to follow a new path to discover a new piece of our overwhelming puzzle.

We have something you should see, Theresa's thoughts came to my mind.

What is it?

One of those with the sparks... she's... changed... different...

What?

Come to us.

I told Dad and Abby I would be back and blinked to where Theresa and Tristan were waiting outside the large, sterile room where the survivors with the spark were being held in a sort of dream-heavy stasis, each on a mattress, appearing to sleep on their backs.

I'd visited them several times, looking for any changes or any sign that any was suffering. They had all been like coma patients, only without the breathing tubes and IVs and bleeping noises. If not for subtle movements of chests, their bodies would all have been motionless.

"What is it?" I asked out loud as soon as I arrived.

Tristan nodded towards Juliet's still form. "Feel her, Tera. What do you notice?"

I did so, pushing out and comparing an earlier mapping of the young woman to what I then saw. Something was different. The spark was bigger, somehow. No, it wasn't about size or volume. It was like the radiation, the signature of the mark of the essence had grown in strength, a dim star becoming a more brilliant one. "What does it mean?"

"We haven't a clue," Theresa replied. "Maybe Caracus will know, once he decides to show himself again."

I pushed out my thoughts and attempted to contact the being, but his presence, if it was in the realm, was muted beyond recognition and lost in the noisy fog which limited my abilities to project there.

One by one, I checked the others. I detected no other differences other than in Juliet. I stepped closer to the pale, dark-haired girl. I eased my thoughts to soften and tried to cast calming probes into her dreaming mind. Carefully, I peeled open Juliet's unconsciousness and peeked inside.

It was a miasma of imagery and impulses and it took me a moment to get the rhythm of her dreams. It wasn't like trying to read normal thoughts, or even dreaming thoughts, which I'd done a couple of times during my practices with Dad. Normal dreams were fairly simplistic and easy to follow, abstract and bizarre, yes, but discernible.

Juliet's dreams, perhaps as a result of being kept in a dream state, were a montage of many scenes and thoughts and emotions. I didn't understand for long moments how a human brain could even process such chaos. But slowly I found the way the threads were out of sync from each other, more like movie images sliding by, small, nearly-undetectable gaps between each, enough space for other threads, other films, to play in the gaps. Once I figured out how to follow many of Juliet's dreams, I found it quite lovely despite the darker and more harrowing ones included in her mind.

I pushed her dreams aside and tried to examine the spark. It was a simple and lacking in complexity as I'd always known them to be, just brighter, somehow. I pulsed raw energy into the spark, just prompting it to vibrate or ripple, but nothing changed it at all. I didn't know enough to test further, not knowing the consequences, but it was clear some change had occurred, and as usual, we had no warm leads on where to look. "No idea," I said with frustration.

"Just wanted you to have a look. Could you not feel it change?" Theresa asked.

"This place is foggy to me. It makes projecting or sensing much more difficult. Whatever barriers Caracus has in place here make it very difficult to really explore much that way. I suppose, if I concentrated, I would have noticed, but not so by passively monitoring."

Tristan nodded, "I feel similar dampening. Almost has me rather depressed."

"You two have been working hard," I told them, "you really should take some time to relax. We figured out the bracelet, mostly, and the Spirit-Binder. Now we're just waiting for something to spring the tripwire we attached to Maggie so we can follow on to the next link. Other than that... what else can we really do now?"

Tristan shook his head, "This and that," he replied, "I'm running out of idea on the sparks, on Daedalus, the fallen one. Whoever the fuck obliterated my workshop..."

"Sorry, Tristan," I said, offering my hand.

He held it a moment, "It's fine. I'll rebuild it, one day... if I survive this mess..."

- - -

More days passed with little to show for our efforts. Maggie remained bound. Angry and uncomfortable, but undiscovered. Tristan had told me at one point that the term he'd used for the woman, witch, was a reference to her place in the middle realms, a deragatory word with a different connotation than on Earth. It refered to anyone who held modest power but was too ignorant or scattered to make proper use of it. Witch was closer to buffoon or jackass than a magic-user, with the added insult implying that power was being wasted on such a being.

I'd made some progress with my powers, forming more powerful protections around me and the others, doing it faster, and ensuring I could adapt to whatever the situation demanded. In theory, at least. I had no enemy to spar with, and though Tristan did his best, he held no ability to simulate a real foe. Twice I created a simulacrum and gave it some basic but empty abilities, something like a blank round in a gun, but the effect was less than useful when I had to constantly tweak its artificial decision trees. I spent so much time trying to tune it that I was really only learning how to simulate a broken machine, not a flexible, powerful enemy. I left the last one around, though, figuring I could, eventually, get something useful out of the effort. It stood in the corner of a room near where Dad and I slept, designed to look something like Daedalus as I'd seen him in my early visions.

Juliet's spark grew more radiant, and soon, all the others were doing the same, though to different degrees. Uni's was by far the strongest, Yvette's the weakest. Though Caracus had healed the woman's legs upon her arrival in his realm, Tristan theorized that her injury, her trauma, might be the cause of her relatively weak spark, but that was all just a hunch. Her spark had grown brighter, though, as they all had, and we began to wonder if this was a mark of something good or ill.

Caracus remained out of sight despite the repeated attempts I made to contact or find him. It was frustrating. He surely had answers to our questions, at least some of them. If he was an ally, he certainly was doing his best to ensure that alliance was utilized only when it was convenient for him.

I decided to push myself harder and break through whatever was keeping him hidden from me. I spent hours using the essence and my own innate, growing powers, feeling the essence continue to integrate more tightly with my mind and body, as much a part of me as my circulatory system. I carved out new ways of moving around reality. I twisted time and space, the ever-present foggy quality not lifting despite my efforts. It was draining, but I kept at it, using the essence to explore reality itself, to find twists I didn't know were there, to find meaning in the swirling, random fluctuations which formed the fundamental nature of existence.

I realized I'd missed something rather obvious. Reality was not something to map, at least not in the way I'd been doing so. Trying to draw lines from point to point, lines which were often more suggestions of direction and distance and possibilities, sometimes made clear a path, but only to a point. What I'd missed was that there were other ways to connect positions in reality, to uncover what was hidden when using conventional, mundane ideas of form and fabric.

I started fresh by ignoring what I thought was the normal layout of locations in space and time and began to explore reality as if it held no such definitions. The fogginess of Caracus' realm was a direct result of misunderstanding this concept. I was pushing against membranes which slowed and distorted, but only because I had yet to fully understand that those barriers were only there as a result of my assumptions. Once I was able to move aside my expectations, my assumptions, I found it easier to press outward, to more properly define that which surrounded me. Within a short time, the fog became a suggestion of thickness and doubt rather than an inherent nature of the place.

Caracus was indeed within his realm, and as soon as I found him, I traveled to his position in a blink, leaving the others behind without a word.

He was not so much sitting as hovering over a perfectly-circular pool of blue-green liquid, steamy evaporation rising up slowly and enveloping his form. Caracus wore his white gown, facing me, eyes closed, as if in meditation. A slow smile formed on his face. "Took you long enough, Tera."

"You could have just told me what I was doing wrong..."

"But then you would not have learned anything."

I grunted.

"So, you've overcome one of the mundane mind's most difficult problems."

"Which is what, exactly?"

Caracus opened his eyes, "Not everything is centered on what you expect to see, not everything behaves as your mind has been trained to believe."

I frowned, "I learned that lesson the first time I went to the sanctuary..."

"True, but just barely. You needed to begin to understand that what you can do is not limited to your mundane preconceptions."

"I have some questions," I said, ignoring his words for the moment. "Why are the sparks, in the survivors, getting bigger?"

"Can you not search the answer now? Do you really need me to tell you the truth you should now see?"

I swallowed my frustration, projecting out to feel the survivors. Each spark was a distinct and unique impression in my mind. I could have picked Juliet from Uni, Molly from Kacy, quite easily just by each spark's signatures. "They're all different..."

"Yes..."

I probed and tested, careful not to disturb the sparks or their sleeping hosts. I moved out of my mundane framework and considered the radiant qualities. What were the sparks doing? "They're talking to each other..."

"Yes..."

I felt the precise but incredibly gradual associations being formed, the movement, if that was the right term, of the sparks, as they sought out each other. "They are trying to combine... Wait... wait..." I felt within me the obvious answer. "They're trying to get back to the essence... To me!"

Caracus nodded, "Of course they are."

"Why?"

He didn't respond, so I continued to probe the energy in each survivor, feeling the thin, nearly impossibly-discernible strands connecting each spark to me, to the essence. It was then that the obvious loss of the others was first felt. I swooned and fell to my knees. "God... the others... the other sparks... in those who died... they were consumed!"

"And so, those which remain seek to avoid such a fate."

"Who took them, Caracus?"

"I'm sure you have a reasonable guess or two."

"The Paladin... or Daedalus..."

"Or the fallen one," Caracus nodded, "or a couple of others capable of doing such things."

"Does that mean that the essence I hold has lost power with those sparks gone?"

"In a sense, yes, but not in the manner you might think. It is more," Caracus paused, drifting from his position to stand much closer to me than ever before, "that the essence planted seeds of itself, attempting to grow specific aspects stronger, as if it would harvest those fruits when the time was right. The essence, Tera, can protect itself. It can plan. It can predict the future, though certainly not perfectly. It can foresee needs in a way only the essence of the Gods can do. I can't tell you for sure what needs each of your sparks was to fill, but you should understand that, while some are indeed lost and consumed by another, strengthening the ones who found them, there are yet others almost ready to harvest. You'll feel the timing, when it is right."

I thought about that a moment. The sensation, the ties between the essence and the sparks was so obvious now that I felt stupid to have missed it. Then a sinking feeling hit me suddenly. "What happens when I harvest the sparks, Caracus? What happens to the survivors?"

"Isn't it obvious?"

I swallowed, dreading what I knew was the truth.

Caracus continued, "The essence plants a seed, but your sparks are not fruiting trees as you know such things, more like, a solitary stalk, a single fruit which must be taken whole, in all its parts. The seed has integrated with each of its hosts, just as the essence has in you. Yank the essence from you, Tera, and..."

"And I die..."

"Yes."

I groaned in frustration and sorrow. "I'll find another way. I won't kill anyone to take back the sparks."

"I admire your... naivete, Tera. But you will find there is no other way. You can no more remove the sparks and leave the hosts unharmed than you can rip their hearts from their chests and hear a heartbeat continue to thump, thump, thump."

"I'll find a way..." I repeated, no idea how that might work.

Caracus stood silently, watching me with his radiant eyes a moment, then said without moving his lips, "Now that you have found your way to me, continue to learn on your own. Just a few more visions, I think, yes?"

I nodded, silent.

"Once the final one has been viewed, find me again. Right now, I must... meet someone... away from this place..."

"Who?"

Caracus smiled, his voice booming despite his mouth holding position, "Nothing concerning you, I promise. I will return in time for your lessons with me to really begin..."

And then he disappeared, both visually and from my essence-enhanced senses. I pushed out, swept away the remaining fog, and found, finally, the boundaries of Caracus' realm. It was finite, it turned out, and whatever he and Fenya had done to protect the place from detection seemed to prevent me from projecting and searching beyond its boundaries. Despite the immense volume of space and time held within the realm, I felt quite closed in, trapped, and claustrophobic.

I blinked back to the others and summarized what I'd learned, no one having any great suggestions for how to start on harvesting the sparks without killing the survivors.

- - -

When Tristan told me the reason we'd abandoned Starla in the hospital, I was in a rage. He'd said Caracus knew the woman's spark had already been harvested, leaving just the remnant I'd mistaken for the full thing, but her body had lingered for a while after. Death, it seemed, wasn't necessarily immediate when the spark was ripped out, but Caracus seemed to think, and I felt deeply the truth of it, that without the spark, each host would surely not survive.

But I was still angry that we'd given up on her. She was still alive in the hospital, critical, for sure, but certainly not outside our help. I had powers I'd only tapped, surely I could heal and mend and fix a body as easily as I could trick reality into repositioning some unwilling being, and it had to be easier than capturing an assassin and trapping him in a stone. I patted my pocket, the small, warm red rock still close by. I don't know why that gave me a margin of comfort. Maybe it was just a reminder that I'd faced a harrowing and deadly situation and come out of it victorious. It meant nothing, I knew, in predicting what would happen in future engagements. Still, it provided just a seed of hope that I could improvise and survive.

I ranted for a while as Tristan and Theresa listened, eventually growing quieter, a little despondent about Starla and about the others we'd failed to rescue in time. The essence, in its own way, seemed to mourn with me. It wasn't so much an emotional thing as a sense of loss, an understanding that some plans had failed. At least partially. The essence had expected to regain each spark, I knew instinctively, and that some had been lost had harmed it in some small manner. At least, that's what I think was going on. I had a hard time separating my own thoughts and emotions from the essence. It had become so integrated in my mind and body that I wasn't exactly sure there was any meaningful distance between us any longer.

Tristan let me calm down a bit before he spoke gently, "You've made good progress, Tera... Being able to find Caracus? That's no small feat. The... thickness... in this place... I've never felt anything quite like it. You can see around that now. Give yourself a little credit..."

I nodded, my rage boiled over in the minutes before and now slowly dwindling into exhaustion and reluctant acceptance. "Yeah... that's something..."

"Test yourself for me, Tera," Theresa said quietly.

"What?"

"You can feel the boundary here, right?"

I nodded again.

"Examine it. We might learn something interesting about how Caracus is protecting this place. Being able to hide... for any reason... is not easy to do in full. But, there are no buffers out there. Boundaries have two sides, inside and outside. By looking at one, you might learn something about the nature of the one unseen... like... the skin and muscles and form of your arm gives some guidance on the layout of bones. That's not a perfect analogy..."

"I know what you mean," I replied.

Letting out a long sigh, I closed my eyes and shut out everything I could, pushing my awareness out to one point in the boundary. It was like trying to examine the shifting lines of a lake as ripples move the edges up and down the shore, no clear demarkation between the water and the land, at least not for more than a tick of reality before things shift again. But I started to understand that it was less about the demarkation and more about the rules which defined the shifting boundary itself.

There was a pressure, of sorts, which made the realm feel isolated from everything else, as if, inside the boundary, one could only press so hard before the boundary no longer allowed one to probe or bend or twist its features. The pressure was essentially consistent, firm, and mostly definable. I mapped what I detected and tried to find any weak points, any vulnerabilities where reality outside the realm might bleed through.

For quite a while, I found nothing, and nearly gave up. Then I remembered something which, at first, seemed unrelated. The boundary felt a little like how the essence had felt when I first began to be aware of it inside me. There were demarkations there, lines which had since blurred and become muddled as the essence was blended into my body and mind. The boundary was more carefully separating two sets of places, but there was no way to completely isolate a part of reality so cleanly from the rest, and I realized that impressions of whatever was outside left a signal, of sorts, in how the boundary was defined.

I examined those impressions, finding patterns, seeing it much like the water and the shore. The wet sand would show signs of where the water had lapped up, and the realm's demarkation had something similar. Something rather familiar, the more I considered it.

"We're in the sanctuary!" I breathed when the reality became clear. "This realm isn't outside of everything else... it's in the santuary!"

"What?" Tristan replied.

"I'm not sure how, but... I can see it, in a way. The sanctuary's protections, its rules... they leave a very small signature which I can feel here."

"Are you sure?" asked Theresa.

"Completely." I gave a quick, albeit tentative, description of what I had found.

"Well, fucking hell," Tristan said evenly, "never even considered that. Caracus has taken advantage of some of the sanctuary's protections to seemingly isolate this place within. Brilliant, really."

"So what does that mean for us?" Theresa asked.

"It means," Tristan explained, "that we can do the same thing, if we need to..."

I nodded, "I think I could do it, but it would take a lot of testing and failing to get it right. This is... complicated... even knowing where we are..."

Tristan replied, "Well... for now, just knowing it can be done is good enough. For now, we're not going anywhere... but..."

"If we have to... we might be able to hide ourselves from Caracus." I knew the being could overhear our words, but I doubted any of our discoveries or our self-preservation surprised him one bit. We weren't actively plotting against him, not at all, but it was a necessity to plan for less-amiable situations which might come. "I'll try some small tests later. I'm rather beat right now..."

- - -

Dad was inside me as I woke from my nap. I was on my side in the bed, my father behind me, slowly penetrating my pussy with his hard penis. For several wonderful moments, reality stayed away from my thoughts and I was able to relax and mate with Dad without any other purpose.

He breathed in my ear, "Sorry, Tera... I just needed you..."

"Never be sorry for that... I love waking up with you inside me... Mmmm..."

He thrust gently, slowly, nothing like when he'd been with Starla, or some of the others I'd recently witnessed. Dad caressed my puffy breasts and I creamed him as he fucked me. I loved the way Dad's body fit so perfectly behind mine, my ass nestled against his groin, his penis stretching me just enough to make me feel full. He was shuddering soon, shuddering and moaning against my neck. I squeezed myself tighter, tighter, and I felt Dad's cock pulse several scalding ropes of semen into my pussy.

He relaxed, his dick softening and falling away. When I turned onto my back, I realized we were not alone.

Abby was leaning against the small, plain white dresser at the foot of the bed. She was blushing, sweaty. "I... I hope you don't mind that I watched..."

I smiled at her, "Never..."

"That was really beautiful, Tera... Seeing you with your dad... Um... Tera?"

"Yeah?"

"Can I taste him in you?"

I nodded, sleepy, spreading my legs wide. Abby stared at me closely after leaning over the foot of the bed, her eyes on my leaking cunt. I looked down and saw my fiery-orange fur glistening with sweat and Dad's cum. I pulled my legs back a little, then used two fingers to open my pussy in front of my friend.

She leaned closer, closer, I could feel her hot breath against my sex a few seconds before her wet tongue slid through my nethers. I moaned my enjoyment as Abby ate Dad's cum from my cunt. I turned to him and we kissed, Abby's tongue moving slowly, gently all over my lower lips and probing inside to slurp out the cream dad had pumped into me moments before.

I started to cum when Abby's finger slid into my hole and her tongue moved higher to tease and swipe over and under my clit. I rose up against her, pressing my genitals onto Abby's face, my friend never moving faster or more firmly. I loved her touch there, her finger probing just an inch or two into my vagina. My pussy clenched around what was inside and my orgasm rolled out in long, lovely waves, my spasming hole squishing out more of Dad's semen for my friend to lick up.

I pulled Abby over me and we shared a spermy kiss. "Wanna cum?" I heard Dad ask my friend.

"Yeah..." Abby replied before pressing her lips onto me again.

Dad moved off the bed and I lost sight of him, but my enhanced senses showed me everything. He pulled down Abby's leggings, then licked her swollen pussy, the hairs there already wet with excitement. I felt her stiffen as Dad penetrated her little vagina, and I wrapped my arms around Abby as she mated with my father over me. "You are so sexy," I breathed to my friend, "and even more when you've got my dad's cock in you..."

"Mmm... Mmm..." Abby moaned as we kissed again.

I caressed her breasts after sending her blouse away. Each time Dad thrust inside Abby's cunt, her body was forced over me. I left one hand on her right breast, the other stroking her hair and her cheek. I licked Abby's neck and then pushed my tongue gently into her ear, whispering, "Cum for us, Abby... Cum for us..."

She shuddered, moaning, pressing her upper half down on me, her hands squeezing around my shoulders as if she was holding onto me for support. I loved that moment, the one where Abby climaxed and I felt her quivering and trembling, Dad emptying himself in her pussy just moments later.

He withdrew and I heard his cock plop out with a wet pop, Abby's vagina tight even after they had mated steadily for long, wonderful moments. Dad licked her again, cleaning up the mess there, then leaned lower and kissed my thighs before joining us on the bed. I rolled Abby between us and the three of us kissed and whispered loving thoughts, letting the rest of our troubles fade away, at least for a little while.

A little while was all we got. Tristan called to me, Join me. Hurry.

I sighed, saw that Abby and Dad were snoozing, and blinked myself to Tristan.

- - -

"What do you mean, someone was here?" I said in disbelief. I knew he was right. I had felt something change in the seconds before Tristan called to me, but I'd yet to explore or process the difference.

"It wasn't Caracus, that much I know. Dunno if it was a being or a probe or what it was, but something just manifested itself inside this realm."

I pushed my senses out. Whatever had come into Caracus' realm, it was no longer detectable. I traced what impressions remained. It didn't feel like a full being, not a corporeal body nor a similar approximation. The sense I got was that information had been delivered. Not like bits in a computer or even more mundane things like words or data, but a message of some sort. I twisted the faint traces and found it difficult to describe to Tristan.

"You can feel this better than I can, Tera. I just knew it happened, not what it might be."

"I'm not too sure I'm right," I admitted, "it just feels like... something blossomed in the realm and changed some small details... like... how a lightbulb gets lit up because electricity was allowed to flow through... or water stops flowing through a tap when the handle is turned. It doesn't feel... wrong... just... informative."

I probed deeper, testing some ideas about what had occurred. Then I realized something important. "It didn't come from outside this place."

"What?"

"Whatever it was started and ended here. Like... wait... wait..." There was a distinct pattern buried in the traces of the event. Something I'd seen before. Something I knew quite personally. "The sparks... one of the sparks... It called out strongly... it... manifested... It changed this realm a little... like... like it was trying to ready itself for retrieval and it needed things set up differently... I dunno, Tristan... but I feel that very strongly..."

"Which one, can you tell?"

"Uni's." I blinked Tristan and I to the room where the survivors were comatose. It wasn't that I needed to be so close to test my theories, but there was some part of me which still felt more sure, more confident, when I could see who I was working with. I pushed into her body, into her mind, and took gentle hold of the spark. It had grown in the hours since I'd last checked it in detail. It was pulsing now, like a lightbulb on the edge of burning out, but the opposite was true. Uni's spark wasn't burning out, it was burning brighter and brighter. I could have seen that spark from any distance. It almost overwhelmed me being so close. I tempered the impact and explored what it was trying to do.

I felt the pull happen suddenly and without warning. The essence reached out on its own, and I barely stopped it from connecting with Uni's spark. Tristan saw me struggling and grasped my arm, "Tera?"

"Wait..."

When lightning strikes, there are usually two pieces connecting, one big one from the sky, the other a small trail rising up from the ground. That's what I felt between the essence and Uni's spark. I kept them separated by turning the essence's own protections into a boundary, using my manifest, innate power to control the essence in a way I'd never so clearly done before. I felt frustration, largely because the essence was as much me as it was its own entity, for I felt, personally, deeply, the desire to connect with Uni's spark and consume it.

But I held it back through will and a firmer grasp on my powers. Uni would die if I absorbed that spark. "I have to leave. Now."

"What? Tera, what's happening?"

"The essence is trying to collect the spark. That was what happened earlier, the spark sent out a flare, of sorts, and the essence wants to take it in. I can't let it... Uni will die!"

"Jesus Christ..."

I felt myself pulled in another direction, this time from Juliet. "Another one is ready... I have to leave now, Tristan!"

"Go outside... to the sanctuary itself. I'll follow in a moment."

Feeling ripped in multiple directions as other sparks began to call out, I blinked myself away and into what I hoped was a rather isolated part of the sanctuary, breathing deeply. Despite the separation, the pull from the sparks was only slightly diminished, not gone completely. And the urge to consume each spark was steadily growing stronger with every breath I took.