Chapter Text
Arody was woken by the Blessed Elder’s fingers twisting one of his nipples.
He gave an exhale of pain, then clapped his hands to his mouth in horror at having made any sound at all. His heart was beating too fast. His chest twinged with the Elder's vicious pinches.
His breasts, still painfully leaking milk from carrying his third remonstrance, were a great fascination to the Blessed Elder. So was Arody’s soft little gut, just a small pouch on his otherwise skinny frame, distended from stretching to accommodate the too-large creature that had been inside him not two months ago. And Arody’s cunt was different now, too. It didn’t gape, precisely, not the way it always did those first few days after a birth. But it wasn’t the perfect little slit it had been once. Pushing out the third remonstrance had left it a dirty dark color, with the inner lips hanging down a bit past the outer, the hole more pliable and much less pretty.
Don’t cry, the Blessed Elder had said. How vain you are! This is heaven’s way of making you functional, and teaching you to quell your vanity. Now you suit the divine plan for you.
Certainly, having a ruined body didn’t dissuade the Elder. The Elder had a big, thick prick Arody was familiar with by now. As he rolled and pinched Arody’s nipples, he rutted the heavy pole against Arody’s thigh, right on Arody’s newest scars of penitence. Arody felt the drooling head leave trails of precum, slimy and thick, and gave a little hiccup.
Then, obediently, he spread his legs.
He had no idea what hour it was. His little shed-hovel was windowless — just a bed of straw, a metal link in the stone wall, and Arody himself chained to the link by his neck collar. The chain was slack enough that, if he needed to, he could go relieve himself in the chamberpot in the corner. When he’d first been brought to the Blessed Elder's household, he had not been trusted so, but by now he had shown he was about as trustworthy as a changeling could be expected to be.
It could not be morning yet. Mornings, Pastor Wycham would come and lash him awake, unchain him, and work a rough shift over his head so Arody could go labor in the kitchen, serve breakfast, and then labor some more. And only after the morning, only then, would Arody be returned to his shed, given some meal mingled with water and some coarse bread, and possibly be expected to receive a Seeding.
Seedlings happened at noon, just after the most difficult work was done. Best to Seed a changeling when the sun was at its highest, and could drive out the darkness and impurity. But now it had to be night, because he hadn’t even been lashed yet. So this wasn’t a Seeding. This was just the Elder's whim.
Arody found it easier to relax, knowing that. Reasoning that, anyway. He could not know it. Witchlings were supposed to be able to tell the future from the moment of their first spells, but Arody had never cast a spell, and had to simply guess about the nature of his current torment.
Now the Elder took his cock in hand and dragged the blunt head up Arody’s ruined thighs, to the soft, giving little cunt at the center. Half of the Elder’s big weight rested on Arody, leaned into him, the big gut in its crisp white nightshirt rubbing Arody’s smaller stomach as the Blessed Elder arranged himself. His hot breath danced on Arody’s forehead. Arody tried to stay still and pliant, as he knew he should.
But when the Elder breached him, he still felt it.
It was easier now that he was looser from birthing. Not so brutal as it had been, once. But still not easy. The Blessed Elder was too big for that, and he liked to push into Arody in one stroke, burying himself so deep his grizzled grey public hair touched Arody’s sensitive cunt lips. Arody gave another near soundless-squeak at the sudden pain, the heavy cock forcing him to stretch looser. His cunt throbbed horribly as the Elder began to see-saw into him, now adjusting his weight so that he pressed down on Arody completely.
He crushed the ruined stub of Arody’s cock, that limp, useless bit of flesh. Ground it into Arody’s stomach. Arody wriggled pathetically, blinking, trying not to cry out. The Blessed Elder’s cock was spearing into him, opening him up. He felt tears come unbidden to his eyes. His breath came too fast as his flesh was parted, his hole stretched beyond belief. Too fast. The stretch was unbearable.
The Blessed Elder didn't care. He drove in deep on every thrust. Forced a rub of skin on sweaty skin, the friction making the beginnings of something build in Arody. Arody smelled the Elder’s heavy breath, could not squirm away from the meaty hands pinning him down as the Elder fucked him with abandon. Arody’s body jerked, helpless. He could feel the rough straw digging into his backside.
Then the Blessed Elder’s lips latched onto one nipple, suckling, his teeth nipping. This twinged, but it loosed some of the heavy, unpleasant milk swelling up Arody’s breasts.
Arody’s gasped a bit. His tits were always too heavy, because Pastor Whycham made sure he was milked often enough to not dry up. He hated and loved milkings for that. Such frequent manhandling to his tits meant he was always dripping a bit. But it was also a sweet, unexpected release for him, the heaviness in his chest blessedly dropping away each morning.
The Blessed Elder’s sucking produced that same sudden lightness, that easing of the tightness in Arody’s nipples. Arody’s cunt began to go damp, despite the pain.
Slick. And slicker. Now the see-saw fuck clouded up Arody’s mind. He worked his skinny, scarred hips back against the Blessed Elder, clenched his well-worn pussy. Now his brain could process only the hot, relieving suck on his tit, the fat weight bearing him down, the massive pole breaking him open. It was too much sensation. Especially that cock, big flesh rubbing past his cunt lips, into his sore tunnel. Fucking in, making Arody’s body shake, driving Arody down, over and over. Rubbing into him until he gave a little cry and something in him cracked open with pleasure.
The sweet-poison almond smell of changeling lust filled the air. Arody’s cunt gushed, and Arody himself shoved skinny fingers in his mouth to stop from doing more than squeaking — more was forbidden to him, after all, lest he speak an enchantment.
So now his own thin, clammy digits stroked his tongue. This fogged him up even more. His tongue was the wickedest part of him, but when he touched it--
The Blessed Elder chuckled. He had abandoned Arody’s tit, but was still fucking into Arody.
His large, ring-covered hand lifted and came down with force, smacking Arody’s tits. Arody jerked, pain blossoming on his chest as the pleasure in his cunt and mouth kept cresting with the rhythm of the fuck.
“Foul thing!” grunted the Blessed Elder. His hand smacked Arody in time with his thrusts. Arody jerked and jerked, pain on his jaw, his collarbone, his tit again. “Foul slattern! Filthy! Take it, filthy devil!”
Arody was not allowed to speak. His tongue always grew back every time they cut it out — witchling tongues always did — but he hated having it cut at all. It was a special pain, bright and immense and horrific. So he kept his fingers in his mouth to quell any of the noises he might make, kept his tongue wriggling in ecstacy, in sin, and took the beating.
“Take! My! Cum!” grunted the Blessed Elder, as his big cock erupted inside Arody. Hot, thick human cum pumped into Arody’s cunt. Arody squeezed his eyes closed and worked his hips. His mind felt open, clear, and so good, despite all the pain in his body. His fingers stroked his tongue, happy, as the Elder's big cock rubbed deep inside him.
This was -- was almost nice. This was nothing like the Seeding.
That burned. Seared. And they didn’t stop until they swelled up Arody’s belly, stretching the skin there so painfully he couldn’t help but cry out.
But this, this was just a fuck, of the sort Arody had taken just about every night he was alive, and for now the cum only sat like a heavy slime in his cunt, a weight his hungry tongue could almost taste. The cum burbled out a bit when the Blessed Elder finally pulled out of him. He wiped his cock on Arody’s thigh, clasped one bruised tit for a moment, and then — finally — shuffled away to the main house for a nightcap.
-
Dried cum still crusted Arody’s inner thighs the next morning.
Goody Wyhcham didn’t blink at it, when the Pastor dragged Arody into the kitchen and set him to making the fine Holyday bread the family would have tomorrow. Arody obediently kneaded under her watchful eye, not wanting to be lashed. He had already been lashed awake, right on his once-again-heavy tits. He could expect to be lashed every day. But, if he was quiet, perhaps he would not be lashed too much.
Humility, Innocence, and May-He-Destroy-the-Wicked joined their mother in the kitchen when Arody was nearly done. The Whychams could not abide laziness and sleeping in, but their three daughters were still permitted to sleep later than Arody. Like all the women of Divine Providence, they wore simple, neat grey dresses and tied their hair back modestly, but Arody knew Humility had several very immodest hair ribbons for her thick carroty curls, and that Innocence possessed an embroidered set of small clothes.
Innocence knew he knew it. Now she sauntered forward, pert nose in the air, and stood towering over Arody. All the Whychams were tall, and Arody no bigger than the average goodwife, so towering was not hard for Innocence to do.
“Mother,” Innocence said, a whining tone creeping into her voice. “Look at the state of him. It’s indecent.”
“Hmm?” said Goody Whycham, scarcely looking up from her basket of mending. She did not concern herself too much with Arody, other than to see that he did what he was told, and so her pink, even-featured face with its pale brows, so like that of her daughter’s, did not register much emotion at all.
Innocent twirled the end of her golden braid, looking Arody over assessingly. Arody focused on his bread, trying not to hiccup or show his dismay. It was always worse when he showed his dismay. Now he felt Humility coming up on his other side.
May, ever the least horrible of the three, did not approach him at all, but simply went to the butter churn and occupied herself with her own business.
Innocence’s hand closed on his skinny forearm.
“Go to mother,” she instructed. “Turn over. Show her your hole of perversion.”
Arody didn’t let himself think. Changelings weren’t thinking creatures. Perhaps that was why sometimes he just — went away. His mind was pleasantly dull and away when he kneeled obediently before Goody Whycham, back to her, and lifted his backside like Innocence and Humility liked him too. Exposed his well-fucked, loose cunt, felt the cold morning air play on the place he’d been violated not hours before.
“Who did you seduce now?” Humility hissed. “Father? Fortitude? It’s disgusting that he is permitted to live among decent women, Mother, it really is—“
“We must ever entangle ourselves with the worst creatures, for your Blessed Elder is the deacon,” blinked Goody Whycham, without much feeling. It was like she was looking in on the goats in the pen outside, or perhaps one of the sows. Arody was classed with the household livestock, after all.
“Has he not been cleaned this week?” wondered the goodwife, after a half-second. “How ugly his place of devious sinning looks!”
“The Divine shows us all things as they are and should be,” Innocence quoted from Scripture, with a wicked grin. “Still, it’s clear. He’s been taking pleasure, mother, in the flesh again—“
“Slut,” Humility coughed out.
“Father will have to beat him—“
“I expect so,” Goody Whycham said, still sounding quite guileless about the whole thing.
Humility came forward now and jabbed a finger into the mess of Arody’s cunt. It was a sudden pain, stirring up the ache of the night before.
“Disgusting,” Humility pronounced. “Be grateful to Father for wasting his time on trying to reform you, witch.”
Arody was far away, quietly playing his tongue against the roof of his mouth, feeling the little thrums of pleasure from that. So he only nodded. But he thought he saw May look up at him and grimace at the quiet tears on his thin cheeks.
-
Once, he knew he must have been demonically beautiful.
All changelings were. They were born of witches who copulated with the devil, and that was why Arody looked as he did. Slender, small, and inhumanly tempting to men and women alike. He had a pretty mouth, he had been told, and nails of bright pearl-gold, and he had thick dark hair with a decided reddish tint. Pastor Whycham made sure it was cropped close to his skull, to prevent him from tempting anyone, but it grew so swiftly that Arody had to have his hair cut near-weekly. It grew like Arody’s demon tongue grew. His nails replaced themselves whenever the Pastor ripped them out (once a month, to keep them from becoming demonic claws) and eyes, too, always healed very quickly, big luminous black eyes, completely black, even what ought to have been the whites. Unsettling and ever-perfectly wicked.
But the rest of Arody was rather useless at healing. His back bled and scarred, and his thighs. His hips and breasts and and stomach were veined with stretch marks. His cock certainly hadn’t grown back from the time it was culled, chopped down to a useless nub to prevent him from ever copulating with an innocent woman. His tail was a nub, too. He couldn't remember ever having had it. It had been cleaved off too young, and now was little more than a small lump of scars above his meager backside.
And his cunt took pain as what it was. Pain. Arody kneeled in the straw of the hayloft, breathing hard, his cheek to the dirty floor. And used his hands to bare his cunt again, pull back the lips.
He could feel, spurting out as if to evidence Innocence and Humility’s claims, the last of the Blessed Elder’s thick cum. Heavy in him, pooling out as Arody opened himself up to Pastor Whycham’s ideas of penitence.
He hoped it wasn’t the small crop. That was light, swishy, and horribly biting. It hurt the worst, and cut with every stroke to his skin. The heavy leather lash left worse bruises, and the nine-tailed flogger painted his pale skin nearly as badly, but they weren’t like the small crop, which scarred every time it touched him.
“Hm,” Pastor Whycham said, and Arody could imagine the way he must be now bringing a hand to his temples. “Who was it? Was it Fortitude?”
Arody shook his head against the floor. He could feel his shoulders shaking. He was still crying, a bit. Even when he was far away, he cried a bit.
“Oh,” said Pastor Whycham, with sudden understanding. “Oh. Well. It’s not such a transgression then. He’s divinely elected. There isn’t much he can do that’s a sin to him.”
Arody nodded now, feeling the straw scrape and tickle his chin. He was pathetically grateful that Pastor Whycham believed him. Of course, Arody never lied, not really. He found it very difficult to lie. It was a thing his brain could never wrap itself around. But the Whychams wouldn’t have believed him even if he’d dared to defy the town Elders' edicts regarding his silence by telling them that. As far as the Sanctified were concerned, Arody must lie all the time, being what he was, which was evil in living form.
“It’s still a transgression for you, you understand,” said Pastor Whycham, reasoning it out. “You’re not elect. Any wickedness you do is not pardoned by divinity, but rather confirms your place in the fires of hell, which—“
He drifted off, becoming theological in his mumbling.
Arody nodded and nodded. He was always transgressing. Other than the nods, he tried to stay in place now, still baring his sensitive slit to the cool morning air. He wanted to press his tongue against the roof of his mouth, his teeth. Just to comfort himself. But it would only make his cunt wet, and then Pastor Whycham would ask if he was pleasuring himself, and then he would be unable to lie, and then the beating would only be worse.
Pastor Whycham was still mumbling.
“—somewhere below a warlock, even, and, as you can be drowned and not die, burnt with coals and not killed, there is to be no salvation. I believe we decided that when you were five. Still, being as my salvation rests upon my acts, I should not let this slide. But there is breakfast to consider, and morning prayers. It wouldn’t do to fall behind in the tasks of the day. I will make this quick. You're sure to earn another beating, in any case. You always do."
Arody nodded at this. He found himself -- as Humility had instructed him to be -- grateful.
"Five," decided the Pastor.
That was nothing. He was so grateful.
"With the nine-tails," said the Pastor. "Across your bottom. I want you to count them out as you feel the penance."
So grateful. He exhaled, hard, and let his hands drop to the floor at his sides, but kept his rear in the air. Waved it, to show his agreement. Pastor Whycham rustled about behind him, reaching for the nine-tails on its nail by the sloped ceiling.
He didn't give Arody any warning when he brought it down. He never did. The pain split across Arody's flesh, and he was luckily so practiced at taking it that he made not a sound. He scratched out a line in the straw with his right hand (not his left, never the left, not unless he wanted more lashes) to show he was counting.
"Good," said Pastor Whycham distractedly.
With a whistle, the nine-tails struck again. Arody's backside was on fire, hurt erupting, some of the hits tearing him open. He could feel the wells of blood as acutely as he could his scratchy woolen shift, forced up around his tits. He focused on making the next line in the straw. Two. That was two.
"Good," said Pastor Whycham.
Then again. Three. Arody's hand shook as he traced out the count. Now there wasn't any part of his rear that didn't hurt. He would be a mass of colors, purple-green-red. He already had been, but those older bruises had been healing. But he was never really allowed to fully heal. It wouldn't truly hurt him, Pastor Whycham said. Like the drowning and the coals had never hurt him.
"Good," said Pastor Whycham.
He struck again. Arody forced himself to make a fourth line, though the fourth hit knocked most of the sense from him. He was pressing his tongue against the roof of his mouth, desperate to escape the pain. His eyes were nothing but wet. His rump hurt so badly. The fourth lash had caught the nub of his tail, and set his entire brain on fire.
"Good," said Pastor Whycham, for to beat a witch-changeling was right, was good, and then he loosed the final blow, and Arody managed to scratch the fifth line, obediently, before he blinked and passed out.
-
When he woke, he was strapped into place to be milked.
The leather collar around his neck cut into his skin. He shifted uncomfortably. But, because the bench he was tied to was flat and splintery, unpleasant as it rubbed his flesh, he soon stopped that. His shift had been pulled down now, to his hips, so that his breasts could dangle on either side of the thin panel of wood. Pastor Whycham was seated before him, pulling on his gloves and muttering.
"Goody Dunham wants a great hog, foul woman that she is. A hog won't mean you give such good milk. We must consider the milk. That infernal dog left you with the sourest taste I've ever had. No, I think it must be kids and calves for you--"
Seeding. He was planning the next Seeding. It was so, so hard not to whimper. Arody had only been Seeded three times, but all the town's Blessed Elders agreed that changelings could be Seeded for as long as they lived, and the especially wicked ones like Arody lived a long time. Longevity was one of the devil's gifts to Arody's kind. The power to tempt was another. So was the ability to whisper spells with every word, quite-powerful spells if they were powered by innocent souls.
And so was the fertility. That too was a gift. A witchling could bear mad pigs, black cats, and waves of bats. A witchling could bear a horse with eyes of flame, a host of rats, a great serpent.
Only, Arody was made to bear more useful things. Things that increased the wealth and esteem of the Whychams, and of Divine Providence. The only Divine community to have a living changeling. There were a few living devil-changelings in old Audenlea, serving lords and ladies and such. But in the new land there were nearly none, or at least none the Elders hadn't successfully killed.
Arody had never succeeded at being killed, though. He was too much a child of the devil. He could be scarred and hurt, but not destroyed. So he was turned to usefulness. The Sanctified liked hard work, and piety, and use. The Sanctified believed that the world existed to be turned to industry. The children of witches could be no exception.
Now, though Pastor Whycham was massaging his breast, letting the milk spool out, bringing Arody some welcome relief, Arody could feel no real pleasure. Only fear.
"I think another cow. We can set you to gathering the bull's leavings again--"
Arody shuddered. Bit back a whine. Biting his tongue made his eyes water again, the pain so sharp and awful, worse than his fiery backside. But he couldn't make a sound, not even in fear at the Seeding.
"To pump into you properly, get you nice and bred. Perhaps you will give another bull! How perverse it will be to see you grow one the way you do, in mere days--"
That was all the time it took. A little over a week for each carrying. Arody's body was a foul cauldron, and it would swell painfully, quickly, the cum taking root inside him and the devil's magic making him fat and heavy with any animal the Whychams might desire. He hated it, hated the ever-constant fog of weight and pain he carried in those days. Hated feeling the creatures thump and roll about inside him, before they demanded to be birthed in blood and more pain still.
Pastor Whycham finished one tit. Moved on to the other. His hands were cold, his fingers no kinder than the Blessed Elder's had been the night before.
"That's if you are good. If you are not, we can simply have the bull breed you himself--"
Arody shook his head wildly, shook and shook.
He hated the Seeding, hated having the Pastor and the Blessed Elder and Fortitude Whycham converge on him, read the prayers to bind him, take that cruel metal pumping device and pump him up for hours. Hated how they sealed it by sticking their cocks in, plugging him. Two cocks in his cunt -- the men -- while Fortitude forced his mouth open to cut out his tongue, the source of his evil, so as to ensure the creature born would not carry the devil-touch.
But Pastor Whycham was right. There were worse ways, perhaps, to be Seeded.
-
Generally, at breakfast, Fortitude Whycham had his fun with Arody.
Fortitude was as tall as his grandfather, the household's Blessed Elder, and as broad, but his muscle had not yet gone to fat. He was a solid, handsome brick of a fellow, two or three years older than Arody, and thus already a man of eighteen. He had Humility and the Pastor's carroty hair, but he was not hit on his hands quite so often as Humility was for the carroty hair. For one thing, it did not matter if his hair and good looks made Fortitude vain. Men didn't carry vanity the way women and changelings did. Men were permitted a bit more vanity, as a rule.
Men were permitted more of everything, and so it was that Fortitude could often afford to grope Arody in what ought to have been plain sight. The only one to really suffer for that would be Arody, for causing the temptation in the first place. So Arody was no great fan of breakfast, not any more than he enjoyed any moments he was forced to spend with Fortitude.
But today something else occupied the young master of the Whycham homestead. He didn't so much as glance at Arody as Arody served the family. So Arody discovered that the luck that had kept him only fucked, not Seeded; the luck that meant he was only hit with the nine-tails, not the crop--
It held.
He was quiet and grateful as he set the plates and spoons before the Whychams. The Blessed Elder first, at the head of the table. Then the Pastor, at the foot. Then Fortitude, then Goody, then the girls. As Arody went back for the large, heavy pot of morning cornmeal paste, his arms straining to lug it to the table, Blessed Elder began his prayers, his voice a deep, authoritative lull. The Whychams sat with their hands clasped, muttering benedictions at the right times. This would be the only talk permitted at breakfast. Silence and piety were Sanctified virtues, and not just for changelings.
Prayer generally took some twenty minutes. By then, Arody had brought out the pewter mugs he had scrubbed the night before, a heaping plate of brown bread he'd made two days ago, a small dish of butter May had churned, and the big tankard of morning beer. He was calm and precise about these tasks, for they were familiar and useful. He'd been serving the Whychams nearly his whole life, ever since his existence was discovered and his witch-mother was put to death for it, and without Fortitude grasping to pinch him or trip him, breakfast was almost a pleasant affair. When he was done serving, he knelt in the corner by the waste-pail and clasped his own hands, bowed his head. He couldn't say the prayers, but he could mouthe them, and they brought him some more comfort.
He didn't know why Fortitude was holding back. He didn't need to know. It was enough to be relieved at it.
When prayers were done, there came the scrape of spoons on metal bowls. Silence filled the room. Arody kept his eyes closed and let himself rest, mind going blank and far away again. They would call him back when they needed something, needed the butter or the beer refilled. His bottom hurt and his cunt ached, but his tits were empty and his tongue was a little curling worm of sweet pleasure in his mouth. He could move it against his gums and let the sensitive forked tip touch, and no one would know as long as he was still and quiet, and didn't go too far in his secret comforts.
"Grandfather," Fortitude said sharply.
The clangs of cutlery stilled. Arody opened his eyes. He beheld the Whychams -- carroty Pastor and Humility, pale Innocence and Goody, mousy-brown May, and the huge, grey Elder -- looking on Fortitude with puzzled disfavor.
"Forgive me," Fortitude said, his voice so smooth and clear that perhaps only Arody could taste the oiliness beneath it. "I know I should pray, I will pray, for forgiveness for disrupting our breakfast hour with my chatter. But it seems to me that perhaps you were not aware, Blessed Grandfather. Colonel Tolland was sighted at Riverview an hour ago. I heard it from Goodman Channing, when I took the goats out this morning. It seems the Colonel is headed this way, to Divine Providence."
The silence burst like a bubble, as Humility and Innocence and Goody Whycham fell to hushed gasps, chittering shrieks. Even Pastor Whycham gave a squawk. Fortitude looked pleased at himself, at having prompted everyone to join him in his minor sin.
The Elder only looked stern.
"Your impudence comes from wishing to caution me," he said ponderously. "You ever mean well. But your youth and lack of wisdom are a problem. Divine Providence need not fear the Colonel. We hold with Audenlea's laws, even here in the new land. And even though we need not, being above the sin of that old nation. Still, the Colonel knows we are loyal to the King and Queen, and that we pay their unholy, earthly tithes, even as we acknowledge that their souls will be commended to hell for their impiety. He will not come to do us harm. He will come, likely, to bring us some new law about a tax, or else to spread tidings about the savage wars."
The other Whychams settled, looking relieved. Colonel Tolland fought the Yorrul and the Inokhti, the savages of the North who worshipped trees and horses, and was thus as respected by Divine Providence as he was disliked, derided, and feared. He himself was bound for hell, for he openly kept no religion. He styled himself a man of wondrous reason, which meant that he smoked, drank to excess, kept mistresses, gamed, had served a colonial ambassadorship at the Court of Audenlea, and grew lush silken hemp on his vast plantation, which had made him so wealthy as to seriously throw the doctrine of Divine Success for the Elect into question.
"But should a man so godless even be permitted into our community?" Fortitude wheedled now. "Why, I hear he has two aide-de-camps with him wherever he goes. Three soldiers, three wild men, among our decent women like mother and my sisters--"
"Decent women will not be tempted by the rough soldiers of the Audenlea guard," the Blessed Elder said firmly, with looks of caution at his daughter and granddaughters. Goody, Humility, Innocence, and May clasped their hands in prayer.
"But women are creatures prone to sin," countered Fortitude. "Grandfather. I must insist you let me and some fellows trail the General. Not to watch him, of course. But to watch that none of our community become too fond of him. We must ever be watchful, on the lookout for the degradation of the weakest among us. You have said that, Blessed Grandfather."
The women's prayers became louder, and now the Pastor joined them. And the Blessed Elder looked at Fortitude almost indulgently. The Blessed Elder had little interest in colonels, kings, lords, or anything outside Divine Providence. But he loved to monitor the weakest among them. He saw that as the true calling of a Sanctified Elder.
"Fortitude," he said, with some emotion. "How right you are. There can be no greater act, after all, than to prevent those likely to sin from committing to their unholy temptations."
Then he noticed he had finished his beer, and that there was none left in the tankard. He rapped his spoon against his bowl for Arody to come refill it. Arody rose, the movement awakening all the pain in his rear and cunt and breasts, and went to get the tankard.
Fortitude reached out as Arody passed him. He snuck his hand beneath Arody's shift and painfully, cruelly, tugged the stub of Arody's cock. He twisted it, making Arody stumble and struggle not to cry out at the sudden pain. Arody's instinct was to press his tongue against his teeth, but he held back. He was right to hold back. Fortitude knew how he liked to comfort himself and, to check he had not done it, he migrated his thick fingers down to Arody's cunt. Shoved them in, as his sister had. As they all did. Arody's hole was nothing special.
"Dry," Fortitude reported, sounding almost disappointed.
"Wise boy," murmured the Elder. "Always watching for sin. As the Scriptures say we should."
-
After breakfast there was laboring to be done in the garden, sweaty and hot beneath the sun. Then morning services with the community. Then more labor. So it went every day for Arody, sometimes even Holyday, because after all he was not holy, and so there could be nothing holier but to put him to work, even on the day of rest.
His first bout of weeding, hoeing, and digging passed without incident. He kept his mind far away and blank. His legs and arms gained another layer of garden dirt and sweat, but since tomorrow was Holyday, when he was permitted a wash, he didn't mind it. He never really did. Dirt and sweat was cleaner than blood and cum.
Morning service was held in the great meeting house next to the Whycham homestead. Men sat in the pews on the ground floor, and women in the balconies. Arody, being a child of the devil, was not permitted inside. Instead he was tied to a post by the side door, from where he could hear the service.
He could be of use there, too.
Today it was Goodman Hastings. He was a plump little man, and he had been caught sneaking over to nearby Riverview to drink and gamble. Blessed Elder Ornett had given him twelve lashes with a birch branch, and he had spent the week confined to his house, instructed to pray. He stood outside the side door, twisting his broad-brimmed hat and looking miserable.
"I have truly felt the weight of my sins," he said to Pastor Whycham. "Truly, good Pastor. I have heard at night the cries of those in hell, and known I deserve to join them, and the misery, Pastor, is too much to bear."
"Just so," said Pastor Whycham pompously. "If thou had been a lesser man, Goodman Hastings, we might have presumed thee destined for hellfire."
But Goodman Hastings was not a lesser man. He was wealthy -- his father had been the first Judge to condemn a witch in Divine Providence, his uncles still sent the colony money from their plantations in Rotandi, and he himself had a respectable business selling furs to the Riverview impious. His success made it clear that he was not likely to end up roasting with the devil. God would not favor a man who was truly evil, after all.
"Dost thou feel thyself saved?" asked the Pastor now, interrogating the Goodman nevertheless. "Worthy to sit with thine fellows and hear the word of God?"
Goodman Hastings' florid face crumpled.
"I still want to sin," he confessed. "I do not want to want to--"
Pastor Whycham nodded understandingly.
"It may take time. But thou may stay here, with the witchling, and hear the sermon. Perhaps consider giving to the poorest among us -- Goody Whycham can help you arrange it. If thou must succumb to sin, the changeling is here to receive the bulk of it, and perhaps thou shalt loose the worst of it into him. Or, perhaps, thou shalt do what sinners cannot. Perhaps thou shalt prove thyself re-sanctified by enduring his hell-touch, yet not succumbing to his wiles. That is an effective test, I have always found. Canst thou rut the beast, yet not give into him?"
Goodman Hastings' voice sounded almost hopeful.
"P-perhaps!" he said, shifting to get a look at the kneeling Arody. His small, clear blue eyes seemed to drink in the kneeling changeling, every sharp bone, every scar on the collarbones, every cropped strand of red-brown hair.
"He's almost appealing," Goodman Hastings said, wonderingly.
"Sin always is. But it can hook and trap a man if thou lets it. So do not touch his mouth, whatever thy may do," said the Pastor firmly, and swept up the narrow wooden steps into the meetinghouse.
After that, it was difficult to focus on the sermon. Goodman Hastings didn't even wait. He sat his plump rear on the large block of stone next to Arody's post and undid his leather belt, unbuttoning his grey muslin trousers greedily. Above them, the birds of the new land hooted and called to each other softly in the green trees, and from the window came the sounds of the Blessed Elder booming out his warnings against hellfire.
"Come here," Goodman Hastings said slyly. "I have what your kind likes so much, devil-creature."
His cock was an ugly, stubby pink worm. Arody crawled to it obediently, and let Goodman Hastings pull him up and turn him around. He prodded at Arody until Arody lifted his shift to show his dirty thighs and blood-crusted behind.
"Dirty thing," chided the Goodman. "Filthy! Look at you! You'll ruin my trousers!"
He spat, a wad of his thick spittle landing on Arody's thigh.
"Clean up," instructed Goodman Hastings. "Hurry up."
As the Blessed Elder continued to boom, Arody rubbed the spit into his legs. Goodman Hastings chuckled, like this was a fine joke.
"You're only getting dirtier," he whined, low but still capable of being heard by Arody. "I bet you like to be dirty. If I could take you home with me I'd keep you dirty all the time, little hell-trollop. I'd do such sins to you you'd feel it every night."
The Goodman was wriggling about now, though Arody wasn't facing him and couldn't see. Still, Arody heard the rustle when the Goodman's trousers were shucked down. He glanced at their feet (his mud-encrusted, thin, and small, the nails glinting that odd pearly gold they were; the Goodman's in his big, heavy shoes of fine leather) to find the Goodman had shoved even his smallclothes down to his own ankles.
"Give me that shift," ordered the Goodman. "I'll not have you ruining my shirt."
Arody pulled it over his head obediently, exposing his chest and stomach and cunt to the cold morning air. He passed the shift back and heard the Goodman rustling it about, likely spreading it over his clean grey shirt.
"Alright, devil-tramp," whined Goodman Hastings. "Let's get it in you, then."
His fingers, strangely lovely, soft fingers, closed on Arody's bare hips and maneuvered the changeling back, lining them up. Arody sank down as directed, using his own hands to spread his cunt so the stubby, hardening cock could take root in him.
Compared to the Blessed Elder's huge prick, it was barely an intrusion. He breathed out, parting around it easily, and began to move in time with Goodman Hastings' direction on his hips. The rub of the little worm in his loose channel didn't help with his aches, but neither did it really add to them. Arody worked himself up and down on it in time to the cadence of the Elder's roaring sermon and Goodman Hastings' little grunts, letting his mind go almost blank again.
His tits bounced, in this position. The nipples were frozen stiff, bare to the cool air and sunshine. His legs were going a bit sore from the effort of fucking himself. And he still had all his old hurts. But this wasn't so bad, not if he ignored the hissing of Goodman Hastings, devil, slut, wicked thing, whore, perverse, and focused on squeezing the little worm-cock to hardness.
He squeezed. Squeezed and squeezed. He knew his task now -- to draw out another load of cum, to get that shot into him, clear proof that the Goodman had sinned. Then Goodman Hastings would have to give, and give extravagantly. The Elders and Pastors could use some of his charity to benefit the poor of Divine Providence. Some of his charity. Not too much. The poor, after all, were poor by God's will. But it could not be God's will that the meetinghouse go another year without a fresh coat of expensive white for its wooden walls. So most of the charity would probably go to that.
Not that Arody was entitled to any sort of opinion over where it went. He knew his place. It was fucking himself like this, working himself back and down, over and over, trying to tighten up as much as he could. He let his tongue hang out, too, tasting the chill air, tasting his own sweaty-salt chin. Let the little fork of it curl up. It was so sensitive that it carried a small trill of pleasure down to his cunt, which slicked up enough to make Goodman Hastings bite back a moan.
"Sinful bitch," Goodman Hastings panted. His little cock stilled, then began to pulse out Arody's sticky, viscous reward. Arody breathed out and went still himself, clenching harder than ever. Goodman Hastings' long fingers were bruising his hips as he came inside Arody's cunt, adding to the mess and filth that covered the witchling.
Of course, it was at this very moment that the horses thundered up to the meetinghouse. Two or three horses to the front entrance, accompanied by the loud sounds of men wondering if the Strikers were done with their damned devotions for the day. And one a little farther than the other horses, galloping up to the side entrance to hear the echoes of the sermon within. To see Arody shuddering, milking a man's cum, eyes wide, tits bare, and with his forked hell-tongue still tasting the air.
The red-coated soldier on the horse blinked at Arody. He was a tall young man, but slender, all angles. His skin was a decided brown, his face plain but not cruel. Only his eyes stood out. They were large and human, but impossibly dark. A very handsome black, bright despite their dark color, like the evening sky. The soldier ran a hand over his curled dark brown hair as the Goodman sputtered and shoved Arody off, making the changeling fall to the ground, away from the lead still tying him to his post. Arody nearly choked at this.
The horse before him whinnied, stepping back as if it found the scene distasteful.
"They can't still be at it," came that first soldierly voice from the front of the meeting house. "How much prayer do these people need?"
"I'd say quite a lot," said the soldier peering down at Arody. As Goodman Hastings shoved his pecker back in his trousers and muttered out red-faced apologies, the soldier swung down. He leaned over, tracing the letters carved just above Arody's bruised rear. The ones the Elders had carved into him when they’d first learned his name, and decided to brand him for what he was instead.
The soldier had calloused hands. Not so soft as Goodman Hastings'. But gentle, all the same.
He helped Arody up, as if Arody were not filthy.
-
There was more labor in store for him, this time in the fields beyond the homestead, after the morning's sermon. So he was not present for the Colonel's reception in the Whycham household. He was instead set to carrying bricks from Pastor Haskell’s kiln to the site where they would build a new sugar house, his arms aching from the exertion, his legs aching from the trip. He collected some more sweat and mud along the way, and his skin began to itch, as it always did when he was this badly in need of a wash.
He did wonder why the Colonel had come.
He hadn't wondered before. Before the black-eyed soldier. He had only been vaguely grateful that something else might occupy Fortitude for the day. He still was grateful. If it wasn't for the soldiers, Fortitude might be here with him now, lashing him with the small crop to make him work faster.
But still, for once he was not far away. He was acutely aware of every painful, heavy step he took, over the field, past the horse paddock where Witch-Biter, Fortitude's stallion, whinnied as Arody passed. He was acutely aware of the sun heating up the day, of the red, sore rub of his wool shift on his bruised backside as he worked, of the sticky, crusty mess between his legs. And he was aware of what a shameful thing it was for a man outside Divine Providence, a man kind enough to touch him without harming him, to have had to behold an ugly, used-up devil as was Arody.
He felt sick. He had to stop there, in the field, and put the bricks down, and let the nothing in his stomach heave up, vomiting out the bile into the soil before the horse paddock.
-
At around midday, after serving the second meal, he was generally led back to the rundown stone shed and given food. Or Seeded. But it seemed from Pastor Whycham's musings that there would be no Seeding just yet.
There was also no food. No one came to get Arody, not even to make him serve. Across the fields, he could see the soldiers' horses still tied outside the Whycham homestead. Colonel Tolland seemed to be occupying the whole family.
Arody's empty stomach gave a pang.
He could not go without eating. He was hungry enough as it was, all the time. His long, sensitive tongue forever wanted food. Wanted more. He was a changeling, after all. If he had been permitted to be as evil as he was meant to be, he would be licking in men's souls and feasting on them, grinding them up to make demonic spells, according to the Elders. But now he could only dare to play his tongue along the back of his upper teeth, feeling each hard square white knob. The touch made him shiver.
Because he was in the center of the field, anyone could see him. Any Goody or Goodman watching from their homes, or from the street beyond the homesteads, right there on the slope above him.
Still, he crouched and dared. He took a large hank of grass, yanked it, its roots enmeshed with dirt, and shoved it in his mouth.
The taste was wonderfully terrible. Dusty, muddy, green, and intense. The grass blades let off little sparks in him, small trickles of life. His tongue didn't mind. It liked the burst of slimy mud, the long slick slide of each grass blade, the squelch of weeds his teeth reduced it all too. Feel was more important than taste. Even the soggy bread and watery meal he normally received had a feel, one that set his mind buzzing with exhausted pleasure. His kind could eat anything and like it. Maggots. Mother's milk. Corpse dust. Babies.
Anything was better than nothing.
He gorged himself a bit, quickly as he could, shoveling more grass and dirt into his mouth. His stomach gurgled happily, and his cunt felt slickly tender, responding to the nice sensation of something in his mouth. He even dared to lick at the caked dirt on his hands and forearms, loving the way his forked tongue's tips traced the fine, nearly invisible hairs on his arms. Little bristles, which made his whole self tremble with happy comfort.
When he was done, he pulled himself up unsteadily, thighs sticky-wet again. He picked up the bricks he'd dropped and began lugging them to their intended place. He worked and worked until he could not, until it was past noon and time for afternoon prayers. Then he dragged himself to his post by the meeting house, attaching his collar to the chain.
The Sanctified were already milling about the front, but here, by the side closest to the Whycham homestead, there was no one. Or nearly no one.
"We take no part in the earthly struggles of men," he could hear the Blessed Elder saying stiffly, from the direction of the homestead.
"No, Elder Whycham, but you do benefit from them," came a commanding tone that could only be Colonel Tolland. "The colony of Divine Purity fell to the Inakhti, did you know that? They too refused to house my men--"
"Those sinful scapegraces? The Lord gave them their due, then," the Blessed Elder said, sounding unimpressed. Divine Purity was far to the North -- the Northernmost and Easternmost Elect settlement in the new land, while Divine Providence was in the rolling hills of the Southern border, farther from the savage settlements, closer to the beaches where docked the ships of white mercenaries and Audenlea-bound merchant traders. So they were rather more protected. And, in any case, Divine Purity had broken with the true way of the Sanctified during the schism of the Forty Years of Challenges.
"No," said the Blessed Elder now. "We take no part in wars. We are a peaceable settlement, holy and just. We do not abide soldiering, gambling, whoring. My people will not so much as speak to your soldiers, should you dare to house yourselves in the pious homesteads of my Goodmen. You and these three may spend the night until your horse is properly shoed, but after that--"
"So that is it?" Tolland said sharply. "You will not accommodate my other request?"
"We take no part in the earthly struggles of men," the Elder repeated testily. "If you wish to make camp, you may do so near the barn. Once the horse is shoed, however, you must leave."
Then he was striding around the back of the homestead, his tread firm. He swept past Arody without noting him.
Normally, a man like Goodman Hastings would return for the next sermon, more penitant, more grasping, more ready to give in to sin and so fund the Elders' newest ventures. But it seemed that the humiliation of the morning had hit the Goodman as well as Arody. He stayed away. Thus, Arody was left to kneel quietly and listen to the next sermon -- on the divine joys to be felt by the Elect when they reached heaven, not that Arody was among the Elect.
And to listen to the low rumble of conversation coming from the direction of the barn.
He had thought there would be three soldiers, from what Fortitude had said. But there were four. One had a drawling, slow, sweet sort of speech. One spoke with the lilts of Lietty, the green, misty colony across the sea, which would fall to hellfire during the Coming, owing to how its inhabitants worshipped a convocate of twelve red-garbed Popes instead of the actual Divine. The third was so commanding he had to be Colonel Tolland.
And the last was the black-eyed soldier.
“Whippoorwill, whippoorwill, why heed your will—“ the black-eyed one was singing softly. He had a nice voice. The tune was strange, winding and unusual. It hit something in Arody and hooked him.
"Enough. Better not to ask why. He sleeps in Adam, that one does, and should only be called sparingly,” cut in the drawling one. “In any case, there’s a way to do it. The boy, Fortitude, he offered--"
"You have no idea what he was offering, Barnabas," said Arody's soldier.
"Think I do, Bright," was the retort.
Arody blinked at the strange name. Bright. He hoped no one had introduced the handsome soldier to the Blessed Elder. The Blessed Elder did not approve of brightness, not laughter, not games, not merrymaking or revelry.
Barnabas was still speaking. "It was your idea, anyway, to trick Towaquippa--"
"It was necessary," cut in Colonel Tolland. "She'll be sure to meet us at the shore, in any case, demanding what’s owed. She isn’t the sort to forget."
"Hate this stinking place," said the lilting one. "Hate these damned Strikers--"
That was the other name for the Sanctified, for the way they solved most things with the lash.
"You would," said Arody's soldier, said Bright, sounding fond.
"Did you see the devil, then?" said Barnabas. "Working in their fields? Didn't think they had it in them to trap a devil. Thought it was only criminals, slaves, Earls, and Marquises who dared--"
"And popes," added the lilting one.
"Surely not all your Popes keep devils, Jack," said Colonel Tolland.
"Aye, only the smart ones do," said Jack. "Bind 'em, they do, with holy water and prayer, and then set 'em on their enemies, on th'bloody cardinals who think they have it in 'em to go against the convocate, even on th’other Popes--"
"How ghoulish," Colonel Tolland said mildly. "I'm glad not to be Popish. I’d like to kill a Pope for that kind of behavior."
"Suit yourself," said Jack. "My da met the fifth Pope once, you know, and he--"
"I wasn't saying we should take the boy on his offer," drawled Barnabas, cutting in rather rudely. "I was saying we should do it ourselves. We owe a debt, boys. That's why we're really here, isn't it?”
-
After afternoon prayers, he was set to work in the barn, cleaning out stalls. He didn't mind this. Wanton, his first remonstrance, lived in the barn.
Arody would never meet the second remonstrance, the snow-white goat kid the Blessed Elder had sold to a couple in Riverview for a tidy sum. He would likely never meet the third, either, for that one had been a majestic red cow, giving impossibly sweet milk, sold to the Mayor of New Roderick, in the North. For that, the Sanctified had made enough money to fence in the garden around every homestead, though in fact only the better homesteads had been fenced in, only the homesteads of the pillars of the meetinghouse: the Pastors, the Elders, the truly Elect.
But Wanton had only been a gift for Fortitude on the day he was baptized into full godliness, and so Wanton had never been sold. He was a massive, silky black hound, stupid and very sweet, and though he had hurt Arody horribly with his birth, Arody refused to hold it against him.
Changelings could not love, and were creatures of sin, but he knew he nearly loved Wanton.
And Fortitude was still not watching him. He was still trailing, in his oily way, after the soldiers. So Pastor Whycham turned over the hourglass on the sill that was meant to remind Arody to work quickly, ordered him to muck stables, and then closed the barn door and lowered the great, heavy cross-bar to lock Arody in.
Arody ignored the hourglass. He didn't muck stables right away, but instead crawled into the hay where Wanton was sleeping and wrapped his arms around the large creature.
Wanton cracked open an eye. He whined appreciatively. His long pink tongue, a normal tongue, for Wanton was mostly a normal dog if one didn't count his enormous size and perfect hunting scent, darted out and lapped at Arody's arms.
Arody exhaled, fully himself for a moment.
I named him for his mother, Fortitude had taunted him. But it hadn't landed, that taunt. Arody was Wanton's mother, and perversely proud that the dog was linked to him. Wanton might rip apart raccoons and squirrels and otters, but unlike the Whychams and the rest of the Sanctified, he had never once hurt Arody. Now he lapped at Arody's arms, the touch so nice and raspy and sweet, and Arody, pleased, opened up his own mouth, stuck out his own tongue, and -- plat! -- simply stuck it to the nearest available patch of black fur.
Not licking. Just tasting. A taste that didn't make him wet or wanting, but did make him feel -- feel connected to his child. It felt like the loyal, kind, dumb essence of Wanton was filling up his whole mouth, and once it did that it entered his mind and his sore, skinny body, and once that happened he no longer hurt. He was just a nice cloud of Wanton-taste, and he took great heaping breaths of the dog and was happy.
Fortitude said Wanton didn't have a soul. The Sanctified didn't believe any animal had a soul. But Arody knew Wanton did. He could taste the soul The way he’d tasted the flares of life in the grass. Could taste the uncomplicated niceness of it. It was lovely and smoky and sweet, and he rolled a few small pieces of it around in his mouth for a few moments before licking those pieces back into Wanton.
Wanton gave a happy whine. His tail thumped. Arody nuzzled him, pleased right back.
So pleased he scarcely heard it when the cross-bar was lifted and barn door creaked open.
He didn't realize someone had slipped in until that someone was standing over him and Wanton, casting a shadow. It was Bright, the kind-faced soldier. Up close, his scarlet coat was much more ripped and dirty than Arody had initially realized, but Arody couldn't focus on that. He could only swallow down the hard lump of fear that took hold of him, and stare up at the soldier.
He wasn't permitted to speak. Wasn't permitted to make any noise. But perhaps he could scratch out please don't tell into the dirt.
Perhaps -- perhaps the soldier, whose touch had been almost pleasant, who hadn't seemed all that disgusted to meet a witchling child of the devil -- would even agree not to tell.
Bright crouched down before them, graceful about bending his long legs. He rubbed Wanton's head, and Wanton's tail thumped even more madly than before.
"That boy said you would be in here," Bright said. "I think he means to curry favor with us."
No, Arody wanted to say. Watching you. Will get muskets and axes and kill you with his friends, if you give him an excuse.
But of course he couldn't say it. He was forbidden to speak.
Bright was watching his face closely.
"Oh no," he said, as if Arody had spoken. "No, I assure you, whatever lie he cooked up for the benefit of his family was just that: a lie. He's itching to join up with us, flee this place and go kill savages. He's just the sort to want to do that. A bully. Isn't he?"
Now he was lifted his hand from Wanton, and was petting Arody. It was an odd, not unpleasant touch, stroking the burr of too-short hair on Arody's skull. Arody ducked his head, puzzled, and let it happen. Bright gave a short laugh.
"Do you like that?" he said. His calloused fingers came down, brushing Arody's ear, and cupped the changeling's sharp little jaw. One -- the thumb -- then traced Arody's lips.
Arody couldn't help it. He let out a whine.
Bright was so close to grabbing his tongue. So close. As if he knew how sensitive Arody was there, as if he knew how terrifying it was to have anyone grab hold of it.
The first presses always felt so good. But then they'd cut it, and the pain would leave Arody seizing like a mad thing.
Now, thinking of that, he began to cry.
"Shhhh," said Bright, blinking those oddly beautiful eyes at him. "Shhh. Don't worry. Repent-Oh-Demon, is it? That’s the name they claim they gave you when they ripped you from your mother. I suppose it explains those letters carved into your back. Dreadful. It is a dreadful name. It won’t be your real one. You must tell me what I should call you instead. Now, here, you'll like this--"
And then his fingers dipped into Arody's mouth, grabbed the slit tongue, and stroked.
Arody did seize up. But not with pain. With the shock of suddent pleasure, worming into his whole being and making him buck widlly. Wanton gave a startled bark, and Bright seemed to see this as his cue. He scooped Arody up with his free arm, pressing the changeling against his larger body, and dragged him away from the dog.
"Come on," he said. "Up with you. To the hayloft, shall we? I've something nice for you, my little Repent."
He didn't remove his other hand from Arody's mouth. Arody, who was curling his tongue around those fingers with such ecstatic pleasure. The callouses were firm and solid and so good. And the taste, the strange herbal taste, like something feathery and purple-grey that grew in a wood.
Bright's soul.
He shouldn't taste it. He shouldn't. It was evil. It would earn him such a beating. But he could scarcely help it. He hardly processed how Bright got him to the hayloft, only that Bright did, and then that, to lay him down in the straw where he'd been beaten earlier, Bright had to remove his hand.
Arody gave a wretched, unbidden sob.
He heard when the hourglass on the sill shattered in response. It wasn't quite sound, what Arody produced. It was curse. It was a still, evil force, a force he was forbidden to make. The devil could not speak but to cast spells and enchantments, after all. His children were no different.
But Bright didn't seem afraid. He didn't even seem surprised. He only seemed a bit amused. He kneeled and helped pull off Arody's shift again, and then undid his own rumpled red coat. He tossed both aside and then settled down next to Arody, peering down at the changeling like Arody still interested him very much.
"It's alright, dear Repent," he said gently. "But you must try to be quiet, yes? We don't want them hearing you and knowing what we're up to. Now open up, sweet."
Arody let his mouth hang open, whorish and eager.
Bright's fingers caught hold of his tongue. That was it. That was all they did. But the touch was heady. Lovely. Arody took in big heaving breaths as his tongue writhed in Bright's grip, his whole body squirming around the wet in his cunt. He gurgled out some of his own essence in his pleasure, mounting pleasure, just so happy to have a human's touch there.
Bright was taking him in all the while. He gazed in particular at Arody's stub of a cock, the ugly, hatchet-chopped nub that showed he'd been gelded with no care for his comfort. Bright frowned at this.
"I thought I'd seen that, before," he said quietly. "When we first rode up. But I didn't want to believe it. And I suppose your tail too?"
Arody was too far gone to even nod, still fucking up into the air. Regrettably, this made Bright let loose his tongue, to better lift up his hips and check the ruined tail-stub. Arody wept at that. He -- he wanted--
He had no notion. No one had ever held his most sensitive organ, but to cut it out. No one.
"Ah, that's why you feel everything in your tongue," murmured Bright now. "If they'd left you whole, you would feel pleasure in all three, you know. Quite a lot of pleasure. Stroking your cock, your tail, or your tongue would get you quivering like this. But all you have is the tongue, so nearly all your want and hunger gets focused there. I bet just running it over your teeth too hard gets you wet."
Arody nodded, hiccuping.
"They never do stroke it, do they?" Bright said sympathetically, letting Arody's hips rest on the straw again. "Idiots. If they did, they would have you in their palms. You! A proper little devil! But I suppose they use--" the large black eyes darted to the crops and whips hanging on nails on the wall, "--other things."
Now his calloused fingers traced the scars on Arody's thighs. On Arody's bloated little pouch of a stomach. They danced up to Arody's scarred shoulders, then down to his hands. Then Bright was bringing Arody's fingers to Arody's mouth.
"Stroke your tongue, then, sweetling. It's alright. I want you to feel good."
Arody nearly cried out his gratitude. He stroked his tongue, and while it wasn't as nice as Bright’s touch, it was still something. His cunt clenched in answer, clenched on nothing, while Bright undid his belt.
"Do you know how I know about your kind?" Bright said, as he undressed. "My full name is Suffer-Well-The-Whims-of-Thy-Betters. Lieutenant Suffer-Well-The-Whims-of-Thy-Betters Bright, which I'm afraid is a chore. It always was. Even in Divine Grace."
Arody let out a little squeak of suprise. Divine Grace was the Westernmost Elect colony, run by the Sanctified Elders of the Blessed, who had split from the Blessed Elders of the Sanctified during the Antipalladian Controversy of the Decade of Oft-Promised Sin.
"There," continued Bright, "I was of course young Suffer Bright. Or worse, Well Bright." He gave a shudder. "Thank heavens for joining the army. Barnabas -- you haven't met him yet, he's the Colonel's slave -- explained that army men have the supreme privilege of dropping their first names. So now I am just Bright. But one does learn a great deal about devilry, growing up in a Divine settlement. Now. Push yourself down a bit. Like that, yes. Settle in. I have something for you, and I think you will like it."
That something was his cock, hanging out of his undone trousers. With human men, it usually was cock. But Arody had to admit this was a nice cock, cleaner-looking than Goodman Hastings', thick and brown and long, but not so thick or long as the Blessed Elder's.
Arody spread his legs, expecting, as ever, a fuck.
"No, no," chided Bright, drawing those legs closed again with a firm hand. "That would be for me. We can do that later, if you like. While this, sweetling, is for you."
He had shucked off his trousers, and now he pulled himself up. Only to kneel over the witchling, his lean, muscular brown thighs on either side of Arody's head. His heavy cock dangled down, and Bright guided the tip to Arody's mouth.
Traced his lips. The cockhead was hot and tempting, and gave off the same feather-light forest musk as Bright's soul. Arody blinked, astonished, and opened his mouth hungrily to lick it.
Oh! Oh.
"I'll bet they never do this," Bright whispered, peering down at Arody with a gleam in his eye. "I'm sure they want to, sweet Repent. But they know better. They know a devil never gives perfect pleasure without taking something from it. And this is among the most perfect pleasures for a man. If you were allowed to be yourself, to roam the world committing temptations, I'd bet you would willingly do it all the time."
Arody couldn't moan his agreement, even though a moan rose up in him. He was too full, amazingly full. Without thinking about it, he'd surged forward to suckle the cocktip, really taste the lovely flesh. His mouth was so wonderfully filled with cock, his tongue exploring every crevice, tasting down the folds of the head and coming back to lavish the piss-slit. The weight of it was incredible, and the heady smell-taste-sense of it, that decided essence of Bright working its way down Arody's hungry throat.
But no.
No, he could not eat a soul. Not even a little bit of it. Arody gurgled up a bit of spit on the cockhead, obedient to what was right, and so dragged the soul up again. Pasted it flat on his tongue, and then lathed it back into the tasty pole being fed to him.
Bright gently stroked his shorn hair as he did this. Gently. And ever so gently shifted his hips forward, giving Arody more.
He had to hollow his mouth, let himself drool on it. It was the only way to take it. To take more, and then more still. To get as much cock as he could, good, hard cock now. Arody was drunk on it. His cunt was horribly empty, but so drippy from the feeling of tasting cock that he didn't mind. And his mouth, his tongue, his black devil-hunger (not a soul, he didn't have a soul, not a creature like him) was so sated. He sucked and sucked hungrily, happily. The sucking pleased Bright, too. The soldier was breathing in hard, and guiding Arody's head now. Making Arody bob on his cock. Choke on his cock. It was going so deep it was hard for Arody to breathe, and yet Arody didn't want to stop. He liked being choked with it.
"Here," Bright said, between the bobbing and the sucking. He reached for Arody's hands again. It took some contorting, but he managed to keep his cock in Arody's mouth while still guiding the changeling's scarred, skinny fingers to his cunt. His voice was strained as he next spoke. "Play with yourself. There's a sweetling. You can fuck yourself with me, my Repent. I don't mind in the least."
Arody did give a whine now. The black force of the noise caked the lovely cock in his mouth, reverberated around it. Bright groaned, throwing his head back, and now began to fuck Arody's skull with purpose, as if he were close. Arody gave in happily to this, frigging his cunt in time with it. Forcing in his fingers, sloppy and desperate. Pleasure was churning in him, in his sore little pussy, in his even more sore, hungry throat. And he was enveloped in Bright's soul, his verdant and incredible soul, tasting it every time Bright hit the back of his mouth and kept going. He sucked with abandon, feeling overpowered and powerful all at once, feeling perverse and divine.
He got to drink the cum when Bright came. All of it, thick and gloopy, smelling of grey-purple, feathery lust. He came at the taste, his cunt squeezing on his fingers and loosing its own wet. He drank and drank, possessed, and mouthed after the lovely cock when Bright pulled it out of his mouth.
"There," Bright said, exhaling hard. He patted Arody's head. His large dark eyes were blown from the force of his own need.
"Did you like that?" he murmured, a bit dazedly.
In a few moments, Arody would become horrified. Would notice the cloying almond smell in the air, the smell that would earn him a vicious beating with the short crop. Would begin to fear worse, fear a painful Seeding with a bull, for his sins. Would begin to cry, wretchedly, and to shake like the pathetic, ugly devil he was.
But for now he felt alive, and present, and extremely powerful. He traced his own happy tongue, still tasting the nice thick cum.
(The little hint of soul he had swallowed by accident. Enough soul to power quite a big spell, not that he realized that.)
"I liked it," he rasped out, without thinking.
(The spell took hold.)
-
That night, when the Blessed Elder fucked him, Arody stroked his own tongue madly.
"Sinful! Bitch!" panted the Blessed Elder, in time with his thrusts. "You'll take! The crop! Tomorrow!"
Arody didn't mind. He thought of Bright -- Lieutenant Bright, his better, whose whims he would gladly suffer -- above him. Thought of the delicious weight in his mouth. Pretended that same weight, the long brown cock of Bright, was the cock plowing him now. If it were Bright, he would not mind the pain. He breathed in happily, welcoming it. Bright. Bright, fucking him. He wanted Bright to fuck him.
Something was in him now, of Bright. Something not forced on him, but taken willingly, hungrily. Drunk down and savored. Something that showed him glimpses of -- of the to be.
He had always thought he would live here, in the mud, fucked and spat on and beaten. Seeded. He could not be drowned, after all, and they'd failed to successfuly weight him down with enough coals to kill him. So the alternative was simply to live like this.
But now he saw a wide, open future, and a pair of dark eyes. A man hooked to him, bound to him, for Arody was a devil and that was what happened with devils. They worked spells.
Arody smiled around his sinful fingers. Smiled into the dark.