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There is only silence in the shadows.
Long past nightfall, with his head finally lain, Messmer calls for her, the one whom he belongs. He calls for his mother without answer. Prayers once fervent and devout grow feeble with the tedious passage of time, until they have ceased to fall from his lips entirely, yet he never ceases to dream.
In moons innumerable the crusade was won: a people purged, their region conquered, yet he and his forces are left to tarry in the unending swallow of shadow. The zealous shouts of his men have conceded to desperate pleas for the god queen's favor; their faltering faith ripples through the ranks until they are engulfed in treacherous uprisings. They too are lost without the glory of her guiding grace. And he, their chosen liege, is left to merely wither and wallow in ruin. Even still, his mind’s eye clings to the warp and weft of her every word; the imposing decree of solemn duty and oath she had anointed upon him instead like a whispered caress of wind.
It dances warm on his cheek and flutters across his lips, the scent faintly reminiscent of dried erdleaf and golden sunflower: the essence of the gilded capital. Alert are his winged serpents, their forked tongues flicker at the scented memory, green eyes wide and attentive, peircing through the dark for an unseen presence.
The chamber alights, not by candle flame, Messmer knows, but of Mother’s steady warmhearted radiance. Through the golden haze of his eye—her eye—he rests his gaze upon her visage to witness the searing brilliance of dual suns study his own in kind. Fully awakened, the twin companions stir, their red-scaled bodies rise at his side and lean nearer, completely drawn to her. Keen senses entwined, their movements lift him upright. Her stature stands tall above his, arms open to embrace him anew with all the kindness in her heart, and when she speaks in those dulcet tones with which only a loving mother could, he thinks her visage is true.
“Messmer, my beloved son,” she says, in the ancient melodic tongue of the Hinterlands, spoken so sweet and languid, imbued with that maternal comfort and kindness he so misses. The sound that once lulled him as an ailing babe and provided solace as a boy sparks a sensation within, potent and primal now, as a man grown. Her hair, unbound and gold spun, cascade over naked breasts. She envelopes him. Soft callused palms cradle his face, pillowy lips kiss gently on his forehead, trail down from temple to cheek, and then, for more than a moment, rest on the corner of his lips, sorrowful and apologetic in their care.
Heart racing, gooseflesh forms on his skin prick by prick, the warmth brewing in his chest spreads lower as he is further indulged in her soothing voice, her tender caresses, her healing presence most affectionate. He is her most beloved, how could he have ever denied?
“Mother,” a low rasp catches his throat, shaky as his belief comes into question, for this moment is woven better than the sweetest of dreams. “Alas, thou hast returned for me?”
He feels the sinous pull of his snakes drag along his spine as they writhe slowly around her frame. They revel in the faint taste of salt and earth when their forked tongues flicker at her skin. One slithers up to perch atop her sculpted shoulder; the lower twines around a strong thigh exposed from under her black garment. Messmer feels the tickling of a finger when she fondles one under its chin, greets them with cooing words. Of them, she has no fear, for they assist to subdue the base creature within. So he anchors himself, his own arms tentatively wrap around her waist, head resting on her bosom as the familiarity of deft fingers thread through the tangle of his copper hair. She soon guides his gaze to hers, a subtle sternness under her kind countenance, and he is once again a mere boy, small with worry, seeking shelter in her grandeur, even when his now misshapen form towers hers.
“O’ flesh of my flesh, most strong in faith and will. Didst thou think I wouldst forsake thee?”
“Never!” a quick, but tender rebuttal. His brow furrows. How long has it been since the luminous erd was dimmed in shroud? Since he set to scorch every horned and graceless soul that would trespass upon his mother’s peace. As by her decree, he snuffed the very taint of impurity to silence them all. And he alone would bear it all again, as such were the demands of her love. Thy maledictions, thy grief, thine ire. “Verily, I awaited thee and held only thee in my heart.”
Stronger is his hold on her. Tighter. She will untangle from his grasp and knot of snakes only to depart as soon as she had returned, leaving him to crawl low on his belly. I cannot allow it, he thinks. I shall not. From the abyss housed within, anger threatens to swell, to mar the relief of her presence and the sheer ecstasy of her closeness. This reunion, long awaited, cannot end. His eye stings fighting to halt the welling of tears.
Her thumb travels lightly under the lower lid of his seal, consoles him in the trembles of his overwhelm. “It has been an age and thou hast grown most weary.” In truth, sleep has eluded him for nearly a sennight and countless times previous, but it is in the gentle smile now settled on her lips, and her speech so comely, from which he basks in renewed vigor. “‘Twas an onerous duty, yet thou perseveredst in thy purpose. O’ son of mine, Fearsome Impaler, thou dost greatly please my heart.”
Fearsome. From Her mouth the word rings distinct and true, spoken as rumbling thunder with full intent to pierce through heaven and hell alike. Pride inspires in his chest, turns molten then forged into an arousal that drops low where a gnawing need grows. Messmer trembles, lays his head on her bosom and hearkens to the beating under her ribs that sings of him as blood of her blood. She rests her cheek atop the crown of his head. He stifles a sob that’s desperate to tear from his throat. “What troubles thee, mine heart? Lay bare thy burden and speak thy wish.”
Honeyed words wash over him, sinks him deep into a peace that almost feels foreign, for it has been so long since he could lay his burdens bare, since he was held and found respite in another’s arms. In her arms most of all. A slight shake of his head banishes the thought. It is utterly inconceivable; to broach his trifling grievances onto her would be amiss, for certain. “Tis my only wish to serve thee, Mother.”
Messmer speaks true. But it has been unbearably long.
He whines low at the separation of skin on skin, at the sudden sliver of distance, but within the space between, his eye is free to roam. And so he does, a contemplative stare leads to detailed exploration under his heavy lid: all veins and sinew carved under taut skin; the might of her chest and sculpted arms befits that of a hammer weilder, as does the well-trussed steadyness of her middle. His hand greets her exposed thigh as she straddles his lap, clawed fingertips drawing light circles, ascending smooth skin over pillars of marble underneath. For a moment he wonders what it is like to meld into her harmonious shaman flesh; life’s source, the divine wellspring from which he was birthed, he so wishes to cocoon himself in a manner unholy.
Pressure builds heavy in his groin, a slow grind of his hips in an attempt at relief. Futile. He looks to her in supplication, as he had in times before; battle-worn, but on his knees, body aching for reunion, begging in ravenous hunger and unquenched thirst. And without askance she had sated his need. A faint whimper escapes when the lower of her body presses lithely against the very heat of him alike, halting the upward tracing of his fingers to keep from digging and puncturing pliable flesh in reckless abandon.
Her breasts press against him, perked buds kiss the scar where a serpent erupts, its muscled base contracts and slides against her at the touch. “Mother—,” he says with quivering breath, blood running hot through his veins, his body now an inextiguishable furnace. A slip of his hands between, and he squeezes gently at their suppleness, as though to spur juice from the most delicate of fruits. He licks at her mounds, her quiet sigh a prompt to latch and suckle on their blushing peaks, to binge in his perpetual craving. So bounteous in her giving, he yearns to drink from her wells once more, taste their luscious streams on his tongue, until its vestiges deplete. He wants to serve, as he is fashioned; but he wants. He wants for himself. He wants. He wants…
Shame burns in his chest at the thought of his greed, disgust over the dark thing inside, persistent and writhing in its wanton need to consume every remnant of her light. Her palm on his sunken cheek slides down to his chin, the slightly calloused pad of her thumb graces across the swell of his wettened lips, eagerly parted. He wants to suck, to nip. The hardened shape between his legs pulse and weep slick prespend from her slow deliberate touches.
“Trust in me, my most cherished.” she says in almost a whisper, as she gently guides him to lie back on the bedding. “Shall I grant thee succor?”
There is no want for reply. He is on his back and she is mounted atop, her thighs astride his boney hips. Her hair, a golden canopy, drapes mercifully over his treacherous crimson as their lips meet, his tongue slipping into her mouth; the long black raiment tied at her waist cloaks over his shame, a preemptive pardon for the sin in which he will partake. Though is it truly sin if god herself allows? The answer he has yet to seek is of no matter.
He feels the heat of her core above his. Desire stirs like swimming tendrils of ember in his core’s pit, as her nimble fingers trail along the damaged tissue, the mark of his curse, on his chest. She charms the serpents with a gentle rub along their scales. Messmer shivers. So enthralled are his winged companions they let out a soft hiss, but they are docile and calmed by her command. For they are hers, just as he is hers, and they have longed for her as much he.
Beneath the umbra of her cloth, his eagerness is soon fastened within her grip, and she begins to stroke the full of his length, her thumb working the sensitive cockhead with intoxicating leisure. Messmer’s clawed fingers leave thin red lines on her waist when his hips thrust into the strength of her undulating palm and settles into her rhythm, for he is now the spear wielded as though by rite, in sacred and skilled hands. The chamber’s usual stillness is now shattered by his own ragged pants and the obscene sound of the sliding friction between flesh. He moans deeply, uncontrollably, akin to an exalted hymn. Akin to a despairing wail gone unheard by the gods. It is below the love in her eyes, he sees something desolate, something forlorn. Profoundly out of reach. What it is, he cannot justly measure, but the pace of her hand quickens in the echoes, as though through the heights of his pleasure his disgraced soul will be at last purified. Only he is a soul beyond saving. Lowly. Born of a depth from which there is no deliverance.
Messmer moves a hand up the rolling muscles of her back and clutches her shoulder in urgency when she leans in. She hums in his ear, wistful; breath hot against his cheek.
“Have thy pleasure.”
And he is rapt in ecstacy. For a moment, there is no guilt in the spasms of his body, no shame in the twitching of his cock, and no humiliation in the wanton sounds that flee his throat. He only hears the thrum of his own pulse, feels molten pressure lap at his base, as he and his companions coil tight around her body until he breaks and spills forth his seed. She looks down on him, in love and silent pity as she takes on his defilement. And when the wind halts its whisper it leaves a solemn weight in its wake.
Messmer nearly sobs in breathless panic, curls in on himself steeped in sweat and his own spill. He stares at the consuming darkness above, the shadow deepening, pressing close. A bitter ache swells in his heart and compels him to collapse to his knees. “Have I not expunged the lightless from these very lands? Have I not brought forth thy wish for vengeance fulfilled?”
There is only silence.
In the tower chamber, he is at the foot of her effigy: an image of mother and son. A relic of a time long past. He has not prayed in an age. And still he will not. Instead, he will sequester in his own decay as penance for the transgressive nature of his being. Perhaps he will even fall upon the point of his own spear as recompense for setting such stains upon her sanctity, for there is naught but famine in his abyssal pit, never to be satiated.
Candles flicker and shadow swallows the chamber, leaving him hidden with the original sin that burns too hot for her grace.