The Devil's Work (nighty)

[Anonymous]

Maude, were one asked to describe her, would most certainly be characterised by two factors. For one, almost everyone would note how involved she was in the church, always attending weekend mass and helping in church events. The other feature they would mention would be her bulk.

One of those notable qualities was making the house shake, and God didn’t like Maude quite that much.

The wooden stairs creaked as she ascended, threatening to give way at any moment until she reached the landing and the wood practically let out a sigh of relief. The door to her daughter’s room was thrown open without knocking, waking the poor girl from her fitful slumber to once again look at the disgusted expression on her mothers face.

“M-morning mother,” she stammered with a weak smile. The sweat tricking down her face gave her away, which was why Maude was unhappy. Well, more unhappy than usual.

The night terrors had plagued her now since she was fourteen, coming more and more frequently until there was scarcely a night when she didn’t wake up drenched in sweat and other, far more sinful fluids. Were it not for the linen ties binding her wrists and ankles to the bedposts she would have given in to the devils whisperings during the night while she slept.

The devil had fathered Grace, so her mother said, and he spoke to her now through the lustful urges she constantly battled.

Waddling over to her daughter, Maude began untying her bindings, muttering, “The devil been visitin you again child.” Her face was a mix of disapproval and anger. It had always been Grace’s fault, the way she was, at least in her mothers eyes. Maude saw in her daughter the demon that had raped her eighteen years ago and left her with his half-breed child.

The ties were places in a little box beneath her bed, kept out of sight in case the neighbours were ever to visit.

Stumbling out of bed, Grace scampered for the stairs, well aware of what her mother would want her to do now and not wanting to get a lecture about it. She tried to work out her stiff muscles as she went downstairs, rubbing her shoulders and stretching out her neck.

Trotting past the kitchen she heard her sister call out in a snide voice, “Gracie! Wet the bed again?” Ignoring Lilly’s snickering she went outside, standing in the back garden and shivering a little. Rows of vegetables and clothes hanging stands littered with washing filled the yard, all surrounded by a tall fence. She peeled off her damp shift, placing it in the washing basket by the door, and went to stand under the outdoor shower bucket attached to the side of the house.

Though no one could possibly see her over the high fence, Grace couldn’t help a blush darkening her already crimson cheeks as she pulled the lever and let a bucketful of frigid water cascade over her. After the bucket was empty she stood there, running her hands down herself to push the water off and trying to stop her teeth chattering. The towels were inside, in the bathroom. Maude would have prepared Lilly a bath already, but Grace wasn’t allowed to use the bath, except on special occasions, so she had to drip dry until she was dry enough o come back in.

Once she was sure she wouldn’t drip on the floor Grace snuck inside, treading on the balls of her feet as she always did across the bare hardwood floor. She slipped upstairs, past Lilly humming in her hot bath, and back into her room.

Her sheets were gone, taken by her mother to be washed clean of her sins, and a fresh shift and dress lay on her bed. She dressed as quickly as possible, tugging on the shift and then the full length cream dress. Buttoning up the high collar and tugging the corset ties tight, she looked herself over in the small mirror that occupied one corner of her room. It used to be Lilly’s, like all of her things, save clothing, and was cracked down the middle. Staring back at her was a pretty, red skinned girl with large hips and impressive bust.

Convinced that, save shoes that she couldn’t wear, she looked decent, Grace once again descended the stairs, this time heading to the front room to take a seat behind the shop counter. Pulling over a basket she began carefully folding clothing, waiting for today’s customers to start coming through the door with their fouled linens and dirty clothes.

Silently she hoped for someone else, anyone else, anyone who could ring some light to her dull and boring life.

[Anonymous]

Entropis wasn't ready to take him yet.  Good thing, he wasn't looking forward to meeting the Goddess anyway.  He was far too young and she had enough of the clones to keep her satisfied until it was time for him to meet her.

It must have been simple bad luck to get blindsided by that solar wind while he was entering the Earth's atmosphere.  Before his radar shorted out he saw Clementina flying wildly off course.  She seemed to spiral through the air forever before he got her under control and tried to communicate with Tower at HQ.

Nothing.  His radio was out too.  Clementina's main computer systems were operational, but all of her GPS, her radar and radio systems were all down.  It was almost like they lost power, there was no static feedback, no garbled screens, nothing.  Just empty screens and silence.  

Yuri landed Clementina more or less where he'd managed to regain control of her, in a place that was strangely vibrant and green.  It looked like some rich cat's private getaway.  Ugh, it was going to take some finesse to check up on Clementina and get out of there before the estate's staff found him.  At least it was still early morning, if anything the staff was busy doing whatever morning tasks kept them busy and weren't busy staring out the window.  Yuri tried to connect Clementina's computer to the VPN.  No connection.  He couldn't connect to Edanith On-Line either.  Clementina's network connection menu showed that both lines were disconnected.  Strange.  Next he checked his cell phones for a connection.  Both the Aedolis and Edanith models weren't getting a signal.  He forgot to charge his basic Thanatos Inc. phone and wanted to kick himself for leaving the charger back in TRIM.  Of all of them, that phone would have got a connection.

Yuri decided against checking Clementina, he had to get out of this dead zone and establish contact with... someone, so he could get back to Haviah.  When he tried to feed power to Clementina's thrusters her polarity shifted.

"Damn," Yuri shut down the ship and rested his head on the steering wheel while his head decided whether or not it wanted to split open.  Stupid ship.  Maybe it would be better to find the estate in this hologram and just hope it wasn't run by a psychopath that liked to go human hunting.  In a moment though... lifting his head up now would just leave him an idiot from massive brain cell death.  Yuri breathed slowly, gripping the steering wheel tightly and closing his eyes (his eyelids felt far too heavy) while his head made peace with itself.

It nearly put him to sleep.  Yuri yawned when the worst of his headache was over, pushing himself off the steering wheel and checking his mirror to see if he had any marks on his face.  Sure enough, there was a little impress of steering wheel on the side of his head that rested against it.  Yuri rubbed at it, brushed his bangs over the impress in an attempt to conceal it, stood and left the cockpit.  Before leaving Clementina he stopped before a cabinet in his little living quarter, spent a minute thinking whether he should use any paralyzing agent or something stronger, in case this was a dangerous place.  He decided on the paralyzing agent, took a needle full of it and injected the bottom storage duct under his right thumb; pulling on a pair of thin, leather gloves once he was finished.  Yuri manually opened Clementina's hatch and jumped down.  Onto grass.  Weird.

It only got weirder, ten minutes later when he came across a little town.  A little town with wooden houses and no ships, or cars, or bikes or hell anything.  He jumped like he'd seen a ghost when he saw a woman carrying a basket full of clothes into one house with a particularly high fence.  People actually lived here?  He waited to see if she was going to come out, he'd give her fifteen minutes before he went up and knocked on the door himself.  The woman trotted out after eight minutes, her basket empty.  Great!  That place was some sort of business.  Yuri strode up to the door, checking his reflection in a window that looked like it was made out of real glass, before walking in.

Yuri walked heavily for the first few steps into the place, making his boots clomp loudly on the floor and looked around like he was in a museum.  Once he walked in, he'd put his hands in the pockets of his black slacks, whose cuffs were bloused above his boots.  Half the buttons on Yuri's white button up shirt and all the buttons on his black suit coat were unbuttoned.  There were several black leather and silver necklaces around his neck, one with a pendant of a rose with a little skull in the center and two rings in his left ear with a little silver chain between them, strung with a bead of onyx.  Once he'd looked from one wall at the front of the room to the other he looked toward the counter and the tiny, black feathered wings floating next to his head fluttered.  "Morning sweetheart," he said as he walked up to the counter, putting his arms on it, leaning into them and smiling at the girl.  "I'm lost, mind telling me what you call this place?"

In a way, the horned girl calmed him down a little.  It was nice seeing a person with cybernetics in such a backwater.  Maybe it was some sort of strange park, or maybe the rich cat the owned the place liked old timey stuff.

[Anonymous]

Handkerchief, bonnet, leggings, stockings, bonnet, pants, tunic, vest, handkerchief, leggings, leggings, pants…

The folding became background noise, her body moving entirely of its own volition as she floated in an empty sea of cloudy white. The sounds of the world faded, as it heard through cotton wool, and her vision blurred.

The boredom became so bad that she actually yelped at the sudden sound of boots in the room, dropping the shirt she’d been folding. Her mouth fell open slightly as she looked at the man, the stranger who walked into the house. She’d never, ever, in her entire life seen a stranger in Sevenwinds. He looked so odd, with his strange clothing and his little wings, which for some reason weren’t attached to his body. Mama said angels had wings, so maybe this man was an angel.

He didn’t much look like the angels in pictures though.

“I…thi….guh,” she muttered, pushing back into her chair as he approached, as if he might bite her. Wide eyed, she managed to get out a hasty, “This is Madame Maude’s Laundry sir…do…doyouneedsomethingwashed?”

She changed her mind, she was quite happy in her quite little life thank you very much. Hasty prayers were said in her head, asking this man to go away and leave her be and not hurt her, but at the same time a niggling curiosity lingered in the back of her mind, curiosity about the world outside her village, about what village this man had come from and how he’d arrived here. She held her tongue from these questions though, out of politeness and fear, instead just gaping at him stupidly.

[Anonymous]

After seeing the girl's reaction, Yuri made up his mind to get out of here as fast as he could once he was sure which direction to fly off in.  Nothing good could come out of an estate where the staff were absolutely terrified to see someone.

On a different note, he didn't think he'd ever seen a woman wear so much clothing.  This girl's clothing made the most conservative women he could think of look somewhat risqué.  Yuri could sort of see the reasoning behind wrapping up a woman in layers of clothing.  Even now, while she was busy freaking out, he was looking her over, wondering just what about her was padded up or cinched tighter.  Sleeping with a woman dressed like that was probably like unwrapping a Death's Strength present.  Shame just about every woman he knew in Haviah would kick him out on the street if he asked them to pile on clothing - especially a long skirt with no slits on it.

That thought gave way to relief that he wasn't staring down a familiar face.  Yuri sold enough people with more drive to leave their current location than cash to upper caste Aedolians over the years for that to be a possibility.  It was bad enough being on some sicko's personal playground, having an angry person screaming at him for sending them there would only make it worse.

"It's alright sweetheart," he pulled his hands up and held them open for a second before slowly folding them back on the counter.  His right hand was far from harmless, but he figured seeing he didn't have anything might calm her down a little - and if that didn't, seeing that they were on the counter might.  "I'm not going to hurt you.  I just need to know where I am.  You can break character for a moment, I'm not supposed to be here.  I need to get out of here before your Master or anyone else sees me though.  So I need you to be a doll and tell me what you know about this place."

He wasn't sure how the girl ended up here, so he held off from putting a way out of the estate on the table.  It'd be better if she brought it up first.  If that happened there was no way he could sell her, at least not on Earth.  He'd probably keep her in Clementina for a while and drop her off at TRIM next time he was there.  One of the docs might be interested in her cybernetics.

[Anonymous]

Breathing heavily, Grace tried not to look quite so surprised. She also tried not to faint, as the corset that her mother made specifically to restrain her chest was making it quite hard to breathe now that she was all flustered.

“Character…?” she tried to ask softly, shutting her mouth as he kept talking. That was rude of her, interrupting. Mustn’t be rude.

When he said master, she immediately thought of her mother. “My mother won’t mind you being here sir, we are open already. You might have seen the sign…” she trailed off, weakly gesturing to the door as she realised she’s forgotten to turn the sign around. The stranger seemed confused, so as her hand fell to rest on the counter again she said lightly, “You’re in my mothers shop, it’s a laundry,” she paused, then realising he was from…somewhere else added, “In Sevenwinds.”

Squirming slightly, she let out a sudden torrent of more forceful speech. “Are you alright sir? Have you been at the drink? I can get you a cold compress if you’d like. Uh…where are you from sir? If you don’t mind my asking. It’s only…we don’t get many strange folk around here. Not that I’m saying you’re strange! I…er…I meant a stranger, from out of town…” Her words became too soft to hear as she trailed off, looking down and blushing deeply, occasionally risking a glance up to see if he was angry at her.

Stupid, stupid, stupid! Why couldn’t she just hold her gosh darned tongue? Mama said it was the devils tongue, and it would cause her nothing but trouble unless she kept it firmly behind her teeth (which were the devils teeth). She hoped he wasn’t too angry with her.

[Anonymous]

Mother?  Yuri's perked an eyebrow.  He really wasn't one to talk on the subject, but it must have been one weird mother that dressed her kids up and made them work on her own estate.  At least no one would be able to talk shit about the kids not earning their inheritance.  

Somehow it all didn't fit together though.  The mother running a public estate with a sign outside this particular building.  That the building was supposed to be a laundry mat of some sort.  it wouldn't even look this rustic in porn, unless it was porn for history buffs.  The name was funny too.  Sevenwinds.  He was far from knowing the name of every estate in Aedolis, but what sort of rich cat called his little piece of Heaven, Sevenwinds?

Then words came pouring out of the girl's mouth and Yuri only grew more confused, smiling nervously and trying to connect any new information into his mass of things that didn't make any sense.  Chief among them was that they didn't get strangers.  Didn't get strangers in a place where the businesses were open for anyone to walk through.  

Then came the magic word: town.

"Death take me," he muttered.  This wasn't some private estate.  It was the motherfucking land that time forgot!  How did this place even manage to exist!  Oh wait... Yuri's expression, which had gone from mild surprise to excitement, deflated.  Maybe something about this town was what took Clementina out.  He sighed, putting his head down on the counter for a moment before peeking back up at the girl.

"I'm gonna need a drink in a second."  He managed to pull his lips back into a little smile, at least he wouldn't have to worry about any psychotic owner finding him.  "I'm," Death's horn, how was he going to explain where he was from without her brain collapsing.  Probably by leaving out as many weird names as he could, so it wouldn't fog her brain over with confusion.  "I'm from up there," he pointed at the ceiling, hoping she didn't think he meant the attic.

[Anonymous]

Eyes widened and a prayer was muttered when he cursed. She wasn’t accustomed to such language, at least not coming form anyone but the men collapsed outside the tavern before their wives got to them to scold some sense into their heads. Perhaps this stranger really was drunk.

“Perhaps you’ve had enough…” she whispered, glancing about in an uncomfortable fashion. Drunk people made her nervous. Mama said that drink was the devils water.

“I…” she looked up, following his finger up and looking confused, “You live…on the second floor?” That was just silly, so she gave him a concerned look. In a gentle voice she said, “Sir, I think you might need to lie down for a while. Do you have somewhere here that you’re staying?” Her mother wouldn’t like having a stranger in the house….but is she hid him in her room…she might be able to get away with it and learn more from him, once he was sober again.

[Anonymous]

... Wow... she did think he crawled out of someone's attic.  No, she probably would have freaked out if she thought one of her neighbors had someone locked up in their attic.  She just thought he was some simple moron that was trying to give her unnecessary details.  

Fun.

Actually, that was a little harsh.  She probably just thought he was drunk, why else would she suggest that he lie down for a while.  Better drunk than stupid.  

He shook his head once the girl finished talking.  Shook it for a good three seconds to hopefully toss out everything she just said.  Especially that line about having had enough to drink.  "No-no sweetheart, I'm not from the second floor and I'm not staying with anyone around-" whatwasit-oh! "Sevenwinds.  I came here," he pointed his left hand down at the counter, then turned it to point at the ceiling again.  "From the sky.  I have a... a special set of wings that lets me fly.  Not these," he pointed at the tiny wings that fluttered slowly up and down next to his head.  "My uh, flying wings are actually broken.  So I'm stuck here."

[Anonymous]

Grace listened patiently, nodding her head when it seemed appropriate. At least he knew that he didn’t live upstairs, that was a good sign. Perhaps he wasn’t as drunk as she’d thought.

Her eyes widened when he mentioned flying. That was impossible, people couldn’t fly, so it must be magic. “Y-you can fly?” she stuttered, mouth hanging open a little. Grace could do some magic too, make her voice go all silky and influence people to do things, but her mother had forbidden its use. She said it was the devil’s voice.

All she knew is that she wanted to fly away with this stranger, wanted it desperately. He represented an escape from her life here. While she’d never experienced any different, Grace had always known that she didn’t belong. She wanted things, things that other people had but were denied to her.

“Mister,” she started, pausing and looking away furtively, “when you fly away….could you….maybe take me with you?” A hasty glance at the door followed, to check that no one had heard her. They couldn’t of course; she’d barely spoken above a whisper.

Wringing her hands nervously she looked up at him hopefully.

[Anonymous]

"Yes, I can fly," a nod would have worked, but saying it outright added more credibility to it.

Watching her expression reminded him of the time he told Whimsy that people in Edanith lived a lot like the people in Aedolis.  She began pressing him with questions then and finally grabbed him by the collar and begged him to take her there.  Yuri liked to tell the other snatchers around TRIM that he had a heart because he didn't turn around and sell Whimsy.  They didn't need to know that he was headed out to Edanith anyway and planned to keep in touch with her once he dropped her off.  It was a scenario he went through a lot.  Let a person desperate enough know that you have a way out and they'd pounce all over it.  

Just like this girl.  

He'd have to see if he could get out of Sevenwinds before he made her any promises.  Had to take this one step at a time.  He'd be completely useless if he couldn't get Clementina working again.  Once that happened, he needed to know which direction to fly, he didn't have enough fuel to fly around the planet trying to find some sign of civilization and the next place he crashed might be more dangerous.

"I'll be honest with you sweetheart," Yuri said, leaning onto the counter and smirking.  "I have to be sure I can fly away before I can promise to take you with me.  You've got until then to figure out just how badly you want to come with me.

"If you want to help me, you'll introduce me to someone that knows something about the world."