Aberrant: 200X - Lost & Found In A New York Minute [Mature] (FIN)

[Tomas Saint-Etienne]

9 Feb 2009

Winter in New York does not bring that great city to a halt anymore than any other force can. This is especially true of Wall Street, where sums of money vaster than the gross national product of some of the world's smaller countries changed hands on daily basis. Even though the sun was low on the horizon, lights shone in many windows of the numerous merchant banks, trading houses and funds companies who made this city the money capital of the Western world. The sidewalks were as busy as the road here, thronging with sharply dressed men and women moving from place to place, jostling and hurrying, with no time for anything other than their immediate plans.

But there were two who were not part of the rivers of humanity that streamed back and forth in this concrete canyon. They stood in the lee of one particular merchant bank's main headquarters building, and appeared to be simply watching the ebb and flow around them.

The girl was strikingly beautiful, finely-made ivory features clearly displaying her exotic Asian heritage. Dressed in rich brown fur coat, hat, boots and gloves, she had the bearing of a princess as her dark eyes gazed at the passers-by in tandem with her companion. She was a creature of loveliness that made all of the men who passed her pause and slow their busy strides as they took a longer look.

The boy-man beside her was beautiful also, but his was the beauty of moonlit clouds in a night sky, his androgynous features silvery and cold set in the tumble of raven-wing hair. He was well-dressed also, a thick black woven-wool gentleman's long coat over expensive shirt and slacks, black gloves covering his hands and a white scarf around his neck. Green eyes old as the world turned iridiscent as they caught stray motes of light, and passers-by, men and women, who were fortunate (or unfortunate) enough to meet that gaze felt stark breathtaking pain in their chests, feeling as though they would never know what love was, or could ever experience desire again, unless it was with this ephemeral youth.

They did not appear to talk, this beautiful pair. They stood close to one another and merely watched the masses. But appearances can be deceptive, and after a sufficent time had passed the boy took the lovely young woman's hand and led her away from the spot on which they had been standing.

*Tedious. I am sorry for that, Saori. It is a much more efficient and less traceable way of making money than I have found elsewhere. Eavesdropping on minds that move money and trade stocks is the best way to subtly increase finances.* Tomas explained as they walked down the street, turning off onto another at the end of the block. *I was not always so careful, and that eventually might have led to my capture.* His mental voice took on a tone of dark humor. *Besides, there are many other secrets one may learn here that can be cashed for greater gain than mere coin. Come, let us get some coffee.*

They moved together, the voice of each one audible only to the mind of the other as they made their way into the teeming heart of the city as it's night-time denizens began to stir.

[z017]

Shae had thought New York would be a refuge for her. So many people, so many strangers every day in and out the city, and it's well deserved reputation for ignoring anyone without the money and connections to be important. It should have been perfect.

She didn't need money: didn't eat much, didn't sleep much, and her eufiber meant she had her wardrobe in a thought. The first few days she'd been in the city she'd reveled in the freedom of anonymity amongst so many. She'd explored the boroughs and played hide-and-seek with the gangs and pimps that thought a pretty young woman alone at night was a gift from impure gods.

And then it started again. She'd find herself on a park bench or in the library, watching the people around her. Following them home. Learning their habits and their desires. Finding their secrets. And then she'd find herself thinking about how to join them, how to slip into their lives and become everything they thought they needed.

And so she'd run again, but other fears kept her inside the city bounds. She was running out of neighborhoods to avoid; the only safe zones for her dwindling down to the busiest of impersonal streets where Starbucks and Macy's and quaint million-dollar cafes were strategically situation to lure you in and keep you just long enough to fleece the wallet and condition the mind.

She'd had to change faces (and gender) three times now as managers and store owners became suspicious of the man or woman that never seemed to leave the area, sitting at the cafes with no coffee or danish. Walking through the department stores without trying anything on or meeting up with expected friends and family. She was restless and frightened of herself as much as of leaving the sheltering towers of this glass and concrete world.

So she paced, up and down the streets, avoiding seeing any one person long enough for them to 'catch' in her mind and wondering just what she intended to do if this was the rest of her life.

[z-Xiao Saori]

Tedious. Necessary. Sometimes, the two are one. Saori couldn't yet touch minds, but she had gotten used to Tomas picking her thoughts out of hers. She smiled up at him, the only person who really got to see her smiles anymore. And you make the necessary seem less dull. Her mind radiated a dark comfort as they walked hand in hand, happily.

But for all her absorbition in herself and her alabaster shadow, she couldn't help but notice the woman pacing the street, looking distraught. It wasn't her pain that caught the girl's eyes - she saw that all the time, in every face she passed. No, this was the beauty of the exalted, of the new race.

Tomas, that girl... is she a nova? She let her eyes drift away, but she remained aware of the woman still. She looks lost, in pain. Perhaps... Actual words trailed off to be replaced by desire and urges. Saori felt familiar shame over these thoughts, but she gathered them up and reveled in the pain and pleasure they now gave her.

[Tomas Saint-Etienne]

He picked her out of the crowd easily, as Saori had. Sure enough, the girl - not much older than them, if at all - had the grace and beauty of the quantum-born. He felt Saori's instinctual desire and smiled faintly at how swiftly she had overcome petty barriers of gender preference. Rather than seeing beautiful women as rivals as she had not so long before, Saori now saw them as possibilities. He squeezed her hand in his. *Carefully now. She does look lost, but we both know how deceptive seemings can be.*

Caution, a remnant of his previous life as a rootless monster, was still part of Tomas's makeup. Humans were nothing for him to fear, even as a mob. But to attract the attention of the sheepdogs was to be avoided by any wolf. He considered the girl as she paced, not looking at anyone, her eyes filled with an unbearable need of some kind. Her emotions...

Ahhh, her heart was filled with despair, loneliness, and yes, a powerful yearning for something. He silently shared the sensation with Saori as though it were a glass of champagne passed from his lips to hers. Dark eyes met green ones, and two sets of perfect lips curved in a secretive smile. Yes... the two thought almost as one, and they crossed the street and angled towards the strange girl, setting themselves in her path, still hand in hand.

Considering her, he called into play all his skill at reading the desires of others, of making himself intrinsically part of them. He called to the strange nova silently as she approached with her eyes on the ground, a soft mental voice that was clearly audible over the hubbub of her thoughts and the crowd around her. *Look up, look at me, and tell me: what is it you need so badly?*

((OOC Note: Using Seductive enhancement))

[z017]

Shae heard the soft whisper in her mind and for a brief moment wondered if she had finally broken and become as many people on the inside as she could be on the outside, but her eyes wandered up to the faces passing in the crowd and settled on the two pale strangers. She stopped her pacing, pulling herself from the throng and into that otherspace inside the crowds where only the three of them existed. Tomas could feel the young nova's will push and pull against the desires both he and the nova herself created and behind that, something more. He recognized the watching and learning that marked the first steps of his own predatory dance.

Her voice surprised her, carried across the masses in the silence of their otherspace.

"I don't know."

[Tomas Saint-Etienne]

He stepped closer to her, feeling her desires fluctuating, the uncertainty in her emotional 'voice'. His emerald gaze swept her from head to toe and back once more, taking in the petite frame and tanned skin, the auburn hair framing blue eyes, the whole package shining with it's own inner light, just as his and Saori's did.

"Your wants torment you, and yet you don't indulge them. Or is it simply that you cannot?" He took another step, Saori beside him. His eyes looked deep into hers, searching without judging. There was something more than human there, no emotional frailty such as Shae had seen in others. The nova before her peering out from under the tumbling fall of black hair seemed to be too perfect for such baseness. What Tomas desired... was desire itself, whether brought to full bloom and plucked or else twisted into nightmare. And he feared nothing.

"I am Tomas, and this is Saori. Come with us." he offered Shae his other hand. "We can sit and drink together. And perhaps discover what it is you need so badly that you are afraid of."

[z017]

She hesitated, glancing from one of them to the other. The offer of companionship alone was nearly overwhelming to her, and the power she sensed in them was even more intoxicating. They were novas, her mind informed her, belatedly catching up with her instincts and emotions. Their clothes told her that they were successful novas as well; the last remnants of her training fell into place then, pushing aside her indecision.

She took Tomas' hand, smiling at the two of them in cautious optimism. "That would be nice. Thanks." A beat later, "Oh, I'm Shae. It's nice to meet you."

[z-Xiao Saori]

"Shae. A beautiful name." Saori smiled at her warmly. She didn't see Shae as a rival for Tomas' affections; Saori had been the first to embrace him and his way. He would remember that, no matter who came along.

Saori didn't need to ask where they were going. There was only one place that they would go, and that was to The Blackburn. It was private enough, but more imporantly, it would tell them much about Shae. And if things became interesting, they could easily retire up to the room she shared with Skein.

They entered and took a quiet table in the corner. Several novas were in there, and they nodded at the group, relaxing after they realized that the beautiful people were like them. Saori took a seat and settled back, content to watch as Skein began to work his magic.

[Tomas Saint-Etienne]

Tomas removed his gloves and heavy coat as he sat down, relaxing into his seat with a soft murmuring sigh of pleasure. His scarf he merely unwrapped a little, letting it hang loosely around his neck. The slender, near-girlish lines of his shoulders were clearly visible under the soft white shirt as he leaned his elbows on the table. He cast his eyes over Shae's face, studying her, noting that his look was returned in kind. Interesting.

"How is it you came to be in New York, Shae?" His voice stroked her name, his glittering eyes betraying interest. Who was this enigma, and was she of similar stuff to Saori... or even him? Something to think about... and dream about. He pictured tanned limbs tangling with silver and ivory and experienced a mild peak of arousal. She was young, or appeared to be. How she acted and reacted to him would betray much, and he kept a practiced 'eye' on her emotional responses. "We all have stories, after all. Me... Saori" he looked her in the eye as though she were the centre of the world, "...you."

((OOC Note: Using Seductive Looks now in conjunction with Seductive - No, he doesn't play fair.))

[z017]

She pulled into herself at the question, minuscule movements and a flickering of the eyes away from her companions giving her away under their scrutiny. The flicker of fear licked at the sorrow and confusion that had attracted Tomas' attention to begin with. When she looked back her expression became almost haunted, her gaze flowing over Tomas' form and her thoughts muddling to the lustful and the wary.

"I...wanted to see what a large city was like. So many people, so close together." Her fingers slid idly along the leather of the chair, drinking in the smooth, cool feel of the leather. Her eyes reluctantly made another round of the room, coming back to rest on the movements of Tomas' hands. "It was different than I thought it would be."

Nothing she had said had quite been a lie, but she was holding back. She seemed used to trusting neither strangers nor herself. Her eyes flicked up for only barest of seconds to catch his own and then Saori's. "And you?"

[Tomas Saint-Etienne]

A dazzling smile was the reply, impossibly beautiful in its understanding, its perfect wisdom and inhuman compassion. We are alike, you and I. We both know what it is to be afraid, to be wary it seemed to say, the dancing motes of varicolored light in his verdant gaze catching Shae and drawing her in.

"We live here." His voice was soothing, though not hypnotically so. Rather than lulling, the voice tantalised and teased, seeming to be full of hidden meanings that seemed meant for Shae and Saori alone. "I for a few months, and Saori for less time. I am here because... it is the perfect place for me. Here, surrounded by the stuff of humanity's dreams and nightmares, hopes and fears, I am in my element." A charming wry smile, his fingers idly caressing the grain of the polished table with unconscious sensuality. "I am ill-suited to living as a hermit, for many reasons, not least of which is boredom."

"As for Saori...?" he smiled at the invitingly beautiful Asian nova beside him, the teasing, questioning lilt to his words a clear invitation for her to speak for herself.

[z-Xiao Saori]

Saori smiled, her more-than-human beauty apparent, even if she lacked a certain warmth toward the race she'd left behind. "I was raised to be a man's prize, a toy on which to slake his carnal hungers," she said, her dark eyes falling on Shae, a feather-light impact as solidly felt as a thrown rock. "I believed that I would forever be a play-thing, and then Tomas showed me how to be whatever I wanted, and to find strength within myself.

"I live here to be with Tomas, and to be away from a country that supported my disenfranchisment." Her smile widened. "And I have come to like New York. It's... so full of possibilities."

The woman before her was full of possibility, too. Like Tomas - or maybe because of Tomas - she had some very invigorating throughts involving the young woman. She was so lovely, it was hard for Saori to imagine not wanting her.

[z017]

Shae listened to them, her mind mulling over what their words and their looks and their not-words/not-looks told her about them. She felt herself layering in her thoughts, watching Saori as Tomas watched her, watching Tomas as Saori did, watching them both from behind these half-formed copies in her mind and wondering if one day she would disappear in the others that crowded her mental landscape. She resisted the urge to reach out and touch them, though only barely.

Her brow furrowed in a slight confusion. "You live here? I thought it was hotel?"

[Tomas Saint-Etienne]

"It used to be. It keeps the name Blackburn Hotel. Now, however, it is a playground to many and a refuge to some." Tomas smiled over at her, his swirling fingertips on the table's top inching his bare hand tantalisingly closer to Shae. It was near the middle of the table now, inviting in it's fine boned beauty, it's delicate langour. "I live above the public areas. Currently, this quiet bar is closed to most. But on certain nights, the floors throb with music and the air hums with passion."

He tilted his head slightly, a charming gesture that revealed a smooth curve of white throat to Shae's eye as he looked at her. "And where are you staying, Shae?" His eyes deepened further, drowning out everything except him for her as she considered the question.

[z017]

"Nowhere." Her eyes were distance and sad. "I'm nowhere right now."

In her thoughts the three-way tug of war of half-formed personalities managed to agree on one thing: the need to touch the sensual young nova sitting across from her. Her fingers brushed over the back of his hand and the cross charm on her bracelet left a shiver of cool metal where it touched his skin. She felt a shift in herself as the Tomas-mind in her purred in appreciation of favored talents being made available. She'd done something, she knew, but only half understood what. Aloud all she said was, "Is it expensive? To live here? I don't really have any money; I haven't needed any."

[Tomas Saint-Etienne]

He lightly caught her fingers in his. Something about her was different, her emotions suddenly changed sharply. He needed to know why, for many reasons.

Staring into Shae's eyes he wove himself into the tapestry of her throughts, his own mind an iridescent serpent that coiled un-noticed through the fragmented, chaotic psyche it found itself in. There was pattern to the chaos, however, and Tomas was far enough removed from the human norm that he was not disoriented or frightened by finding the budding growth of two personalities in there. They were identical in feel to his and Saori's, but rudimentary, a simple mimicry of the curiousity and search for sensation that had led him and his first real lover to bring this strange girl back with them.

There was also something else... she had taken something from him, learning with a touch part of what he liked to think of as his Art, his ability to be the ideal for anyone, anywhere. To be a dream made flesh.

Interesting... he dug deeper, feeling where his and Saori's personalities melded. There, right on the seam, was a chink in the hazy screen of Shae's thoughts. As tenderly as his fingers stroked her hand, his mind stroked along that seam and sank deeper into her mind...

And emerged into a small, tiny space. Delicately he turned over the memories he found there. A desert in Arizona as a boy, a priest, changing to a form that truly sparked desire, the first taste of passion, love, need. Then abandonment, loneliness, and finally escaping as a fugitive. Then there was a police detective... lonely, needing someone to love and be loved by. Memories of happiness received through giving, and once more them coming, spoiling the dream, ruining the experience. The theme wove itself around and around through Shae's memories: needing to be needed, seeking an identity of his/her own, running from someone but not knowing who. There were no memories past the last few months. Nothing at all save a tiny knot of tangled weavery so tightly bound that Tomas easily recognised it as something the mind was concealing from itself for preservation reasons. He was almost tempted to unknot it... almost. Had Shae been a human, or even a different nova, he would have done that just to see the reaction.

But he felt potential in xem, a hint of promise for something greater than a temporary plaything. And so Tomas slowly slipped and coiled around Shae's mind, shoring up the wall between the real and false identities, setting filters in place so that the core of Shae could learn without becoming lost in the roles xe played. The fates had provided the master weaver with a blank tapestry, and he was going to enjoy the patterns that he and Saori would make together: dark parents to a fae child. His excitement growing, he slipped from Shae's mind and, his eyes still on xem, silently told Saori what they had in their possession. As he did so, he spoke.

"Not everyone can live here, and yes it is somewhat expensive. If you wish, you may stay with us. We will show you how one as wondrous as you can make money without being a slave or a servant." His fingers stroked the lines of Shae's palm, his voice infused with a dark tenderness. "We can help you grow, help you become as you could be: a wonderful changeling child becoming something far greater. We will show you how right you are to disdain the common masses of humanity. They desire yet are afraid of their wants. They are greedy and selfish, not to mention more fragile than their pride will admit." He glanced once at Saori, then at Shae again. "And we will shelter you here from those that hunt you. The One Race are not playthings for grasping baselines: Baselines are playthings for us." The last word came as a soft, seductive sound, a murmur of sibilant pride and power.

"Stay with us, Shae. Let us be your parents, your siblings, your lovers. We will teach you and, in so doing, be taught by you."

[z-Xiao Saori]

When Tomas whispered what they had found, what she had seen, Saori felt her heart began to race. She'd hoped to find more like themselves, and even had one or two in mind, but didn't think that they would find such a treasure as this. Her excitement and arousal at the idea was an electric spark that passed between their minds, and already Saori began to fantasize about Shae. Those dark fantasies had her body aching with shameful desire in seconds.

Rising, she moved around the table as Tomas talked. Sitting closer to the girl, she offered her hand with a smile and excited eyes. Both promised pleasure, guidance and perhaps even love - albeit the twisted love that Saori had known all her life.

[z017]

She shivered as she felt the soft touch of yet another mind within hers. This was different though, not an infant imitation of someone else but instead the careful and elegant touch of another true person. Part of her rebelled, pushing at the intruder, and part of her stilled and became a willing vessel for whatever changes were to be made. A strange and telling dichotomy to those who knew what to look for. She braced for pain and any hundred of an endless darkness of horrors that lurked behind the tightly wound center of herself.

Saori's simple gesture of friendship, of acceptance without hesitation, washed over her like a waterfall in the desert. She gave a soft gasp as tears gathered behind her eyes, her protoself nearly undone at the kindness, the understanding, and the healing these two strangers had given her in only a few moments of conversation and communion. Tomas had seen her as her and him and whoever, whatever, was wanted by those that caught Shae in their orbit; he hadn't turned himself or his companion away in fear or shame. She took Saori's hand while calming down the clamor inside her, her eyes flicking shyly upward.

Her voice was soft, almost dreamy, "The One Race?"

((Activating Seductive and Seductive looks on Saori, because that's what Tomas would do. ))

[z-Xiao Saori]

Saori gasped a little as the touch and dreamy tone of the woman awoke arousal in her. Tomas, you are right. She is very much one of us. She picked up Shae's hand and drew it to her, letting her warm breath trail over xer skin. After a moment, Saori kissed that warmed skin, looking up at Shae through her lashes.

"We are the One Race, you, Tomas, myself. We are the children of gods and nightmares. The baselines try to hold us back, but they are holding back a tornado." The words were whispered like a lover's sweet-nothing, but it wasn't the slightest bit soft and gentle. "We are, Shae, whatever we want to be."

[Tomas Saint-Etienne]

"There are other novas out there," Tomas continued, warming Shae's other hand in his as he, too, shifted around the table to sit beside xem. "They deny what is self-evident: that we are above baseline laws, morals and codes. They serve humanity, see to their needs, tend their gardens like migrant laborers."

"We revel in our natures. From humanity we have risen, but we soar above them as gods and demons; seducers, tempters and destroyers of the human condition." He gently mirrored Saori, lowering his mouth to Shae's hand and breathing lightly over her palm, his lips and the ebony fall of his hair teasing the skin. "Through the will and focus of our philosophy, Teras, we cut away our own illusions and through seeing the world as it is, gain mastery over the dreams of others." His perfect lips smiled, pride both beautiful and terrible in his green eyes. His teacher had done their work well, turning the raw potential of Tomas into a fervent adherent to the philosophy of the Marvel.

"Pain, pleasure, hate, love. They are all one to me. I despise humanity, yet I love them a little too. I love them like a snake loves the mouse paralysed by it's stare. My hate for them is a delicious fire in my belly that rewards me when I take from them everything that is my due." He leaned closer to Shae, his lips grazing her ear in sensual abandon. "Once I wandered, rampaged rather, through the world. Not long ago, I was much like you: a victim of humanity's cruel disrespect for the One Race. A Terat brought me here, as I brought Saori, as we together brought you."

He kissed her then, just beneath and behind the ear, soft and loving, carnal electricity flowing from the contact and filling xir's body.

((Bringing Symphony of Touch into play))

[z017]

Shae surrendered her arms, indeed most herself, over to the two exquisite creatures that had ensnared her in their web. Her attention was held by the lines of their bodies, the coquettish seduction in their movements. Dimly, she was aware that Tomas was speaking, was answering her question about who they all were. A small part of her noted that she'd be able to pay more attention if he wasn't so distracting. Then he kissed her.

Bliss rippled through the young nova's body, flowing from a sensual caress to soft murmurs of ecstasy to the intoxicating scent of a lover's skin in a panoply of pleasure that left her breathless and nearly incoherent. Her hands tightened on theirs, the only outward sign to any onlookers that the young Marvel that had joined them so recently had done anything more indiscreet than kiss in public. Shae felt herself dissolving into the moment, Tomas' words only slowly percolating past the pleasure centers of her mind.

Those thoughts touched on the black Gordian knot of Shae's past, pulsing along the sinister angles of the cords. The darkness pulsed back; lashes of pain and anger whipping out into the moment and wrecking havoc. Delight turned to anguish and all the avenues of pleasure that had unfolded under Tomas' direction were seared with brands of agony and rejection. The budding persona's of her two companions nestled in her mind were shredded instantly; their evisceration threatening to undo the safeguards Tomas had so recently erected around that which was Shae.

Shea herself went from ecstasy to agony to panic for her new found companions. She tried to protect them, attempting to force Tomas from her mind and to pull her arms from their embrace; but as quickly as the attack came, it disappeared again into the folds of her mind. She swallowed hard as tears tracked their way down her cheeks and tried to think enough to know what to do now.

[Tomas Saint-Etienne]

He felt the whiplash of her pain in his head and moaned softly in mingled distress and pleasure. He also felt Shae's attempt to eject him, pushing him to the outer fringes of her consciousness. And as quick as it had come, her pain retreated, leaving her shaking and tear-stained.

Very interesting. He silently let Saori know that he was alright and turned his full attention to Shae.

"What happened, Shae?" he asked xe softly. "Something inside you attacked you, causing you pain at my words." He gently wiped her tears from her eyes. "You reacted to what I said by punishing yourself."

[z017]

She stared up into his eyes, her mind still roiling in fear and pain. Somewhere in the fringes where Tomas had been pushed to, however, was the smallest grasp at hope. She hadn't hurt them and they hadn't left. Trust them, a small rebellious voice whispered where the knotted darkness couldn't hear.

"I don't know." She swallowed, getting her tears and her voice under control. "Sometimes, it just happens. A person says something or...or does something...or maybe I think something. I don't know. Sometimes it happens. Sometimes it doesn't. Maybe it just depends on who I am at the time."

[z-Xiao Saori]

Saori began to stroke xer hair, her expression somewhere between comforting and fiercely protective. She wasn’t sure what had just happened, but she didn’t like it. Without words, she communicated to the young chameleon that she’d be here to help her through whatever. Less audible was Saori’s anger at whatever had caused this in her new, young companion. But Tomas could feel it, a roaring anger that needed an answer.

“Perhaps… we should remove to our room,” Saori said, making the ‘our’ encompass them all. “We’ll have the privacy to talk and interact as we need.”

[Tomas Saint-Etienne]

"Yes." Tomas rose, gathering his belongings before turning to Shae and taking her hand once more. "Come with us and we will help you, Shae." he told the girl-shaped nova before him with a darkly beautiful smile.

She walked between Saori and him through the door marked 'Private' at the back of the club, turning down a thickly carpeted corridor and arriving at an elevator. With the swipe of a card, the elevator was bearing all three to the uppermost floor of the Blackburn Hotel. This was the secret side of the restored speakeasy and jazz club, a Terat enclave as secretive as it was luxurious. A number of apartments were available here, some permanently occupied, others used in passing by members of the One Race en route to somewhere else.

The keycard swiped again at an unremarkable door, letting the trio into Tomas's home. The apartment was reasonably sparsely decorated yet, the young Terat having only recently moved in. A few pieces of artwork, both painting and sculpture, dotted the lounge. All the usual furnishings one might expect were there too: large viewing screen attached to an OpNet terminal, several easy chairs, a couple of couches and a coffee table. As Tomas secured the door behind them and moved to adjust the blinds on the large wall-length window, he released Shae's hand and let her look around for herself.

"This is our home, mine and Saori's." He said quietly as he moved around the lounge area, a slim elegant figure. "It can be yours, too, as long as you are with us."

[z017]

She wandered the room, one hand flowing over the various sculptures and furniture in exploration and the other still holding on to Saori. She hadn't wanted to let go of Tomas' hand; her mind had recovered somewhat on the way to the apartment, but she wasn't used to feeling safe and didn't want to lose his touch. She breathed in the room, her senses playing swap-out with each other again to tell her not only what the decor looked and felt but what it tasted, smelled, and sounded like.

She spoke softly into the room, still timid and unsure, if trusting, "Thank you. You've both been so kind to me. I'm not sure really...I don't know how to..." Her hand tightened on Saori's and she looked them both in the eyes to convey her sincerity. "Thank you."

[Tomas Saint-Etienne]

Feeling her need, he stepped back over to her with a slight smile and took her hand once more. "You are one of us, Shae. One of the abused ones, the cast-asides who have risen above their persecutors. But you have been damaged, hobbled by them, even as I was and Saori was. If you will trust us both further, we can give you the keys to free yourself from those bonds, in the same way fire can be passed from tree branch to tree branch."

He lightly pulsed a suggestion to Saori for her to move closer to Shae as he did likewise, surrounding xem with warmth. He put his free arm around Shae, turning her to face him with gentle insistence, his eyes strangely deep as they searched hers. "I will not lie to you Shae, ever. This will be by turns a pleasurable and painful process. We will show you how to welcome pain, to make it your strength as much as pleasure is, to blur the line between the two. You will never again feel weakened by pain or the fear of pain. You will be free of human fears in that regard." His lips curved seductively, mystery pooling in his gaze. "But only if you wish it."

[z-Xiao Saori]

Saori stepped against Shae's back, lowering her head so that it rested against xer shoulder. "I have done it," she whispered encouragingly. Letting go of Shae's hand, she put her hands on either side of the nova's waist. Her fingers alternately massaged and squeezed Shae's hips, giving her the tiniest hint of what could be. "It is wonderful. Even the pain... even it is not unpleasant. It is a matter of how you choose to perceive it."

She lay a light kiss on Shae's shoulder, waiting for her response.

[z017]

Shae's body alternately tensed and relaxed under Saori's ministrations, her eyes caught in his spellbinding gaze. Her body shivered at Saori's kiss and her eyes fluttered close; her senses were still wired into one another and teasing her with what Tomas and Saori were offering.

She wanted them. She wanted to be with them. She wanted to belong. But more than all of that she wanted what Tomas was offering: freedom from her failures and frailties. Freedom from a past that refused be known but also refused to simply fade away.

She nodded, her hands sliding over Saori's to pull her closer even as Shae pressed herself against Tomas' chest. "I do," she whispered hoarsely, "I wish." Her eyes flicked up to his again, "Yes."

[Tomas Saint-Etienne]

He smiled again, a glittering smile as beautiful as a frost-rimed razor, and he delicately dipped into Shae's mind once more, feeling her open up to him as he penetrated her awareness. His hands slid up her arms to her shoulders, then down her torso, gently touching her through her clothing so expertly that it felt for all the world as if she were wearing none at all.

He read Shae's responses to his touch and to Saori's gentle caresses in both her mind and her body, and smiled as his lips met hers. He poured pleasure into the kiss, working a deeper spell over the unique nova's senses as he filled her mind and body with desire with every motion of his lips, every stroke of his fingers. He looked at Saori as they kissed and smiled with his eyes as they gazed straight into hers.

*You remember how it was with you, my Saori. We shall liberate Shae in the same manner and show her the truth of himself.*

[z-Xiao Saori]

I remember, she thinks as her eyes darken with the memory of the moment of her rebirth. Her hands dipped down Shae's back and back up, slipping under xer shirt and starting to slide it upward. Her small fingers took their time, smoothing and occasionally raking, as they wound their way up her back.

Where Tomas had powers that allowed him to create pleasure and pain with a touch, Saori had to content herself with her lips and fingers, teeth and nails as she did her part to help remake Shae and free her from her bonds.

[Tomas Saint-Etienne]

He felt Saori's touches through Shae's mind as he, too, gently slid his hands under her shirt and teased his fingertips up over xer belly and ribs to the undersides of her breasts. His mind was concentrating fully on Shae, her body and mind a complex and interwoven instrument for him to play a melody with.

He focused carefully, alternating the burning pleasure with flashes of exquisite pain that lasted but a fraction of a second at first. Fingers tweaked sensitised skin, teeth nipped sharply at her lips. Tomas did not need to pinch or bite, but did so anyway, enjoying the intimacy of the tiny acts of loving torment. Shae murmured and shifted, her body not sure from one moment to the next what it would be experiencing from the two novas who had trapped her so delightfully between them. She started to adjust to the small twinges of pain, her body blurring the distinctions a little, when Tomas stepped back with a mysterious smile.

Taking her hands, he led her through to the next room and to the large bed that dominated it. Without a word he had Shae sit between him and Saori before they resumed their play with her, Tomas's teeth scraping the side of Shae's tanned neck, making her gasp with the co-mingling of sensation.

[z017]

Shae's mind and body trembled with the rush of sensations washing over her. The dark knot pulsed angrily but otherwise left them to their own devices; it seemed confused. The miniature personas of her two paramours were flickering back into existence in her mind but the confusion of pleasure and pain racing through her body kept them malleable, indistinct things flowing and melding into each other and her.

She would never remember how they moved from the living room to the bedroom; her entire world was encompassed in the touches, bites, and kisses from Tomas and Saori. Her own hands roamed freely, running over the hands on her body and following them back as well as she was able to caress chests and hips. Her gasps and indrawn breaths slowly gave way to soft moans as Tomas played expertly with her mind in the same manner that he and Saori were exquisitely torturing her body.

[Tomas Saint-Etienne]

Tomas felt the pulsing little ball of spikey red and black clearly and worked around it as he laid Shae gently back on the bed, never breaking the harmony of cooperative delights he was working with Saori to build higher and higher. He tailored his motions to compliment his partner's, always being where she was not, preventing Shae from becoming inured to the pleasures and pains, letting her teeter on a razor's edge of nearly insane sensations for what seemed like forever. Shae was moaning, twisting and trying to press herself against all four hands, both sets of lips, and the body either side of her, her consciousness rapidly filling with nothing but the sensuality of her surroundings.

Tomas smiled faintly at Saori, watching her rapt expression as she studied the effect they were having on Shae together. She recognised this symphony: had been where xir was now, and was biting her lower lip excitedly as she realised what would come.

Tomas lowered his head and gently kissed along Shae's collarbone: slow, teasing kisses, each one a further torment, a spark trying to become a flame. His hand swept down, skimming the tanned breasts and making Shae arch as it glided down over her belly, slender fingers made of burning moonlight as they slipped under her waistband. Xe's moaning became louder, almost piteous, a faint growl entering her timbre, and Tomas knew that the time was now.

With one final smile for Saori, he dipped his head and caught a nipple between lips and teeth. Pain flooded from the seemingly gentle contact, already simply being translated into further sensation as the dark tempter's hand moved down in one confident motion, cupping and holding what was, currently, Shae's womanhood. This was raw ecstacy, literally, filling Shae's body mind and soul with exultation, rapturous delight, and frenzied sensation that went beyond shades of pain or pleasure, but simply was.

[z017]

The dark angry place in her mind by turns retreated and snapped out waves of pain against the tide of sensations that rushed through her body. By this point, Shae couldn't tell the difference between the pain she caused herself, the pain her lovers were causing her, and the overwhelming rush of pleasure the flowed from the kisses, nips, scrapes, and caresses of her lovers. She arched against Tomas, her fingernails digging into both his and Saori's hips as she clung to them and cried out in rough moans.

Tomas slid the rest of her clothes off her legs, both slowly teasing her skin and giving her a brief moment of recovery. As he moved back up her body he turned her to Saori, kissing up her spine and whispering softly into her mind. This gift of hers to create other people inside her mind gave him a cast of willing and understanding cohorts when directing Shae's thoughts. A brief movement of quantum, and they were ready.

Shae kissed her deeply and slid her hands underneath the silky fabric of Saori's blouse, her fingertips tracing featherlight paths up the Japanese woman's sides with the fabric. She broke the kiss to pull the top over her head then began kissing down her neck and around the edge of her bra. She nipped at the ivory skin, her fingertips continuing their nearly ticklish torture over her exposed sides and back. Tomas, still nuzzling at Shae's neck, reached around both of the women to catch the snap of Saori's bra and release it. He expertly removed the lacy material without disturbing either of them, then slid his hands downward to do the same with her skirt and underwear.

Saori caught a mischievous gleam to Tomas' eyes as he unfinished dressing her. Her heart skipped several beats faster wondering just what he was planning to give her such a predatory look. He slipped off the bed long enough to move to Saori's other side, his hands running up legs and digging into the soft flesh of her ass with practice relish. Shea had continues her exploratory kisses, her lips gliding softly over Saori's breasts and nipping timidly at her nipples. She tangled their legs to pull them closer together as her kisses traveled back up to meet Saori's lips, skin sliding over skin in a decadent indulgence.

As Shae nipped at and ran her tongue over Saori's lips, the Fenghuang learned what kind of torture her lovers had in mind for her: divine pleasure poured from Shae's lips while finely tuned pain played from Tomas' hands. The sensations would build up between the two extremes as the three of them writhed together on the bed, only to subside just before Saori would reach release and then be played back up again.

[z-Xiao Saori]

Saori, tangled between her two lovers, was torturously pleasured until finally allowed to climax. It shook her body, pressing her between theirs mercilessly. Just when she thought the assault was over, Tomas tilted her hips back and entered her with a brutal manuveur that hurt as much as it pleased. As he rode her with a harsh ectascy, Shae coated her in pinches and kisses until she writhed helplessly. This continued until a desperate whisper in her mind, a darkly sweet suggestion, caused him to stop.

Standing, he walked around the bed to lie behind Shae, as Saori caught zer wrists with one hand, lifting them above zer head. As Tomas duplicated on Shae what he had just been doing to Saori, Saori slipped her free hand low on Shae's body, seeking the sensual, delicate parts so near to Tomas' focus. The dark-haired nova's fingers quickly went to work on the blond changeling, letting Tomas once again administer the pain while Saori focused on pleasure. Her lips alternated between Shae's perfect breasts and lips, drawing the pleasure as high as she could.

But Tomas' contribution wasn't just physical; like with Saori, he whispered truths into Shae's mind, even as zhe had trouble focusing due to the assault on zer senses. As the words were burned in her mind, zhe slid into estacsy, crying out loud. Saori released zer hands, letting zer drape zer arms around her. As Tomas slowed down, maintaining an easier pace, Shae ran zer hands down Saori's arms.

Too late, the nova realized what zhe was up to; Saori was rolled under Shae when she moved suddenly. She was trapped; she looked wildly to Tomas, but he was just smiling as he repositioned himself behind Shae. And then Shae did something strange; Saori felt zer body shift, and suddenly, there was something extra pushing at Saori's stomach, something that hadn't been there before. As she gaped at Shae, zhe moved into her. And as zhe paused there, Tomas moved, and they were all suddenly, magically, completely linked.

[Tomas Saint-Etienne]

He was filled with an awareness of what they were building here, a network of sensation and hedonistic pleasure. As he penetrated Shae, he felt xir breasts shrink and flatten under his hands, becoming smooth strong muscles. He felt Saori gasp as she was filled and smiled over Shae's masculine shoulder at her, looking into her dark eyes as he moved his hips rhythmically. Shae quivered and moved forward with every churn of Tomas's hips, a red-haired young man now where before xe had been a woman. Pale hands sought out, pulled and tweaked, dividing their attention between Saori and Shae's bodies as he teased them around the areas of their joining.

He felt Shae's pleasure mounting and took it, feeding it to Saori, letting her feel the combined desire of her two lovers as they ravished her in tandem. Three sets of hips moved faster together, three pairs of hands teased and tormented willing flesh. Tomas's insidious touch by turns tortured and pleasured his partners, and he fed from their agony and ecstacy, feeling it as if it were his own.

Slowly, then with increasing force, the loop of pleasure-pain-pleasure gained momentum between the three, the pain of one becoming the delight of another becoming the agony of a third as their minds and emotions blended together, a whirling tempest of dark passion that was beyond love or hate or need. It filled the three of them to bursting, a gestalt of raw desire, and as he felt his partners and himself reaching their peaks Tomas forced his way into Shae's mind and poked that angry red-black knot, provoking it to release.

Shae's scream of pain/pleasure echoed in the nerves and minds of his lovers, their own screams ringing out in the apartment as the pure sensation, refined beyond arbitrary labels such as pain or pleasure, catapulted them all beyond the horizon of climax, shattering their senses. They jerked and twisted together for maybe ten minutes, crying out till they were hoarse yet unable to stop moving as orgasm after orgasm wracked all three of them into near-exhaustion.

Finally they collapsed in a tangle of limbs and hair, Tomas falling between Shae and Saori as they all three shuddered in the aftershocks of the cataclysmic event. Soft moans were uttered from three sets of lips as they clung to each other to anchor themselves against what they had experienced together.

[z-Xiao Saori]

Saori had thought that what she had felt with Tomas on her first night with him had been glorious. She couldn't have imagined anything better, and didn't believe that there was. But she had just been proven wrong. The unity that she'd just been part of was unbelievable. Sighing, she snuggled against Tomas, her hand sliding over his body to rest on Shae's side.

With Tomas, she'd felt safe and powerful and happy. Shae's arrival had increased those feelings again, giving her yet another heart to claim and another soul to touch. Her family was expanded, and it was good.

[z017]

Shae pressed close to Tomas, sliding a sleepy and contented hand over the one Saori had set on xir side. Xe's mind was still stumbling over itself, caught in a post-coital haze that wasn't likely to disappear before the young changeling gave xirself up to exhaustion and sleep.

As xe drifted off xe twined xir fingers with Saor's and laid xir head over Tomas' chest, letting the heartbeat there lull xe into slumber.

[Tomas Saint-Etienne]

As he felt his own exhaustion and satiated glow sweep over him, it's warmth comparable to the softness of his two lovers against his flesh, Tomas smiled. His mind lightly brushed over Shae's testing his workings and finding a marvellous framework in place around that ugly knot in the changeling's mind. Shae's chains, whatever their source, had been weakened considerably this day. The malign lump of pain in xir mind was surrounded by a lattice of pain/pleasure responses, a sensual shield from the agony it could cause.

*Sleep now, my lovers, my peers. Here... with... me...* his mental tone broke off in a loving murmur as, with the last vestiges of his wakefulness, the demon prince tugged a large blanket over himself and his two bedmates, then snuggled between them once more.

All was quiet in the luxurious apartment as the three, minds still as entwined as their bodies, slept.