Elegy for a Star

Tess awoke with a gasp, lying down in her makeshift bed, alone in the room where she’d been while overhearing Gwen and Mairaela discussing the day’s events. She was pitching a tent down below and elected to bring up her knees to keep it from being exposed. She was still getting used to that happening each morning. Such a pain. She tried replaying last night’s events in her mind. Everything was so clear, but after she tucked in next to Gwen, there was nothing that she could remember after that.

Was she sleepwalking? Had that been a dream?

Considering all of the odd things going on lately, she can’t imagine it would be something so simple as that.

“Did you have a good night?” Miri purred in Tess’ mind.

Tess’ eyes widened and she sat up. “What?!” She hissed, the realization that all of last night’s events actually happened causing her heart to race. “What did you do?!” She breathed.

“Who? Me?” Miri laughed, “I was just taken for a ride, that’s all. I got to watch it all, and goodness, that looked fun.”

“That isn’t all. You did something,” Tess whispered, “You said you were going to do something to repay Mairaela and I. So what did you do?”

“Oh, gods, I don’t see what the big deal is,” Miri mused. Tess could feel Miri’s eyes rolling, “So I might’ve lowered your inhibitions. That’s all.”

Tess’ heart dropped. Her eyes were opened wide. “You-...”

“I pulled some levers in your brain,” Miri replied ambivalently.

Tess gulped. Pulled some levers? Immediately Tess’ mind went to the worst case scenario. How many of her thoughts and behaviors were just Miri “pulling levers?” The thought gave her shivers.

“You… you can do that?” Tess stammered.

Tess could hear the smile in the demoness’ voice as she replied easily, “Yeah, of course. We share the body, remember?”

Tess was silent. Her thoughts were moving at the speed of light. Panic built and vanished as quickly as it appeared. She couldn’t keep up. “You have no right-…”

“What?!” Miri snapped, “We are sharing this body, Tess. Why should you get to make all of the decisions as to what we do with it?” 

Feeling the heat of Miri’s rage, Tess wondered why she was suddenly so in tune with the demon’s feelings all of a sudden. She hated that she saw the logic in Miri’s statement, but it felt terrifying to have someone else puppeting her without her knowledge. Suddenly she was realizing the significant downside of sharing a body with someone. Having a voice in your head was one thing, but the lack of full autonomy? That was different.

Perhaps Miri could sense her despair, “Oh please, don’t fret so much. All I did was give you the freedom to do what you wanted to do.” Miri chuckled, “You would’ve just jacked off and gone to sleep if you didn’t want to bone Mairaela again.”

“But…” Tess stammered, looking around the room as if she might find answers, when there was nothing but dust, “But why did Mairaela-... I thought she was angry with us?”

“Well, she is,” Miri muttered, “And we’re angry with her, aren’t we?”

“Maybe a little,” Tess mumbled.

Miri corrected her, “Maybe a lot. She was going to kill you. Done. Her arrow would’ve been the last thing you ever felt if I hadn’t been here to save you.”

Tess was silent. Miri was making a lot of sense and she couldn’t really argue.

Pressing the attack, Miri added, “But you still wanted to fuck her. I mean, I can’t blame you; She’s got one of the best bodies I’ve ever seen. So all I had to do was take away a few barriers to allow you the freedom to do what you truly wanted to do.” 

“But that doesn’t explain why she went along with what I wanted to do,” Tess persisted, pushing some hair from her face and holding it back. She wanted answers. She wanted to know exactly what happened so that she could explain herself when the group unsurprisingly approached her about it.

Miri replied with a sigh, “Well, you had some pheromonal help, you could say.”

“Phero-what?”

“Yeah, you know… you smelled nice, basically. Really nice. So nice it made people want to impale themselves on your cock,” Miri replied casually, “So she did. Gwen wanted to, you know.”

That made Tess smile, despite herself. She bit her lip, looking downward and trying to conceal her blush. How could she hide something from someone she shared a body with?

“Look at that smile!” Miri exclaimed with excitement.

Tess rose from her blanket, having finally relaxed a bit. Her cock hung heavily between her legs, but at least it wasn’t jutting out in front of her. “Whatever,” Tess grunted, moving to collect her clothes. They looked like small strips of fabric. The small amount looked as though it couldn’t be more than a scarf that she picked up off of the ground. She wondered how such a small amount could conceal her. At least the others knew about her not-so-little endowment now so that she didn’t have to get creative in hiding it.

“Do you forgive me?” Miri cooed into her mind’s ear.

“Forgive you? For what?” Tess said with a smirk, “Weren’t you saying you didn’t do anything wrong?”

Tess could feel Miri’s amusement as the demoness replied, “You know what I mean.”

“But how did you do that? That couldn’t have just been some ‘lever.’ It isn’t a mental decision to change how I smell, is it?” Tess asked.

Miri was quiet for a bit and Tess felt the woman’s surprise. Did Tess just catch her in something?

“Okay, maybe it isn’t.”

“Then how did you do it?”

“Maybe I’ve got a gift like your little friends do,” Miri grunted in response. She didn’t like explaining this.

“A gift? You?” Tess asked, shocked, “Why didn’t it show up in the ritual? Is it because you’re in my mind, not my soul?”

“They might’ve shown up. I’ve gotten pretty good at hiding mine, though.”

“They?”

“Yeah, well, Mairaela isn’t the only special one with two,” Miri replied with a little sigh.

“So what are they?” Tess asked.

“Brawling,” Miri said back, like she was finally relenting to something.

“And…?”

“Let’s just call it, mm.. Performance.”

Tess’ mouth was agape and she let out a little giggle at the thought, “You have a gift in fucking?” As she tied her loincloth about her waist, Tess couldn’t help but laugh a little louder, “Wow!”

“Yeah, laugh it up,” Miri said, joining in on the chuckling, “As I recall, you were pretty damn happy to use it last night.”

“I didn’t know I was using it,” Tess replied, “What does it do?”

“I’m sure you’ll learn all the ‘ins and outs’ of it,” Miri mused, “Now do you have any more questions, or can the inquisition finally end?”

“No, I think I’m done,” Tess replied, slipping into her footwear and adjusting her chest wrap, “Oh, wait, one more. Is that common for demons? Gifts? Two gifts?”

Tess felt an urge to lie. Was that Miri’s? The urge faded, replaced by a willingness to be honest.

“No. Demons don’t get gifts.”