Étude

[Tearen Wover]

"Hey! Pretty ladies!" came a jeering voice. Myla peeked out through an impeccably placed bullet hole in the sidewall. A shirtless, well-tanned man was riding on top of...some kind of dopey looking whale raft monster. She never got the hang of memorizing pokémon, despite their rampant use in the Vasty Deeps. They hadn't shown up much on the nameless island, and what Myla didn't have in front of her was rarely her concern. She was fairly confident they would respond the same way most other things did to a point-blank shotgun blast.

Another one of the lackadaisical pirates swished up, riding some sort of...giant blue wart with red bulbs. The hell? Myla glanced back and Nesheika for a moment, then performed a double take. The young woman was clutching a dark patch on her shawl, and a rather significant amount of blood was beginning to stain the palmwood canoe.

"Fuck!" Myla spat, double checking the safety on her firearm. There was no way their tiny boat could handle the blast from a SPAS 12 without risking capsizing, but maybe if she remained seated, it would help a little bit. Her thoughts raced, looking around for other options when the first hooting brigand spoke up again. Except with his gun. The harsh, rattling blasts seemed to punch the very air as they whizzed overhead. For the first time in her life, Elise made a noise. A small, pathetic little whimper where her face scrunched into an expression of very deep discomfort. Myla stared, wide-eyed at the tiny creature for what seemed like an eternal, strangling moment. Cold, burning adrenaline rose from every inch of her demonic body, filling her brain with one directive and all the strength she needed to see it done.

The woman was utterly incoherent with fury as she lurched up from her cover and leveled the black implement of death at the shirtless pirate. A fantastic, miraculous thud sent him flying off his stupid animal and into the serene ocean in a puff of pinkish haze.

"Fuck me!" the other scout swore, swiftly raising his own gun at Myla. It was some poorly maintained autopistol, and the hasty shots slapped into the water around Myla. The ex-War Bitch swung her SPAS around on the inexperience cuthroat, pumped, and fired another sharp blast. Apparently, however, whatever mutant dinosaur the pirate was riding had woven some sort of invisible forcefield with a quick swipe of grey tentacles. Myla shrieked in fury and flicked the tactical shotgun in to semiauto, and sprayed the beast with two more shells, blinded to the fact that its writhing arms were snaking in around her feet. With a sharp yelp, she was yanked from the canoe with immense force, and held aloft like a target for the tentacular monster's fidgeting rider.

Myla screamed with pain and rage as agony flooded into her legs. Millions of stinging cells dug into her porcelain flesh with relish. In the confusion, she realized she had dropped the shotgun, and flailed spitefully at the shaken buccaneer, just out of reach. The young man had not expected to encounter the rage of a provoked mother that day, and any normal bravado he may have had was swallowed hard. The old, dirty glock was pointed at Myla with one hand, and a burst of four shots rang out. In her thrashing, the the succubus managed to constrain the damage to a lacerated cheek, but she suddenly felt a sudden burst of warmth and soreness from between her legs. Not that she cared at the moment.

The berserk mother suddenly became aware of another woman's scream, and twisted around to see Nesheika on her feet, stabbing tearfully at the wriggling tentacles around Myla's ankles. A gout of green blood sprayed over the island girl's vibrant shawl, but the glinting of her knife did not cease. All at once, Myla was released, and the demon mother scrabbled fitfully on top of the rubbery monster's head. She groped angrily at the young man's legs, trying to upset his balance, anything. The pirate did indeed stumble, and with a yelp, began to slide backwards of the bulbous pokémon's head. Through sheer luck, or perhaps, the serendipity of rage, Myla caught the boy's glock as it was dropped and cracked a snap shot right between his eyes as he sank beneath the surf. His gaze remained surprised as it disappeared into the deep, blue eternities.

Myla wasted no time, and emptied the remained of the shitty handgun's magazine into one of the seamonster's glistening red bulbs. There came a highpitched keening, then stillness as the jellyfish pokémon keeled over in the water. Myla slipped drunkenly into the waves, and pulled herself back towards the canoe, where Nesheika stood with arms outstretched. Myla rose her feet to the side of the canoe, but found them numb and unresponsive. The women panted and strained, and only after a severe effort, was the succubus hauled about the dangerously pitching boat. Water now filled the keel almost by half, spilling in through bullet holes. As Myla sunk he weight back onto one of the benches, she noticed two things.

First, the intense amounts of blood tricking out from under her britches and down her thighs. An experimental touch confirmed that her crotch had torn open again in all the fuss. Second, a quick scan of the island revealed about six more of the fuckers piling into an outboard dingy and motoring towards them. Gunfire was already start to come their way. Myla began to panic.

"Shit. Shit." she stammered, looking around for the SPAS. She hoisted the shotgun onto her lap and stuck her finger into the tubular magazine. She had...five, maybe six, shots left. A gentle shuffling sound from her right caused her twist around and watch as Nesheika slumped against the side of the canoe. The midwife's eyes fluttered softly and her breaths became heavy.

"Shit!" Myla continued, flopping over and fruitlessly pawing and grabbing at the girl's listless body. There was nothing she could do for her. Not right now. Elise was still fussing, crying loudly now, which was ironically the only good thing that was currently happening. Her noise was reassurance of her life. Of the tiny baby's will to live. Myla was breathing heavily. She felt dizzy, and the world swam in front of her. It wasn't from blood loss; she was very familiar what that particular faintness felt like. This was crushing, overwhelming dread and fear. A bullet caught her in her left shoulder and she went spiraling down to the ocean-flooded floor of the canoe. Myla's eyes opened again, slowly, and she looked up at her baby girl, wailing in fear.

Myla knew what she had to do. The baby's father had told her what to do if things got this bad. A fire alarm. The last resort. The succubus mother held the swaddled daughter close as tears began to flow, uncontested, from her eyes. She hugged Elise tightly to her chest, shaking her head in protest of what she knew she had to do. Myla the Demon poured as much love and sweetness as she could manage into the tiny, shrieking child. This may be the final chance to do so. Then, when the timing grew urgent, she spoke in a whisper, for that was all that was needed.

"Azathoth."

Everything stopped. A shadow fell across the ocean, or rather, the sky. There was nothing so vulgar and mundane as a sudden eclipse, or passing cloud. The light simply waned, and in its place, came the sound. A bellowing, undulating sort of trumpeting vibration that filled the air and water like the approach of a hasty glacier. Shrill, keening piplets danced on the crests and crescendos of this deeper music. It was a vacuous, rhythmless piping that did not recall the timing or pace of any sane world. Myla felt herself sit upright, freed from her pain and suffering, clutching Elise tightly in her arms. The girl's face was frozen in an expression of horror befitting the sudden shift.

A great bulge perverted the surface of the azure waters, heralding the emergence of some immense, profane thing from the depths. The saltwater cascades stretched and froze in their upward paths, up, up, up, as the towering unthing reached its full height of somewhere beyond infinity. Eyes bloomed on it; thousands in clusters of millions, all burning with the same, delighted viridian color that Myla had stared into as Elise's father was burned into the destiny of the Omniverse. There was a new sound, something like the white tinkling of rain on pavement, but upon closer observation, the demon mother realized that it was, in fact, the sound of a million black, seething worms writhing against eachother's mucous-defiled flesh.

The pillar of unthing stood tall and irreverent against all rational description, and it wasn't for some time until something else happened. At length, Myla became aware of an approaching figure from the distant column of depravity. It walked, robed in darkness itself, along the leading edge of an unfurling, tapered tentacle of immense strength. The robed man was unhurried in his pace, walking as if through a sunny park or quaint museum. That burning, acid green light shone from under the low hood, and for a moment, Myla's heart fluttered in vain hope. Could this, perhaps, be Tearen come back for her and their child?

No. There was a shift, and the robed figure stood before her in her charnel canoe, staring down from atop his position on a glistening, onyxian pseudopod. Two hands, as black as charcoal, pulled back the hood, revealing a long, gaunt face that stared down at Myla and Elise with undeserved fondness. The Black Man spoke.

"We were hoping this day would come." he whispered. The vocalization seemed to hiss forth from the air and waves themselves, as if commanded to vibrate in keeping with the movement of black lips.

"This is...the singular brood of Nealaphh?" the Black Man crooned, reaching out to run a clammy hand over Elise's damp, sweaty hair. Myla screamed inside herself, but took no action to resist. She was not meant to. She knew this to some degree. Intuitive as breathing, and yet it hurt her all the same.

"He ditched that name a long time ago. His name was Tearen." Myla said, her glinting, orange eyes fighting against the emerald hues arrayed against her. The glacial trumpeting rumbled more intensely for a moment, and then subsided.

"So, you're Azathoth then?" Myla spoke up, having come to the understanding that she was now permitted to speak, to some extent, freely. The Black Man chuckled loathsomely, his shoulders bouncing softly, before replying.

"No, my goodness no. Azathoth does not permit Himself the indignity of treating with bric-a-brac moppets such as yourself. But the child..." the Black Man said, running another chilly hand over Elise's scalp,"...she is of royal bearing. You seek her deliverance from...this?" he said, gesturing at the floating corpses and the advancing skiff, still as a statue on distant waves.

"Not just this...but...can you do something for her? Protect her? Make her...I dunno...invincible?" Myla said softly, not being permitted to feel anger when addressing the Right Hand of the Daemon Sultan.

"Primehood? You would have her under the jurisdiction of that feckless, grinning janitor enthroned in the Oververse?" the Black Man said, undeniable mirth in his voice. He let out a long, dark sigh.

"No, I think not. The Sultan has grander schemes for little Elise." the tall, human-shaped blasphemy crooned. He stooped over and took Elise from Myla's arms, who offered the baby to her with no resistance. Pain. Anguish. Regret. All of these things ricocheted through Myla's impotent soul as her possessed body betrayed her. The was more awful than she could have imagined, and yet, like so many other times in the demon's fraught existence, Myla was forced to trust in uncertainty over ensured doom.

"Fret not, brave mother. Your daughter will be delivered to a fate befitting her heraldry. But you, I'm afraid, must face your choices as so many other mortals must." the Black Man called as he turned on his heel and began walking back towards the pillar of grisly, horrid blackness. Myla was released from the bonds of her obligation to the Daemon Sultan, and shook her head softly. A thought occurred to her, and the demon mother grabbed the bloodstained knife from the flooded keel. With an abrupt slice, she severed a length of her long, auburn hair from her head and began to rummage through her rucksack. After a moment, she withdrew a small braid of silvery, white hair that had been woven into an intricate pleat. Not knowing how to best integrate her own sentiment, the succubus simply tied her own locks around the other braid and held it aloft.

"Can she take this with her?" Myla called. The Black Man held the braid up to his face, for it was instantly within his own grasp, and sneered shrewdly at it.

"I suppose." he called back in a lazy, noncommittal tone. The obsidian tongue of the eye-smothered pillar abruptly receded back into the greater mass, and the world returned to normal with a suddenness so jarring, that Myla lost her balance, despite being seated. She thudded back into the waterlogged basin of the canoe, arms limp, and looking skyward. There seemed to be little point in doing anything else at the moment. One of the pirate jackasses shouted something loudly, some sort of order. In the next moment, Myla became of an immense, booming noise and realized that she was airborne.

As Myla's limp body twirled, bloody and sundered through the tropical breeze, she closed her eyes and smiled. Before she died, the mother was glad that she had chosen to hug her daughter one...final...time.