A bloody vision, an abrupt ejection, and a half-mended witch

A scene explodes into your mind as Susan grinds her hot, wet, swollen sex hard against your face with your head imprisoned between her clenched thighs. Susan bellows, locking her ankles and thrashing her hips. The release of orgasm blows open the gates of her mind, so as Susan yanks your head around like a doll, a vision reaches you, dimly, seen through an obscuring ward.

A young woman lies sprawled in a pool of blood, her forearms crossed in front of her face, one hand clutching a wand.

"Poor girl, she tried so hard," one dark-robed figure says. "There's nothing..."

"Hush," hisses the other. "There's still a chance. Swiftly now."

There's a garbled chanting sound, a glimmering flash of prismatic fragments, and a firm psychic push of banishment.

Susan's thighs unlock, her heels thump down, and her hips swing up convulsively, propelling you arse over teakettle to fall off the foot of her bed with a shriek and a stunning thump.

You blink away the head-gong sparkles to see Tess and Susan looking down at you. You're seeing double? No, you're seeing one Tess and at least double Susans, maybe three? four? Frantic blinking resolves them into one Tess and one Susan. You mutter a quick SIGHT and stare up in surprise.

Not at Tess. Tess the Terrible Transformer looks much her usual self, moonfaced and copper-haired, her big eyeglasses back in place, carrying a subtle look at me enhancement to her eyes and brows, because of course.

Susan is not what you expected. Not the simple, soppy, sloppy, hero-worshipping ingenue you thought. Or at least not only. More than one mind looks out through her eyes, or perhaps not quite one mind. There are smooth, well-crafted seams in Susan's flesh and bones. Repairs. She's an unmelded assemblage of thought-forms stuffed into an aura, aided by a whispering prompter conjured into her Prefect badge, and warded by a guardian spirit. How much does Susan know? How much does she remember of who she was?

A doll, broken and hastily mended from parts at hand, wanting desperately to be whole, to be loved. To be real.

"Fay, are you alright?" Susan bleats, "Are you? Talk to me."

"Emm, ah," you start. Your concentration breaks and SIGHT dissipates. "I'm alright. Just failing in the clutch. Don't mind me."

Susan scrambles down to the floor. She's flushed, glowing with sexual release, her mane of dull bronze hair sodden at the roots with fuck-sweat.

"Your cheeks, Fay, your ears, are you hurt?" Susan asks.

"Mm," you say. You were squeezing them rather fiercely between your thighs, Susan. is your unuttered thought.

"Can you sit up?" Susan asks. She puts a hand behind your shoulder and another behind your head.

"Ow, my neck!" you cry out.

Susan looks positively frightened. "Fay, do you need the Nurse?' she asks.

"Wait, wait, just let me do, ah, do it myself," you say. You ease yourself into a sitting position. For the day you've had, you don't feel that bad, actually. "Alright now, let me sit on the bed."

Tess and Susan help you up to sit on the corner of Susan's bed.

"I'll be fine," you reassure them. "You'd know sense and aid, would you, Susan, as a prefect?"

"Oh. Oh yes," Susan says. She looks a little lost. "Oh!" Her gaze rests on her Prefect pin, still attached to her discarded House Beavertail robe which rests on the floor atop a yellow pool of Susan's own piddle from your tickle attack.

"Check me over, make sure I'm fine," you instruct her.

Susan reclaims her Prefect pin and wand. Now that she's back to a routine, she seems much calmer, almost serene.

"Oh, I'm so happy I didn't hurt you," Susan says, once she's surveyed you. "I don't know what came over me, it was just, well."

Your cross gazes with Tess. It doesn't look like she caught the vision you did. But as Tess had said, I am a prying bitch, so she might be up with one prybar or other. You're not sure it would be best to tell Tess out of hand.

It was just, well, if I want to read your mind, Susan, I need my head to be someplace less dangerous.

"Stay with me tonight, Fay?" Susan pleads. "Please?"

The look in Tess's face. She's all yours, Fay.

Morgan was probably still sleeping, freighted with aphrodisiac venom from her tryst with Miss Wormwood. Morgan Sunshine Honeysuckle Woodbine. Your heart glows and clenches. I hate how much I love you, Morgan. Lolo was sleeping over at the Infirmary tonight as well. I love you, you had incoherently confessed to Lolo. I love you, Fay, so brave and beautiful, Lolo had told you. Even Miss Wormwood had wished you, sincerely, Take care, Fay.

"Why are you crying, Fay?" Susan asks.

You blubber out, "Everybody loves me, I don't understand."

Tess tilts her head. Her coppery hair shifts and her glasses glint. She gives you an indulgent smile. "Snap out of it, Fay," she says. "Come on, you're a Happy Bunny like all of us now. Revel it it. Roll in it. Use it, for fuck's sake."

"Please stay," Susan says. She looks like a whole person. "Please."

"Oh all right," you tell Susan Quaffle. "Might as well. I don't want to be alone."

Tess gives you a wink, blows a kiss, and is dressed, slippered, and out Susan's door before you can frame anything to say. Gone. Uncanny, she is, Tess. Missing a piece or two herself after a hasty, ill-chosen battle against her own thought-forms in the secret apartment.

After a time, you and Susan get into her bed together. She's big, and warm, though not as warm as Lolo. After a time, you fall asleep. You don't remember any dreams.

You have an appointment with Miss Hemstitch to talk with about your bold action to save Golondrina. Susan wants to be there with you.

Choose INDULGE, PUT OFF, or DISCOURAGE and roll +AMBITION at -1 (+1 total) to DEAL WITH YOUR HANGER-ON, then roll +DILIGENCE(+0) (modified by how you deal with Susan) to ENCOUNTER Miss Hemstitch, Tutor of House Beavertail, to discuss your bold actions to save Golondrina.

• Indulge Susan. Roll: 8+1 = 9. On a 7-9, take -1 Forward for her distracting presence.
• Encounter Miss Hemstitch. Roll: 3-1 = 2, Miss.

The Tutor's tiny glowing herald summons you the next morning, a ball of golden witch-light leading you through the halls of House Beavertail to Miss Hemstitch's office.

Miss Hemstitch firmly insists that Susan wait outside her office while she interviews you. She questions you minutely, extracting every detail of your day, from your debauch with Cook in the flour cellar to the interrupted reunion with Morgan, your bold actions with Morgan to save Golondrina, and the aftermath in the Infirmary and then in the baths.

She stops short at asking about Susan Quaffle. Because the Tutor knows already, of course.

"Quite the busy day, Miss Applebum," the Tutor says. "Thank you, you may go," she dismisses you.

Susan isn't there when you come out of Miss Hemstitch's office. There are torn bits of paper on the chair where Susan had been sitting, and scratched-through words and letters.

Back home, home to Morgan, and hopefully with Lolo now that you're all Happy Bunnies together in House Beavertail.

You have Ambition +2, Bravery -1, Cunning +2, Diligence +0, and 5 XP.
Your FRIEND is Morgan Woodbine, true love, subversively soppy romantic hedge-witch.
Your HANGER-ON is Susan Quaffle, second-year in Beavertail, dishwater blonde, tall and gawky, precociously young Prefect, and magically half-mended survivor of a soul- and body-shattering episode.

You know the Forbidden Spell, LUST.

Next:

• Go looking for Golondrina. Roll +Diligence(+0) to ENCOUNTER her and see if Lolo's all right now and if you're going to blub again about how much your soppy self loves this fearless, fey loose cannon of a dragonfolk witch.
• Convene the Three Beaverteers. Meet with Morgan and Golondrina. Decide what your next plans together are going to be, now that you're all in one place. Spend 5 XP on an ADVANCEMENT that will open up a new plot line. Of course, Susan hears there's something up and either barges in or eavesdrops. Choose INDULGE, PUT OFF, or DISCOURAGE and roll +AMBITION at -1 (+1 total) to DEAL WITH YOUR HANGER-ON.
• Build a firmer pact with Tess Lectura. Spend 5 XP to make Tess a FRIEND who is happy to extend one FAVOR. Get her advice on how to fit in at House Beavertail. Perhaps take on a GOAL, or use a custom move on DILIGENCE as you do House Service together, whether tutoring the first-years or something else.
• Something else?

Remember that Susan Quaffle may be hanging about as your new HANGER-ON.