Kinktober #24

This is a Monster Girl Encyclopedia fanfiction.

Cursed / Skeleton

The man in khaki shirt and khaki shorts was about to be hit by a van, when out of nowhere he was tackled by the black-haired girl. The van zoomed past them as they laid on the sidewalk. She sat on top of him, staring at him and his white beard. She stared at him back.
"Are... are you all right mister?" She finally huffed out.
"I'm fine... Yeah, I'm fine thanks to you. Young lady, you saved my life!"
"It was nothing. Just glad I could help someone..." she picked herself up, dusted off her knees and helped the old man up.
"Is anything the matter, young lady. You look positively distraught."
"Everything is the matter these days. I'd like just one day when just one thing was the matter. I mean, I got fired from my job, my boyfriend broke up with me, my guinea pig has an infected toe..." She picked up her phone that slipped out of her pocket, now with a huge crack on it and a permanently black screen, "...and now my cellphone is bust... but... you don't want to know the troubles of some random girl who tackled you off the streets. See you!" Before she could run the man held on to her wrist, "Hey what gives!?"

"My apologies, I didn't mean to come off as forthcoming, but... have you ever considered your problems have a spiritual origin?"
"Uhm... to be frank I'm not so much a believer. I'm more the down to earth sorta gal. I mean, what did the supernatural ever do for me?"
"You'd be surprised how many people think that way. But be that as it may, I'd like to take the opportunity to repay you in full for saving my life just then. As if happens, I'm a witch doctor, and you're welcome to my clinic at any time. I insist"
The young woman looked with incredulous eyes at the man. "I mean, sure. Why not? It's not like I got work to go to."
"Great. Then you are welcome to my clinic tomorrow. Here is my card."

He handed the girl a white business card with a skull printed on it and the signature of Ben Liston, with address underneath. "Thanks man, I'll check it out."

First thing in the morning, which in Rhea Andersson terms meant just past eleven, she arrived at the small corner shop with a skull and the text Liston Witch Doctor Clinic written on a sign. Rhea double checkedf the address on the card and upon entering is greeted by the sound of a bell. "Welcome! Ah, you did come! I am happy!"

"I mean, I don't wanna find out what happens if you don't do what a witch doctor says."
"Go ahead and take a seat, miss..."
"Call me Rhea."
"Right, of course."
Rhea sat down in front of the doctor.
"Put your hands down here, on the painted circle on the table."
Rhea laid both her hands on the brown and gold wheel painted on the table, but her hands immediately flew off, "Eaaah! That's some uncomfortable vibrations right there!"
"Mhmm... as I thought. You have been inflicted with a curse."
"What? Who would ever think of cursing little old me? I mean, I never harmed a fly in my life."
"But your spirit has travelled many lives before arriving where you now stand; not all of them may have evaded a curse from a powerful being."
"Fine. Let's say that I buy into that. How should I go about getting rid of this curse?"
"You must go on a spiritual journey, to discover the cure yourself."
"Yeah, but... you know, I didn't bring good clothes for travelling...:"
"This journey must be taken on the inside. Wait for a moment." The witch doctor went into his back room. In the meantime Rhea looked under the table and tried to scratch the wheel. She found no cables. No battery, or indication it ran on battery. Seemed just like just an ordinary disc.
The witch doctor returned soon. He held in his hands a clay bowl containing a steaming liquid. She could tell from the smell it was very strong.
"Drink. All of it, in one gulp."
Rhea sniffed it and squinted as she looked at it, "You're not gonna roofie me and steal my stuff... or worse?"
"Goodness me no! I have a reputation as an honorable witch doctor to keep up!"
Rhea shrugged and took a big gulp. It went down fast. She couldn't even parse the bitter taste before the last drop. She coughed and wheezed, but the liquid had evidently evaporated in her mouth.

Her head started to feel light. Her ability to distinguish where her body ended and the rest of the cosmos began was temporarily suspended. The colours before her no longer constituted discrete objects, becoming one with a single immutable entity. It was like she was in a speeding Formula-1 car, with neither steering wheels or brakes.

Once the sensation phased out, she found herself lying down on a bed. A bed inside a box. And the box contained her, and nothing else. The exit was to her right. She stepped out to find herself in a dark, dank room made of ornately carved stone. That's when she discovered she was completely naked. Not just your ordinary run of the mill naked either, where it's just your clothes that's missing. No, she really wasn't wearing anything, not even her flesh or skin. She could see her own bones. She had turned into a skeleton. Honestly that sort of felt preferable to just being clothes-naked, since the parts she wants to hide had been removed either way.
Also it was time to freak out.
Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!
She opened her mouth to scream, but no sound was heard. Probably because her lungs were long gone. At least she didn't asphyxiate, so whatever she was now apparently didn't need to breath.

Rhea identified the exit, but it was blocked by a wrought iron gate and a stone slab. A bit of ingenious thinking made her remove some of the lose tiles, then pull the tile under the gate and the slab. There was mostly moist sand underneath, and more than a few crawling creeping insects.
That totally sucked, but she convinced herself that she was now much creepier than those things and they should run away from her.
She dug out the sand from underneath the gate, and crawled under and out to the other side.

Sadly she found the outdoors not much friendlier than the indoors, which she now realized was a crypt. That would make the general area a graveyard, which would explain all of the tombstone scarcely hidden by the afternoon mist.
In that mist a pair of glowing red eyes emerges from the silhouette of an imposing individual. "Oh dear oh dear," when the figure got close enough, Rhea discovered she was a particularly voluptuous, particularly athletic woman with ash-black skin, raven black fur on the claws she has instead of arms and legs, as well as on her tail and the pointy ears protruding from her wild black hair. Her eyes were glowing with a hot red colour, raking Rhea's body from top to toe, "An itty bitty pile of bones crawled out of the crypt and onto my lap. Must be my birthday!"
Rhea didn't respond. Even if she could think of something to say she couldn't speak them out loud with her voice deprived of her, though she did clatter her teeth. That kind of monstrosity would be intimidating even if Rhea right now didn't take the form of her natural prey.
Time to vamoos.

Rhea turned and ran, zigzagging between the tombstones to get some distance. Even though her current body lacked muscles she found herself to be much faster than she was as a human. And she did take pride in the fact she was a fast runner.
But the monster was faster still. She could hear all fur paws tearing the ground up as she raced ahead. She could hear the ragged breathing growing louder. She could even hear the saliva dripping from her open maws.
Looks like this is it then... being eaten alive by a hot, in more ways than one, babe... that's all one can really ask for in a **** isn't it?
Goodbye, cruel world!

But the world wasn't done with her quite yet. In fact, the world sent what looked like a gigantic bat diving from the sky. It swept down, rising in an arc that dipped between her and the doggy girl. The mutt came to skidding halt before she could crash into the flying thing.
Rhea hid behind a tombstone. That was no bat. When she looked up, what she saw was more akin to a pterodactyl.
A moment later, the doggie girl fell flat on her face. An arrow protruded from her butt.

As it swept through the sky, Rhea noticed the man holding a bow standing on its head. The wings flapped rapidly on the descent. Slowly it hovered before reaching the ground, landing close to Rhea's tombstone. It looked like a rust-coloured dragon, the kind with wings instead of front claws and a long neck.
The man jumped down from his scaley steed. Adorned in chainmail reaching down to just above his knees, swiping his long blonde hair dramatically as he approached her.
Thank you so much... wait, why are you unsheathing your sword? Hey! I'm not a bad guy! Get away from me!
The man grabbed the skeleton by her wrist. He held his sword high against her neck, "Speak, fiend! What are your intentions? Why have you disturbed the resting place of my ancestors?"
Stop! Stop! "Stop! There is no need for swording! Swording is the last thing you want to do right now!"
Rhea blinked. At least that's what she imagined she would do if she had eyelids. So she could speak after all? That was so surprising, she almost forgot the man in front of her could decapitate her any second, "I didn't ask to be sent to that crypt. I mean, I guess I did ask for a cure to my bad luck, but I didn't know I would wake up as a skeleton!"
The dragon changed shape, turning into a beautiful woman. Her legs were slender and shapely, but part of them remained those of a lizard. Similary, her arms remained as large wings, "I can sense no deception from her, she speaks the truth."
Rhea blinked, "What kind of bizarre Narnia is this place, where all hot babes are also hideous monsters?"
"I do not know of this Narnia, but it is not as you speak. Rather it is all monsters who have the traits of, ahem, hot babes." the man sheathed his sword. He noticed just then how bewildered the skeleton appeared. He could tell even without a face. Clearly she had been revived from a different era and all of this was new to her, "Allow me to explain. Many centuries ago the throne of the Demon Lord was usurped by a succubus, and so the demonic energy of all of the monsters of this world are imbued with succubus energy. That is why they assume the form of attractive women, such as a succubus would."
"Ah, that makes sense. On second thought, no, that doesn't make sense at all, sorry. Now I'm even more confused!"
The man in armour pinched the ridge of his nose, "...a wizard did it."
"Oh! Why didn't you just say that?"
"...I... am Roland Luthwater, and this is my trusted steed and companion Luna." The rust-coloured dragon does a fancy curtsy.
"Sup? I'm Rhea."
"Rhea, you say? I don't know of any Rhea."
"I mean, you do now. We just met."
"But if you were resurrected from my family crypt that means you are of my blood. "
"Oh... oh! Yeah, that makes sense! I guess I'm just inside her body, unless... the guy who sent me here said that I had reincarnated or something: Maybe I am... was this woman when she was more... how do you say, un-undead?"
Roland stroked his beard, "If that really is the truth, let me help illuminate this conundrum. Come with me."

The three of them moved back to the crypt. He was able to unlock it with a key and move away the stone slab. What is in that guy's food to make him that strong!?
When they entered the dungeon Rhea pointed out the place where she woke up.
"Then that would make you my great-great grandmother, Arnia."
"Super. So was she cursed or something?"
"She was a dragoon, like I was. She faced many a foes of great strength, amongst them a dark mage. One who put a prince under her charm, and made him promise away his son to her. Arnia arrived just before the promises were exchanged, slew the dark mage and whisked off with the nobleman."
"...I was such a badass! And then I got together with him and... and spawned you guys! You got all the riches and adventure and fame... and I'm stuck with this stupid curse that stupid bitch must have placed on me with her last breath! That's outrageous!" Rhea raised her hand in protest... and it soon fell to the ground as it broke off from her arm. "The hell?" Her arm fell off too, and her leg followed by her entire body. Soon enough she was nothing but a pile of bones on the floor... and she disappeared from that world.
"I suppose her time was up." Roland said to his dragon.
"True... but I wonder..." the draconic woman said, folding her wings like one might fold one's arms, "Can a curse from this world be sustained in another? Doesn't it need a power source?"

Rhea rose from the chair in the witch doctor's office, then looked left and right in a panic. She checked all of her limbs to make sure they were still there. Sure were. Good. And they got all the flesh and skin.
"You!" Rhea pointed at the witch doctor accusingly, "What's the deal with making me fall apart like that all of a sudden? I mean, you have any idea how awful that was?"
"I'm sorry. Would you have preferred to remain in that form forever?"
"...a warning would have been nice, is all."
"So I take it you got the answers you were looking for?"
"Yeah... but also no. I wanted to know how to get cured of this bad luck. Didn't really care about the hows and whys."
"I see... but you have closure on this part of your life at least, and that is something to celebrate."
"Not sure I see it that way. Although... the celebration does sound good. When I get home I'm making myself some lasagne."

Rising on a hovering wyvern, the dragoon jumped in through the tower window where the dark mage was packing up all her books as quickly as she could. Not quickly enough however. Roland grabbed hold of her arm and **** her against her table.
"Now then.... I believe we must to have a little talk. One about a certain curse you played around with on my ancestor...."