Some time later...

In one corner of the Hamadryad’s verdant prison stands a pool of still, clear water – the only reflective surface Lux has in which to see herself. Days, maybe weeks, have passed since she laboured to birth the maze monster’s offspring, and between copious rest, Sylvia’s magic, and a slow but steady regimen of effort, her abused body looks and feels like it’s getting more or less back to normal.

But only more or less. At a glance, Lux can tell that her boobs have evened out a little bigger, her hips a little wider. Outward signs of what she knows are permanent changes that she will just have to live with. She fears she may never regain all of the mobility and fitness she once had. Sometimes, a fog descends on her mind without warning and steals away her thoughts. Sylvia has told her that with time, it will get better – but made no promises about how much better.

Over several trips out in the maze, Minn has managed to bring back was left of Lux’s clothes – in better shape than she might have expected, but Sylvia’s still been busy patching them up and making adjustments. Today is the first day Lux has felt brave enough to wear them. It does restore a little bit of confidence, at least, to be no longer just draping herself in silk sheets – soft and comforting as those certainly were.

She reaches up to adjust her top…and, unconsciously at first, her fingers slide in underneath the fabric to gently caress her swollen nipple. She makes herself stop. Despite her circumstances, she wonders if the Erlking’s cosmic horniness has begun to infect her, too. Over recent days she’s found her mind wandering to thoughts of Willow, to other past lovers, and her fingers wandering in turn to play with herself – which would be all very well if she had any privacy here. As it is, she suspects that Minn is quietly hoping that she and Sylvia will get bored enough to explore each other’s bodies, and she knows that that thought has tempted her, as well…

Minn is also not the only one she feels like she’s being watched by. In a corner, bound up in a cage of tightly woven grass, the maze guardian’s offspring itself sits, reassuringly motionless. Sylvia says she’s put it in a kind of stasis – Lux can’t decide if she’d rather see it destroyed. It was born of her body, but now, blob of black-green ooze that it is, it’s hard to believe that’s the case. As long as it doesn’t move, the nightmares she’s been having can’t come true.

Sylvia rises from her work on the other side of the chamber, and crosses over to join Lux. In her hand is the thing she’s been working on: a curved dagger, elegant but simple in design, shaped by her mere touch from a single piece of enchanted wood. She offers the handle to Lux.

“It’s time,” she says. “This prison has held you long enough. Would that I could open a path for you back to your own world – but the maze allows no such travel.”

Lux nods, taking the dagger and testing its weight. “So what’s the plan?” she asks. “How do we get past that thing out there?”

“I will distract it,” Sylvia says. “It is forbidden from hurting me – it can only drag me back here. But it is compelled to stop me escaping before it…does anything else. I will buy you time to get to safety.”

“Wait,” Lux says, “but then you’d still be stuck here.”

“I’ve survived this long,” Sylvia says, patting Lux’s hand. “You’ve risked far too much already. I won’t see you suffer again for my sake.”

Lux frowns. The idea of just walking away is very tempting. But then, she’d have gone through all this for nothing. And that’s assuming the plan works – assuming that the ooze creature isn’t fast enough to drag Sylvia back to her cell, and still chase Lux down before she gets out of reach.

“There has to be another way,” she says. “We can find a way to beat that thing together.”

Sylvia shakes her head. “My magic can’t touch it. And I can’t summon any of my allies from outside.” She pauses a moment. “Of course, my magic can touch you. I could make you stronger for the fight. But you’d have to fight it alone.”

Lux grips the wood-carved dagger tightly. She knows that facing the monster again will bring it all flooding back – the pain, the violation, the humiliation of what it did to her. What a choice to have to make…