The Broken Girl

The following morning, the castle's denizens buzzed with activity as preparations were made for the **** to depart and the final details as to the composition of the garrison, that would be left behind, were ironed out. Callisto took no role in them but she did take an interest, sitting on the prince's throne as the commanders went over everything. She listened intently but offered no suggestions of her own. After a good long while, towards the end of these discussions, a servant came rushing into the room.

'Pardon good sirs, but one of the women has gone missing.'

The commanders each shrugged in turn and generally appeared disinterested, so Callisto decided to take up the issue. 'Who exactly has gone missing?'

'Katie. She was given her own room to recover after the elf woman cured her mind.'

The name alone had meant nothing but now she was all too aware of who he was talking about and dread started to fill her as she considered what might have happened. 'Where was she staying?'

'The Western Tower.'

With that, Callisto raced off, using her God's Eye as soon as she got close. There were no signs of life, however, and she steeled herself. Going through the first window she came across, she took flight and scanned the castle grounds. Her heart sank when she saw it, the body of a human girl. She took herself down to confirm it and when she turned her over, and saw those lifeless eyes, she wailed. She held the girl's corpse in her arms and searched through her mind, desperately, for a spell. She cast the most potent healing spell she knew, draining her mana reserves in a matter of seconds.

Flowers bloomed around her and the grass grew thick and wild but the magic only passed impotently through the girl's flesh and bones. 'This is all my fault,' she said to herself, **** on her words, 'I did this to her. She asked me not to cure her. They all told me it would be **** to leave her be.' She lingered there for a while, in anguish, until the army began to trickle out of the castle and a group of servants came to attend her. 'We should bring her body home,' Callisto managed, weakly.

'Of course, my lady,' one of the servants said, teasing the body out of her arms and bringing her to her feet. Without much energy to fly, or even to walk, and with no mana to conjure a horse, Callisto sat alongside the driver of one of the wagons. She responded politely to his praise and did not have enough pride to begrudge him his occasional glances at her bosom but otherwise remained silent until they stopped at her Pure Land to camp. There, she felt her mana reserves begin to replenish and the familiar warm trickle of power slowly fill her. It was then, however, that she noted something disturbing.

The beast tended to gain power alongside her, that much she'd always known, but somehow he appeared much further along. She did not have the will to confront him but she paid close attention, all the same. So many emotions began to whirl in her stomach, fear, disgust, grief and anger, that she became numb. All cried out that morning, she slept like a baby, even on her rough bed roll.

In a better mood the next morning, and with her mana reserves full again, she began to fortify her Pure Land, intuiting that it would keep her constructs and emanations empowered. Along the western and southern border, she constructed a wall of hard white light and emanated guards to keep it patrolled, with orders not to permit orcs or devils to cross through and to execute demons on sight. To the east and the north, she constructed towers and sentries to garrison them. In all, she expended half of her mana reserves and was met by praise from many of the soldiers as they resumed their journey towards Silverton. There, along with the usual large crowd of onlookers, they were greeted by the Mayor and the Archduke, no longer standing as adversaries.

She was somewhat nervous about speaking with the latter, on account of the life she'd taken the last time they'd seen each other, but he gave her a wide smile and shook her hand.

'I am in your debt, my lady. Words cannot express how grateful I am to have my daughter back!'

Seeing them together, as the woman re-joined her father and they beamed at one another, made her smile. 'You are very welcome. I consider it payment enough to see her safe and happy.'

He bowed his head to her and said some more thank yous before moving on to glad hand each of the commanders, and Callisto wandered off to see more of the women be returned to their families. One section of the crowd, made up of parents, spouses and other relatives, had been separated by the town guards and allowed to come forward. It warmed her heart to see so many reunions and to know that she had played a role in facilitating them. As the time wore on, however, she saw the faces of the remaining families turn from excitement to fear. A few of them were greeted by a straggler, but most of them had to face a harsh reality.

She knew in an instant which ones were Katie's family, as the servants who'd delivered the news to them brought them up to recover her body. The father struggling to contain his tears, the mother wailing with pained breaths, barely able to walk, and the brother, looking hopelessly lost, it all became too much to bear and she turned away. She was able to prevent tears only by screwing up her face and gripping her eyes with her hand. She was then startled by a hand stroking her arm.

It was Emiko. 'It wasn't your fault,' she said in her monotonous voice.

She wanted to argue with that but couldn't get the words out. Instead, she let herself be brought into a motherly hug. The woman kissed her forehead and held her tight. It did not last long but she lingered on the feeling for a while as she traipsed through the town. She saw one of the women enter Ariel's temple, whether to join them or reunite with them, she did not know. Steph shot her a nasty glare that should've made her angry but just made her upset. She ran away, into her domain, and up to her bedroom. Seizing the key, she could think of nothing else.

She did not care if she died. Cutting through the handful of residents who'd repopulated the low level prison, she set her eyes on a challenge, one that her God's Eye suggested had a decent chance of eviscerating her. Soon, she was ankle team in an ever deepening pool of black blood and viscera as she cut her way through hundreds of demons. They became more and more ferocious as they descended and soon she was out of mana, having to stow the key beneath her steel breastplate. The bites and cuts became deeper and nastier but she pressed on.

Once she was close to ****, some kind of primordial instinct kicked in. She felt her face change and her body call upon the beast. With renewed ferocity, she clawed her way through the rest of the horde. The final creature she faced was some kind of abomination, with an ordinary demon body but a writhing mass of red tentacles on its back. When they tried to restrain her, she cut them with her claws. When one of them wrapped around her neck and mouth, she bit it off. It writhed in pain, forcing a howling through its host's body so powerful that the demon's head burst apart.

She had to cut it to pieces to defeat it but she relished every second. With that done, and her body in survival mode rather than grief, she used the key to return to her bedroom, and then to bathe. When she emerged, naked and ready for a good long sleep in her lovely soft bed, she was greeted by Melanoche. 'You don't need to feel embarrassed around me,' she said, as Callisto reflexively placed an arm across her chest.

'Your sister was here the other day. What was she doing?'

'I don't know.'

'Then why are you here?'

'I was worried about you.'

She scoffed at that.

'It's true, I've explained it before. If you waste your lives before the beast can properly take a hold of you, that would be such a waste. You need to be more careful.'

'I got someone killed,' Callisto said, clenching her jaw.

'You did.'

The directness of that startled her. 'I'd expected you to butter me up like you did with Morgan.'

'You didn't **** Morgan, but you did get Katie killed. I'm not going to lie to you, or sugarcoat things. You need to get used to this world. That girl would've had a happy life as a cocksleeve for some rich asshole if you hadn't messed with her head.'

'That's sick.'

'Like I said, you need to get used to it. If you want me to stroke your hair and kiss your boo-boos when you get in over your head, I will, but you need to toughen up.'

Callisto couldn't help but linger on the wrong detail. 'You'd kiss me?'

Melanoche arched an eyebrow, 'if that's what it would take to keep you from killing yourself, sure.'

A war was briefly waged and won inside the angel's head, 'I'd like that.'

The goddess then crossed the room and Callisto stilled herself. She closed her eyes once she felt the fabric of that black dress press against her bare breasts and leaned in. The kiss was sublime. The unfamiliar flavour of Meanoche's lips made her stomach flutter and she kissed back, softly and slowly. Their tongues danced with one another for just a little while before the kiss was broken. 'There, happy?'

'Yes, I,' she could say no more, as her mind lost itself in the memory of the kiss.

'Just don't ask for anything more than that. My sister and I are two different people.'

She said nothing and let herself fall to sleep. By the following morning, the town had settled down and she toured around. The gates had finally been opened for regular travel and the outlying villages had begun to repopulate. She went to the town square to look at the notice board and found calls to adventure already being put up. One of them, offering a reward for clearing a redcap dungeon, was being eyed by Arthur and Uther.

When Mel spotted her, she rushed towards her to hug and kiss her. 'Cal, I'm so glad I caught you before we left.'

Cal. The nickname struck her harshly, and she wondered how to respond to it. She didn't know whether she loved it or hated it. 'You're leaving, then?' was, stupidly, all she could say.

'Yeah, we're maybe gonna' hit these gnomes for an easy payout but then we're heading east. That was the plan before and there's not much reason to change it. The orcs in the south seem to have been beaten back but there are tribes far to the north,' Callisto hadn't known that, 'and Reala's probably going to want some payback.'

'Well then, I guess this is goodbye.'

Mel kissed her again and she gave her a little more back this time, pulling her up off her feet and making her squeal. She noticed Xalyth rolling her eyes in the background. 'My offer still stands,' the girl in her arms said, 'come see me, if you ever get the chance.'

'I will,' she said, softly, giving her another kiss before placing her back down.

'Right,' Xalyth called, 'we should be going. Thanks for everything, and all that.' The others each said their own thanks and farewell and she felt a little wistful watching them leave.

The mixed feelings drove her to the mayor's mansion, where she was granted entrance without any fuss.

When Morgan saw her, she rushed across the foyer to greet her, beaming, 'Callisto, it's so good to see you!'

This time, it was her turn to initiate contact and she kissed the mayor's daughter fiercely, causing her to squeak and look confused.

'I thought you said,' she didn't finish her sentence.

'I meant what I said, but I'm sorry for treating you so harshly. I'd love for us to be friends, or even a little bit more than friends, with your fiancé's consent.'

'Yes,' she almost screamed, without any hesitation.

In a matter of moments, Callisto warred with herself over this. She still did not know if it was wrong to exploit her monster core. One part of her wanted human contact more than anything, no matter how it was acquired, and another roared at her that might made right and that she should do whatever she wanted to. Yet, there was still that small part of her that told her that it was wrong, that she should only use her powers to defend the innocent and slay the wicked. Morgan's smile, and the hand she placed on her hip, won the argument for her and she began to kiss the mayor's daughter, forcefully and with **** yearning.

Callisto let the kisses, and the more interesting things that came later, drown out her hopeless anxieties for the night.