Koreen's story

Warning: This chapter is pretty heavy, gets downright dark at certain points. Reader discretion advised.

Before heading to the camp proper, Fenrir stopped at the lookout point. There, he found Koreen, warmly wrapped up in one of their S.E.P. cloaks and staring down at the distant fires of the oni with her chin in her hands. She roused herself when he came into her line of vision, stretching and straightening in her seat atop a fallen log.

"All quiet, I assume?" Fenrir asked, stopping beside her and scanning the lights below.

"Yup. There was a stir in the village a couple hours ago, but as far as I could tell nothing ever came of it," Koreen replied.

"I see." In the silence which followed, Fenrir took a seat with his back to the same log Koreen was sitting on, angling himself so he could see her without having to turn too much.

She picked up on why he had chosen to sit down immediately, of course, and a muttered "Fuck," escaped her lips. Fenrir pretended not to hear, and after a moment Koreen took a deep breath, let it out slowly, and spoke again.

"Right, so, that talk I wanted."

"Take your time to put your thoughts in order," Fenrir told her. "We have plenty of time."

"Yeah, like I haven't been trying to do that all night," Koreen muttered. "Right, so you know I didn- don't trust you. It's not cause of anything about you specifically, though. Well, mostly. See, you're just way too easy to trust, and that made me even more suspicious, but-" Koreen stopped and sighed. "Damnit, I'm making a mess of this."

"That's fine. As long as you manage to get your thoughts across, I don't mind if it's messy."

"See, that!" Koreen exclaimed, throwing out an entire arm to point at him. "Stop being so damn understanding! It's creepy! Like, at least get annoyed at me when I fuck something up!"

Fenrir grinned. "What if I'm not annoyed?"

"No way in hell you're never annoyed. I know I fuck things up a lot. I'm clumsy, I've got a sharp tongue, and I don't always think before I do stuff. Even Lilli sometimes gets fed up with me, and she's got the patience of a goddess."

"Your sharp tongue doesn't bother me; on the contrary, I find a lot of the things you say amusing. Your clumsiness I find more endearing than bothersome, and your lack of foresight isn't anything that can't be worked on."

Koreen buried her face in her hands with a groan. "You're not helping."

Fenrir just chuckled.

"Look, the point is, you're way too much. You're a fucking hunk, you're strong as hell, you've got a huge dick and you know how to use it, like seriously, you could probably outfuck Halicarnassus if you tried, you're way too fucking kind, you're super smart-" Koreen cut herself off again. "What I'm trying to say is that people like you don't exist. It's always a trap; there's always a catch somewhere. So I've been waiting for the catch, but it never fucking comes.

"So then I think to myself, okay, maybe he actually is for real. But then I remember literally every-fucking-one I've ever met outside of Yumiko and the rest of the girls, and I just can't quite believe it. Even though I want to."

"Tell me about your life before I met you," Fenrir said softly.

She gave a bitter little laugh. "What's to tell? It was shit, and then I somehow met Miko, and then the rest of the girls, and it was still shit, but at least we had each other, and then you came along, and now I don't know what to think."

"Tell me about it anyway," Fenrir prompted.

"Fine, fine. You want to hear about it? I'll tell you, but I'm warning you, you're gonna regret asking." Koreen was silent for a moment, gathering her thoughts, then she began.

"My mom was a human, some peasant girl living in a little village too small to even show up on most maps. She was pretty for a peasant, pretty enough that an incubus took an interest in her. He seduced her, fucked her, and then left, and she was left with me growing in her belly.

"Well, the entire village thought she was a slut for getting knocked up before she got married, but she knew that was nothing compared to what would happen once she gave birth to me. See, the incubus had eventually dropped his glamour and just **** her, because she hadn't wanted to have sex before she got married and he got impatient. She didn't know what exactly I was gonna be, but she knew that I wasn't gonna be completely human. Especially with how fast I was growing inside her. I mean, I wasn't growing nearly as fast as Glory or Korir and Kala did, but it was still way faster than a human baby.

"But she loved me. Already. Like, I wasn't even half developed and she'd already decided that no matter what she had to keep me safe. So one night she ran away from home. She didn't have a plan or anything, but she knew that if she stayed I'd probably be killed as soon as I was born and probably her too, for consorting with demons or some shit.

"So, yeah, she ran away from home, and I don't know what exactly she did in the meantime, but eventually I was born in a little cave a ways outside some town or other. And 'course I didn't look anything like a human, all blue skin, blue hair, tiny little horns and tail and all the rest of it. But she didn't care. She loved me to bits anyway.

"But there was a problem. See, she'd had to give birth to me all alone because of, well, you know, this," -Koreen gestured vaguely at herself- "and there were complications. They weren't bad enough to kill her, but it took a long time to heal, and she couldn't do much of anything without it hurting. And me being a succubus, I was growing like a house afire, and that meant I was hungry basically all the time. So she had to feed me and herself, which meant she needed to work to buy food, but just walking around hurt her, and how many people do you think would trust a strange woman enough to give her a job, especially with the state she was in?"

Koreen stopped and took a long trembling breath. "But you wanna know the worst part? She was so happy. Every time she looked at me, her whole face would light up, no matter how much she was hurting. I still remember it. And I was happy too. Every day I'd wait in the cave for her to come back, and I'd try to tidy up, or I'd try to make something to surprise her with when she got home. She loved it when I did that, even though it was usually just trash that I'd tried to make look pretty and I messed it up most of the time anyway.

"But she kept getting thinner and paler, and then one day she didn't come home. And I waited and waited, cause she'd come home late before, but when I'd waited the whole night and she still wasn't back, I decided to go out and look for her. So I put on my little cloak that she'd sewed together for me to hide the way I looked, and I set out."

Koreen stopped to swipe at her eyes, and Fenrir asked, "How old were you?"

"A little less than a year old. You know what humans look like at six? I was around that size."

Fenrir nodded, and Koreen continued. "I found the town without too much trouble and I started looking around. I didn't wanna ask anyone if they'd seen her because she'd told me to be careful about showing my face or skin to people because they might 'do bad things to me'. So I just kept my head down and searched. It was all so unfamiliar and frightening; I still remember how my stomach felt like it was clenched into a thousand knots. I found her eventually, in an alley behind a tavern."

Koreen bunched the folds of her cloak in her fists, finally giving up on trying to stop the tears. "She was dead."

Fenrir shifted to sit beside her, placing an arm around her shoulders. She didn't relax into his embrace, but neither did she shrug off the arm. Staring into her lap, she continued in a barely audible voice. "'Course I didn't understand at the time, but looking back, I'm pretty sure I know what happened. She'd been working in the tavern, probably as a barmaid, and then some drunk bastards decided they wanted a little more from her. So they ambushed her after work, dragged her into the alley, and **** her. And then they left, and she was so weak already that she just died right there, from blood loss or the cold or something."

"I'm so sorry," Fenrir murmured.

Koreen let out a bitter laugh that was half a sob. "Oh, we're just getting started. So I'm there, begging my mom to get up and come home with me, and not being able to understand why she won't answer me or maybe just not wanting to, when these two men come into the alley. 'Course the last thing on my mind right then is keeping my skin hidden, so they both get a good look at me before I even realize they're there. The first tipoff I have that I'm not alone in the alley is when one of them yells at me, something about 'getting away from that woman'.

"They had me cornered, so I couldn't run away, and they were still coming closer. I remember asking them to help my mom, that she wasn't getting up, and one of them told me that was because I'd killed her, but not to worry, because I'd find out what that was like before long. Then the other one started cursing me for daring to come into their town and kill one of their people."

Koreen gave a derisive snort that was only somewhat ruined by the raw pain in her voice. "If only they'd cared that much about her when she was still alive, she might never have died. But whatever. I tried to duck past them but one of them grabbed my cloak so I had to leave it behind, and that meant that half the town saw the color of my skin before I got away.

"I did get away though, I don't remember how exactly, and then I ran back to the cave. I spent that night huddled up in the ratty old blankets that made up our bed bawling my eyes out, but the very next day I heard voices outside the cave. It was some of the guards of the town plus one of the men who had found me in the alley and a couple of the people who had chased me. My mom had been smart enough to plan for if someone happened to visit for any reason, so I had a hiding place already ready for me. I hid until they left again, and then I left too. I didn't know where I was going, I just knew I had to get far away.

"I have no idea how I didn't starve to **** over the next few weeks. Maybe it was because I'm a succubus or something, but I don't think I got more than a few mouthfuls of berries in like three weeks. Eventually this old orc found me and took me to his cave. I was far enough gone by that point that I couldn't have resisted him even if I'd wanted to, and to tell the truth, I didn't actually care if I lived anymore.

"The orc locked me in a collar with a chain, so I couldn't run away, but otherwise he was actually pretty nice to me. He fed me, took care of me, even taught me how to speak orcish. 'Course, I think that was just so I'd actually understand him when he told me to do something. And he even waited till I grew up before he fucked me. Well, with the way succubi are I doubt he could've stopped himself after a certain point. He might've been old, but he was still an orc.

"So yeah, I spent a couple years as a **** to him, but it honestly wasn't all that bad. I had to clean up after him and he barely ever let me out of the cave, but other than that I got plenty of sex, a warm bed, and... well, that was basically it. Aside from the sex it was pretty boring."

A bitter little smile touched Koreen's lips. "It didn't last, of course. Eventually I guess he got tired of me or something, because he sold me to a passing warband. I got a lot more sex for a bit there, but as it turned out, they were on their way to answer the Demon King's call to war, and once they got to his war camp some elder demon bullied them into giving me to her. The bitch.

"She played nice at first, making as though she were my friend, but as it turned out, she just wanted a sacrificial pawn. And there I was, knowing basically nothing about anything. Pretty much custom made for her. Well, I don't know if her plan to use me in her political maneuvering worked out for her or not, but after she sent me to be an unwitting scapegoat for her and I was slapped around for a bit while they tried to get more out of me than I even knew, I ended up in a prison cell."

Koreen shivered, pulling her cloak more tightly around herself. "I thought for sure I'd die in there. It was freezing cold, and everything was always wet, and I almost starved to **** when they forgot to feed me. A couple times.

"Well, eventually they let me out, or more like kicked me out. I never found out why. But I was finally free again, except I had no clue what to do with my freedom, because I still didn't know shit about the world.

"So when one of the Demon King's people tried to get me to join the war, I didn't really see a reason to say no. 'Course, being a level three lesser succubus, I wasn't much use for fighting, but I guess I was mostly meant to just help dull the enemy's swords. It was gonna take us upwards of a month to get to the frontlines since the Demon King had pushed the Light-races so far south, so I didn't have to worry about it just then. And in the meantime, having me and a couple other succubi around camp helped with morale while we did what we do best.

"I don't remember his name, but one of the officers took a special interest in me. I guess he liked the way I fucked or something, because he basically took me in to be his fulltime fuckpet. I don't think he was technically supposed to do that, but I wasn't gonna complain. I got to sleep in a tent, and his cock was... well, it wasn't the biggest I'd ever seen, definitely doesn't even half compare to yours, but it was pretty big.

"He especially liked tying me up to fuck me. I got pretty into it too, because ever since being that old orc's **** I've always kinda had a thing for it. Sometimes he'd even leave me tied up while he left to do his officer things, if we weren't on the march. That was really hot, even if he wasn't very good at it and I could usually either get loose pretty easy because he'd made it too loose or it hurt because it was too tight.

"But it wasn't just sex. He'd talk with me; you know, complaining about problems he was having and telling me about things he wanted to do, and we'd joke around about stuff. It was pretty nice having someone to talk with and to take care of me, and towards the end he even began talking like he meant for us to stay together even after the war.

"It didn't last, because of course it didn't. We'd just made it to the front lines when we got word that the Saintesses had wiped out the Demon King and his inner circle. Everything was chaos after that. Some of the Dark-races wanted to keep fighting, others ran for it, there were others who were trying to take advantage of the situation to grab as much loot as they could before they ran as well or get **** on other Dark-races who they hated for whatever reason, and yeah. It was just a mess."

Koreen hunched her shoulders, her frown becoming more pronounced as she continued. "At first it seemed like the officer was gonna to take me with him anyway. With the Demon King's armies basically falling apart, there wasn't anything left to command, and he was gonna head back north to where the Light-races wouldn't be a threat, and the way he talked I thought he meant to take me with him. Maybe he did, but then our camp was overrun. The bastard literally used me as a meat shield to protect himself from some archers, and I got hit pretty bad. When he saw how badly I was bleeding he dumped me. Like literally just dropped me in the dirt and ran.

"That hurt. I had thought he actually cared about me, you know? But when it came down to it he just threw me away. Didn't say sorry. Didn't even look back when I begged him not to leave me."

A sob choked Koreen and she hunched over, hugging her arms about herself as she tried to keep from going to pieces entirely. Fenrir lifted her bodily into his lap, holding her close while a sympathetic lump rose in his throat.

He opened his mouth to tell her that she didn't need to continue, but he was forestalled by one of Koreen's hands taking hold of the fur on his chest, gripping it as though it were her only lifeline. At the same time her voice, raw from pain but laced with determination, continued, "I gave up then. I wanted to die. It felt like every time I had anything good, it had to be ripped from me in the worst way possible."

Fenrir closed his mouth again. This was something she needed to say, needed to get out in full, no matter how painful it would be to do it. He wouldn't be doing her any favors by stopping her now.

Still holding onto him for support -Fenrir wasn't certain she was even aware she was doing it- Koreen soldiered on. "But the Light-races ignored me. I guess they thought I'd be dead in a few minutes anyway, so why bother stopping to kill me now?

"I should've died then, but for some reason I didn't. I passed out from the blood loss and only came to after nightfall. Everything hurt, but I was able to drag myself into a half-collapsed tent nearby, and I laid there for... I don't even know how long. Days, at least. There was a mostly full waterskin in the tent, and I drank from that until it was empty, the whole time wishing I'd die and being scared that I actually would at the same time. That's fucked, you know? I guess what I really wanted was for all the pain to stop. For good.

"Anyway, about the same time that the water ran out I felt like I'd gotten enough strength back to move again. I'd had no idea what had happened while I'd been laid out half delirious with fever, so when I crawled out of the tent and everything around me was quiet, I didn't have a clue why, or what was going on.

"I didn't really care though, not just then. I was fucking famished, so I just went around scavenging some food from what was left of the camp. It was half torn down, with bodies all over the place. Some of them were Dark-race and some were Light-race, but there didn't seem to be anyone alive anywhere. Just the crows and the rats, fighting over the bodies.

"Well, I found some food eventually, and then I stumbled over another succubus too. She'd been hiding in one of the big tents when the main support pole had come down on top of her and trapped her. She was barely alive when I found her, but I brought her some food and water and we hid out in the camp together while we recovered.

"Eventually the Light-races came back, and we had to run. In the time we'd spent in the overrun camp the Light-races had pushed the frontlines way up north, so we were way behind enemy lines, dodging Light-race soldiers and trying to find a way back north into Dark-race territory.

"Running together like that, we got to know each other a bit. Her name was Lissae, and she was a lesser succubus just like me, except she was a few years older. We didn't either of us talk about our pasts much. I did learn that she wanted to be super powerful one day and rule over tons of people. She laughed when she learned that I didn't have any idea what I wanted to do with my life.

"She was nice enough to teach me a little about how the world worked, though. I'd learned some stuff from the officer I'd been with, but he hadn't really been interested in answering questions if they weren't about himself. It was her that gave me a basic rundown on the whole war; before then I'd basically only known that lots of Dark-races were fighting the Light-races because the Demon King had ordered it.

"I told her about how that officer had dumped me, and she said I was dumb for thinking he'd do anything else. She said that that was just how the world worked; everyone was always gonna be out for themselves and you shouldn't ever count on them sticking their necks out for you.

"Hearing that, I really should've seen it coming, but I guess I thought we were good enough friends that she wouldn't betray me. So when we got cornered by a Light-race patrol and she shoved me out in front of them to make an opening so she could escape, it caught me completely by surprise.

"It- when it happened, I couldn't believe it. I didn't even run, I just stood there in shock. The Light-race soldiers took me prisoner. No idea why they didn't just kill me, but they didn't. I had some time to think while they marched me off south to who knows where, and it was then that I decided I couldn't ever rely on anyone. Anytime I'd done it before, it had always come back to bite me.

"That march south was hell. Every day I had to walk until I felt like I couldn't take another step, and the soldiers took out their frustrations on me, you know, kicking me or throwing things at me. Not all of them, but a lot of them. Then at night I'd have to find the softest piece of ground I could to curl up and shiver on.

"Every now and then one soldier or other or sometimes two or three would sneak away from the rest and come and fuck me. That was... Well, it coulda been worse. I didn't really want to be fucked by them, but it warmed me up and it was way better than eating the food they gave me. That was barely even food.

"I didn't have any way to clean up after though, so every time they did I'd get a whipping the next morning for 'seducing good upstanding soldiers of Mavenia'. Like I was in any condition to seduce anyone.

"The worst part of it was that I'm a succubus. See, the treatment they were giving me would've killed most people, but succubi are tough. So it only made me wish I was dead. It wasn't gonna get any better, though, so I watched for my chance, and one night I stole the key to my cuffs off the guard and slipped away. I ran; didn't even know where I was going, except I made sure it wasn't north because that's the direction they'd look for me in.

"That was when I met Miko." A hint of life came back into her voice as she said the name, and her grip on Fenrir's fur loosened. "I didn't trust her at first, like at all, but she wasn't like anyone else I'd ever met. For one, she'd wear her heart on her sleeve. Like when I'd say something mean, I could see it hit her. It made me feel like shit, but I did it a lot the first few weeks anyway, I dunno why. And then when I did something she liked, she'd perk right up. It was so unguarded. It had me wondering how the hell she'd survived until she met me behaving like that.

"And she cared about me from basically the first night we met. She'd try to give me some of her share of the food, when I got hurt she'd fuss over me until I got better, and in general she just seemed genuinely happy that I was around." Koreen's voice dropped. "Honestly, it kind of reminded me of my mom."

She fiddled with the fur on Fenrir's chest, fluffing it up and smoothing it down again as she talked. "Those weeks were rough; we were so deep in Light-race territory that we had to be super careful, and getting enough food for the both of us was tough. But when I think back on it, the thing I remember most is being happy. Like, once Miko convinced me that she wasn't gonna turn on me, it was basically the happiest I'd been since before my mom died.

"We were slowly working our way west, hoping to eventually find somewhere safe. Miko wanted to find a master she could serve, even though I'd told her that she couldn't trust anyone. They were just gonna use her and then throw her away when they got tired of her. But she didn't care. She'd tell me that there were good people out there, and that we'd find them. We argued about that a lot, but it never really went anywhere, and we could never really get mad at each other anyway.

"Then a month or two after that we ran into Nelith and the rest of the girls. Miko knew Lilli from somewhere already, and we all decided to travel together. We were pretty close to the mountains by that point, and well, I guess keeping such a big group hidden was just impossible, because in spite of everything the Light-races got tipped off. We ran, got cornered in that old castle on top of the pass, and that's when you showed up."

Koreen gave a long sigh. "And you know the rest. You know, when it took you so long to come back from your trip to the capital, I was convinced you'd abandoned us, but Miko never doubted you for an instant. I thought she was being a naive fool, but I guess she knew you better than I did."

For the first time in quite a while, the blue-skinned succubus lifted her face to Fenrir's, showing bloodshot eyes and cheeks streaked with tears, but a sardonic little smile once more playing about the corners of her mouth. "So that's my life story. Like I said, shit stacked on top of more shit."

"I don't regret asking, though," Fenrir said softly. "On the contrary, I'm glad you told me. I know it wasn't an easy thing to do."

"There you go again, being all understanding." Koreen sighed and leaned her head against his chest. "Fuck you. But ...thanks for listening."

So... yeah. This chapter was dark. I never planned for Koreen to share her life story in her talk with Fenrir, but that's just the way the conversation flowed. I try to give my characters the wheel as much as I can, so I let it happen rather than fighting it.
Let me know if you disliked this chapter, and why, because quite frankly I wasn't entirely certain I shouldn't just delete the whole thing and rewrite it in a different direction. Quite aside from the fact that it's got some pretty disturbing content (though cushioned by the fact that we're only hearing Koreen talk about it rather than witnessing it firsthand), the whole chapter is basically a four thousand word backstory dump and for someone primarily interested in the oni conflict, this could be seen as a pointless aside.
I kept it though, because it's Koreen's story and the reason Fenrir brought her along in the first place was to get closer to her. Their talk isn't quite over yet, either; I only ended the chapter when I did because it was already getting pretty long and that last moment was such a perfect place to end it.
Feels a bit odd to tell you to enjoy a chapter like this one, but some people do like tragedies, I suppose, so,
Enjoy!