if wishes were fishes with tentacles

[wishinghell]

[ In the center of the courtyard, a young woman stands, yawning and rubbing her eyes.

If you have any kind of spiritual awareness, she probably feels like bad news. Something divine but twisted. ]

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[pawper]

[A wolf is padding by, but stops to regard this sleepy young woman, pinged by something....familiar, yet not.]

[wishinghell]

Dearest four-legged friend, will you be devouring me?

[pawper]

[The wolf sits, head tilting this way and that as if considering the question.

After a heavy moment, the creature leans forward to lick her hand.]

[wishinghell]

[Mirroring the headtilts, until...]

Oh, how wet your tongue is!

[pawper]

[A soft, puzzled whine, then the wolf abruptly shifts into a broken-eyed young woman.]

—Sorry, I just thought....

[wishinghell]

Ah! You change! How delightful.

You thought?

[Sounding genuinely curious.]

[pawper]

When you asked if I was going to eat you, it seemed like a sad thing for someone so pretty to say.

[wishinghell]

[Gently:]

I was made so pretty, sweet changer of forms. I was not made happy.

[pawper]

[She thinks about this for a moment. What light remains in her eyes dims further.]

Could I make you happy?

[wishinghell]

You shouldn't ask a question like that of me!

[pawper]

Why not?

[wishinghell]

Oh changer of forms, terrible things make me happy.

[pawper]

[She just smiles. It's an empty expression. There's an opportunity here, maybe.]

Like hurting people?

[wishinghell]

Aa-ah! How you know me.

Your smile is beautiful!

[pawper]

I don't think anything about me is beautiful, but thank you.

[A pause.]

You can hurt me, if you want. It's fine.

[wishinghell]

Would that I could show you how beautiful you are! Oh broken dearest lady wolf-changer!

[Sighing happily.]

I can make lovely things from your insides.

[pawper]

Ah, really? You must be very skilled.

[And then, as an afterthought:]

You can call me Lys, if you want. Or something else — it's all the same to me.

[wishinghell]

What a beautiful name, almost as beautiful as I could make your internal organs. Would you know what it comes from in my old language?

[pawper]

[The praise passes through her, like a gentle breeze, leaving nothing behind. She shakes her head.]

I don't even know what it means in the place I came from.

[wishinghell]

Dissolution. Coming apart. The most beautiful thing in all of anything anywhere--!

[She clasps her hands over her heart and trembles.]

[pawper]

[She laughs. The sound is very quiet and, somehow, morose. More like grief than mirth.]

Aha, that's pretty fitting!

[fingerbang]

[ Lust is not a creature of any particular spiritual sensitivity, given the whole hideous aberration of screaming human souls thing. All the same, there's something that draws her here. Something that makes her approach the woman, something that makes her deign to speak. ]

I don't suppose you know your way around this place.

[ That something is being incredibly fucking lost. ]