>>5585347>12It’s no good—your mind is too addled from the day’s events to be properly paranoid—at least, in any way that reassures or forewarns you properly, via divination rather than mere intuition. You give up after an hour, more frustrated than before you began your meditation. At least nobody came to accost you as you meditated. That is surely a good sign, right? Better yet, the Green Knight is still unconscious—maybe he’ll die soon, after all!
For lack of anything else to do, or anyone else to talk to, you take up Kinslayer once more.
“Miss me already?” the demon within teases.
“Hardly,” you reply. “Tell me about my mother.”
“Ooo, mommy’s boy, huh?” she coos, laughing to herself.
“I assume that is an incestuous innuendo,” you infer. “Are you done?”
The succubus’ voice is sulky n its intonation when she finally replies, saying: “You know, you and Heinrich were fuckin’ made for each other. You get your dad’s sex drive, kid, or what?”
You wait.
“What do you wanna’ know?” she sighs.
“What… Was my mother like?”
Irinnile is quiet for a moment, and when she sighs again, it has a different sound to it—wistful, perhaps even sad, rather than annoyed.
“She was the best, baby. The BEST. I loved that fuckin’ snake-bitch like… Like, more than sex, maybe. Swear to all the shitty gods of whatever pantheon you want! Swear on my juiciest fuckin’ stolen soul!”
That… Is presumably high praise. And love, well, THAT is a subject you can speak upon.
“Why?” you ask, genuinely curious.
“She was fun,” Irinnile tells you. “Like, fun in all the best ways. She was a bit like you: no-nonsense, no jokes, squeezable ass, all that. But she LOVED bein’ topside from her shitty little hole-in-the-ground—uh, again, no offence. Loved Hawksong. Loved her food, and fashion, and fuckin’ OF COURSE, and fightin’ and KILLING—ooo, that got her all hot ‘n bothered! And she loved, like… Other stuff, too, ya’ know?”
“Such as?” you ask, admittedly a little nonplussed at this description of your noble creator so far.
“Learning,” she says. “Dancing—the lady LOVED to dance. She liked bein’ the BEST at stuff… Whatever she did. Learning spells, learning about ME and my kind—ya’ know, demon shit—and learning about people, and the world. She loved her job, too, and she was so… Dedicated. To everyone she cared about. She… Well, she was a ruthless killer-queen kinda’ chick, but she had this ooey gooey SOFT spot inside, and she kept so much of herself in there… And there was always like, this cozy warm spot in there for the people she loved, like me… Like you, too, even if she never, like, met you.”
You remember with a shiver the spectre of your mother, glimpsed in a vision over a year ago—and the words she spoke: “I love you.” The first time you’d ever heard those words.
