Millicent leaped into her SUV, tearing the vehicle out of the parking lot. She hardly recognized her Familiar in the seat next to her when It appeared, gasping and clutching her chest in terror.

She was used to speeding through stop lights, so used to using her magic to go through red lights with ease. When she heard the sirens behind her, she knew that she would have to drain yet more of what reserves were left in her dying Familiar.

She took a sidelong glance at It. The sight of her Familiar's tearful, infuriatingly innocent eyes brought a resentment that still managed to strike her, in spite of her panic.

Instructed to roll her window down by a police officer, Millicent did so quickly.

"Hi - hi," Millicent said quickly before the woman could say anything to her. "I know, I saw what I was doing, it's just that -" she pulled on her Familiar's energy, ignoring Its sharp cry of pain as she did it. Undoubtedly, It was near the end of Its energy reserves, would die at the pace she was going with draining It. But, not yet.

She looked up, feeling already triumphant as she looked at the police officer. Power. There was something that could calm her, return her world back to sense. 

Her triumph was destroyed when the police officer stared at her before saying, "Anything else, or can you get your license and registration out for me?"

Millicent stiffly reached over to her glove box and pulled the registration out. She pulled her purse out with shaking hands.

In all of her years, she could not recall a moment when she had ever had to own up to a mistake she made in the Human world. She could not recall a moment in which her glamor did not work.

She sat, stiff  in terror.  Milicent wondered if it would be best to drive away, and quickly. 

Millicent felt her Familiar reach over, trying blindly to entwine Its clammy hand with her own. She pushed the Monster away, angry at Its presumption.

Finally, the police officer returned. She handed back everything, plus a traffic ticket.

Millicent balked. "O-o-officer," she blubbered. "this is my first time being pulled over -"

"Ma'am," she said coldly. "to be frank, no one gives a fuck for your theatrics. Now, if you want to know why I pulled you over, it's because you're a sadistic cunt. Your court date is in exactly ten minutes from now, and you're facing a beheading, right before you have your tongue cut out. Have a nice night, drive safe." She patted on the top of the truck, then walked back to her cruiser before eventually driving away.

She felt like she couldn't move as she watched the cruiser slide away into the snow-blasted night.  All at once, it was as though the ability to move her body returned to her.  Millicent fumbled with everything, dropping them onto her Familiar's lap.

She drove until she got to her apartment, knowing that her bug-out bag was under her sink.  In any other situation, she would have just left the damn thing and moved on.  The damn Monster had been showing signs of weakness, but she had thought that she could manage until winter's end before she found a new one.  In Spring, it was still possible to find a Monster.

At the rate the Monster was fading, she needed any sliver of magic she could get.  And besides, she had magic tea in the bag, magic that would have to sustain her until she could get ahold of Sia, return to safety.

For now, all she could do was go and get it, and then she could flee.

Millicent fumbled with her keys in the door, dropping them once into the snow and freezing her fingers as she fished them out. Millicent huffed and puffed, feeling tears come squeezing out of her eyes.  She wished that she could use magic, any magic.  Even the momentary feeling of weakness made her feel sick and manic with fear.  What did not help was the memory of how her ex-Sister had grinned at her, looking down at her from her grotesque height.  

Those Monster-red eyes shone with the power that she had not been weakened by, but had instead absorbed, like a starving vampire, from the very hallucination that Millicent had thrown her into.

And her teeth had looked so sharp, pointed in a bestial monkey's grin.

Millicent shoved her door open, running into her kitchen.  She did not bother to shut the door behind her. She would just spend less than a minute grabbing the bag, after all...

It was as she was on her knees, pulling the canvas bag out from the collection of items beneath the sink when Millicent heard the door bang shut.

She jumped, her head striking the metal of the sink.

Millicent yelped, biting back a cry, then scooted out, bag in hand. She remained crouched on the ground, fear soon overwhelming even her pain.

In the near-darkness of her apartment, she was disturbed to see that the front door had closed. 

Millicent forced herself to calm, made herself consider that the wind had blown the door shut.

Or...

"Emmerich, this isn't the time for your pranks," she said, trying as she said it to make herself believe that this could be the work of her brow-beaten Familiar.

When no one answered, Millicent walked through the living room, focusing on the shining metal of the door's handle.

The metal of the handle disappeared first as someone pressed a too-hot hand over her eyes, followed by the feeling of hands closing over her shoulders. Millicent felt her mouth being covered, then she felt herself being dragged into the darkness of her apartment.

Give me locations. Names to go with those locations.

No.

Give me locations. Names to go with those locations.

Fuck you, Exile.

Somewhere, there was a song playing, the kind that Millicent liked.  The sort that accompanies a particularly dramatic opera.

A phonograph. Netta glanced, amused, at the out of place object, wondered from whom it resonated.

Her home was a place she built, weaved with the sinister, tender magic that flowed from her. Some aspects had grown, wild and uncontained, surely aspects of the Monster from whom her magic resonated. There were rooms in this house whose shadows breathed, dreamed.

It was the patina-shining brass flower of a machine that drew her attention. Netta drew her finger across the curving lip of the horn, feeling the surface of its slightly bumpy metal. She closed her eyes, focused on the coolness, reveling in the imperfection she had been able to successfully render.

The first time she had tried to make a home, it had been a beautiful - if not hollow - one. Its beauty was purely surface level, its rooms lacked any specificity.  The work of a child, repeated by an old woman trying to summon up the first, naive wishes of a young girl to bolster her courage.

Ash had been right to mock her for it. He had not told her it in words, but now she understood what he knew. Had hoped that, in time, she would grow to understand.

True beauty grew only from imperfection, defect.

Shadow.

As she prepared to leap into a shower, Netta felt something like a smile on the edge of her lips, threatening to tug them upwards. Behind her, she heard the sound the phonograph springing to life. As she closed the door of the shower, she recognized what was playing on the player.

It was an opera - one that she happened to have attended numerous times in the past. Alone, frightened.

So, tragically, Human.

A sorrowful and shocking piece, it dealt with a Goddess - a teenager, barely a woman - being forced to kill in order to bring a traitor to justice.

As she showered, she softly mouthed the words to the music, memorized and written in her soul as it was.

Death, a maiden fair,

o so young, your blossom plumed, free...

Beware the beast, the dragon,

Corruption, pain, fear...

Love's not grown in such infertile ground, only death...

O maiden, what has become of thee,

taken the hand of death in your own?

What is that taste on your tongue, the black staining

your white dress?

Anointed not in spring's water, but in blood of the sinful -

why, child, is there no uncorrupted animation in your eye?

Where, child, is your lover, dearly beloved as he once was?

Where are your daises, your lilies, your anemone -

why does wood rose grow so readily -

why are only crocuses of wine and shadow

blooming at your feet?

When Netta finished the shower, she felt as though she had managed to wash away the stench of death. Walking out, she was quickly greeted by the embrace of the cold air. As she wandered back into the spacious bedroom, she was taken aback to see him, laying on his back on the bed.

Ash looked distinguished - and dangerous - with glittering green for eyes, and a lean, powerfully athletic body. He was also fully erect.

He looked at her, bold in only a way he was capable of and stroked himself. The action - everything about the Monster - was a dare. Another crimson seed to stain not only her mouth, but her soul.

He didn't need to say anything. Netta might as well as have been at his beck and call, as she threw her towel off and crept up his legs.

The thrumming from Ash's throat sounded at first to her as though it was reverberating in her head. Then she realized that that was exactly where she was hearing it.

"We're rapidly approaching the New Year," the voice on the radio chirruped. "So - it's that time of year again to dust off that gym membership that you've been dutifully paying for - and not using - and try to, you know, get into a shape that's not circular any longer."

I bet that I could make him have a heart attack right on the air, just say the word.

Netta was quiet as she stared through the windshield. Feeling a ghost of a smile tugging at her lip, she turned her full attention for a moment to her lover.

Ash rested comfortably in her mind, rapidly becoming as such a part of her psyche as though she had been born with him there. She was finding that even her sense of humor was being influenced by him, having become more prone to sardonic tendencies.

She didn't even care anymore if she wasn't the same person any longer. After all, with Ash, Netta could deal with the judgements, the cruelty of her once-family. She could do what was needed, to bring justice.

We should treasure what normalcy we get for the moment... Love. She fumbled for a pet name for him, wondering if it was as hard for her to call him something because he was a being without a physical form. Or if it were because of her stand-offish - alright, bitchy - personality.

It didn't help when Ash reacted as Ash would by laughing. "Love"? Is that supposed to be my nickname now, Master?

Netta felt her face reddening in embarrassment, this getting to her in spite of all of the intimacy that they had shared. "D-don't call me that!" She snapped.

Netta was no longer used to speaking aloud, had begun to grow used to speaking to him directly with her thoughts.  After all, who else would she speak to, with the only people she had ever come to care about behind her.

Had Lucia known what would happen to her, if Netta decided to commit herself to hunting her family down, alone?  That she would start to lose her humanity?

That corrupting, parasitic force was nestled in her mind, free to read her thoughts as often as he pleased, or was simply sitting in the temple he had constructed in her mind with her as the sole patron. 

I'll have you know I am house trained. I know when to read your mind for the sake of keeping conversation going and when to let you have your, ah, privacies.

You still read my mind, just now!

To keep the conversation going, as I said. He sighed, and when Ash spoke, it was with some of the most humility Netta had ever heard from him. For the record, by the by, I can say that no one's ever treated me like a... man before.  People have treated me like a forest guardian, a creature, a warlord, a King, a God, and then a slave.  But never a man. Like an equal.  I... quite like that, how Human it is.   Just keep calling me Ash, or if you want - He paused, and if Netta had wanted, she could have read his mind, discovered the source of his hesitancy, what he, still, could hardly articulate, even given what they had shared.

Finally, he said, Lover.  I like that, how you've been thinking of me.  Would like to hear you thinking of me like that more.  His voice seemed to drop, so that it almost sounded as though it were edging on sinister.  Don't make me have to force you call me that, like you're my little Humanling puppet.

Netta decided to ignore the rise he was hoping to get out of her, his way of trying to save face. ust how much of my mind can you read?, she asked, immediately regretting having asked. Wait, how many pet names have you been called, in the past?

You really don't want to know, in either case.  His voice was warm with barely withheld laughter.

There was a pause, and in that moment, Netta almost stomped the brakes in the car.

As she felt her foot twitch - itch - to stomp on the brakes, Ash hurriedly spoke. We can discuss all of this after we finish up with the issue at hand.

Like hell we will - you just said that you're carrying some pretty "heavy" sins, and as your supposed lover -

You are my lover, Nettles, the closest I have to anything in the physical world that even remotely interests me -

-I want to know what's weighing down your conscious, hopefully before something stupid happens to either of us, like we get killed by one of the harpies I was raised with -

Ash interrupted, his earlier cheer, even if it was false, gone. - and if you really want to go there, ask me about my past, then I will do it, but only after we finish the task ahead of us. I know you logically know what I am, but I do not want - 

Netta interrupted him, her hands growing tight on the wheel.   I think I have a right, Ash, to know what you've done, what's a  myth, what's true.   After all we've gone through, you can't just think that I will fly off the handles and treat you like everyone else has.

He paused, then sighed.  Netta, please.  I'm having to articulate so many feelings that I only started to feel when I first met you.  Some of these things... aren't natural to what I am, and even I don't know what I transformed myself into, willed into existence to be a man. That is to say, I don't want your memories of me to be of an abomination until I have the chance to explain myself, when we're happier. I can think of how to explain it.  I may not deserve it, but I beg of you. Please. Please don't let me turn into a horror without being able to explain myself. I know you must have heard of me in whispers, in passing when you've read the old legends, but none of that can ever be enough to fully explain - well, me.

Netta felt as though a great weight had been lifted off of her chest - or dropped harder down on her. Everything sensible in her was screaming to confront, to push, if not for her peace of mind, then for her own sake. Still, though... Bound to a creature like him did not leave much in the way of quarter for her sensibilities, did it not?

And, love him, she did.

Netta blinked. She recalled once telling him once that she loved him, when she was in the throes of ecstasy. She could not recall ever thinking it spontaneously before.

As she continued to drive, she knew that Ash could not have missed her realization - she spoke it aloud in her mind. Still, he said nothing - and neither did she, for that matter.