The entranceway was filled with a light that blinded Netta. Raising an arm to her face, she covered her eyes and then lowered it to find that the light had gone away. Netta realized when she looked at where the man had been that he was no longer standing in the doorway. She sensed movement in the bottom of her eyeline and looked down in time it to see that Wallace was laying on the ground.

In her mind, Ash asked her if she was alright. Netta felt him tighten an arm on her shoulders. A comfort, perhaps, but also it was more something else.  A warning, to the man on the ground

On the ground, slowly, Wallace craned his head up to look at Ash, his eyes wide. His glasses had fallen off of his face, hanging, pathetic, against the slight curve of his chin. He made no movement to grab them.

Ash spoke finally, echoing what Netta had realized in the moment that had just passed. "Looks like I'm not the only one who thinks he can take a physical form to try to gain the interest of a woman."

And then Netta realized what had just happened. How the man currently laying on the ground had tried - unsuccessfully- to use magic, trying to strike Ash. But, if he had been trying to use magic -

Wallace grimaced and struggled to his feet, shaking. "I-I'm sorry," he said, beseeching Ash. "I did not know that she had taken another."

"Don't apologize to me," Ash said suddenly. "You need to tell my Master here that you're sorry for bothering her."

The Monster calling itself Wallace turned to look at Netta, his eyes wide, bright with fear. "I'm sorry, truly sorry, Neith. Only - only, how did you meet him in the short time that we have been apart?"

Netta looked at Wallace - truly seeing him for the first time. How had she never before seen the way that he hardly seemed to blink, the overbright quality of his wet, so very wet, eyes?

"We - we didn't meet, really," Netta found herself saying. "we've known each other since I was little." She couldn't stop staring at the man that she had thought was as straight and narrow as it got.

In spite of everything that she had seen, still.  How could he be a - Monster?

Wallace reached up to his head and began to fidget with his hair. Chuckling nervously, he said. "So - ah, you've been..." he cleared his throat, and his next words sounded harried, higher in pitch. "C-childhood sweethearts? Something like that?"

"Yes," Ash answered. Netta felt a sensation of warmth - pride - in her chest at his words. In spite of their odd situation, and how low her spirits had gotten, she felt a smile begin at her lips that she could not, for the life of her, wipe off.

From behind them, Netta heard Winnie. "Who are you two talking to?"

Netta turned around. "Just an old friend," then she turned around, only to get confirmation to what Wallace had said. He had simply vanished.

"Great," Winnie said, angrily shaking a jar of dried seasonings into the pot she had been stirring on the stove. "One, two, three - hey, why not add another Monster into the mix, it's not as though we're already facing enough on the Witch front as it is, let's open ourselves up to subterfuge, let's play Russian roulette with possession by keeping four of those kind around!" 

It was two hours later, and as opposed to leaving as they had thought that It had, "Wallace" had decided to stay.

The Monster was what appeared to be a Bogey, in all likelihood, and had created the illusion that It and Netta had some time ago met in line for a tickets to a show. The more Netta thought about it, the more it occurred to her that the show It had claimed that they had met at seemed unlikely to be one that she would have wanted to attend. 

She could not imagine how long this charade had been going on for, with Ash not around for years to put a stop to it, banished as he had been. She had no idea for how long she had continued in this relationship, with a Monster just strong enough to ingratiate Itself with her, but not strong enough by far to push Netta to going further with their relationship than she would have been willing.

Not strong enough to be able to easily manifest or stay attached to her with a far stronger one actively attached to her.

Still, this was a Monster that, undoubtedly if It had had the chance, would have greedily taken possession of Netta.

Netta, who had been trying to help out making dinner with Winnie, was brought back to reality when her Sister suddenly spoke up. "And another thing, when are we going to talk about what that one said?"

"What are you talking about?"

"What - your old boyfriend said."

"I said, he was never my boyfriend - he - It was creating this illusion in my mind." Netta shut her eyes, wished that this line of questioning would end.  That she could be allowed to move on from her embarrassment.

"Whatever. Semantics. Quit trying to skate around the issue of your lover, your dear Master."

Netta felt, in that moment, the first anger that she had felt towards her sister since she had left the Cathedral with the woman. "We don't believe in that term." Well, at least, not when we're not making love. Or if Ash if feeling playful. Or wants to make a point. "Neither of us thinks of our relationship that way."

"Oh, please." Winnie scoffed and turned away from the stove then, slapping a dish towel on her back. "With a relationship with a man, that could be true. In a relationship with a Monster, it's nothing but a power play, whoever's going to be the one on top."

"Stop talking about us like that." Netta said, trying to salve her anger by acting as though she was busy with looking through the thin pickings in the refrigerator. "Maybe, if we're going to be using this as a base of operations, then we should consider getting groceries online delivered here -"

Winnie went over to the door and slammed her arm down, stilling it. "I'll cut to the chase, dear. It seems to me as though if you do have something that you're fighting for, besides putting down our old Coven, then not only am I at a loss for what your cause is, but I feel that you're not sure of what you're doing." She scoffed. "You don't have it in you to fight just for the sake of it. No woman does."

Netta felt a flush of anger. It seemed to bite her, and would not let go as she said, "I know plenty well that what Oleander is doing is wrong and I'm doing what seems right. Can you say the same of yourself?"

Winnie's expression darkened and her eyes seemed to become cold ponds. "Fine. Refuse to listen to me because I'm not one of them - the ones that died - but if you don't want to listen to reason from me, listen to one of them. Go and read that book that Morgan left you."

Eventually, and in spite of her own insistence that she had no desire to, Netta journeyed up the seemingly long walk up the stairs, where she found her door closed. Something told her to leave it shut, to go back downstairs.

She found her hand on the handle of the door, turning it, seemingly of its own will.

Inside of the room, she sat in the armchair and began to read through the manuscript.

The tale of her lover.

Once upon a time, a being made of pure magic with the horns of a Roebuck deer made the only trespass that a Human would not allow. It shared Its vulnerability.

Foolish and not yet fully come into Its powers, the creature began a friendship with a Human child, Itself in many ways a child. In time, It began to mimic Human behavior and even their confounding anatomy, contorting Its form to take on a gaunt man's chest, growing hands and feet where once there were hooves. Some say that It longed to be a true and mortal man, the bane of Its existence the budding antlers that sprouted through its thick head of hair, its wet, pure black eyes. Both of these things were, after all, the reason It could not come into the village where the girl lived, and was always forced to wait for her return to be at her side.

How they had laughed at It, when It had tried to walk into the village, only to be gently prodded to re-enter the line of the forest where It called Its home, like one would a baby boar.

What It wanted, desired by gaining the trust of the girl, is unknown. What transpired following the untimely death of the girl is what is, perhaps, most known about the miserable creature. Ironically, what began what is most known of so feared a creature is Its tie to Its first, purportedly, innocent brush with a Human.

No one knows how the child died, but once it was learned that the girl had shared in a camaraderie with the bizarre deer that walked on Its hind legs, it was assumed that the creature had contributed in it.

What the creature had not known about the girl, whose name is now lost, forever, to time, is what she was.

The girl was the sole child of the village's chief. Unknown, also, to the creature was that even as It was tormented by the death of Its Human companion, her people were arriving at Its forest in order to avenge her death on the creature.

The only Humans that It had known came and killed the tiny race of being that It guarded, deep in the wood.  Those creatures' names, like the girl's, has been lost to time.

Still the Humans were not sated on this destruction, returning to cleanse Its wood by means of fire. To kill the pitiable, heart-broken thing.

Only the creature had not been in the forest when they had taken their fire to it.  

It's said that the deer watched as the fire devoured Its wood, motionless, standing in that awkward, disturbing fashion as It did on its back legs. Its wet, black eyes themselves became consumed in wild flame, mirroring the violent, writhing sea of red.  Nobody knows how long It stood, watching, but eventually it wandered into the wood, meaning, perhaps, to be immolated in the flames.

It did not find death waiting for It amidst the flames, only a force of transformation that rendered Its partially humanoid form into that of a terrible beast.

Calling Itself the Deep One, the transfigured beast reappeared to the Humans that had destroyed Its wood on the night of the next full moon. Only it came, standing as tall as a God would among the men, Its strength grown tenfold along with Its insatiable anger.

It's said that with the act of their murders, It began to transform yet further.

Once, magic could be bent to the wills of those who cried loudly enough for it. For the Deep One, It wished for power till It soon became swelled by it. 

Its horns became deformed, twisting into senseless, vulgar masses, Its body growing muscle, height. It grew teeth, whose sharpness was fit only for rending flesh, Its eyes became glowing, fiery orbs, Its shoulders wide, Its back bent.

Avenged, the poor creature should have gone on to live a solitary existence, known only as a cautionary tale for not angering the first of Its kind. But the Deep One had developed a taste for the pain of Humanity, soon found kinship with others like It.

Humanity was a spreading race, whose potential marked them already as a unique species. They multiplied rapidly and were tenacious. It was not a difficult thing, as the creature fed off of each death that It earned, to continue to a horrible, but logical, conclusion. With aid, the Deep One planned then to deal with the small matter of gaining the trust of other magical beings.

It set about to mislead other, more powerful beings into accepting an invitation to ceasefire negotiations. It had been stopped in the past by others who made their displeasure of Its practice of murder known, those who did not possess the frightening rage that had taken over the once guardian of the forest.

The Deep One killed Its own kind with impunity, with the aid of the seemingly few discontented beings who wanted to destroy the plague that was Humanity.

In a relatively short amount of time, even in terms of a Human life's span, the Deep One managed to subject even those Humans who evaded death by agreeing to rule over them. It became the Deep King, the defiler, the one whose lack of compassion spread amongst even Its own kind to create a lack of connection to the physical realm, corrupting much of the first of Its kind.

In Its struggle to maintain control over the physical realm, the King had brought the Human population down to what is estimated to be a fourth of its previous amount. When It chose to appear, the King would do so in a variety of forms, including a monstrous form whose body could blot out the sun for a small human settlement, the one that had killed the first Humans it had known.

It was a genocide, the full extent of which may, hopefully, never be replicated.

Even with this power, the once content Roe-horned being found nothing but discontent. It never realized, even with the aid of Its seemingly endless stream of help from others, that what It was suffering from was akin to what physical beings felt with a lack of nourishment, but on a spiritual level. 

Its heart starved.

The Deep One suffered enormously, found Itself longing for the friendship once offered freely by a Human child. Friendship that It would surely never get, free of judgement.

It languished for the remainder of Its one-hundred year reign, and subjected many grown Human women to the twisted pantomime of the intimacy It coveted.

It was said that the only thing that kept the Deep King from destroying a village during the span of a moon's cycle was a woman entering one of Its temples, prepared to accept whatever desire It took as an offering.

Nevertheless, it never fed the starving, wrenching desire that shook the King to Its core. In time, Its sexual frenzy was said to become so that it needed at least three women to wait for the creature at one time in order to be satiated for a night.

And then, one day, as though in answer to Its desperation, a woman appeared in the world.

Strong, quick of wit and somehow, elementally, different even from the Humans from which she had sprung, the one known as the Silver Kite entranced the King.

Set to be married to an oafish Human of a neighboring land, the Kite asked humbly for the Deep King's aid. She promised a decadence of love and affection that she would shower on It for every day forth through to infinity. To not be disgusted by It, like every Human who had lain with It for a night.

Shocked by her offer, the Deep King did as she asked, and requested that if she meant what she said, that It wanted her to come with It to Its Kingdom. To become immortal.

Shortly after her transformation, she found that she had abilities that were unknown to any in Humanity. She did not need to ask the Great King for anything, as she could make the celestial bodies do her bidding, if need be, following her transformation.

The King shortly found that It wanted nothing more than to do her bidding as well.

After they copulated, it is said that the creature showered her with affection. With the light of the next sun rise, the Deep King suffered the very first undignified role of a Familiar. As a slave to the whim of the Silver Kite.

She took Its proffered exchange of power and used it as the very binds that she needed to tie the creature to her. It was the final mark in the irony that was the concept of the King possessing a free will.

She tortured the Monster with shocking impunity, having realized that from Its blood that she had gained semi Immortality on her own, and decided to grant it to the women that she trusted the most. She fed the King's blood to these women, promising them that not only they, but their girl children would likewise be granted the power she knew, in gradually shrinking echoes of her own power through generations until it became a whisper of what she knew. They would also gain their own states of semi-immortality.

It is what granted the Silver Kite with the distinction of being known as the Mother Goddess, who freed humanity from the Deep King's cruelty.

The act of taking the King in this manner as an immortal, unbodied slave began a chain reaction that can be felt to this very day. Among the women that the King had bedded would sometimes bear girl children with the very abilities that echoed those bestowed by the Silver Kite. They seemed to bloom among their Human brethren like hybrids, containing the power to control and enslave a magical being, once the will to do so was granted by the Kite herself.

Either by the King's blood or due to his lust, the first of Witch kind were born, hybrids, it can be argued, of both Human and Magic.  And after the Silver Kite had cleansed the world of much of the anchor that tied Magical beings to the physical realm, none would again find the ability to produce girl children with magic power.

Magical beings found the earliest Witches' latent powers to be irresistible, and thus it would one day come to spell the doom of all of their kind. Microcosms of the agony and indignity suffered by their own King.

This shift of power - the vacuum created by the loss of their King - brought these creature aground.  The once Kingdom was gone, defiled, then burned with the passing of the Silver Kite. The Witches, with the aid of their own Queen, would begin the first Human conquest of the Wilds.

In retrospect, the King's reign was coined by Its own people as the reign of the Traitor King, who sold their power, their freedom, for lust. It is due to the deeds of avarice and cruelty-filled ones of Its kind that the creature of magic became to be known, simply, as Monsters. Slaves to the desires of women born with the ability to master them, drooling, cruel, sub-Human things.

The King Itself has become no more than a shadow on the cave wall. A widely stretching, yawning one, reminiscent of the horrifying tales Its gigantic, villainous form had inspired.

It is generally accepted that Its tale, what parts of it that are often reputed to be mostly the stuff of legends, act as a cautionary tale. What has not ascribed away as coincidence and flat-out lies are often said to be an amalgamation of the tales of warlord Humans that have existed and the acts of a variety of Monsters in the past.

It - he - is said to be a Witch's legend. A figment of overactive paranoia. The Witch's answer to the supreme evil posited by Human religion.

It's said that when the Silver Kite died, she was found to have fallen off of a wall of her castle - or, as some have said, she was pushed.

She had banished the once-King into, according to what legend you most believe in, is some metal artifact.  Some believe that he slumbers in his metal prison, to this very day, awaiting the touch of a Witch whose power sings with the kind the Silver Kite was capable of, touched overwhelmingly by the raw taint of the magic of Old.

If he were to be reawakened, there is no doubt that if he were as his legend would have us believe, that whoever had awoken him would know, quickly, of what they are dealing with.  His power would be unmistakable, his wrath an unimaginable thing.  

Still, it would be wise to never cross - or trust - a Monster, as they have proven the strength of their wills.  And how far their wrath can grow, planted in the darkest, richest soil of old shame and rage.